I don't think so. Only because unsolicited faxes, soliciting in public and business areas and other solicitation laws are in effect.
Absolutely agreed. It's amazing how many people really have no idea what the First Amendment is all about, isn't it? They seem to lose sight of the fact that it prevents the GOVERNMENT from interfering with free speech. It does NOT give people the right to say and do what they want on somebody's PRIVATE property. It also doesn't give people the right to promote their opinions at the expense of others.
... this means it's now possible for a UK citizen to go all the way from freedom to the death-chamber at Guantanamo without the tedious and expensive involvement of a single Judge, let alone a Jury...
Not bloody likely. First, the extradition requires that no death penalty be imposed. Outside of military court, Judge and Jury would be required. Regarding milatry extradition requests and sending people into limbo at Guantanamo, I'd rather read the text of the treaty myself. I don't put a lot of faith in The Guardian to accurate state all of the facts, let alone properly interpret the treaty (although I'd put more trust in them than the home secretary).
My biggest complaint would be about the fact that the agreement is not reciprocated, as such violates the US Constitution. It seems odd that a country would give away rights to another country who protects those very same rights for their own citizens. Probably the only comforting news is that if the treaty is abused, it will probably be revoked, although that won't be much use to the victims of the abuse.
If someone out of state sues you (or a DA charges you with a criminal offense) in an out of state court, what can they possibly do to make you show up?
IANAL, but I believe if the charge is a felony, you can be extradited. I don't believe you can for a misdemeanor. But if you EVER show up in that state and they catch you, it'll be a WHOLE lot worse than if you'd shown up for trial in the first place. You'll probably get held without bail until the trial.
I'm just imagining how that would taste dipped in clarified garlic butter right now...
Yes, it should be aged just about right now. Perhaps we should start a fund to purchase the remains and then have a party? The biggest donor gets to eat first.
Uhaul shouldn't be able to have any say in what software people use or how it works...
Agreed, and I think this is what the court was getting at. It's actually a benefit for consumers if they intentionally install ad-ware that pops up with choices of competitors when they hit commercial sites. Keyword here is "intentionally" though.
For example, if a user does not agree to a spyware installation, but it is installed through some bug in activeX, the product that installs itself is really no better than say, someone who does a DOS attack (except that the DOS attack is against a corporation with wherewithal to pursue a legal solution).
Agreed, but let's call a spade a spade. This is an exploit. Although I'm not one to make life easier for Microsoft, this kind of tactic should absolutely be illegal. To me, it's no different than using a credit card to break into my house and fill it with all kinds of posters. Although nothing was actually stolen, I have to take the time to clean up the mess. The same goes for those ActiveX exploits. If I haven't explicitly given permission to install the application, somebody should be given the opportunity to stand before a judge. And browsing with IE shouldn't be considered permission.:-)
It seems like all you would need to do is have an option that has a voice clearly enunciate the text, and you'd be good.
I think the issue here is that speech recognition software could figure out the words. However, if I recall correctly, most blind computer users are outstandingly good at listening to audio that has been sped up. One of my colleagues who was blind used to have her book reader set at something like 5 times normal speed. I couldn't understand a word of it, but it was perfectly intelligible to her. Audio files for this would probably work for the blind, but may not be understandable by the merely visually impaired (but not blind) who don't rely as much on their senses of touch and hearing.
Last I checked, there's still one in use for medical research at SUNY@Buffalo. I believe it is used to gather realtime readings like EEG, etc. Also, the university still teaches PDP-11 assembly language in their CSE 527 class.
I'm no fan of Bill Gates, or his buggy software... but one has to realize that at the time, 16bits was all you had to work with. That gives you 65,536 byte addresses.
Although the rest of your comment is accurate, I wanted to point out that the number of bits the processor is capable of wasn't the problem. In fact, to the external world, the 8088 processor only handled 8 bits, although internally it processed data in 16 bit chunks. The important fact was the number of address lines. There were 20, but due to the way the system was implemented, the upper four were rendered unavailable. I think someone else pointed out that there were other 8088-based systems that had 900+KB of memory available.
Sorry to double-reply, but I just got through to the site. It looks like they cover this area:
Because reproduction of home TV channels happens in a private manner within the same family, the use of TVBrick to watch home TV channels is compatible with international Copyright Law.
It's being paid for by whatever method is being used to feed the data into the Japan-based box.
Thanks. The site is still totally/.-ed for me. I'd still be concerned about non-antenna based situations where a person uses the Japan-based box on a feed from friends of family members.
the TV execs can't do much to morally sway users against it as it would have all the commercials intact.
No, but cable and satellite providers might have a little something to say. I'm not sure what Japanese laws are, but if people have to pay in Japan to get satellite or cable, the providers may consider this stealing unless it's explicitly being paid for. And, if the article ever stops being slashdotted, I'll read it to see if it mentions anything about this.
Realize that the H is most likely made from natural gas.
Are you talking about the article, or are you talking about what petroleum companies will most likely do? The article tells us that the process using bio-mass -- mostly sugars from vegetation.
I've tried a number of different ways to filter spam, from whitelisting to Bayesian filtering, and Bayesian seems to offer a good balance between not eating too much of the ham while letting the spam through.
Agreed. Although, I'm a bit disappointed that many of the bayesian filter projects don't offer whitelisting in conjunction with the filters. If I'm running a business, it's really important that I allow all email from *@myclient.com, regardless of what the spam filters think about it.
I think it's an excellent way of allowing clients to determine what they want to see without infringing free speech.
Just for the record, restricting spam doesn't infringe on free speech. Advocating free speech does not involve letting people use my money to promote their ideas (or products). As long as the cost of storage and bandwidth for my ISP gets passed on to me, I'm bearing a portion of the cost.
What's really funny is that they decided to choose the same key combination originally used for rebooting. It's almost like they were just trying to save the user some time....
That's probably because only sharers are breaking the law. Downloaders are not.
And furthermore, it's relatively simple to discover the sharers, but much harder to find those that just download. This is probably the best that the RIAA can do and maintain some semblance of fairness. I think we all agree that going after the services is not the right avenue. My only big concern about going after the sharers is this scenario:
John buys CD of his favorite musician -- perfectly legal
John rips tracks from CD to his computer so that he can listen while reading e-mail -- arguably legal, depending on copy protection, fair use interpretation and DMCA application
John decides to get on a P2P service and accidentally shares his whole computer, including the music directory -- uh-oh. Now he's a criminal.
Obviously, John wasn't intending to share the music he owned, and may not have intended to share anything, but he could get caught in the RIAA snare anyway. How do we protect people like John?
As you are devloping their ability to criticize one another (constructively), have them do peer editing anonymously on the computer.
I think this is a great idea. And one of the things you can teach is constructive criticism without alienating the person whose work they are criticizing. Being able to convince others to agree with you requires learning to point out the flaws in their arguments without making them feel personally insulted -- a task that not many learn and even fewer master in a lifetime. Learning to do this, even when in an anonymous setting, will give them a valuable skill.
It is up to the analyst/whatever to help them understand what they can get for their money or temper their expectations if what they want is not possible
Customers know exactly what they want even if it may not be exactly what we think they need, and that's a big difference.
Depends on how you define "customer." If you define customer as a single individual, you're right. However, if you define customer as the corporation, then my point is definitely valid. Any consultant can tell you that after talking with several people about the customer's needs, they get wildly conflicting opinions.
It is the individual business rules that make each company different, give each an identity, and give each a possible niche.
While I agree with your statement, I still don't think that these individual business rules are optimal for the market most companies work within. In today's highly competitive environment, designing your own flavor of business processes just doesn't cut it. You need to streamline the process as much as possible while still retaining what your customers find valuable. I'm not going to try and convince you that today's software provides the most streamlined process either, but businesses need to closely examine their processes for "flab" before they start trying to make the software they purchased fit those processes.
And any company that has been around for 100 years probably has some real business acumen,...
Having worked for more than one of those companies, I can assure you that this is not the case. If "evolving" business practices had replaced the old stuff, I'd agree with you. However, it's far more frequent that the new practices just get layered on top of the old.
All it would take would be for Sun to allow Red Hat to distribute their current Java release for Linux.
I don't think that would work. Since Java is not open source, Red Hat couldn't include it with their distro unless they break promises that they've already made.
The key thing is, whether or not Red Hat would have to pay for it.
I think they'll probably have to pay either way. If they want an open source version to be certified, they'll have to pay SUN. If they want to go back on their normal policy and ship SUN's JDK, they may still have to pay.
I think if you ask most customers, they'ld prefer software that works and solves their problem.
And herein lies a significant portion of the problem. Customers frequently don't really know what they want or need. Before software gets leaner and better, there's a number of things that need to happen.
Corporate Complexity needs to be eliminated. Many corporations have built an incredibly complex structure over the years and are unwilling to redesign their business processes to make the best use of software products. I'm sorry, but you'll never convince me that the processes that have slowly built up (layer upon layer) over the last 100 years are anywhere close to optimal in today's market.
The government needs to simplify their regulations. You'd be shocked at how much of the fluff in business software is simply to satisfy local government regulations. The complexity becomes staggering when you apply it to international corporations.
Management needs to get in touch with the people in their organization who will be entering data. One of the biggest complaints about business software is the complexity and sheer volume of data that needs to be entered. This is almost always because management wants this data to be collected. If management is convinced that their sales force needs to collect 500 data points on each prospective customer, no software package on earth is going to make the data entry process easy or trivial.
And darn it, get rid of the "we want this because we had it in our 'old' system" philosophy. Consultants are constantly adding legacy items to new systems because the client insists that they must have something they had in their old system.
First off, let me say that I don't necessarily support RH's plans. But, I wanted to further discuss some of your points, so....
It's free enough for the uses of almost all users and that should be enough for everyone.
RH has already made the commitment to include only Open Source software in their distribution. Backing down from this would potentially damage some business relationships and alienate some of their users. Until now, they have included only partially complete OS versions of a Java VM. If you wanted the full Java VM, you had to get it from Blackdown, SUN, or some other vendor. RH probably feels they will be more competitive if they can include a full version of Java with their distribution. Open Source is the only way they can do this, and they are probably tired of waiting for the various other "clean room" efforts to meet their needs.
They should take into account the effects of potentially success of SCO attacks on IBM and Linux.
No, they should be wary of any contracts they enter into with SUN.
Especially creating a clean room implementation won't help anymore, it will always be SUN's IP.
Not true. IBM's trouble with SCO was not over a clean room implementation, but over the suspicion that a contract to view "proprietary" material was violated, and the fruits of that contract were implemented in other competing operating systems (IE, Linux). Also, SCO is trying to consider all components of AIX as a derivative work of Unix, and thus under their control. Provided that RH doesn't ask for any development help from SUN, the same situation shouldn't arise. Of more concern would be patents that SUN holds.
Why spend any effort on Java at all ?
Because it's still alive and well on the server side. Having an open source version of java would enable Red Hat to ship "ready to run" web application servers to enterprise customers.
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely agreed. It's amazing how many people really have no idea what the First Amendment is all about, isn't it? They seem to lose sight of the fact that it prevents the GOVERNMENT from interfering with free speech. It does NOT give people the right to say and do what they want on somebody's PRIVATE property. It also doesn't give people the right to promote their opinions at the expense of others.
Hmmm. Me thinks I hear "clickey-clickey-clickey" in the background.... The BOFH is rising from the grave.
Not bloody likely. First, the extradition requires that no death penalty be imposed. Outside of military court, Judge and Jury would be required. Regarding milatry extradition requests and sending people into limbo at Guantanamo, I'd rather read the text of the treaty myself. I don't put a lot of faith in The Guardian to accurate state all of the facts, let alone properly interpret the treaty (although I'd put more trust in them than the home secretary).
My biggest complaint would be about the fact that the agreement is not reciprocated, as such violates the US Constitution. It seems odd that a country would give away rights to another country who protects those very same rights for their own citizens. Probably the only comforting news is that if the treaty is abused, it will probably be revoked, although that won't be much use to the victims of the abuse.
IANAL, but I believe if the charge is a felony, you can be extradited. I don't believe you can for a misdemeanor. But if you EVER show up in that state and they catch you, it'll be a WHOLE lot worse than if you'd shown up for trial in the first place. You'll probably get held without bail until the trial.
Yes, it should be aged just about right now. Perhaps we should start a fund to purchase the remains and then have a party? The biggest donor gets to eat first.
Agreed, and I think this is what the court was getting at. It's actually a benefit for consumers if they intentionally install ad-ware that pops up with choices of competitors when they hit commercial sites. Keyword here is "intentionally" though.
For example, if a user does not agree to a spyware installation, but it is installed through some bug in activeX, the product that installs itself is really no better than say, someone who does a DOS attack (except that the DOS attack is against a corporation with wherewithal to pursue a legal solution).
Agreed, but let's call a spade a spade. This is an exploit. Although I'm not one to make life easier for Microsoft, this kind of tactic should absolutely be illegal. To me, it's no different than using a credit card to break into my house and fill it with all kinds of posters. Although nothing was actually stolen, I have to take the time to clean up the mess. The same goes for those ActiveX exploits. If I haven't explicitly given permission to install the application, somebody should be given the opportunity to stand before a judge. And browsing with IE shouldn't be considered permission. :-)
I think the issue here is that speech recognition software could figure out the words. However, if I recall correctly, most blind computer users are outstandingly good at listening to audio that has been sped up. One of my colleagues who was blind used to have her book reader set at something like 5 times normal speed. I couldn't understand a word of it, but it was perfectly intelligible to her. Audio files for this would probably work for the blind, but may not be understandable by the merely visually impaired (but not blind) who don't rely as much on their senses of touch and hearing.
Last I checked, there's still one in use for medical research at SUNY@Buffalo. I believe it is used to gather realtime readings like EEG, etc. Also, the university still teaches PDP-11 assembly language in their CSE 527 class.
Although the rest of your comment is accurate, I wanted to point out that the number of bits the processor is capable of wasn't the problem. In fact, to the external world, the 8088 processor only handled 8 bits, although internally it processed data in 16 bit chunks. The important fact was the number of address lines. There were 20, but due to the way the system was implemented, the upper four were rendered unavailable. I think someone else pointed out that there were other 8088-based systems that had 900+KB of memory available.
Thanks. The site is still totally /.-ed for me. I'd still be concerned about non-antenna based situations where a person uses the Japan-based box on a feed from friends of family members.
No, but cable and satellite providers might have a little something to say. I'm not sure what Japanese laws are, but if people have to pay in Japan to get satellite or cable, the providers may consider this stealing unless it's explicitly being paid for. And, if the article ever stops being slashdotted, I'll read it to see if it mentions anything about this.
Are you talking about the article, or are you talking about what petroleum companies will most likely do? The article tells us that the process using bio-mass -- mostly sugars from vegetation.
Might I recommend gift bags? Then you don't have to worry about destroying the wrapping when you have to let security see what's inside.
Agreed. Although, I'm a bit disappointed that many of the bayesian filter projects don't offer whitelisting in conjunction with the filters. If I'm running a business, it's really important that I allow all email from *@myclient.com, regardless of what the spam filters think about it.
I think it's an excellent way of allowing clients to determine what they want to see without infringing free speech.
Just for the record, restricting spam doesn't infringe on free speech. Advocating free speech does not involve letting people use my money to promote their ideas (or products). As long as the cost of storage and bandwidth for my ISP gets passed on to me, I'm bearing a portion of the cost.
What's really funny is that they decided to choose the same key combination originally used for rebooting. It's almost like they were just trying to save the user some time....
And furthermore, it's relatively simple to discover the sharers, but much harder to find those that just download. This is probably the best that the RIAA can do and maintain some semblance of fairness. I think we all agree that going after the services is not the right avenue. My only big concern about going after the sharers is this scenario:
Obviously, John wasn't intending to share the music he owned, and may not have intended to share anything, but he could get caught in the RIAA snare anyway. How do we protect people like John?
If he's a *true* nerd, isn't that a given?
I think this is a great idea. And one of the things you can teach is constructive criticism without alienating the person whose work they are criticizing. Being able to convince others to agree with you requires learning to point out the flaws in their arguments without making them feel personally insulted -- a task that not many learn and even fewer master in a lifetime. Learning to do this, even when in an anonymous setting, will give them a valuable skill.
Definitely agreed.
Depends on how you define "customer." If you define customer as a single individual, you're right. However, if you define customer as the corporation, then my point is definitely valid. Any consultant can tell you that after talking with several people about the customer's needs, they get wildly conflicting opinions.
It is the individual business rules that make each company different, give each an identity, and give each a possible niche.
While I agree with your statement, I still don't think that these individual business rules are optimal for the market most companies work within. In today's highly competitive environment, designing your own flavor of business processes just doesn't cut it. You need to streamline the process as much as possible while still retaining what your customers find valuable. I'm not going to try and convince you that today's software provides the most streamlined process either, but businesses need to closely examine their processes for "flab" before they start trying to make the software they purchased fit those processes.
And any company that has been around for 100 years probably has some real business acumen,...
Having worked for more than one of those companies, I can assure you that this is not the case. If "evolving" business practices had replaced the old stuff, I'd agree with you. However, it's far more frequent that the new practices just get layered on top of the old.
I don't think that would work. Since Java is not open source, Red Hat couldn't include it with their distro unless they break promises that they've already made.
The key thing is, whether or not Red Hat would have to pay for it.
I think they'll probably have to pay either way. If they want an open source version to be certified, they'll have to pay SUN. If they want to go back on their normal policy and ship SUN's JDK, they may still have to pay.
And herein lies a significant portion of the problem. Customers frequently don't really know what they want or need. Before software gets leaner and better, there's a number of things that need to happen.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe the Blackdown implementation was clean room.
It's free enough for the uses of almost all users and that should be enough for everyone.
RH has already made the commitment to include only Open Source software in their distribution. Backing down from this would potentially damage some business relationships and alienate some of their users. Until now, they have included only partially complete OS versions of a Java VM. If you wanted the full Java VM, you had to get it from Blackdown, SUN, or some other vendor. RH probably feels they will be more competitive if they can include a full version of Java with their distribution. Open Source is the only way they can do this, and they are probably tired of waiting for the various other "clean room" efforts to meet their needs.
They should take into account the effects of potentially success of SCO attacks on IBM and Linux.
No, they should be wary of any contracts they enter into with SUN.
Especially creating a clean room implementation won't help anymore, it will always be SUN's IP.
Not true. IBM's trouble with SCO was not over a clean room implementation, but over the suspicion that a contract to view "proprietary" material was violated, and the fruits of that contract were implemented in other competing operating systems (IE, Linux). Also, SCO is trying to consider all components of AIX as a derivative work of Unix, and thus under their control. Provided that RH doesn't ask for any development help from SUN, the same situation shouldn't arise. Of more concern would be patents that SUN holds.
Why spend any effort on Java at all ?
Because it's still alive and well on the server side. Having an open source version of java would enable Red Hat to ship "ready to run" web application servers to enterprise customers.