Some of us are forced to use MS Windows because our jobs demand we use products like Visual Studio which only runs on it.
First off I did pay. Second I do not like having to have it call home and it giving them any personal information including my IP and prod ID to activate which seems to happen every time a tech savy person does anything significant to their computers. Third, I do not like having them infect my computer with endlessly growing DRM shit to support all this. Forth once you grant them this right you give them the power to do so much more than they are currently claiming they are going to do. Imagine forced DRM installation, expiring software leases, and complete user tracking from purchase to forced obsolescence. Fifth, we are the customer, it is their job to meet our demands, not make us their slaves.
Hey has anyone noticed that hidden in the so called Nework Neutrality bill (S. 2686: Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006) http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109 -2686 are provisions to create digital video and audio copyright flags, to implement analog watermarking, and to force all hardware and software to respect them? What a ticking time bomb!
I actually posted this idea a bit back about how to deal with the RIP law. Build a file system that uses encryption and several passwords. Each password unlocks a different set of data. For example, password 1 on a the drive gives you images of your last Disney trip. Password 2 gives you your porn pics. Password 3 give you your tax records. There is no possible way for someone looking at the apparent random data to know how much actual information is there. So unless they can prove you did not give them all the keys they will be up the creek.
I imagine the system would ask you how much space you want to use then randomly marks out that much space on the drive. The File Allocation Pointer Table points to where the current data is. In order to expand or alter any allocation you would need to ask you if there are any more passwords but it would not know if there are or not. It is also safe if say one user losses their password, as that user data is lost but all other known password protected data is safe.
Another added trick is static data blending. That is where it takes the data on the tracks and mangles it so that depending on which password you use the same area gives you another set of data. This might be useful for the allocation pointer as you could use the same area for many allocations pointer at once. This method could also be applied after the fact to hide read-only data area. You would run a merge on any given directory which would help hide that there is any extra space on the drive at all. This is also really useful for read-only media.
If you combined this with a user based permission system and a file system that only grows as much as each new user is allowed when created you even get a good reason not to have the whole drive used, as we all know they would try to show that that mere fact you had free space is suspect. The other cool thing is that since the password determines access you could have a system with an unknown number of users with an unknown amount of data stored and no way of finding out how much is really there without all the current passwords.
Some of the bad side, well they could make it illegal, the amount of drive space needed would be very large for some sections like File Allocation Pointer Table because it has to be as large as the maximum number of allocations you ever wish to be able have, and if someone tried to expand file system or create a new allocation without knowing all the passwords they would destroy all data for the unknown passwords. The later is both a good and a bad thing.
It has been proven time and time again that becoming too draconian at work about personal computer time costs more money than it ever saves. Would you rather have a person take a day off due to stress, to find a nanny, to pay a bill, to have an important conversation or to write a letter because that is what they must do. We are talkings nearly a week of lost time a year that could be saved and a huge benefit derived from reduced stress levels. In addition, people tend to leave their work space when they cannot take a little personal time on the computer. That means no one to handle an important task, answer a call or message. The problem is that supervisors often ignore the benefits of personal computer use while pointing out all the so called wasted time. It always better to have someone at their stations whenever possible and the less time taken off for things they can handle via a IM or e-mail the better. Any good supervisor can tell when something is not getting done as fast as they should be and deal with it but too many are downright pathetic control freaks or worse have this vision that work is all about pure labor the entire time one is in an office as if they have ever done that. The other thing that gets me is owners want to pay chump wages for jobs but then expect the person to work 100% of the time. I am talking about titles like receptionist. I often hear things like instead of playing games go make copies, clean your desk, or make coffee. Now that is all fine and dandy so pay the person to be the cleaning staff and your personal waitress too otherwise shut up and be glad you are getting away on the cheap.
BTW: I have been a supervisor of development groups in four countries for the past five years, I know of what I speak. People who manage this way are fools. In fact, I find that when you start to hear a generalized complaints about people wasting time you need to talk to the supervisors as the problem will be them mishandling time and tasks and is almost never with the staff who are goofing off. I think in my entire life, I have only found one person that truly was a problem user, and even then I had to ask myself why was this person hired in the first place.
Since I consider highly unlikely that our galaxy happens to be the largest in the region as the article suggest it appears to be. I am of the opinion there is some sort of observational bias effecting the results. One thought that comes to my mind that might account for the fact that these galaxies appear to be rotating faster than they should be for their given visible mass, that might account for various odd super structures in space, and might even explain dark matter is that the flow of time is not consistent across vast regions of space. If for example a small galaxy was moving faster through time relative to us, it would appear to be rotating very fast due to this temporal bias. If these fields pervade the local space around our and other galaxies it might simply mean that at the current time relative to flows of time in the other galaxies in the local area ours is going slower which is also odd but it explains the visible effects without dark matter. There is however another possibility in this theory which eliminates the observational oddity at least at the galactic level, we could be observing these galaxies through several distortions between Earth and them that happen to create this type of visual effect from our point of view. This would limit the issue to a more localized point of view argument. Another words at the moment Earth is in a observational position relative to several large objects in space that make it look this way. Interestingly enough, this only requires better understanding of the structure of space and time but does not require a whole new physics to account for some strange form of matter and if these fields are common then Earth would simply be one of many places where this would appear to be the case. It might even be that Galactic masses have a stable time fields around them but that the space between then is less stable or has variations on a universal scale. That would mean that in a given galaxy everything would appear stable and so would any observations of other galaxies. We would see speed or slowness but it would not confirm the cause. What might be interesting to look for would be a galaxy that has a time variation between us and it that only partially intersects it. That would create an apparent visual anomalies we could recognize.
I get tired of people being so limited in their thinking. A quantum wave function does not need to collapse. It can vibrate between all possible futures. When we observe it, it is our interaction with it at whatever point it is in its vibration that changes what universe we are in. The wave appears to collapse as we have now changed our own location in the multiverse relative to the quantum wave we were observing. Notice that we ourselves can act like quantum waves and that we like the wave we were observing are vibrating between possible realities. We simply made an observation or in other words we engaged in action that caused a quantum level interaction that pushed us away from another quantum waves location givings us the appearance of its collapse into one certain reality. As to what happens when you kill your grandfather in the past. In the universe you leave you would appear to vanish forever having engaged in a action that moved that reality away from you. In the past you do kill the man whose particles participate in the multiversal wave that your Grandfather participates in. The result is that you have now moved yourself into a universe in which the matter making up your dad's structure is dead. You still exist because you came from the future at a point in a another universe in which he still exists in the living form of your to sire you. So, ironically, the answer is that you cannot kill your actual father but you can go back and kill a version of your father and in so doing remove yourself forever from the universe in which your father exists.:-)
Why is it that so many people who want these so called rights holders to have absolute power and control over their content do not understand that in order to do this we must create tools that would allow absolute oppression and control, tools that by their very existence inherently violate the social contract that protects these rights holders at all? In a free society there has to be a balance between freedom and restriction to preserve the social elements that allow it to survive. A society does not merely exist, it is instead a construct created be a social contract that by our actions we all define, create and obey. Last I checked; I work, I vote, and I obey the rules of this society. I, like so many others, contribute to creating and maintaining this social contract that creates the society in which these rights holders are taking part. It is part of the very same social contract that protects these rights holders by creating and enforcing laws that they give up absolute control and power over their own work, that there are limitations to patent, an end to copyright, that there is fair use, and in time free use of all knowledge. It is essential that in order to have any power over the actions of others that they must risk losing a little power and control themselves so that all may gain. These are the limits to power and control we all have agreed to so that the society does not suffer to benefit any one individual over another and that all benefit from taking part in the social contract. We all give up these same things to have the benefits of being a part of the society that both protects and defends us? I do not have absolute freedom over everything I may say or do. I have limits that I agreed to in order to have the protection and privileges of this society. Shouldn't they have to be held to the same standards I do? If they want absolute power and absolute control they should not be granted the rights and protection being a part of this society grants them. It is not my rights it is society's that people must learn to protect. It seems everyone has forgotten this in this battle. It is all about me and my rights. What about society? Does anyone remember why we have laws and rules at all? They are things we all agree to by giving up absolute power, by giving up absolute control. By saying it is no longer about I, it is about us. I wish people would take a step back and remember that.
I went to the site an attempted to follow their incredibly complicated submission criteria. I wrote about a five page response regarding the exceptions I thought should be created in the DMCA and examples as to why. I got an email a day later saying it did not meet their submission guidelines with a link with about thirty possible reasons. Without any specific explanation of what was actually wrong, I did not know what to correct as I thought it had met the guidelines. I guess not being a lawyer, I was not meant to be heard. I wonder how many other people had this happen to them and were then essentially ignored. I think it was a deliberate red tape barrier to stop the masses from actually being heard, shame on them. I am just glad, that I contributed to the Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org who they did listen to.
The universe can be conceived of as an infinite set of discrete points that all occupy the same location, each point has its own unique set of dimensions or properties that allow it to exist in the same place simultaneously. The only time there is an issue is when two or more points begin to attain the same state in several of their dimensions or properties. Then you have an interaction that either creates new states in the various points or causes two or more existing states to collapse into one new state with properties defined by the merging of the point's two properties. These transformations are time and the inertia of the system is the cause of gravity. Seems like a good explanation for me.
Well let me see after we remove the 2000% mark up on the average CD's base creative costs, remove the costs of shipping, packaging, the medium or server space to store them that never needed to pay for; that should leave about 10 cents per download. So say I have downloaded 300 songs that would be $30 dollars. Which I would gladly pay and which is the whole problem with these jerks. They want their cake and to eat it too. They know the Internet is the ultimate equalizer, they can only earn what they are really worth and they hate it. Perhaps they are making a mistake, if the judge really analyses how much these songs are actually worth he might levy them at their real cost. I can imagine a lot of people happy with that idea. Remember, before all you naysayers start commenting on my logic, do not compare these with store bought CDs. The industry makes a big deal of the business they are not getting in the stores because of the Internet, but that is not a valid comparison anymore, if it ever was. The reality is that many people like me would never buy a CD in a store and especially after they started paying the state to start acting like Nazis. No doubt with all the bad blood they have created I am not the only one who feels that way. Take those poor US cadets who had their dorms raided and all their computers confiscated. Do you think they are going to be more afraid or angry when all is said and done? I do not know about you but, I would never buy a CD from someone who ruined my career over 10 cents nor would I not think that my choosing to download a song when it is so overpriced was particularly wrong. One thing that really brought this all into focus for me was a comment I read once about the disparity in costs for various intellectual properties so I did a little looking and found some information that I want you all to think about. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring cost half a billion dollars to produce and market. Based on its predecessor the DVD is likely to cost $38.88 to buy on Amazon. A super hit single by Janet Jackson costs $10 million to produce and sold for $28.00 dollars when it was first released. That means that the DVD only cost 1/3 more than the CD even though it took 50 times more money to produce. Given how many more CDs are sold than DVDs this should tell you something about just how grossly high their margins really are. Among other interesting items the DVD of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone had no Macrovision on it so analog copies of it are easy to create. Interestingly there was not a noticeable increase in piracy, it was cheaper to produce without the security, more information fit on the DVD, and it was of a higher quality. In fact, people still seem to be buying the DVD in droves. Makes you wonder.
While freenet is much too slow and problematic at this point for a vibrant P2P file sharing network. What about using it to perform the central server functions of such a network or for that matter any central server based function that might otherwise be subject a police state's laws and shutdown. If we use it for indexing only, it would not anonymize the IPs of the people sharing but it would make the list unstoppable, basically the best of both worlds.
I think that when you buy a connection that says it is of a certain speed, that you should be able to use it to its maximum limit. Otherwise, they should modify that speed to what they are actually going to allow you to use in a month. They are not doing this because of broadband's so called abusers. They are doing this because they realize that by using those so called abusers as an excuse it will allow them to stagger usage thereby allowing them to increase their user base and tier their prices; thus making them more money while having a descent scapegoat to blame. I do think that the Australia needs a better deal on international broadband but the reality is that once broadband does become cheaper does anyone here really think the ISPs will get rid of tiered pricing schemes or per megabyte download charges? This will lead to the same thing that happened in the US when speedier modems were created. Years of dual pricing and blood letting by the ISPs with the industry all the while claiming it is the cost of the technology upgrades. Do you all know that many US ISPs were created or expanded in the US only after the modem speeds had increased? Another words, the hardware they bought already used the higher speeds and new standards, yet they still tiered their prices even though they had to actually slow down the speed of their RAS modems. I remember some BBSs that did not even have internet connectivity were claiming bandwidth cost when charging their members. Having known a person who owned one, they paid for phone lines not connection speeds. If the reason the cost of this bandwidth is so high is because of connections to sites outside the country, why not set up an intra-continental caching server farm; this would resolve many downloading issue rather well. Finally, I would like to point out that even if the number of people affected by higher rates was only 10% of their users that is still a HUGE number of people, people who specifically bought these connections because of the promise large bandwidth. Even though the idea of charging this 10% who fully use the bandwidth may sound nice, these 10% are the ones that often introduce people into broad band and were the first to use it. They are also the 10% that will move to your competitor for the better deal. They may cost a lot now but they will be the difference between profitability and bankruptcy soon enough. Think about it, as online media service and games such as Everquest become common, the only way these ISPs will be able expand is in growing this 10% who rapidly utilize these services and will attract others to them. Remember these are people who can never use dial-up and are often loyal to an ISP with a fair deal. In fact in looking at it, the ISPs may want to be careful admitting that so few of their users need a lot of bandwidth, as it appears most people using their services do not really need it. Low end ISDN does not cost that much anymore and its speeds while slower are at a fixed charge. In fact ISDN speeds and stability may be better match for these ISPs users. On one last note, I happen to be a person who downloads, beta tests, and works with Linux and other open source products like Open Office. I need a lot of bandwidth to do so. For those of you who think I should be charged more, remember that next time you pay a premium because your ISP uses a Microsoft product, or when you go looking for an open source applications and do not find one and thus have to pay a couple of hundred for a closed source product. Not all of us in that 10% are Warez users or Gamers, some of us save people like you all many hundreds of thousands of dollars. If anyone should have to pay for our bandwidth, it is those of you who readily use our wares and never pay a penny.
They can remotely cripple any software or hardware that uses a specialized driver. While they use the excuse that it is not XP compliant. What is to stop them from placing drivers from any software or hardware they choose on the list? Imagine if they wanted to block a certain piece of hardware, a specialized sound driver or a Divx codec. What would stop the? This impacts open source because often the software used is in beta when people first download and try it. This would not work if they wished it. Where are the controls to disable this feature? Even then how much do you want to bet that in order to watch or listen to any secure content that you will need to update your list of banned devices? Anyone here use Disk Daemon or VNC? I will bet that packages like these will be banned because they can emulate hardware or provide ways to pull screen content. I would also bet that Microsoft is not about to remove any of its products from the list. Imagine them restricting the latest version of Apache or MySQL while releasing the newest version off IIS. Even if this feature were meant to be used with good intention, it allows them in an underhanded way to control the software and hardware market. Futhermore, it just dawned on me that they could even block software that uses standard Windows drivers by updating a standad driver in way that cripples third party software ability to communicate with it and then blocking the old driver as outdated. All they have to do is make sure that the driver update and the patch for their own software to work with the new driver's FEATURES is released in the same package. I could easily see them doing this with the streaming Media Codecs.
I know a student who could not take one of these books home because he downloaded it at his office computer and did not realizes it would lock to the hardware. He also could not print or cut and paste a section for his term paper or for use with his study group meeting in the local library. He ended up abandoning the book. Here is an example of how this technology hurts completely fair-uses in and of itself. It is also an example of where, had he had the cracking software, he could have used the book for completely legal even noble purposes. Also, before one spots off why did he bother getting the book at all or just buy it in the store, it was bought because his professor said it was a good source and it did not exist as a paper book. BTW: Since he could not give the book away at the end of the semester to a new student or sell it, this forced the next students in the class to actually buy the book again at full price. So much for the concept of a used bookstore. Truly people think about what this means when all books come in these formats.
Given that I have worked for a university that faced this very same issue, I know that this kind of power will lead to abuses. The problem this type of policy causes is that it results in an erosion of trust by faculty, students and staff and the actions they take in response to that loss. I have found most people get upset when they actually learned what was happening. Just wait to a dean or an already upset student finds out they are being watched and it actually processes in their minds. Even file names give away private information. If you have not seen it happen yet, then chances are they have not figured it out yet. One big lawsuit and you will have a whole new problem. Furthermore, I know for a fact that Norton's responses to its server can be faked; many people where I used to work did not want the very abusive IT staff to see anything on their hard drives. They started downloading various hacks for just this purpose not to mention several trojans. You may be creating a greater nightmare by having people willingly installing gateways for hackers. The university was in fact hacked this way when someone the IT center let a keyboard monitoring trojan infect their computer that sent the root password for our servers to them. I left that job because these type of issues began erode every ones' happiness. Do not go down that road. I would suggest that you mandate that in order to connect to the university's system that students must prove that they have a recent anti-virus program or that they use the university's system with a privacy warning. Since all modern anti-virus programs by default offer an Auto-Update feature that should help you problem. As for faculty and staff, I have found that telling them exactly what his happening, why it is necessary and doing it in on the weekend worked fine. They took off anything they did not want looked at and the IT department got to do their scans. Also, I found that asking them to bring me their license of anything special they wanted to have installed that was personal. This allowed them greater flexibility, gave me a proof of their ownership and more assurance it was legit software. Remember, trust is a lot more valuable than hardware or software and a good back-up policy protects information.
While I agree that cheating is wrong. I have a question. Why do so many professors routinely depend upon one's ability to write a 100-page grammatically perfect research paper with at least 30 references as the primary method of evaluating their students' subject matter knowledge, when such measures are often meaningless? As long as you have the skills necessary to summarize, quote or paraphrase, keep good footnotes, and can add a couple of pseudo-insights to a paper demonstrating that you can have an original thought; you do not need to understand a thing. While earning my MS and BS degrees, I sometimes had the misfortune of having a professor who had this type of requirement. I was able to assemble papers that would earn A's using only these skills. On the rare occasions I did not earn and A, it was never about my subject matter knowledge. The lower grades were for issues such as 5 or more misspellings, some minor grammatical mistakes, or something of this nature. Looking at a typical research paper you would think it should reflect real knowledge, but as many modern programs that assemble research papers clearly demonstrate, they do not. What they do reflect is a good short-term memory, an ability to organize information and some excellent writing skills. Even more damning is the fact that research papers can make subjects in which they are used boring and unfulfilling thus repelling many would by students from important fields. This type of requirement is clearly a technique that lazy burnt-out professors use to make it look like they are giving a lot of work and know their subject matter when they are actually doing nothing and may know little or nothing of the subject at all. If you doubt me, grab a syllabus from a class where this is the primary requirement. Typically you will see some readings, lectures, a paper and maybe a final. Anyone with some borrowed notes could manage in this type of class. Really! Next time you are in this kind of class, go look at the lectern when the class is over. I bet you will see the lecture the professor's just gave written down line by line.
There are methods in which the evaluative, organizational and critical thinking skills that are used in writing a research paper can be used successfully to foster learning. A paper that is used to enhance or promote learning in this way can be very beneficial and may be part of a broader evaluative process. To defend this position I have a personal example of how an excellent teacher used a research paper successfully in her course. She was one of those teachers who dressed up, who seemed to always be positive about her subject matter, who found ways to relate the material to her students lives and personal experiences. Her goal was to make connections with the material and her students. She happened to be one of those new teachers condemned to teaching an English 101 class and still she shined. She used papers when she felt it would benefit the student. For example, after teaching about the works of Dante and a modern version of the same story, The Towering Inferno, she saw that I was really interested in the author. She asked if I would like to do a paper for extra-credit (I was already Srt8-A student) on Dante's Inferno comparing the original to the modern and with various other redactions of the Inferno. I did this paper out of love for the topic that she inspired. It had a many excellent references and a lot of original thought on my part. It was by far one of the best works I had ever written. The class placed the research in a meaningful context and till this day brings joy to my heart to contemplate. Given this experience, I know that a research paper has a correct and good place in education.
I think that many professors use the requirement for a research paper for all the wrong reasons. This might relate to the fact that we are in a culture obsessed with tangible, if often useless, marks of academic progress or it might be because they are simply burnt-out and lazy. Regardless, research papers can be powerful tools for learning if they are used in the right circumstances. Hopefully, they will be used so again.
Robert Beguiristain
P.S. I worked in a university for many years, I could always tell the better professors. They are the ones from whom the students learn and to think verse the ones where the students needed to write that 100-page grammatically perfect research paper with at least 30 references. I also happen to know that when your sitting in a bar with some professor having a drink that they will often criticize their peers for doing this. I wish they would start doing so in public. I think it is all about fear.
Hmm, based on this e-mail Sir it appears that this employee is a member of a religious cult. Hmm, we will have to take care of her won't we.
Here is one example of why employers should not be able to read your e-mail. I based the above scenario on the note you put at the end of your post, "An ye harm none, do what ye will" - The Wiccan Rede," that clearly identifies you as a member of a religion that many people still think of as evil and might fire you over.
There is no way that one can avoid being at least a little bit personal in writing e-mail. Chances are someone will not like something you have written and hold it against you.
I happen to have written Human Resources from time to time about problems I have had in the work place. If my boss had read it I would have not had a job. There are some types e-mail that are meant for only certain staff to see. Even completely work related content.
BTW: In that first example if you were later be mysteriously fired, in the USA, they would have no legal reason to tell you they looked at your e-mail so you would not even know why.
Finally you mentioned the Wiccan Rede. I assume from the message that your are saying that if people obeyed its tenets then they would not fear having their e-mail read. Why in this scenario would someone need the right to read your e-mail? Would it not be in fact only for reasons that would be in violation of the Rede? So given your implied scenario of how it would be in a perfect world, someone reading others work e-mail would still be wrong since there could be no justifiable reason for doing so. So, in fact, your original argument is invalid, as the assumptions you made to justify it would actually nullify the premise of the argument that if everyone acted in a responsible fashion they would not mind having someone read their e-mail. Since, if everyone did act responsibly, they would not need to have their e-mail read. Thus having the right to do so could only be for immoral purposes.
Robert
Product Placement and Copyright
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Calling Out TiVo
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· Score: 2
Given that huge amounts of money are paid to stations to place products directly in most pictures, no one is stealing anything.
Regardless, I happen to watch mostly public broadcasting. I also donate to it. So last I checked if I were to use this system, I would not be stealing even by this person's bizarre perceptions. I point this out as many new devices and software products have been threatened with the industries new buzzword Contributory Copyright Infringement. This is can be likened to asking the government to take away cars because someone might use them to commit a crime. I hope to remind everyone that at least some people do use these products for unquestionably legal uses.
Imagine a world where there is no such thing as a free operating system or open source hardware as such cannot be protected from possible copyright infringement.
Imagine a world where the book you are reading ceases to exist when you are done with it.
Imagine a world where no new product can be created our marketed without the certification and consent of the copyright holders whom might be effected.
Imagine a world where every device communicates with its corporation to get the latest copyright keys and to report any possible illegal usage.
Imagine a world where no artist can create a truly free work, as they must pay for a license key for the world's devices to authorize and play it.
Imagine a world where you cannot purchase a device capable of video or audio editing without a license charge for the mandatory inclusion of a copyright chip.
Imagine a world where corporations control all information at first for profit, later for power, then finally for control.
Imagine a world where it is legal for every possible mode communication between people to be monitored to assure no copyright infringement is occurring as anything means that cannot be monitored would be considered a device capable of copyright infringement.
Slashdot Mirror
Some of us are forced to use MS Windows because our jobs demand we use products like Visual Studio which only runs on it.
First off I did pay. Second I do not like having to have it call home and it giving them any personal information including my IP and prod ID to activate which seems to happen every time a tech savy person does anything significant to their computers. Third, I do not like having them infect my computer with endlessly growing DRM shit to support all this. Forth once you grant them this right you give them the power to do so much more than they are currently claiming they are going to do. Imagine forced DRM installation, expiring software leases, and complete user tracking from purchase to forced obsolescence. Fifth, we are the customer, it is their job to meet our demands, not make us their slaves.
Hey has anyone noticed that hidden in the so called Nework Neutrality bill (S. 2686: Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006) http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109 -2686 are provisions to create digital video and audio copyright flags, to implement analog watermarking, and to force all hardware and software to respect them? What a ticking time bomb!
I actually posted this idea a bit back about how to deal with the RIP law. Build a file system that uses encryption and several passwords. Each password unlocks a different set of data. For example, password 1 on a the drive gives you images of your last Disney trip. Password 2 gives you your porn pics. Password 3 give you your tax records. There is no possible way for someone looking at the apparent random data to know how much actual information is there. So unless they can prove you did not give them all the keys they will be up the creek.
I imagine the system would ask you how much space you want to use then randomly marks out that much space on the drive. The File Allocation Pointer Table points to where the current data is. In order to expand or alter any allocation you would need to ask you if there are any more passwords but it would not know if there are or not. It is also safe if say one user losses their password, as that user data is lost but all other known password protected data is safe.
Another added trick is static data blending. That is where it takes the data on the tracks and mangles it so that depending on which password you use the same area gives you another set of data. This might be useful for the allocation pointer as you could use the same area for many allocations pointer at once. This method could also be applied after the fact to hide read-only data area. You would run a merge on any given directory which would help hide that there is any extra space on the drive at all. This is also really useful for read-only media.
If you combined this with a user based permission system and a file system that only grows as much as each new user is allowed when created you even get a good reason not to have the whole drive used, as we all know they would try to show that that mere fact you had free space is suspect. The other cool thing is that since the password determines access you could have a system with an unknown number of users with an unknown amount of data stored and no way of finding out how much is really there without all the current passwords.
Some of the bad side, well they could make it illegal, the amount of drive space needed would be very large for some sections like File Allocation Pointer Table because it has to be as large as the maximum number of allocations you ever wish to be able have, and if someone tried to expand file system or create a new allocation without knowing all the passwords they would destroy all data for the unknown passwords. The later is both a good and a bad thing.
It has been proven time and time again that becoming too draconian at work about personal computer time costs more money than it ever saves. Would you rather have a person take a day off due to stress, to find a nanny, to pay a bill, to have an important conversation or to write a letter because that is what they must do. We are talkings nearly a week of lost time a year that could be saved and a huge benefit derived from reduced stress levels. In addition, people tend to leave their work space when they cannot take a little personal time on the computer. That means no one to handle an important task, answer a call or message. The problem is that supervisors often ignore the benefits of personal computer use while pointing out all the so called wasted time. It always better to have someone at their stations whenever possible and the less time taken off for things they can handle via a IM or e-mail the better. Any good supervisor can tell when something is not getting done as fast as they should be and deal with it but too many are downright pathetic control freaks or worse have this vision that work is all about pure labor the entire time one is in an office as if they have ever done that. The other thing that gets me is owners want to pay chump wages for jobs but then expect the person to work 100% of the time. I am talking about titles like receptionist. I often hear things like instead of playing games go make copies, clean your desk, or make coffee. Now that is all fine and dandy so pay the person to be the cleaning staff and your personal waitress too otherwise shut up and be glad you are getting away on the cheap.
BTW: I have been a supervisor of development groups in four countries for the past five years, I know of what I speak. People who manage this way are fools. In fact, I find that when you start to hear a generalized complaints about people wasting time you need to talk to the supervisors as the problem will be them mishandling time and tasks and is almost never with the staff who are goofing off. I think in my entire life, I have only found one person that truly was a problem user, and even then I had to ask myself why was this person hired in the first place.
Since I consider highly unlikely that our galaxy happens to be the largest in the region as the article suggest it appears to be. I am of the opinion there is some sort of observational bias effecting the results. One thought that comes to my mind that might account for the fact that these galaxies appear to be rotating faster than they should be for their given visible mass, that might account for various odd super structures in space, and might even explain dark matter is that the flow of time is not consistent across vast regions of space. If for example a small galaxy was moving faster through time relative to us, it would appear to be rotating very fast due to this temporal bias. If these fields pervade the local space around our and other galaxies it might simply mean that at the current time relative to flows of time in the other galaxies in the local area ours is going slower which is also odd but it explains the visible effects without dark matter. There is however another possibility in this theory which eliminates the observational oddity at least at the galactic level, we could be observing these galaxies through several distortions between Earth and them that happen to create this type of visual effect from our point of view. This would limit the issue to a more localized point of view argument. Another words at the moment Earth is in a observational position relative to several large objects in space that make it look this way. Interestingly enough, this only requires better understanding of the structure of space and time but does not require a whole new physics to account for some strange form of matter and if these fields are common then Earth would simply be one of many places where this would appear to be the case. It might even be that Galactic masses have a stable time fields around them but that the space between then is less stable or has variations on a universal scale. That would mean that in a given galaxy everything would appear stable and so would any observations of other galaxies. We would see speed or slowness but it would not confirm the cause. What might be interesting to look for would be a galaxy that has a time variation between us and it that only partially intersects it. That would create an apparent visual anomalies we could recognize.
Just my own theory,
Alricsca
I get tired of people being so limited in their thinking. A quantum wave function does not need to collapse. It can vibrate between all possible futures. When we observe it, it is our interaction with it at whatever point it is in its vibration that changes what universe we are in. The wave appears to collapse as we have now changed our own location in the multiverse relative to the quantum wave we were observing. Notice that we ourselves can act like quantum waves and that we like the wave we were observing are vibrating between possible realities. We simply made an observation or in other words we engaged in action that caused a quantum level interaction that pushed us away from another quantum waves location givings us the appearance of its collapse into one certain reality. As to what happens when you kill your grandfather in the past. In the universe you leave you would appear to vanish forever having engaged in a action that moved that reality away from you. In the past you do kill the man whose particles participate in the multiversal wave that your Grandfather participates in. The result is that you have now moved yourself into a universe in which the matter making up your dad's structure is dead. You still exist because you came from the future at a point in a another universe in which he still exists in the living form of your to sire you. So, ironically, the answer is that you cannot kill your actual father but you can go back and kill a version of your father and in so doing remove yourself forever from the universe in which your father exists. :-)
They bought the chip makers. Who needs the US congress, when you got the whole world?
Why is it that so many people who want these so called rights holders to have absolute power and control over their content do not understand that in order to do this we must create tools that would allow absolute oppression and control, tools that by their very existence inherently violate the social contract that protects these rights holders at all? In a free society there has to be a balance between freedom and restriction to preserve the social elements that allow it to survive. A society does not merely exist, it is instead a construct created be a social contract that by our actions we all define, create and obey. Last I checked; I work, I vote, and I obey the rules of this society. I, like so many others, contribute to creating and maintaining this social contract that creates the society in which these rights holders are taking part. It is part of the very same social contract that protects these rights holders by creating and enforcing laws that they give up absolute control and power over their own work, that there are limitations to patent, an end to copyright, that there is fair use, and in time free use of all knowledge. It is essential that in order to have any power over the actions of others that they must risk losing a little power and control themselves so that all may gain. These are the limits to power and control we all have agreed to so that the society does not suffer to benefit any one individual over another and that all benefit from taking part in the social contract. We all give up these same things to have the benefits of being a part of the society that both protects and defends us? I do not have absolute freedom over everything I may say or do. I have limits that I agreed to in order to have the protection and privileges of this society. Shouldn't they have to be held to the same standards I do? If they want absolute power and absolute control they should not be granted the rights and protection being a part of this society grants them. It is not my rights it is society's that people must learn to protect. It seems everyone has forgotten this in this battle. It is all about me and my rights. What about society? Does anyone remember why we have laws and rules at all? They are things we all agree to by giving up absolute power, by giving up absolute control. By saying it is no longer about I, it is about us. I wish people would take a step back and remember that.
I went to the site an attempted to follow their incredibly complicated submission criteria. I wrote about a five page response regarding the exceptions I thought should be created in the DMCA and examples as to why. I got an email a day later saying it did not meet their submission guidelines with a link with about thirty possible reasons. Without any specific explanation of what was actually wrong, I did not know what to correct as I thought it had met the guidelines. I guess not being a lawyer, I was not meant to be heard. I wonder how many other people had this happen to them and were then essentially ignored. I think it was a deliberate red tape barrier to stop the masses from actually being heard, shame on them. I am just glad, that I contributed to the Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org who they did listen to.
The universe can be conceived of as an infinite set of discrete points that all occupy the same location, each point has its own unique set of dimensions or properties that allow it to exist in the same place simultaneously. The only time there is an issue is when two or more points begin to attain the same state in several of their dimensions or properties. Then you have an interaction that either creates new states in the various points or causes two or more existing states to collapse into one new state with properties defined by the merging of the point's two properties. These transformations are time and the inertia of the system is the cause of gravity. Seems like a good explanation for me.
Smile, hey if she can do it so can I.
Well let me see after we remove the 2000% mark up on the average CD's base creative costs, remove the costs of shipping, packaging, the medium or server space to store them that never needed to pay for; that should leave about 10 cents per download. So say I have downloaded 300 songs that would be $30 dollars. Which I would gladly pay and which is the whole problem with these jerks. They want their cake and to eat it too. They know the Internet is the ultimate equalizer, they can only earn what they are really worth and they hate it. Perhaps they are making a mistake, if the judge really analyses how much these songs are actually worth he might levy them at their real cost. I can imagine a lot of people happy with that idea. Remember, before all you naysayers start commenting on my logic, do not compare these with store bought CDs. The industry makes a big deal of the business they are not getting in the stores because of the Internet, but that is not a valid comparison anymore, if it ever was. The reality is that many people like me would never buy a CD in a store and especially after they started paying the state to start acting like Nazis. No doubt with all the bad blood they have created I am not the only one who feels that way. Take those poor US cadets who had their dorms raided and all their computers confiscated. Do you think they are going to be more afraid or angry when all is said and done? I do not know about you but, I would never buy a CD from someone who ruined my career over 10 cents nor would I not think that my choosing to download a song when it is so overpriced was particularly wrong. One thing that really brought this all into focus for me was a comment I read once about the disparity in costs for various intellectual properties so I did a little looking and found some information that I want you all to think about. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring cost half a billion dollars to produce and market. Based on its predecessor the DVD is likely to cost $38.88 to buy on Amazon. A super hit single by Janet Jackson costs $10 million to produce and sold for $28.00 dollars when it was first released. That means that the DVD only cost 1/3 more than the CD even though it took 50 times more money to produce. Given how many more CDs are sold than DVDs this should tell you something about just how grossly high their margins really are. Among other interesting items the DVD of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone had no Macrovision on it so analog copies of it are easy to create. Interestingly there was not a noticeable increase in piracy, it was cheaper to produce without the security, more information fit on the DVD, and it was of a higher quality. In fact, people still seem to be buying the DVD in droves. Makes you wonder.
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http://www.billpetro.com/holidayhistory/hol/LOT
http://www.uwgb.edu/ogradyt/blackpop.htm
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While freenet is much too slow and problematic at this point for a vibrant P2P file sharing network. What about using it to perform the central server functions of such a network or for that matter any central server based function that might otherwise be subject a police state's laws and shutdown. If we use it for indexing only, it would not anonymize the IPs of the people sharing but it would make the list unstoppable, basically the best of both worlds.
SMILE
I think that when you buy a connection that says it is of a certain speed, that you should be able to use it to its maximum limit. Otherwise, they should modify that speed to what they are actually going to allow you to use in a month. They are not doing this because of broadband's so called abusers. They are doing this because they realize that by using those so called abusers as an excuse it will allow them to stagger usage thereby allowing them to increase their user base and tier their prices; thus making them more money while having a descent scapegoat to blame. I do think that the Australia needs a better deal on international broadband but the reality is that once broadband does become cheaper does anyone here really think the ISPs will get rid of tiered pricing schemes or per megabyte download charges? This will lead to the same thing that happened in the US when speedier modems were created. Years of dual pricing and blood letting by the ISPs with the industry all the while claiming it is the cost of the technology upgrades. Do you all know that many US ISPs were created or expanded in the US only after the modem speeds had increased? Another words, the hardware they bought already used the higher speeds and new standards, yet they still tiered their prices even though they had to actually slow down the speed of their RAS modems. I remember some BBSs that did not even have internet connectivity were claiming bandwidth cost when charging their members. Having known a person who owned one, they paid for phone lines not connection speeds. If the reason the cost of this bandwidth is so high is because of connections to sites outside the country, why not set up an intra-continental caching server farm; this would resolve many downloading issue rather well. Finally, I would like to point out that even if the number of people affected by higher rates was only 10% of their users that is still a HUGE number of people, people who specifically bought these connections because of the promise large bandwidth. Even though the idea of charging this 10% who fully use the bandwidth may sound nice, these 10% are the ones that often introduce people into broad band and were the first to use it. They are also the 10% that will move to your competitor for the better deal. They may cost a lot now but they will be the difference between profitability and bankruptcy soon enough. Think about it, as online media service and games such as Everquest become common, the only way these ISPs will be able expand is in growing this 10% who rapidly utilize these services and will attract others to them. Remember these are people who can never use dial-up and are often loyal to an ISP with a fair deal. In fact in looking at it, the ISPs may want to be careful admitting that so few of their users need a lot of bandwidth, as it appears most people using their services do not really need it. Low end ISDN does not cost that much anymore and its speeds while slower are at a fixed charge. In fact ISDN speeds and stability may be better match for these ISPs users. On one last note, I happen to be a person who downloads, beta tests, and works with Linux and other open source products like Open Office. I need a lot of bandwidth to do so. For those of you who think I should be charged more, remember that next time you pay a premium because your ISP uses a Microsoft product, or when you go looking for an open source applications and do not find one and thus have to pay a couple of hundred for a closed source product. Not all of us in that 10% are Warez users or Gamers, some of us save people like you all many hundreds of thousands of dollars. If anyone should have to pay for our bandwidth, it is those of you who readily use our wares and never pay a penny.
They can remotely cripple any software or hardware that uses a specialized driver. While they use the excuse that it is not XP compliant. What is to stop them from placing drivers from any software or hardware they choose on the list? Imagine if they wanted to block a certain piece of hardware, a specialized sound driver or a Divx codec. What would stop the? This impacts open source because often the software used is in beta when people first download and try it. This would not work if they wished it. Where are the controls to disable this feature? Even then how much do you want to bet that in order to watch or listen to any secure content that you will need to update your list of banned devices? Anyone here use Disk Daemon or VNC? I will bet that packages like these will be banned because they can emulate hardware or provide ways to pull screen content. I would also bet that Microsoft is not about to remove any of its products from the list. Imagine them restricting the latest version of Apache or MySQL while releasing the newest version off IIS. Even if this feature were meant to be used with good intention, it allows them in an underhanded way to control the software and hardware market. Futhermore, it just dawned on me that they could even block software that uses standard Windows drivers by updating a standad driver in way that cripples third party software ability to communicate with it and then blocking the old driver as outdated. All they have to do is make sure that the driver update and the patch for their own software to work with the new driver's FEATURES is released in the same package. I could easily see them doing this with the streaming Media Codecs.
I know a student who could not take one of these books home because he downloaded it at his office computer and did not realizes it would lock to the hardware. He also could not print or cut and paste a section for his term paper or for use with his study group meeting in the local library. He ended up abandoning the book. Here is an example of how this technology hurts completely fair-uses in and of itself. It is also an example of where, had he had the cracking software, he could have used the book for completely legal even noble purposes. Also, before one spots off why did he bother getting the book at all or just buy it in the store, it was bought because his professor said it was a good source and it did not exist as a paper book. BTW: Since he could not give the book away at the end of the semester to a new student or sell it, this forced the next students in the class to actually buy the book again at full price. So much for the concept of a used bookstore. Truly people think about what this means when all books come in these formats.
Given that I have worked for a university that faced this very same issue, I know that this kind of power will lead to abuses. The problem this type of policy causes is that it results in an erosion of trust by faculty, students and staff and the actions they take in response to that loss. I have found most people get upset when they actually learned what was happening. Just wait to a dean or an already upset student finds out they are being watched and it actually processes in their minds. Even file names give away private information. If you have not seen it happen yet, then chances are they have not figured it out yet. One big lawsuit and you will have a whole new problem. Furthermore, I know for a fact that Norton's responses to its server can be faked; many people where I used to work did not want the very abusive IT staff to see anything on their hard drives. They started downloading various hacks for just this purpose not to mention several trojans. You may be creating a greater nightmare by having people willingly installing gateways for hackers. The university was in fact hacked this way when someone the IT center let a keyboard monitoring trojan infect their computer that sent the root password for our servers to them. I left that job because these type of issues began erode every ones' happiness. Do not go down that road. I would suggest that you mandate that in order to connect to the university's system that students must prove that they have a recent anti-virus program or that they use the university's system with a privacy warning. Since all modern anti-virus programs by default offer an Auto-Update feature that should help you problem. As for faculty and staff, I have found that telling them exactly what his happening, why it is necessary and doing it in on the weekend worked fine. They took off anything they did not want looked at and the IT department got to do their scans. Also, I found that asking them to bring me their license of anything special they wanted to have installed that was personal. This allowed them greater flexibility, gave me a proof of their ownership and more assurance it was legit software. Remember, trust is a lot more valuable than hardware or software and a good back-up policy protects information.
While I agree that cheating is wrong. I have a question. Why do so many professors routinely depend upon one's ability to write a 100-page grammatically perfect research paper with at least 30 references as the primary method of evaluating their students' subject matter knowledge, when such measures are often meaningless? As long as you have the skills necessary to summarize, quote or paraphrase, keep good footnotes, and can add a couple of pseudo-insights to a paper demonstrating that you can have an original thought; you do not need to understand a thing. While earning my MS and BS degrees, I sometimes had the misfortune of having a professor who had this type of requirement. I was able to assemble papers that would earn A's using only these skills. On the rare occasions I did not earn and A, it was never about my subject matter knowledge. The lower grades were for issues such as 5 or more misspellings, some minor grammatical mistakes, or something of this nature. Looking at a typical research paper you would think it should reflect real knowledge, but as many modern programs that assemble research papers clearly demonstrate, they do not. What they do reflect is a good short-term memory, an ability to organize information and some excellent writing skills. Even more damning is the fact that research papers can make subjects in which they are used boring and unfulfilling thus repelling many would by students from important fields. This type of requirement is clearly a technique that lazy burnt-out professors use to make it look like they are giving a lot of work and know their subject matter when they are actually doing nothing and may know little or nothing of the subject at all. If you doubt me, grab a syllabus from a class where this is the primary requirement. Typically you will see some readings, lectures, a paper and maybe a final. Anyone with some borrowed notes could manage in this type of class. Really! Next time you are in this kind of class, go look at the lectern when the class is over. I bet you will see the lecture the professor's just gave written down line by line.
There are methods in which the evaluative, organizational and critical thinking skills that are used in writing a research paper can be used successfully to foster learning. A paper that is used to enhance or promote learning in this way can be very beneficial and may be part of a broader evaluative process. To defend this position I have a personal example of how an excellent teacher used a research paper successfully in her course. She was one of those teachers who dressed up, who seemed to always be positive about her subject matter, who found ways to relate the material to her students lives and personal experiences. Her goal was to make connections with the material and her students. She happened to be one of those new teachers condemned to teaching an English 101 class and still she shined. She used papers when she felt it would benefit the student. For example, after teaching about the works of Dante and a modern version of the same story, The Towering Inferno, she saw that I was really interested in the author. She asked if I would like to do a paper for extra-credit (I was already Srt8-A student) on Dante's Inferno comparing the original to the modern and with various other redactions of the Inferno. I did this paper out of love for the topic that she inspired. It had a many excellent references and a lot of original thought on my part. It was by far one of the best works I had ever written. The class placed the research in a meaningful context and till this day brings joy to my heart to contemplate. Given this experience, I know that a research paper has a correct and good place in education.
I think that many professors use the requirement for a research paper for all the wrong reasons. This might relate to the fact that we are in a culture obsessed with tangible, if often useless, marks of academic progress or it might be because they are simply burnt-out and lazy. Regardless, research papers can be powerful tools for learning if they are used in the right circumstances. Hopefully, they will be used so again.
Robert Beguiristain
P.S. I worked in a university for many years, I could always tell the better professors. They are the ones from whom the students learn and to think verse the ones where the students needed to write that 100-page grammatically perfect research paper with at least 30 references. I also happen to know that when your sitting in a bar with some professor having a drink that they will often criticize their peers for doing this. I wish they would start doing so in public. I think it is all about fear.
Hmm, based on this e-mail Sir it appears that this employee is a member of a religious cult. Hmm, we will have to take care of her won't we.
Here is one example of why employers should not be able to read your e-mail. I based the above scenario on the note you put at the end of your post, "An ye harm none, do what ye will" - The Wiccan Rede," that clearly identifies you as a member of a religion that many people still think of as evil and might fire you over.
There is no way that one can avoid being at least a little bit personal in writing e-mail. Chances are someone will not like something you have written and hold it against you.
I happen to have written Human Resources from time to time about problems I have had in the work place. If my boss had read it I would have not had a job. There are some types e-mail that are meant for only certain staff to see. Even completely work related content.
BTW: In that first example if you were later be mysteriously fired, in the USA, they would have no legal reason to tell you they looked at your e-mail so you would not even know why.
Finally you mentioned the Wiccan Rede. I assume from the message that your are saying that if people obeyed its tenets then they would not fear having their e-mail read. Why in this scenario would someone need the right to read your e-mail? Would it not be in fact only for reasons that would be in violation of the Rede? So given your implied scenario of how it would be in a perfect world, someone reading others work e-mail would still be wrong since there could be no justifiable reason for doing so. So, in fact, your original argument is invalid, as the assumptions you made to justify it would actually nullify the premise of the argument that if everyone acted in a responsible fashion they would not mind having someone read their e-mail. Since, if everyone did act responsibly, they would not need to have their e-mail read. Thus having the right to do so could only be for immoral purposes.
Robert
Given that huge amounts of money are paid to stations to place products directly in most pictures, no one is stealing anything. Regardless, I happen to watch mostly public broadcasting. I also donate to it. So last I checked if I were to use this system, I would not be stealing even by this person's bizarre perceptions. I point this out as many new devices and software products have been threatened with the industries new buzzword Contributory Copyright Infringement. This is can be likened to asking the government to take away cars because someone might use them to commit a crime. I hope to remind everyone that at least some people do use these products for unquestionably legal uses.
Imagine a world where there is no such thing as a free operating system or open source hardware as such cannot be protected from possible copyright infringement.
Imagine a world where the book you are reading ceases to exist when you are done with it.
Imagine a world where no new product can be created our marketed without the certification and consent of the copyright holders whom might be effected.
Imagine a world where every device communicates with its corporation to get the latest copyright keys and to report any possible illegal usage.
Imagine a world where no artist can create a truly free work, as they must pay for a license key for the world's devices to authorize and play it.
Imagine a world where you cannot purchase a device capable of video or audio editing without a license charge for the mandatory inclusion of a copyright chip.
Imagine a world where corporations control all information at first for profit, later for power, then finally for control.
Imagine a world where it is legal for every possible mode communication between people to be monitored to assure no copyright infringement is occurring as anything means that cannot be monitored would be considered a device capable of copyright infringement.
Now imagine a state with this power.
This is why these laws are so very wrong.