If you're a teacher in a class I'm in and I send you an email asking for clarification on something in class today, isn't that an unsolicted email on the part of you?
Ok, then kudos to ya. I saw a video clip of the show somewhere on the internet, i think last year. When the screen went blue, first there was laughter and then applause, and with that the standing O. The clip only showed the blank looks on the presentors' faces during all that. Maybe someone can post a link?
But - assuming the missle launched from California is unguided and hence following a straight line of flight, can you use the limited amount of data from the GPS to predict where the missle is going, then adding in trajectory and wind resistance and such in order to the calculate the path of the missle?
Ever had a demo fail in some especially embarrassing way?
While I don't have any stories (honest!) involving me, Bill Gates once got a round of applause during a Windows 98 pre-release demo for showing everyone the Blue Screen of Death.
Jon, I appreciate having your voice on this topic. If you notice in my original post on this indicated that if editorial boards receive numerous submissions about the same topic, they might just have a bunch of journalists (hopefully ones that support the 1st amedment to every extreme and have some understanding of tech issues) go out to find out what's going on. Knowing the size of the slashdot community, one call for editorials could generate thousands of intellectually enlightening articles, leaving review boards swimming for air.
Every now and then I see something on/. to the effect of "from the boring-news-submitted-10000-times dept," In this case, slashdot has received numerous submissions regarding the same topic, and decided to post it. Whether or not it's boring, it's something a lot of people have interest in, and an editor felt the need to pass the word along. Same deal at a newspaper, if the/. comunity can bury a review board in editorials all about the same thing, they can follow the same route, and also go one further of doing something about it by sending out the journalists. Even if all they find out is what has been already reported here on/. and tech news sites (CNet, Wired, etc), it may get more attention by being in places outside tech news sites.
As for journalists being deterred by DMCA. A good journalist isn't spooked by threats of getting jailed for reporting the facts. Dimitry wasn't scared of telling the world about Adobe, was he?
First, compose it using some word processor, anything from vi to Notepad to MS word will do. Make sure the arrticle states your point in a pleasant manner, as flames and profanity hit the recycle bins quickly. Keep it short, 250 words should be sufficient. Long editorials get trashed fast.
Two: Prepare a cover letter. Include your name, phone number (home&work), address, and signiture. Phone required so that they can call you to confirm you are the actual author of the editorial. I have listed several addresses to where it can be sent:
Three: Send! Decide your submission process of either snail mail or e-mail. The 3 papers I listed above (plus another good one) can be reached at:
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20071
letters@washpost.com
Letters to the Editor
Los Angeles Times
202 W. 1st St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
letters@latimes.com
Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
fax: (212) 556-3622
letters@nytimes.com
USA TODAY
1000 Wilson Blvd., 21st
Arlington, VA 22229
Notes: If you snail mail or fax, you MUST have a signiture on your submission, and the submission must be a printout, no hand written material. Email: Do NOT send the an editorial to multiple papers at the same time. They won't like seeing the To line having other papers listed. BCC probably wont work either. More Email: Do not send your article as attachments. Put the work in the body of the message. We don't know what the receipient will have on their machine, so send email using plaintext.
Having Lessig's article in the New York Times was a step in the right direction. But question - major metropolitan newspapers receive numerous editorials, yet only a handful get published because they only dedicate a page or two toward EdOp. What newspaper publishes every editorial that comes their way?
The best thing to do would be for people to send editorials en masse to very elite papers like the Washington Post, LA Times, NY Times, etc. By having the review boards receive hundreds if not thousands of similar-sounding editorials and commentaries, they would become inclined to select the better submissions and publish them, or possibly send out reporters to find out what the news is regarding Dimitry and DMCA.
You raise an interesting point, to be honest, I've seen both being used. Because the verbal pronunciation has a slight 'd' sound in it, I felt the jidst spelling was more accurate. But I could be wrong, and it looks as if Hemos thinks so, as he's quitely edited the spelling to gist.
simply the fact that [a program] can be used illegally is enough to incriminate someone
By that logic, a compiler violates DMCA. Because a programmer can use a compiler to write a program that circumvents a protective measure, that renders the compiler a constituent to the crime. Hence, if I write a DMCA violating Perl program, not only do I go to jail, but so would Larry Wall. Actually, that's not a bad way to get the oppurtunity to meet him... hmm.....
Authorities hold people without trial all the time becuase they are a threat to flee and skip trial. Perfect example is a case in Philadelphia where Ira Einhorn skipped town in 1981 just before he went on trial for 1st degree murder. He was finally brought back to Philly two weeks ago after running to Ireland, Switzerland, and France. (Do note that I happen to go to college less than a block from where the 1977 murder occured)(OT: He was found guilty in absentia in 1993, but he can appeal now that he's back in the US)
Dimitry in this case may be considered a threat to leave the United States when it comes time for trial (if the case gets that far) because he is of foreign nationality. Yes I agree that a judge should do a bail hearing and crap, but keep in mind this is what the US legal system is like. In the US, it takes years for fugitives to be found guilty and sent off to jail, or, by same token, innocent and set free. Tim McVeigh took years to be killed for his crime because of all the appeals processes (and 4000+ FBI documents), while in Russia, for example, someone would face the chair for a crime less than 12 months after arrest. Other countries are somehow able to have their due-process expedited. Personally, I wish the US were more like that.
I should probably add that I work in the computer security research field, and that my company is among those doing research into protecting coyrights. Because I fear someone from management might be reading this, my apologies but I will not be telling what company I work for.
Among the sad parts about many of the DMCA cases is use of poor protection schemes. Adobe used a horribly weak encryption scheme in the eBook format. Same in the CSS/DeCSS ordeal. If companies really want to protect their anti-piracy measures, they should use protection schemes that are difficult to break. By using cheap protection, they are practically asking for people to break the schemes so that they can slap that person (or persons) with DMCA violations.
A co-worker of mine believes that some organizations actually use weak protections intentionally so that they can gain revenue by suing those that break the protection.
There are many avenues out there for companies to find strong and effective means of encryption and protection. Undoubtably there are ethics-abiding companies who have started funding research (both academic and corporate) into this topic of protecting copyrighted works.
We can only hope that someday companies are able to look past their wallets and ask themselves if they are doing enough to protect the intellectual property of others. If a company fails to use effective means to protect a copyright, by all means individuals like Dimitry and Dr Felton should be allowed to break them and show them what not to do.
uh, yes i am. The targeting&launching takes place from within earth's atmosphere, meaning that outer space has no involvement. And if it did, the atmosphere would simply burn up a bomb/missle/whatever (or it would explode from all the hear) as it enters, hence leaving your attack useless.
People still have a right of privacy. The FBI in this case sought legal rights to survey the activities of an alledged mobster. The FBI had reason to survey this person's activities and obtained the legal authroization plant a deveice of some kind. The FBI won't want to waste money/time/resources/etc in surveying the activities of a law abiding citizen.
The reason they do not want the public to gain knowledge of how the device works is because the FBI may want to re-use this device in future investigations. Should another mobster out there find out how the device works, he/she can set themselves up to protect themselves from the device, hence rendering the FBI's efforts useless, and allowing a criminal to go on without facing justice. I dont think the good people of the US would like that to happen.
You can install Linux on a Power Mac. Other OS's have been ported too.
And for open-source fans, what if you want to customize your OS?
With OS-X being FreeBSD based, the source for it is included. I don't know of anyone actually making changes to this and having it work, but I suspect it's possible to make some changes to the non-proprietary portions of the OS.
As for hardware, who says a company cant stock up on spares? You can buy hardware components from Apple. Power supplies, CD ROM/RWs, video, audio, etc. You can buy that stuff from them just as easily as any other vendor or architecture.
I do agree that being tied to Apple hardware sucks, but I find the OS-X I use at work very useful. My co-workers also do. We have 3 Macs with OS-X on them in our lab. And one guy uses Mac hardware with Linux OS.
Like I said earlier, you pay a lot, but you get results. With some x86 hardware, the line "You get what you pay for" often applies. You don't see many Mac people saying that.
For software, many companies (MS included) are porting softare apps over to OS-X. Just about any GNU tool will also port, thanks to a FreeBSD base. Someone mentioned problems for guis. QT is developing a library for OS-X that will allow porting of apps written for other platforms over to OS-X. Bottom line is that there is plenty of software available for OS-X.
As for those benchmarks, see the keynotes from the MacWorld Expo from a few weeks ago. MacWorld Expo should have them.
You might spend a lot of money there, but did you know that Apple's latest campaign is that there is more to a processor than MHz? Benchmarks using 500MHz and better G4's are similar to 1 GHz Intel chips. And those benchmarks are in common uses, not just Photoshop and such. The 867 MHz single chip G4 leaves the 1.7 P4 breathing for air, while the 800MHz dual chip smokes it. You pay a lot, but you get something useful in return for that investment: results.
How is this guy a troll? He speaks the truth! AtheOS needs drivers, and hardware manufacturers need to develop linux drivers if they are going to ever have a good chance of eveolving into mainstream markets like that other OS we all know and love.
CRAP! That (obviously) should've been.cx. Maybe this is why high school english was a problem for me. Or maybe it's a signal for me to go to bed (it's 9:30pm locally), I gotta work tomorrow.
Oh trust me, I know abot goatse.cx and other, lets call them "interesting," sites that the -1 people link to often. I was asking about the.cs and what country it was for. An AC says some southern pacific isle called Christman Island. I don't know the truth in that, but I'll take it as such until told otherwise.
What about Mac OS-X? I find it as a great tool for learning of various UNIX concepts, mainly root stuff since it's the only machine I have such access to:)
I noticed it but didn't think anything of it until your comment. What exactly does the '.cx' stand for? Is it some country out there? Or something like.ws stading for website?
Since the site has been slashdotted, here's the text of the news:
New version. There has been a long time since the last release of AtheOS but finally V0.3.5 is ready for release. There is several reasons for the long delay like the fact that I have been rather busy at work lately and that we have had a great summer here in Oslo so AtheOS have not always been at the top of my priority list. Also quite a lot of work have gone into this release and quite a lot of new features and improvements have been made.
Many of the changes are additions and modifications to the various API's and toolkits but also a few user-visible aspects are improved in this release. Many bugs are fixed in the text editor and list-view widgets. The scrollbar have got a totally new look and a few new features like "paging" (jump one page when clicking beside the knob) and small arrow buttons that can be used to move the know.
Some crash-bugs have been fixed and the general robustness of the application server has been improved. Also several kernel crash-bugs have been fixed so the general stability of AtheOS have improved quite a bit. The uptime on my heavily stressed developer machine is 34 days when I write this (the time since the last HW upgrade).
This version also have two new keymaps (German and Sweedish) and support for a wide range of nVidia graphics adaptors.
The main focus for V0.3.5 however has been on the KHTML based web browser. I have ported the HTML parser/renderer used in the Konqueror web browser (KHTML) to AtheOS. KHTML is a very capabel HTML parser and renderer that support both CSS and javascript and so does the AtheOS web browser. Finally a high-quality web browser for AtheOS! The browser is part of the 0.3.5 base install and the 0.3.4->0.3.5 upgrade archive.
Take a look at the changes list for a more detailed list of changes since V0.3.4.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're a teacher in a class I'm in and I send you an email asking for clarification on something in class today, isn't that an unsolicted email on the part of you?
Ok, then kudos to ya. I saw a video clip of the show somewhere on the internet, i think last year. When the screen went blue, first there was laughter and then applause, and with that the standing O. The clip only showed the blank looks on the presentors' faces during all that. Maybe someone can post a link?
But - assuming the missle launched from California is unguided and hence following a straight line of flight, can you use the limited amount of data from the GPS to predict where the missle is going, then adding in trajectory and wind resistance and such in order to the calculate the path of the missle?
While I don't have any stories (honest!) involving me, Bill Gates once got a round of applause during a Windows 98 pre-release demo for showing everyone the Blue Screen of Death.
more accurately, that link should be http://www.kazaa.com
Every now and then I see something on /. to the effect of "from the boring-news-submitted-10000-times dept," In this case, slashdot has received numerous submissions regarding the same topic, and decided to post it. Whether or not it's boring, it's something a lot of people have interest in, and an editor felt the need to pass the word along. Same deal at a newspaper, if the /. comunity can bury a review board in editorials all about the same thing, they can follow the same route, and also go one further of doing something about it by sending out the journalists. Even if all they find out is what has been already reported here on /. and tech news sites (CNet, Wired, etc), it may get more attention by being in places outside tech news sites.
As for journalists being deterred by DMCA. A good journalist isn't spooked by threats of getting jailed for reporting the facts. Dimitry wasn't scared of telling the world about Adobe, was he?
First, compose it using some word processor, anything from vi to Notepad to MS word will do. Make sure the arrticle states your point in a pleasant manner, as flames and profanity hit the recycle bins quickly. Keep it short, 250 words should be sufficient. Long editorials get trashed fast.
Two: Prepare a cover letter. Include your name, phone number (home&work), address, and signiture. Phone required so that they can call you to confirm you are the actual author of the editorial. I have listed several addresses to where it can be sent:
Three: Send! Decide your submission process of either snail mail or e-mail. The 3 papers I listed above (plus another good one) can be reached at:
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20071
letters@washpost.com
Letters to the Editor
Los Angeles Times
202 W. 1st St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
letters@latimes.com
Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
fax: (212) 556-3622
letters@nytimes.com
USA TODAY
1000 Wilson Blvd., 21st
Arlington, VA 22229
Notes: If you snail mail or fax, you MUST have a signiture on your submission, and the submission must be a printout, no hand written material. Email: Do NOT send the an editorial to multiple papers at the same time. They won't like seeing the To line having other papers listed. BCC probably wont work either. More Email: Do not send your article as attachments. Put the work in the body of the message. We don't know what the receipient will have on their machine, so send email using plaintext.
The best thing to do would be for people to send editorials en masse to very elite papers like the Washington Post, LA Times, NY Times, etc. By having the review boards receive hundreds if not thousands of similar-sounding editorials and commentaries, they would become inclined to select the better submissions and publish them, or possibly send out reporters to find out what the news is regarding Dimitry and DMCA.
You raise an interesting point, to be honest, I've seen both being used. Because the verbal pronunciation has a slight 'd' sound in it, I felt the jidst spelling was more accurate. But I could be wrong, and it looks as if Hemos thinks so, as he's quitely edited the spelling to gist.
By that logic, a compiler violates DMCA. Because a programmer can use a compiler to write a program that circumvents a protective measure, that renders the compiler a constituent to the crime. Hence, if I write a DMCA violating Perl program, not only do I go to jail, but so would Larry Wall. Actually, that's not a bad way to get the oppurtunity to meet him ... hmm.....
HEY TROLL! That's an alphabetized list.
Dimitry in this case may be considered a threat to leave the United States when it comes time for trial (if the case gets that far) because he is of foreign nationality. Yes I agree that a judge should do a bail hearing and crap, but keep in mind this is what the US legal system is like. In the US, it takes years for fugitives to be found guilty and sent off to jail, or, by same token, innocent and set free. Tim McVeigh took years to be killed for his crime because of all the appeals processes (and 4000+ FBI documents), while in Russia, for example, someone would face the chair for a crime less than 12 months after arrest. Other countries are somehow able to have their due-process expedited. Personally, I wish the US were more like that.
I should probably add that I work in the computer security research field, and that my company is among those doing research into protecting coyrights. Because I fear someone from management might be reading this, my apologies but I will not be telling what company I work for.
A co-worker of mine believes that some organizations actually use weak protections intentionally so that they can gain revenue by suing those that break the protection.
There are many avenues out there for companies to find strong and effective means of encryption and protection. Undoubtably there are ethics-abiding companies who have started funding research (both academic and corporate) into this topic of protecting copyrighted works.
We can only hope that someday companies are able to look past their wallets and ask themselves if they are doing enough to protect the intellectual property of others. If a company fails to use effective means to protect a copyright, by all means individuals like Dimitry and Dr Felton should be allowed to break them and show them what not to do.
That's correct.
uh, yes i am. The targeting&launching takes place from within earth's atmosphere, meaning that outer space has no involvement. And if it did, the atmosphere would simply burn up a bomb/missle/whatever (or it would explode from all the hear) as it enters, hence leaving your attack useless.
The reason they do not want the public to gain knowledge of how the device works is because the FBI may want to re-use this device in future investigations. Should another mobster out there find out how the device works, he/she can set themselves up to protect themselves from the device, hence rendering the FBI's efforts useless, and allowing a criminal to go on without facing justice. I dont think the good people of the US would like that to happen.
You can install Linux on a Power Mac. Other OS's have been ported too.
And for open-source fans, what if you want to customize your OS?
With OS-X being FreeBSD based, the source for it is included. I don't know of anyone actually making changes to this and having it work, but I suspect it's possible to make some changes to the non-proprietary portions of the OS.
As for hardware, who says a company cant stock up on spares? You can buy hardware components from Apple. Power supplies, CD ROM/RWs, video, audio, etc. You can buy that stuff from them just as easily as any other vendor or architecture.
I do agree that being tied to Apple hardware sucks, but I find the OS-X I use at work very useful. My co-workers also do. We have 3 Macs with OS-X on them in our lab. And one guy uses Mac hardware with Linux OS.
Like I said earlier, you pay a lot, but you get results. With some x86 hardware, the line "You get what you pay for" often applies. You don't see many Mac people saying that.
For software, many companies (MS included) are porting softare apps over to OS-X. Just about any GNU tool will also port, thanks to a FreeBSD base. Someone mentioned problems for guis. QT is developing a library for OS-X that will allow porting of apps written for other platforms over to OS-X. Bottom line is that there is plenty of software available for OS-X.
As for those benchmarks, see the keynotes from the MacWorld Expo from a few weeks ago. MacWorld Expo should have them.
You might spend a lot of money there, but did you know that Apple's latest campaign is that there is more to a processor than MHz? Benchmarks using 500MHz and better G4's are similar to 1 GHz Intel chips. And those benchmarks are in common uses, not just Photoshop and such. The 867 MHz single chip G4 leaves the 1.7 P4 breathing for air, while the 800MHz dual chip smokes it. You pay a lot, but you get something useful in return for that investment: results.
How is this guy a troll? He speaks the truth! AtheOS needs drivers, and hardware manufacturers need to develop linux drivers if they are going to ever have a good chance of eveolving into mainstream markets like that other OS we all know and love.
CRAP! That (obviously) should've been .cx. Maybe this is why high school english was a problem for me. Or maybe it's a signal for me to go to bed (it's 9:30pm locally), I gotta work tomorrow.
Oh trust me, I know abot goatse.cx and other, lets call them "interesting," sites that the -1 people link to often. I was asking about the .cs and what country it was for. An AC says some southern pacific isle called Christman Island. I don't know the truth in that, but I'll take it as such until told otherwise.
What about Mac OS-X? I find it as a great tool for learning of various UNIX concepts, mainly root stuff since it's the only machine I have such access to :)
I noticed it but didn't think anything of it until your comment. What exactly does the '.cx' stand for? Is it some country out there? Or something like .ws stading for website?
New version. There has been a long time since the last release of AtheOS but finally V0.3.5 is ready for release. There is several reasons for the long delay like the fact that I have been rather busy at work lately and that we have had a great summer here in Oslo so AtheOS have not always been at the top of my priority list. Also quite a lot of work have gone into this release and quite a lot of new features and improvements have been made.
Many of the changes are additions and modifications to the various API's and toolkits but also a few user-visible aspects are improved in this release. Many bugs are fixed in the text editor and list-view widgets. The scrollbar have got a totally new look and a few new features like "paging" (jump one page when clicking beside the knob) and small arrow buttons that can be used to move the know.
Some crash-bugs have been fixed and the general robustness of the application server has been improved. Also several kernel crash-bugs have been fixed so the general stability of AtheOS have improved quite a bit. The uptime on my heavily stressed developer machine is 34 days when I write this (the time since the last HW upgrade).
This version also have two new keymaps (German and Sweedish) and support for a wide range of nVidia graphics adaptors.
The main focus for V0.3.5 however has been on the KHTML based web browser. I have ported the HTML parser/renderer used in the Konqueror web browser (KHTML) to AtheOS. KHTML is a very capabel HTML parser and renderer that support both CSS and javascript and so does the AtheOS web browser. Finally a high-quality web browser for AtheOS! The browser is part of the 0.3.5 base install and the 0.3.4->0.3.5 upgrade archive. Take a look at the changes list for a more detailed list of changes since V0.3.4.