Present-day muggers don't usually carry around X-Ray or MRI equipment, and usually don't have surgical instruments in their possession (except for organ muggers, but that's a different story).
...in Russia, in aerospace/military contracts, it's unlikely the gov would be paying $1100 for a screwdriver, $90 for a single common LED, $150 for a single rack-mounting bolt etc.
If a New Zealander can construct a viable cruise missile for less than $5000US, then quite possibly $3.5B would go as far in Russia as $200B goes in the USA
Imagine if virtually all goods and services were no longer 'sold', but 'rented' or 'leased' with an EULA?
A lease agreement, or EULA, could have liquidated damages clauses, extracting whatever penalties the owner desires for breaches.
For instance - a Prada jacket that could be 'leased' with strict conditions that it may only be worn in public in combination with certain other Prada apparel.
Or a Volvo, whose lease agreement forbids playing rap music on the stereo.
Or a software package, such as an HTML editor, whose lease agreement forbids you from using it to express opinions critical of the publisher (oops, that one's not fictitious).
the Freenet developers are currently working through some teething pains of the new Freenet routing protocol. When this settles (and this seems to be happening quicker than expected), Freenet should be ready for the really big time, especially with all the new Freenet client programs coming up for release.
With KaZaa 'phasing in' this billing, there's every chance that Freenet will be ready in time for the millions of KaZaa refugees.
Let's just see the RIAA/MPAA/BSA try to sue Freenet users. Would be easier to persuade Microsoft to release all their products under the GPL.
What is it about the British that they seem willing to lie down and have all privacy and freedom taken away from them?
But, British being the clever Poms they are, I give it five days after the first units get installed before someone figures out how to h4x0r them into reporting lawful driving no matter what's really going on.
IMO, while people persist with quesionable browsers like Internet Explorer, there'll be a place for GIFs.
AFAIK, GIF is the only image format that supports transparent backgrounds and renders properly in IE.
This means that if you're using transparent image backgrounds, your site will look like shit on 90+ % of visitors' screens - unless you use GIF. Sad but true.
Once you take a product home, what's the cheapest and most convenient way of detecting an RFID tag? Is there any consumer-level equipment available to help with this without complication?
Once a consumer discovers an RFID tag, is there an easy and convenient way for this tag be destroyed without damaging the product in any way?
I had a taste of incompatible e-Book formats when I got my first colour Palm.
Sadly, there were better (open) formats using better compression and rendering, losing out to closed formats with big marketing push.
The format that ultimately prevails will not necessarily be the best. It'll be the format pushed by those with the greatest marketing skills/budget, and the one which gives them the greatest control over how their works are used.
It wouldn't surprise me if authors are already signing e-book distribution deals which forbid them from releasing in rival formats.
One of these days, the masses will choose software and data formats according to quality and freedom.
But something within me suspects that the Pope will convert to Islam, and the Jews will profess the divinity of Christ first.
Break into a car, put the robot at the wheel, made up as realistically as possible to resemble a human, flip the bird at the highway patrol, and hey, it's the ultimate real life police chase, except for the part at the end where the driver usually gets hauled off in handcuffs.
Especially good if your control feed is being repeated from a number of different locations and randomly phase-shifted, so as to throw off triangulation.
...the fact that doco is often nonexistent or poor, code is idiosyncratically designed/written and poorly commented (if commented at all).
Result is that quite often, it takes less time to implement something oneself than to understand and integrate with a 3rd party piece of software providing the same functionality.
Too many developers think it's beneath them to write good doco, example progs, tutorials, clear easily-learned APIs and clear meaningful comments in the code.
It's a kind of elitist 'techno macho' attitude - 'if it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand'. Too often my questions to authors of unfamiliar software are met with a terse 'RTFS!' (read the fucking source).
This syndrome creates a fragmentation, which destroys opportunity for leverage from well-collated and well-catalogued sharable components. Which in turn makes developers' time more scarce, and further discourages the efforts to make code approachable.
The RIAA can eliminate the financial losses due to CD piracy in a really simple way...
STOP RELEASING NEW MUSIC!
Profits will be restored to earlier levels if the labels don't have to spend money on new artists. They're still stuck back in the Elton John days, and have no idea on how to recognise and nurture modern talent. They're full of coke-sniffing old farts hopelessly stuck within their comfort zones
Radio stations play 90% back catalogue anyway, and this provides a steady royalties stream, especially since the US Judiciary has effectively ruled that copyrights are eternal
Independent labels will step in to fill the gap, and will likely evolve new business models to
make full use of internet technology
A renaissance of new musical expression will ensue
Everyone wins!
The RIAA gets to keep control of the back catalogue, while the fresher new artists and labels find ways to turn a profit, and perhaps live far better, without having to suck on that toxic nipple of the RIAA ripoff recording contract.
And how do you feel about making all innocent senders of mail do extra work?
Personally, I don't mind replying to a verification challenge. In fact, it makes me feel good about the other person, since I know this person will be more attentive to the emails s/he does receive.
I have to say here that I've only had my whitelist-based filter running for a few hours, but already the effect is astounding. As I go about my work, and periodically check my spam-free mailbox, it feels a lot like I've been carrying this menacingly huge chronic debt, and suddenly won the lottery and paid it all off in one fell swoop.
Would be a worthy subject of a psychological study - find an office, send 50 spam messages a day to one group, and manually filter all the spam of the other group, and compare parameters like stress levels, job satisfaction etc. My bet is that you'd find a major difference.
This whole spammers versus spamblockers has proven to be a destructive arms race.
Many legitimate machines and users - even whole ISPs - unfairly end up on blacklists, while the spammers just find another way through.
The spamblocker tools and their heuristics get smarter, but don't forget that spammers keep up with these tools and constantly find new ways around them.
I was using Razor and SpamAssassin for months. Formidable combination - networked blocklists plus pattern matching. Gave me a bit of peace. Very few false negatives. But in the last month, I've seen a whole new generation of spam coming through that the filters don't even touch.
Peace has finally come from a package called Active Spam Killer, a package which works from a white list, and provides a convenient way for new correspondents to get themselves onto the whitelist.
There are other whitelist-based packages, such as TMDA, but ASK is simple and painless to set up.
Result? Spams to my mailbox have gone from 40 a day to zero.
Brazil is arguably the most poignant and relevant piece of work to come from (some of) the people who brought us Monty Python.
Animation/graphics by Terry Gilliam. Leads include Robert de Niro in a surprise role, and Michael Palin as the arch-evil government interrogator (Ministry of Information Retrieval officer).
Definitely a canonical hymn of the individual's struggle against the machine.
Shamefully, some US releases of the film omitted a decisive final scene (which totally changed the meaning of the film). Hopefully the uncensored version has since become available.
You have to register your computer to pay this tax, right? If you don't pay your tax, you lose your computer or some other fine occurs.
Yes, officer, this is the same computer I registered 8 months ago. Sure, it's got a new motherboard, new RAM, a faster processor, new disks, new cards, case and PSU. And yes, a new monitor, keyboard and mouse. But it's still the same computer!
Slashdot Mirror
...for IP via Smoke Signals
...have the hardware surgically implanted.
Present-day muggers don't usually carry around X-Ray or MRI equipment, and usually don't have surgical instruments in their possession (except for organ muggers, but that's a different story).
$ escort --gender=female --min-age=22 --max-age=35 --hair=blonde --physique=athletic --ethnicity=any --specialities=bdsm,whipped-cream --attire=nurse
...in Russia, in aerospace/military contracts, it's unlikely the gov would be paying $1100 for a screwdriver, $90 for a single common LED, $150 for a single rack-mounting bolt etc.
If a New Zealander can construct a viable cruise missile for less than $5000US, then quite possibly $3.5B would go as far in Russia as $200B goes in the USA
Yeah, but she's been fucked every which way long before today...
This could start a trend.
Imagine if virtually all goods and services were no longer 'sold', but 'rented' or 'leased' with an EULA?
A lease agreement, or EULA, could have liquidated damages clauses, extracting whatever penalties the owner desires for breaches.
For instance - a Prada jacket that could be 'leased' with strict conditions that it may only be worn in public in combination with certain other Prada apparel.
Or a Volvo, whose lease agreement forbids playing rap music on the stereo.
Or a software package, such as an HTML editor, whose lease agreement forbids you from using it to express opinions critical of the publisher (oops, that one's not fictitious).
Everyone in the Freenet community knows it's slow at the moment - it's making a transition to a whole new routing scheme.
Within 1-5 weeks, it'll be kicking it better than ever.
This could work out for the very best.
the Freenet developers are currently working through some teething pains of the new Freenet routing protocol. When this settles (and this seems to be happening quicker than expected), Freenet should be ready for the really big time, especially with all the new Freenet client programs coming up for release.
With KaZaa 'phasing in' this billing, there's every chance that Freenet will be ready in time for the millions of KaZaa refugees.
Let's just see the RIAA/MPAA/BSA try to sue Freenet users. Would be easier to persuade Microsoft to release all their products under the GPL.
What is it about the British that they seem willing to lie down and have all privacy and freedom taken away from them?
But, British being the clever Poms they are, I give it five days after the first units get installed before someone figures out how to h4x0r them into reporting lawful driving no matter what's really going on.
Parking in a 'No Parking' zone:
- $40-$200 fine
Petty Theft:
- $200 fine to 90 days' jail
Aggravated Assault:
- 90 days to 5 years' jail
3rd Degree Murder:
- 3 to 10 years' jail
2nd Degree Murder:
- 8 to 20 years' jail
Associating With A Person Who Is Known To Have Had KaZaa Installed On Their Hard Disk:
- 25 to life!
IMO, while people persist with quesionable browsers like Internet Explorer, there'll be a place for GIFs.
AFAIK, GIF is the only image format that supports transparent backgrounds and renders properly in IE.
This means that if you're using transparent image backgrounds, your site will look like shit on 90+ % of visitors' screens - unless you use GIF. Sad but true.
After ROTK gets mastered, there'll be one hell of a lot of processing power laying idle.
"Your conviction was brought to you by WETA Productions, proud suppliers of counter-encryption solutions to the law enforcement community"
I had a taste of incompatible e-Book formats when I got my first colour Palm.
Sadly, there were better (open) formats using better compression and rendering, losing out to closed formats with big marketing push.
The format that ultimately prevails will not necessarily be the best. It'll be the format pushed by those with the greatest marketing skills/budget, and the one which gives them the greatest control over how their works are used.
It wouldn't surprise me if authors are already signing e-book distribution deals which forbid them from releasing in rival formats.
One of these days, the masses will choose software and data formats according to quality and freedom.
But something within me suspects that the Pope will convert to Islam, and the Jews will profess the divinity of Christ first.
Part of the pro-Palladium spin is that it will stop people infecting M$ machines with worms.
But that would leave a major gap which, according to this story, has been admirably filled.
Trusted computing - only trust the worms written and distributed by MS itself.
Pose as an employee of your competitor, and hire a spamming company to promote them.
...because we're about to see a valid moral justification for lawyers in their droves getting rich!"
...once the technology is refined and reliable:
Break into a car, put the robot at the wheel, made up as realistically as possible to resemble a human, flip the bird at the highway patrol, and hey, it's the ultimate real life police chase, except for the part at the end where the driver usually gets hauled off in handcuffs.
Especially good if your control feed is being repeated from a number of different locations and randomly phase-shifted, so as to throw off triangulation.
Real-life GTA, anyone?
...the fact that doco is often nonexistent or poor, code is idiosyncratically designed/written and poorly commented (if commented at all).
Result is that quite often, it takes less time to implement something oneself than to understand and integrate with a 3rd party piece of software providing the same functionality.
Too many developers think it's beneath them to write good doco, example progs, tutorials, clear easily-learned APIs and clear meaningful comments in the code.
It's a kind of elitist 'techno macho' attitude - 'if it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand'. Too often my questions to authors of unfamiliar software are met with a terse 'RTFS!' (read the fucking source).
This syndrome creates a fragmentation, which destroys opportunity for leverage from well-collated and well-catalogued sharable components. Which in turn makes developers' time more scarce, and further discourages the efforts to make code approachable.
The RIAA can eliminate the financial losses due to CD piracy in a really simple way...
STOP RELEASING NEW MUSIC!
- Profits will be restored to earlier levels if the labels don't have to spend money on new artists. They're still stuck back in the Elton John days, and have no idea on how to recognise and nurture modern talent. They're full of coke-sniffing old farts hopelessly stuck within their comfort zones
- Radio stations play 90% back catalogue anyway, and this provides a steady royalties stream, especially since the US Judiciary has effectively ruled that copyrights are eternal
- Independent labels will step in to fill the gap, and will likely evolve new business models to
make full use of internet technology
- A renaissance of new musical expression will ensue
Everyone wins!The RIAA gets to keep control of the back catalogue, while the fresher new artists and labels find ways to turn a profit, and perhaps live far better, without having to suck on that toxic nipple of the RIAA ripoff recording contract.
Personally, I don't mind replying to a verification challenge. In fact, it makes me feel good about the other person, since I know this person will be more attentive to the emails s/he does receive.
I have to say here that I've only had my whitelist-based filter running for a few hours, but already the effect is astounding. As I go about my work, and periodically check my spam-free mailbox, it feels a lot like I've been carrying this menacingly huge chronic debt, and suddenly won the lottery and paid it all off in one fell swoop.
Would be a worthy subject of a psychological study - find an office, send 50 spam messages a day to one group, and manually filter all the spam of the other group, and compare parameters like stress levels, job satisfaction etc. My bet is that you'd find a major difference.
This whole spammers versus spamblockers has proven to be a destructive arms race.
Many legitimate machines and users - even whole ISPs - unfairly end up on blacklists, while the spammers just find another way through.
The spamblocker tools and their heuristics get smarter, but don't forget that spammers keep up with these tools and constantly find new ways around them.
I was using Razor and SpamAssassin for months. Formidable combination - networked blocklists plus pattern matching. Gave me a bit of peace. Very few false negatives. But in the last month, I've seen a whole new generation of spam coming through that the filters don't even touch.
Peace has finally come from a package called Active Spam Killer, a package which works from a white list, and provides a convenient way for new correspondents to get themselves onto the whitelist.
There are other whitelist-based packages, such as TMDA, but ASK is simple and painless to set up.
Result?
Spams to my mailbox have gone from 40 a day to zero.
Brazil is arguably the most poignant and relevant piece of work to come from (some of) the people who brought us Monty Python.
Animation/graphics by Terry Gilliam. Leads include Robert de Niro in a surprise role, and Michael Palin as the arch-evil government interrogator (Ministry of Information Retrieval officer).
Definitely a canonical hymn of the individual's struggle against the machine.
Shamefully, some US releases of the film omitted a decisive final scene (which totally changed the meaning of the film). Hopefully the uncensored version has since become available.
20 years old now, but still a major classic.
Yes, officer, this is the same computer I registered 8 months ago. Sure, it's got a new motherboard, new RAM, a faster processor, new disks, new cards, case and PSU. And yes, a new monitor, keyboard and mouse. But it's still the same computer!
But he's still waiting for a donor to replace his plastic prosthetic nose.