wouldn't those lists be the best place for off-shore spam companies (say in korea or china) to look for email addresses to spam to?
Our laws mean nothing in those countries, and to top it off, they are getting a list of email addresses of people who have gone through the trouble of putting their email addys on 'do not spam lists'.. Which means those addresses are probably in use and valid.. I wouldn't want my email address on that list.
People said the same thing when the first 'cars' hit the road. They were nothing but toys for the rich, because horse carriages were far more practical. But look at where we are at now. If you told someone back in the 1890s that we'd be roaming around in those automated carriages at 100mph without any trouble they'd look at you like you were crazy. Hell, even the wright brothers didn't think human flight would be practical for a hundred years or so. How wrong they were. Yes, in the beginning, most things start out as 'cool' toys but not very practical. After all, if there no advances had been made in aviation, can you image air power ever having become such a force? I'm sorry, not everything is practical when it comes our first. But over time, as production is stepped up, and we gain more experience in dealing with new technology, it gets safer, easier and opens doors to a whole new level of civilization and productivity. Hell, even electricity was expensive and impractical when it first came out. DC currents degraded rapidly over distances, but then A/C currents solved those problems. The bottom line is, there are millions of inventions that will never work, but history has shown us, that even people who consider themselves to be experts in their field, cannot guess what one moment of brilliant inspiration will bring into this world. We just do not know.
Re:Spielberg Over the Hill?
on
Taken?
·
· Score: 1
I disagree.. David did infact attempt to commit a form of suicide. Or atleast attempt to run away from the world in some way. I'm not sure what other interpretation could be given to the scene where David pushes himself off the building and into the ocean letting himself sink. He may have known he wouldn't die out of being in the water, but he definitely didn't think he'd find the truth fairy in there. He had simply given up, and thrown himself into the water to end it.. whatever 'it' means.
In his novel Snow Crash, he describes the young Kourier YT as having an airbag built into here suit. One of the airbags detonated near her neck to protect here spine, neck and head.
The only people who would benefit from this are people who are deaf AND illiterate. If I were deaf I'd prefer it to simply display text on a screen the size of a pda.
What benefit does watching lips move have over reading plain text?
Printing CDs is very much like printing money, in that the CD buy itself is worth next to nothing, however after it is printed, it can be worth some amount.
However, thats where the similarities end. The problem with most digital information is, you can replicate it as many times you want. This makes copying it a lot easier, since you dont have to move the entity worth something, you just have to replicate it. So in a wierd sort of way, you are creating wealth every time you rip a CD.
The losses that the RIAA talks off, aren't in terms of actual money lost by them, but rather in terms of unearned revenues. They want you to pay to get a replication of that CD you were downloading. Which is fine, however, its also why music piracy is so widespread and not thought of as a criminal activity by the general public. Why should I pay for something that I can replicate without harm to the original. Why should I loose cash in order to gain this wealth, when I can _create_ this wealth while keeping my cash.
The idea of pay per download will work fine, to a point. However, the only way I see the music industry clamping down of music piracy, is if they manage to get DRM going. Once DRM really gets going, music piracy is going to a little closer to counterfeiting money. (However, it will never be the same, since cash actually represents value, while digital information has inherent value).
You mean your species. Not trying to be racist. but if India reached mars first, then you'd have to have had an Indian ancestor to claim that. Same thing with Chinese.
You know, you bring up a good point though. Why do humans constantly turn on each other. I think its because we want to feel special, we want to feel like we belong to an elite group (yes geeks are just an example of that). I feel, that when we finally make contact with an advanced alien race, we will drop this behaviour. We will have a group to belong to thats diffeent.. humans as opposed to White/Black/Brown/Orange/Pink/etc. , Earthlings instead of American/Indian/Irani/British.
I'm willing to bet that if we develop a colony on mars. we will eventually have some kind of (perhaps subtle) hostility towards the martians. We'll wanna do better than the martians, or the martians will wanna do better than the Earthlings. The Martians will feel patriotic towards their planet as opposed to Earth. Its so much in our nature to be that way.
I'm not sure if the ESA did send a probe to the moon, but even if they had, the space agency has many member countries.
I'm very happy to hear that India is willing to push itself to new heights. If there is any country that would want to colonize the moon (or mars), Its India. (well, china too). There you go. There's the space race..
On the one hand, you could argue that this is nothing more than one company offering a deal to the other. They are selling their product on their terms. How is that wrong? "I have product A, if you want to use product A, here are my terms. You are free to not accept the terms and not use product A".
On the other hand, everyone just knows that a company such as dell cannot sell its products without putting a Microsoft OS on it. (Well atleast not to the general public). The best course of action for them is to agree to Microsoft's terms, because if they want to stay in business, they really have no other choice.
Where this hurts consumers is, that they _HAVE_ to pay for a Microsoft OS whenever they buy hardware. I dont run windows anywhere anymore. I have 2 unused MS OS licenses for win95 and win98. I paid for that software and didn't even use it. Ofcourse, I just build my own systems now, so its not like I no longer have a choice.
What about companies then? At my old workplace we had several dell computers running linux and Solaris 8 (i386 version). I'm not sure if we had gotten windoes preinstalled on those systems, or not. But now we would've gotten it for sure. My company would have been forced to pay for something it didn't use.
please read my reply to the other reply. I am not saying that its right to steal music. But them going after the p2p networks is really pretty much taking control over a medium of communication.
There is no need to hurl personal insults at me. Just because some people use the software to steal (I'm not saying they are right), it does not mean you can shut down a whole medium of communication and stunt the spread of information like that.
What if the printing press had been outlawed cause it allowed people to print hundreds of copies of a book without the copyright owners consent. Dont put words in my mouth. If anyone is a fool, its you for having called me that.
Were betamax (VHS) tapes ruled illegal? NO! Yes they could have been used for piracy (and indeed were). But there were other LEGAL uses, and just because a few people are misusing something doesn't mean that no one can use it.
what next> Ban guns? Private Airplanes? Knives? hell our society would collapse if we went around banning everything that was being abused by a few people.
Well so much for free speech..... "You're hurting big business.. hence this activity is illegal"
I think the rush to download everything in sight will be proportional to the rush to NOT be one of the major nodes. I mean, who wants to be arrested? That means it will get harder and harder for the average user to download his/her stuff, which is exactly what the RIAA wants. They know they can't stop the determined ones (I mean there is always usenet and IRC) but if they stop the masses it will be enough.
If they dont intend to go after individual users and I dont think they will (Napster had what? 20 million + world wide users? They cant arrest millions). How will they deal with regular users connecting to nodes based in other countries? Will they make it illegal for ISPs to allow access to certain ports?
and does this only affect P2p software? What about websites and ftp sites?
Assuming the communications link to the aircraft would be heavily encrypted and completely undecipherable, would the enemy still be able to saturate the airwaves with noise, so as to make it impossible for ground/space stations to communicate with the aircraft. I'd imagine the AI would be quite similar to the Tomahawk cruise missiles, since they manage to work pretty much autonomously, however it seems their design includes a remote pilot. If you bring down the communications link, that plan would probably become nothing more than a $14 million cruise missile.
I mean, aside from the gizmos like car stereo, seat adjustments etc. The standard interface to using a car is round steering wheel and foot pedals. Many people say that computers should be as easy to use as cars.
Now I'm not saying cars aren't easy to use. However, one cant compare it to computers that easily. (the iDrive can be compared though). The main reason that the interface to cars has not changed in almost a 100 years is simple. Backwards compatibility, and consumer familiarity. Thats right.. It has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is. After all, a consumer cant be expected to take multiple driving tests in order to get a license for each make of car. They had to standardize it so that a person who has driven one car can drive just about ANY car. They cant have licenses that say "Okay for Toyota, Chrysler, and Dodge only".
Its interesting how familiarity with the interface also happens to be one of the BIGGEST problems that linux faces when trying to enter the desktop market. People who have taken the effort to learn or attend courses on using computers learnt the Microsoft interface to software. When they come across a unix one, they aren't familiar with it, and cant use it as well.. regardless of whether its better or not.
The iDrive is like linux. Sure its harder to use in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, you'll wonder how you managed to get by without it.
I'd rather spend my time programming a robot that can do useful things as well as tricks.
But then again I guess this is a necessary first step. Start small and eventually work your way up in complexity. First do tricks, then do something useful.
Before it goes into widescale use, however, its going to have to: 1) Be cheaper 2) be useful (not just fun), 3) durable . In my opinion anyway
I really cant think of any real reason why a computer needs to know my emotion of all things except for rare cases. I guess in games it could lead to a new level of interaction. Or have xmms/winamp tell what music I'm in the mood for. However, I'd rather have a usable voice controlled system than one that can read my emotions.
However, I'm certain that it would end up mostly being used to see what kind of ads and spam we respond to.
Or perhaps it will sense your fear when you file your tax returns online!;)
The shareholders and investors of a company dont really care how many people it employs, wether is succeeds, or gets bought out. All they DO care about is how much profit they will make on their investment. Thats it. If it means laying off people, making the company succeed, or having it bought out, they will do it.
So it doesn't matter how many jobs are lost or how much restructuring has to be done as long as the investor gets his 'bang for the buck'. In my own opinion, this is a bad idea. But I can see why the shareholders voted for the merger. They just did some simple calculations and figure 'we're gonna get ourselves some big bonuses, and pocket a whole lot of money if we go this route'.
This could mean an end to war... think about it
on
The Next Generation
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· Score: 2, Interesting
After all, the reason people actually go out and risk their lives is because they know they'll loose it anyway one day. But if (As the article suggests) we give them immortality.. suddenly they will be a lot more reluctant to go out there and put their life on the line when they dont have to.
If I told you, you could live forever, except if someone shot or killed you. And you grew up that way (our kids would if we figured it out in this generation), you would be terrified of the thought of death. Everyone would be. Killing someone would be unthinkable, and death too big a risk. People who fight wars, commit suicide bombings etc. think to themselves "I'm gonna grow old and die anyway, might as well go out in a blaze of glory"... They cant think that anymore. They'll think.. I could live forever.. why get myself killed?
The problem with all this WAPI stuff is that by trying to fit more and more functions into small devices like pagers and phones, they are comprimising usability. Unless they come up with voice activation, this problem will continue to increase.
For instance. Surfing the web, reading/writing your emails, and checking the news is simply annoying to do from a cell phone. Sure, its handy when you dont otherwise have access to computers and such, but the interface just sucks. Reading 5 words per page of a news article is simply not practical.
Now they will add a whole bunch of new features and that will mean the user will have to traverse a bigger more complicated menu system. What percentage of the users will actually USE those new fancy features? This just looks like feature bloat to me. Sort of how Microsoft does it.
"How do we get them to drop their old cellphones/software and upgrade to new cellphones/software in order to generate new revenue?" Answer: "Put in a whole new set of features that and hype them up the best you can!"
Most people already know (atleast I do) that the EULAs are unreadable essays of legaleese BS. I've never yet finished reading an entire EULA.
What they want you to know, they flood you with thought, TV ads, radio ads, banner ads, and big popup windows... what the DONT want you to know they hide inside the shell of legal Jargon that makes up the License Agreement.
China warns that the CIA and the pentagon might be investing in and researching methods of carrying out Cyber attacks on countries such as China in case of war...
Why does the US always feel that it is justified in arming itself with every weapon imaginable but others aren't. Remember what happened when India and Pakistan tested their nukes?
If they are developing methods of attacking via the Internet, so are we. Yes its a good thing we know of its possibility and are going to take steps to defend ourselves incase such an attack occurs, however, it doesn't mean the Chinese are "evil terrorist hackers!"
Let me see... Market products and services over the net to people surfing the web. I think I've heard of this before.. Oh thats right.. Now I remember.. its SPAM .
This article is just another example of the above.
Slashdot Mirror
I completely agree.. My router/firewall is a p-75 and is running 2.4.19 just fine. takes ages for a kernel compile though!
wouldn't those lists be the best place for off-shore spam companies (say in korea or china) to look for email addresses to spam to?
.. Which means those addresses are probably in use and valid.. I wouldn't want my email address on that list.
Our laws mean nothing in those countries, and to top it off, they are getting a list of email addresses of people who have gone through the trouble of putting their email addys on 'do not spam lists'
People said the same thing when the first 'cars' hit the road. They were nothing but toys for the rich, because horse carriages were far more practical.
But look at where we are at now. If you told someone back in the 1890s that we'd be roaming around in those automated carriages at 100mph without any trouble they'd look at you like you were crazy.
Hell, even the wright brothers didn't think human flight would be practical for a hundred years or so. How wrong they were.
Yes, in the beginning, most things start out as 'cool' toys but not very practical. After all, if there no advances had been made in aviation, can you image air power ever having become such a force?
I'm sorry, not everything is practical when it comes our first. But over time, as production is stepped up, and we gain more experience in dealing with new technology, it gets safer, easier and opens doors to a whole new level of civilization and productivity.
Hell, even electricity was expensive and impractical when it first came out. DC currents degraded rapidly over distances, but then A/C currents solved those problems.
The bottom line is, there are millions of inventions that will never work, but history has shown us, that even people who consider themselves to be experts in their field, cannot guess what one moment of brilliant inspiration will bring into this world. We just do not know.
I disagree.. David did infact attempt to commit a form of suicide. Or atleast attempt to run away from the world in some way.
I'm not sure what other interpretation could be given to the scene where David pushes himself off the building and into the ocean letting himself sink. He may have known he wouldn't die out of being in the water, but he definitely didn't think he'd find the truth fairy in there. He had simply given up, and thrown himself into the water to end it.. whatever 'it' means.
In his novel Snow Crash, he describes the young Kourier YT as having an airbag built into here suit. One of the airbags detonated near her neck to protect here spine, neck and head.
The only people who would benefit from this are people who are deaf AND illiterate.
If I were deaf I'd prefer it to simply display text on a screen the size of a pda.
What benefit does watching lips move have over reading plain text?
Printing CDs is very much like printing money, in that the CD buy itself is worth next to nothing, however after it is printed, it can be worth some amount.
However, thats where the similarities end. The problem with most digital information is, you can replicate it as many times you want. This makes copying it a lot easier, since you dont have to move the entity worth something, you just have to replicate it. So in a wierd sort of way, you are creating wealth every time you rip a CD.
The losses that the RIAA talks off, aren't in terms of actual money lost by them, but rather in terms of unearned revenues. They want you to pay to get a replication of that CD you were downloading. Which is fine, however, its also why music piracy is so widespread and not thought of as a criminal activity by the general public. Why should I pay for something that I can replicate without harm to the original. Why should I loose cash in order to gain this wealth, when I can _create_ this wealth while keeping my cash.
The idea of pay per download will work fine, to a point. However, the only way I see the music industry clamping down of music piracy, is if they manage to get DRM going. Once DRM really gets going, music piracy is going to a little closer to counterfeiting money. (However, it will never be the same, since cash actually represents value, while digital information has inherent value).
as it has images..
Seriously though? This is why geeks never have a social life. Its cause they are too busy playing with their toys.
You know, you bring up a good point though. Why do humans constantly turn on each other. I think its because we want to feel special, we want to feel like we belong to an elite group (yes geeks are just an example of that). I feel, that when we finally make contact with an advanced alien race, we will drop this behaviour. We will have a group to belong to thats diffeent.. humans as opposed to White/Black/Brown/Orange/Pink/etc. , Earthlings instead of American/Indian/Irani/British.
I'm willing to bet that if we develop a colony on mars. we will eventually have some kind of (perhaps subtle) hostility towards the martians. We'll wanna do better than the martians, or the martians will wanna do better than the Earthlings. The Martians will feel patriotic towards their planet as opposed to Earth. Its so much in our nature to be that way.
I'm very happy to hear that India is willing to push itself to new heights. If there is any country that would want to colonize the moon (or mars), Its India. (well, china too). There you go. There's the space race..
On the other hand, everyone just knows that a company such as dell cannot sell its products without putting a Microsoft OS on it. (Well atleast not to the general public). The best course of action for them is to agree to Microsoft's terms, because if they want to stay in business, they really have no other choice.
Where this hurts consumers is, that they _HAVE_ to pay for a Microsoft OS whenever they buy hardware. I dont run windows anywhere anymore. I have 2 unused MS OS licenses for win95 and win98. I paid for that software and didn't even use it. Ofcourse, I just build my own systems now, so its not like I no longer have a choice.
What about companies then? At my old workplace we had several dell computers running linux and Solaris 8 (i386 version). I'm not sure if we had gotten windoes preinstalled on those systems, or not. But now we would've gotten it for sure. My company would have been forced to pay for something it didn't use.
Thats not in the consumers best interest...
please read my reply to the other reply. I am not saying that its right to steal music. But them going after the p2p networks is really pretty much taking control over a medium of communication.
What if the printing press had been outlawed cause it allowed people to print hundreds of copies of a book without the copyright owners consent. Dont put words in my mouth. If anyone is a fool, its you for having called me that.
Were betamax (VHS) tapes ruled illegal? NO! Yes they could have been used for piracy (and indeed were). But there were other LEGAL uses, and just because a few people are misusing something doesn't mean that no one can use it.
what next> Ban guns? Private Airplanes? Knives? hell our society would collapse if we went around banning everything that was being abused by a few people.
I think the rush to download everything in sight will be proportional to the rush to NOT be one of the major nodes. I mean, who wants to be arrested? That means it will get harder and harder for the average user to download his/her stuff, which is exactly what the RIAA wants. They know they can't stop the determined ones (I mean there is always usenet and IRC) but if they stop the masses it will be enough.
If they dont intend to go after individual users and I dont think they will (Napster had what? 20 million + world wide users? They cant arrest millions). How will they deal with regular users connecting to nodes based in other countries? Will they make it illegal for ISPs to allow access to certain ports?
and does this only affect P2p software? What about websites and ftp sites?
Assuming the communications link to the aircraft would be heavily encrypted and completely undecipherable, would the enemy still be able to saturate the airwaves with noise, so as to make it impossible for ground/space stations to communicate with the aircraft. I'd imagine the AI would be quite similar to the Tomahawk cruise missiles, since they manage to work pretty much autonomously, however it seems their design includes a remote pilot. If you bring down the communications link, that plan would probably become nothing more than a $14 million cruise missile.
Now I'm not saying cars aren't easy to use. However, one cant compare it to computers that easily. (the iDrive can be compared though). The main reason that the interface to cars has not changed in almost a 100 years is simple. Backwards compatibility, and consumer familiarity. Thats right.. It has nothing to do with how easy or hard it is. After all, a consumer cant be expected to take multiple driving tests in order to get a license for each make of car. They had to standardize it so that a person who has driven one car can drive just about ANY car. They cant have licenses that say "Okay for Toyota, Chrysler, and Dodge only".
Its interesting how familiarity with the interface also happens to be one of the BIGGEST problems that linux faces when trying to enter the desktop market. People who have taken the effort to learn or attend courses on using computers learnt the Microsoft interface to software. When they come across a unix one, they aren't familiar with it, and cant use it as well.. regardless of whether its better or not.
The iDrive is like linux. Sure its harder to use in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, you'll wonder how you managed to get by without it.
Just my 2 cents worth.
But then again I guess this is a necessary first step. Start small and eventually work your way up in complexity. First do tricks, then do something useful.
Before it goes into widescale use, however, its going to have to: 1) Be cheaper 2) be useful (not just fun), 3) durable . In my opinion anyway
However, I'm certain that it would end up mostly being used to see what kind of ads and spam we respond to.
Or perhaps it will sense your fear when you file your tax returns online! ;)
The same thing I'd do with $1 million............ two chicks at the same time. ;)
So it doesn't matter how many jobs are lost or how much restructuring has to be done as long as the investor gets his 'bang for the buck'. In my own opinion, this is a bad idea. But I can see why the shareholders voted for the merger. They just did some simple calculations and figure 'we're gonna get ourselves some big bonuses, and pocket a whole lot of money if we go this route'.
If I told you, you could live forever, except if someone shot or killed you. And you grew up that way (our kids would if we figured it out in this generation), you would be terrified of the thought of death. Everyone would be. Killing someone would be unthinkable, and death too big a risk. People who fight wars, commit suicide bombings etc. think to themselves "I'm gonna grow old and die anyway, might as well go out in a blaze of glory"
For instance. Surfing the web, reading/writing your emails, and checking the news is simply annoying to do from a cell phone. Sure, its handy when you dont otherwise have access to computers and such, but the interface just sucks. Reading 5 words per page of a news article is simply not practical.
Now they will add a whole bunch of new features and that will mean the user will have to traverse a bigger more complicated menu system. What percentage of the users will actually USE those new fancy features? This just looks like feature bloat to me. Sort of how Microsoft does it.
"How do we get them to drop their old cellphones/software and upgrade to new cellphones/software in order to generate new revenue?" Answer: "Put in a whole new set of features that and hype them up the best you can!"
What they want you to know, they flood you with thought, TV ads, radio ads, banner ads, and big popup windows... what the DONT want you to know they hide inside the shell of legal Jargon that makes up the License Agreement.
Why does the US always feel that it is justified in arming itself with every weapon imaginable but others aren't. Remember what happened when India and Pakistan tested their nukes?
If they are developing methods of attacking via the Internet, so are we. Yes its a good thing we know of its possibility and are going to take steps to defend ourselves incase such an attack occurs, however, it doesn't mean the Chinese are "evil terrorist hackers!"
Just my opinion anyway.
This article is just another example of the above.