Other than some lingo, these memos (judging by the highlites) don't seem particularly bad. People are afraid of the health risks of RFID tags? Well, people are stupid. They're bombarded by radio waves every second of every day.
Some people will happily ignore reasonable explanations and cling desperately to their paranoid delusion. These people cannot be convinced otherwise. Rather they need to be brain-washed to get that stupid idea out of their head.
The "green tag" idea sounds like genius.
But an RFID conspiracy seems a little far to jump. The technology is in its infancy. It's not in everything, the opposite is true. But rest assured that an RFID Tag Canceler is in the works to milk money from the privacy obsessed.
and the argument is that this is a flawed business model. purchasing the XBOX should allow me to run whatever I want on it. I'm not leasing it. It's my property. I don't own the software or firmware, but I definately do own the hardware.
If I can make the firmware do what I want, then how could that be illegal? Once I pay for it, MS no longer has a say in how I use it.
If I hollow out the case and use it as a planter, is that an illegal modification? Can Microsoft sue me because they're not making their royalty money on the plants I'm growing in my XBOX?
I think calling this blackmail is a little over the top.
These guys discovered a flaw in the XBOX that Microsoft was unaware of. They contacted Microsoft and informed them of the flaw. Microsoft was not interested. MS refused to discuss the flaw. It's clear from the statement that they tried to talk to MS. MS could have said "We want the information and we want you to sign an NDA and we wont even give you a thank you." But they didn't. Informed of the issue, they ignored it.
The information about the flaw is not Microsoft's property. Nor did Microsoft ever suggest otherwise. The people who discovered it can do whatever they like with the information. In this case, they released it to the public over the web. I don't see how this is blackmail as it is common practice to report bugs (and their exploits) publicly.
Most cartridges give people the option of continuing printing. But Which? found that Epson embeds a chip which stops the cartridge running when the ink runs low.
The company says that it employs the cut-off system to "protect customers from accidentally damaging their printer or producing sub-standard print quality".
A Which? researcher who over-rode the system found that in one case he could print up to 38% more good quality pages, even though the chip stated that the cartridge was empty.
Over-rode the system? You mean, he disabled their protection mechanism. Well, IANAL but that sounds like a clear DMCA violation to me. Easy to win since they admitted it in a public forum.
very nice point. it's important to note when words are undergoing redefinition to suit a political agenda.
This is what happens when the people who are dictating the language of a discussion are really trying to sell a product. Their usage is determined by what sounds the best and the phrases to which their focus groups responded most positively.
It's in their interest to muddy the semantic waters and cloud the issues, especially if they're covered in dirt already. And it's in our interest to examine the words they use to avoid any subtle collusion of meaning.
yeah yeah. it's the lawyers' fault. they're the evil money grubbers. and everyone else is just in it for the satisfaction of a job well done. oh wait no.
what about those fancy shmancy computer programmers. they made it so we need to hire an entire technical staff to run our business. before the programmers shoved their computers onto everyone's desk, you didn't need an IT department. Just keep your records in trusty books. Paper filing. that's always been the best way to do things.
and don't get me started with the three letter acronym. RAM, CPU, LCD... it's their secret code they use to make sure we can't get rid of them. they're always scheming to get more money.
email is just how they get you to buy antivirus software. But you don't need it. You want to talk to someone, call them. But the phone company's milking all your money away with their long distance charges and their hidden fees. So you'd better go see them in person. But you'd better walk because the airline and car companies all have their own weird language and strange charges...
what does that mean? well that means that the author believes that our society likes to buy gadgets. but he can't just say that, because that would make sense. He has to make up ism's and reference Neitzsche. Remember, more syllables equals more better.
The Guardian is clearly the product of over-education. If he must rant about Americans being wasteful because we're "rich and bored, and have plenty of disposable income" why doesn't the author point the finger to his years of expensive schooling. For clearly that was a total waste of time as well.
If only the Guardian had grown up in a more impoverished country. He could be spending his time in the fruitful pursuits of agrarian farming, rather than wasting our time with this drivel.
Okay, USA sent men to the moon way back when. It was basically pointless. We haven't been back to the moon because there's nothing to do there except collect samples and plant flags.
At my Washington office a few weeks ago, I met with a visiting Japanese parliamentarian who specializes in science and technology issues... In his view, the Chinese would be on the moon within three to four years.
parliamentarian
One who is expert in parliamentary procedures, rules, or debate.
A member of a parliament.
Parliamentarian A supporter of the Long Parliament during the English Civil War and the Commonwealth; a Roundhead.
this is the only evidence he offers that China is even thinking of going to the moon. some random Chinese dude? well, I'm convinced, let's start a space race.
Bob Walker man must be a real patriot to be so concerned about the plight of America's space prestige. Who is this great thinker? oh wait... Bob Walker is a corporate lobbyist. For who? For these guys. Nice list of clientelle. I wonder if any of those people would benefit from increased public paranoia about a foreign space program?
-sweatyb
Re:Gator's memory footprint and other amusements
on
Gator Examined
·
· Score: 1
adaware by lavasoft is your friend. download it and run it once in a while.
in the absense of mod points, I would just like to agree with you. the first thing that sprung into my mind after reading the summary was "philosophical what?"
it's not a criticism of the Matrix that it's not philosophical. Movies and Philosophy don't work together. It's not what movies are for. no one goes to the theater to think. they go to see/passively experience something beyond the scope of their own imagination. as long as the plot holds water, nobody's gonna say boo.
Poorly drawn cartoon pornography doesn't destroy happy childhood memories of cartoons. Watching those cartoons now destroys those memories.
I remember those shows as being super cool. But whenever they get re-aired (say on Cartoon Network) I cannot even watch one episode all the way through. They are tedious and boring, the plots make no sense, the characters are depthless, the animation and the voice acting are crappy. There's no redeeming value to these shows.
The fact that they allowed children of our generation to watch that drivel astounds me. And it makes me wonder at how naive and simple a child I was to think of that as entertainment.
this doesn't make any sense. no one looking for Strawberry Shortcake would end up at that Penny Arcade comic. the PA people didn't hawk it, didn't pretend to be hosting a Shortcake fan site.
I'd be much more comfortable if they just said, "Strawberry Shortcake is trademarked. If PA wants to use her or any other trademarks of American Greetings they need to run it by us first."
On April 17, 2003, American Greetings received a complaint about the cartoon namely that it was "creepy" and "offensive."
ah, the moral majority.
that's a smooth move by some concerned citizen. PA's probably just going to ignore the email you sent to them, but they wont ignore American Greetings' lawyers.
well good for you. now the web will be safe for young children and other innocents.
if you go to the site you'll see that the PA people didn't capitulate because they felt they were in the wrong. they gave in because they run their site on a shoe-string budget.
there's a reason sites like whitehouse.com exist. and it's not because people associate porn with the executive branch of the federal government. these domains exist BECAUSE their owners hope you make a typing mistake.
not all porn sites behave in this fashion, just as not all people are immoral. But enough are so that even if there were a XXX domain (which is IMHO a good idea. it's three letters after all)it would not prevent these sorts of problems.
After all, these are the same type of people that blindly send pornographic spam to each and every AOL address they can get their grimy little hands on.
But just like SPAM, the internet is too unruly to be lassoed into proper behavior. As long as there's money in it there's always going to be people out there ready and willing to be devious.
I didn't know Al Qaeda's threat was mostly done with. In fact, I recall being on Orange Alert for most of February. Increased chattter... whose chatter was it? Is there a new terrorist group that has Al Qaeda-like capabilities? That would certainly be big news.
and this seems like it might be important: I learned from American security and military speakers that, "We need to attack Iraq not to punish it for what it might have, but preemptively, as part of a global war. Iraq is just one piece of a campaign that will last years, taking out states, cleansing the planet."
this is not something I've heard from any American politician. Certainly I think the American people (me included) would like to know that war with Iraq is just the beginning of a long, drawn out war. And any discussions about the war with Iraq should take this concept of "cleansing the planet" into account.
Of course, this is just a preliminary injunction. It's bad, but the case isn't over. It hasn't even come to trial.
If Lexmark wins look for more companies to look to using the DMCA to bludgeon third-party parts distributors. All that's required is putting in some circuitry.
There was a time when monopolies and trusts were seen as an integral part of thriving capitalism. And now, practices like this, selling the base system at a loss and making money by gouging on components, are seen as common as well.
It's a bait and switch. They lure the customer in with a low-priced, high-powered printer and then snag him on the very expensive replacement cartridges.
Though they have a monopoly, it's not a trust situation because Lexmark isn't the only company that sells printers. But as far as I understand, all printer manufacturers follow this policy.
Are there any that don't? Are there any printer manufacturers that sell their printers and inks at market costs? Are there any who don't actively discourage the use of cheap recycled/replacement ink catridges?
the media blitz on this subject is certainly indicative of their lack of sophistication on the subject. but, given that many other, seemingly more techno-able sources came through with this story, it's not particularly blameworthy. It's believable because it fits into a pattern.
Microsoft has a history of having gaping security holes in their software. in this instance, a reported bug wasn't what it was made out to be. but I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks that Microsoft and Security Flaw are nearly synonymous.
Slashdot Mirror
Other than some lingo, these memos (judging by the highlites) don't seem particularly bad. People are afraid of the health risks of RFID tags? Well, people are stupid. They're bombarded by radio waves every second of every day.
Some people will happily ignore reasonable explanations and cling desperately to their paranoid delusion. These people cannot be convinced otherwise. Rather they need to be brain-washed to get that stupid idea out of their head.
The "green tag" idea sounds like genius.
But an RFID conspiracy seems a little far to jump. The technology is in its infancy. It's not in everything, the opposite is true. But rest assured that an RFID Tag Canceler is in the works to milk money from the privacy obsessed.
I may get one myself...
I wonder if there's a patent.
-tom
and the argument is that this is a flawed business model. purchasing the XBOX should allow me to run whatever I want on it. I'm not leasing it. It's my property. I don't own the software or firmware, but I definately do own the hardware.
If I can make the firmware do what I want, then how could that be illegal? Once I pay for it, MS no longer has a say in how I use it.
If I hollow out the case and use it as a planter, is that an illegal modification? Can Microsoft sue me because they're not making their royalty money on the plants I'm growing in my XBOX?
I think calling this blackmail is a little over the top.
These guys discovered a flaw in the XBOX that Microsoft was unaware of. They contacted Microsoft and informed them of the flaw. Microsoft was not interested. MS refused to discuss the flaw. It's clear from the statement that they tried to talk to MS. MS could have said "We want the information and we want you to sign an NDA and we wont even give you a thank you." But they didn't. Informed of the issue, they ignored it.
The information about the flaw is not Microsoft's property. Nor did Microsoft ever suggest otherwise. The people who discovered it can do whatever they like with the information. In this case, they released it to the public over the web. I don't see how this is blackmail as it is common practice to report bugs (and their exploits) publicly.
Over-rode the system? You mean, he disabled their protection mechanism. Well, IANAL but that sounds like a clear DMCA violation to me. Easy to win since they admitted it in a public forum.
Ca-Ching!
very nice point. it's important to note when words are undergoing redefinition to suit a political agenda.
This is what happens when the people who are dictating the language of a discussion are really trying to sell a product. Their usage is determined by what sounds the best and the phrases to which their focus groups responded most positively.
It's in their interest to muddy the semantic waters and cloud the issues, especially if they're covered in dirt already. And it's in our interest to examine the words they use to avoid any subtle collusion of meaning.
yeah yeah. it's the lawyers' fault. they're the evil money grubbers. and everyone else is just in it for the satisfaction of a job well done. oh wait no.
what about those fancy shmancy computer programmers. they made it so we need to hire an entire technical staff to run our business. before the programmers shoved their computers onto everyone's desk, you didn't need an IT department. Just keep your records in trusty books. Paper filing. that's always been the best way to do things.
and don't get me started with the three letter acronym. RAM, CPU, LCD... it's their secret code they use to make sure we can't get rid of them. they're always scheming to get more money.
email is just how they get you to buy antivirus software. But you don't need it. You want to talk to someone, call them. But the phone company's milking all your money away with their long distance charges and their hidden fees. So you'd better go see them in person. But you'd better walk because the airline and car companies all have their own weird language and strange charges...
rant rant rant. woop dee doo. what else is new?
consumerist technological zeitgeist
what does that mean? well that means that the author believes that our society likes to buy gadgets. but he can't just say that, because that would make sense. He has to make up ism's and reference Neitzsche. Remember, more syllables equals more better.
The Guardian is clearly the product of over-education. If he must rant about Americans being wasteful because we're "rich and bored, and have plenty of disposable income" why doesn't the author point the finger to his years of expensive schooling. For clearly that was a total waste of time as well.
If only the Guardian had grown up in a more impoverished country. He could be spending his time in the fruitful pursuits of agrarian farming, rather than wasting our time with this drivel.
hehe, read your own quote...
my bad.
the source isn't even Chinese. He's Japanese. Damn. Even more convincing.
-sweatyb
At my Washington office a few weeks ago, I met with a visiting Japanese parliamentarian who specializes in science and technology issues... In his view, the Chinese would be on the moon within three to four years.
parliamentarian
this is the only evidence he offers that China is even thinking of going to the moon. some random Chinese dude? well, I'm convinced, let's start a space race.
Bob Walker man must be a real patriot to be so concerned about the plight of America's space prestige. Who is this great thinker? oh wait... Bob Walker is a corporate lobbyist. For who? For these guys. Nice list of clientelle. I wonder if any of those people would benefit from increased public paranoia about a foreign space program?
-sweatyb
adaware by lavasoft is your friend. download it and run it once in a while.
http://www.lavasoft.nu/
in the absense of mod points, I would just like to agree with you. the first thing that sprung into my mind after reading the summary was "philosophical what?"
it's not a criticism of the Matrix that it's not philosophical. Movies and Philosophy don't work together. It's not what movies are for. no one goes to the theater to think. they go to see/passively experience something beyond the scope of their own imagination. as long as the plot holds water, nobody's gonna say boo.
Poorly drawn cartoon pornography doesn't destroy happy childhood memories of cartoons. Watching those cartoons now destroys those memories.
I remember those shows as being super cool. But whenever they get re-aired (say on Cartoon Network) I cannot even watch one episode all the way through. They are tedious and boring, the plots make no sense, the characters are depthless, the animation and the voice acting are crappy. There's no redeeming value to these shows.
The fact that they allowed children of our generation to watch that drivel astounds me. And it makes me wonder at how naive and simple a child I was to think of that as entertainment.
a reason to really hunker down and learn an obscure Chinese dialect.
I've been putting it off for far too long.
this doesn't make any sense. no one looking for Strawberry Shortcake would end up at that Penny Arcade comic. the PA people didn't hawk it, didn't pretend to be hosting a Shortcake fan site.
I'd be much more comfortable if they just said, "Strawberry Shortcake is trademarked. If PA wants to use her or any other trademarks of American Greetings they need to run it by us first."
On April 17, 2003, American Greetings received
a complaint about the cartoon namely that it was "creepy" and "offensive."
ah, the moral majority.
that's a smooth move by some concerned citizen. PA's probably just going to ignore the email you sent to them, but they wont ignore American Greetings' lawyers.
well good for you. now the web will be safe for young children and other innocents.
if you go to the site you'll see that the PA people didn't capitulate because they felt they were in the wrong. they gave in because they run their site on a shoe-string budget.
If I were a big corporation
hehe. that's a funny picture.
erm. 60% in taxes, eh? just pulling that number out of your butt?
and as far as why we pay taxes to the government:
who builds and maintains the roads? who pays for the police, the FBI, the border patrol? who makes sure your drinking water is safe? etc...
the government has a role to play. in order to perform its function we need to chip in our share.
Ah, libertarians. The social darwinists of our time.
not true for me .9 kBps vs 475kBps
me likey Bittorrent
the greatest movie ever!
uh huh
good point.
and me without my mod points. oh well, guess you'll have to be satisfied with this little reply.
I wanted to read that article. Something about the Spacial Interface. Incredibly less convincing when it's such a pain to read at all.
there's a reason sites like whitehouse.com exist. and it's not because people associate porn with the executive branch of the federal government. these domains exist BECAUSE their owners hope you make a typing mistake.
not all porn sites behave in this fashion, just as not all people are immoral. But enough are so that even if there were a XXX domain (which is IMHO a good idea. it's three letters after all)it would not prevent these sorts of problems.
After all, these are the same type of people that blindly send pornographic spam to each and every AOL address they can get their grimy little hands on.
But just like SPAM, the internet is too unruly to be lassoed into proper behavior. As long as there's money in it there's always going to be people out there ready and willing to be devious.
my post is totally better!
# Al Qaeda's threat is mostly done with...
I didn't know Al Qaeda's threat was mostly done with. In fact, I recall being on Orange Alert for most of February. Increased chattter... whose chatter was it? Is there a new terrorist group that has Al Qaeda-like capabilities? That would certainly be big news.
and this seems like it might be important: I learned from American security and military speakers that, "We need to attack Iraq not to punish it for what it might have, but preemptively, as part of a global war. Iraq is just one piece of a campaign that will last years, taking out states, cleansing the planet."
this is not something I've heard from any American politician. Certainly I think the American people (me included) would like to know that war with Iraq is just the beginning of a long, drawn out war. And any discussions about the war with Iraq should take this concept of "cleansing the planet" into account.
ah, but these companies didn't have the DMCA.
Of course, this is just a preliminary injunction. It's bad, but the case isn't over. It hasn't even come to trial.
If Lexmark wins look for more companies to look to using the DMCA to bludgeon third-party parts distributors. All that's required is putting in some circuitry.
There was a time when monopolies and trusts were seen as an integral part of thriving capitalism. And now, practices like this, selling the base system at a loss and making money by gouging on components, are seen as common as well.
It's a bait and switch. They lure the customer in with a low-priced, high-powered printer and then snag him on the very expensive replacement cartridges.
Though they have a monopoly, it's not a trust situation because Lexmark isn't the only company that sells printers. But as far as I understand, all printer manufacturers follow this policy.
Are there any that don't? Are there any printer manufacturers that sell their printers and inks at market costs? Are there any who don't actively discourage the use of cheap recycled/replacement ink catridges?
the media blitz on this subject is certainly indicative of their lack of sophistication on the subject. but, given that many other, seemingly more techno-able sources came through with this story, it's not particularly blameworthy. It's believable because it fits into a pattern.
Microsoft has a history of having gaping security holes in their software. in this instance, a reported bug wasn't what it was made out to be. but I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks that Microsoft and Security Flaw are nearly synonymous.
sweatyb