The range is really flaky. It depends on antenna orientation and what's between you and the receiver. For example, metal very bad, wood kinda bad, plaster not so bad, air good. Line of sight is critical.
MacAddict I think experiment to see what range they could get from the Golden gate bridge. It was pretty good -- through clear air.
I sold my Apple airport base station on eBay and switched to an SMC Barricade switch/WAP/firewall -- and came out ahead on $$$. The SMC has greater range, too, and not the failure-prone power circuitry of the first-gen Apple bases.
You'd have to be a genius to anticipate them all -- some really benign and arguably necessary words like "nurse," "cheerleading," "magna cum laude," "beavers," or "fiesta," (I lifted these from online articles). Worse, the filters expand with updates, so you'd have to check for forbidden words not yet identified.
Besides, this is really asinine, isn't it?:) My URL is my last name "Douglass." Would that get filtered (ass)? Should I change my name (I'm rather fond of it)?
Thanks. I think if I were a paying customer -- and I may become one soon -- I would be more irritable about it. Instead I'm just a little uncomprehending.
I'm not sure editors should have unlimited points. Unlike a regular publication this is much more a collaboration between writers and editors, with the writers and readers doing a lot of editing themselves. That editors can override as they please says that they know better than anyone else, which is doubtful. Perhaps they miss the days when they did all the moderation, before that became unfeasible and they had to grudgingly "allow" users to do it. Why not "tag" editor mods? Might get some interesting reader feedback when they detect tampering. One post of mine accumulated like 10 points to end up about where is started, I believe between people who thought it was trollish and others who thought it provoctive. I wonder what the record for dueling points might be.
Whatever. However godlike I thought I was, I would still fix the fscking headline once it had been brought to my attention. And although our conversation is off-topic, this is where the improper (?) peevish modding took place -- they picked the time and place. Critiques should be attached to concrete examples. Besides, if editors act improperly on a trivial issue, what else goes on with, say, an editor's politics?
I'll offer to do support for Macs, since they're what I know best. Oh wait... I'm done already.;-)
I feel ever so slightly guilty about it, but I have for years kept very quiet about knowing *anything* about computers. I used to do tech support (secondary to coding) and don't remember it fondly. If you couldn't fix the problem, you were possibly incompetent; if you could, the problem was maybe your fault, or easy. (OK, that's the mos cynical description.)
Worst of all, people would ask me to work on their PC's (shudder) where I'm pretty ignorant, having tuned out around Windows 3.1. There's an idea out there that if you "know something about computers" that you can strike up a conversation with *any* computer. (You know, like the American theory that anyone anywhere can understand English if you just speak it slowly and loudly enough.;-)
But to help out is great, it's a shame to see $1000+ paperweights. Also, as a Mac fan and investor I have wanted people to enjoy their machine -- that evangelism thang.
Gee, I had a point here. Just some observations I suppose, sitting here with my wireless iBook.... Works great.
I'm not sure I understand the analogy -- drugs must become public domain when their patent term expires, just like copyright -- but just FYI I believe the standard patent term is 20 years, plus possible 5-year extension, plus any special legislation Congress might see fit to enact. Of course the patent can be sold or given away like any other property, but it's not worth a nickle after expiration.
Drug patents are a hot issue to say the least. Prescriptions of Prozac dropped 80% immediately upon the end of its patent. A generic typically costs a fraction of the branded price. There's an industry wisecrack that the first pill costs millions, the second costs 30.
The ransom plan sounds to me more like a sort of layaway plan.
As for vaporware, a refund should be guaranteed on nonperformance. Escrow works, but has transaction costs. One puzzle would be defining performance -- what about buggy code? Who decides it's up to spec? Would problems lead to a full or partial refund? What circumstances?
I'm sure these have been thought of; I'm just thinking aloud, and the random webpage won't load (wonder why). Neat, creative idea.
So you do think it's them doing the modding.:) Pathetic if true. I can make up the karma elsewhere -- actually I think the editors are the only people I piss off. I wonder what would happen if we could mod them off the board, assuming they're even responsible here.
I would at least silently fix the headline, even if making the usual excuses about their incredible productivity barring even trivial accuracy were too painful. Heck, I make spelling errirs and typpoes all the time, and would fix them later if I could.
Yes, I do realize this is in vain. I'm just a noodge (sp?) -- and dislike petty big-fish-in-little-pond arrogance. (Says the petty spelling cop.)
The critical word is pirate, someone who has already decided they are willing to steal. And the presence of the warning doesn't makes it willful infringement -- you could just say you didn't read it -- nor is it required, but it does help the copyright holder's case slightly. Theoretically it deters the occasional naive piracy, but I seriously doubt it.
A setback thermostat is really very nice and will pay for itself because you'll never leave or go to bed forgetting to back off on the setting. Ours kicks in before we get up in the morning (it even learns how long it takes for the furnace or A/C to do its job), cuts back for the day, back up for the evening, off at night.
Cool (ha-ha), requires no thinking, and cheaper. Occam's Razor baby.
And you can even economize by one "l" in useful.:)
Net Nanny is reputed to be one of the most brain-dead filters. My favorite example was its blocking "marsexplorer.org." You'll have to study that a little to figure out why. They had to set up a mirror.
Also (in)famous was AOL blocking discussion of "breasts" as in "breast cancer." another software package blocked women's political groups like NOW, for reasons unknown other than perhaps some twisted political agenda. When this was announced by ahacker, the publisher went ballistic with charges of reverse engineering, etc. Scary but true.
Yes, but copying your own music, or even sharing it without profit, is LEGAL -- it's "fair use." The copyproofing scheme makes sense to the degree it bars illegal activity, and not so to the degree it interferes with the sorts of legal uses people have grown accustomed to.
Presumably the labels could create a license barring even "fair use" -- it's an exception to basic copyright law, not a constituional right. But they haven't chosen to do so, yet; they're just interfering with it indirectly, and perhaps this is their intent.
I don't know -- the folks who posted it prominently got quiet very fast. It was dramatic. They could do the same thing to these other sites until ISP's and universities wanted it off their servers even faster than kiddie porn. Note than I'm not endorsing any of this.
And DeCSS is laughably simple. I liked the guys who put it on T-shirts, and there's even a haiku. Some scary precedent is getting set down. Don't even ask me to say where the line between protected free speech and unprotected illegal code is drawn, considering we've been pointedly calling them computer languages all these years. I'm a lawyer, not an oracle, but I do know the first amendment doesn't protect everything in writing (copyright for example; trade secrets, espionage, blackmail, obscenity, etc.).
The more complex solutions will be harder to spread around anonymously, and won't look as innocent or amusing as a haiku or T-shirt. (These folks are practicing civil disobedience and rubbing the industry's face in it, which I think is just fine, and probably illegal or it wouldn't be civil disobedience.) Public sympathy will be less, and that's important. Look how hard they came down on Sklarov! He is fortunate to attract a lot of sympathy, and to be a fairly innocent looking guy, an academic more than a black market profiteer. I was amazed, if you look at how lax the gov't is to enforce lots of other "economic harm" laws. I don't know many honest people will want to get involved inthis, and really it's the honest people who need to be won over to the cause.
So... the crime won't always be so trivial or safe to commit. Either fix the law or somehow make the crime unnecessary. Piracy will never go away, but it can and should be corralled, without destroying innocent fair use.
I agree that the music industry, as often the software industry has done, is fantasizing about all the billions of vapordollars that they are supposedly losing to piracy -- and can somehow recover with the right trick.
But I also think they are kind of stuck in their busines model. The RIAA site has a breakdown of the costs of a CD -- less than $1 for media and content, the rest for promotion and markups and so on. They may not be able to cut enough to make more money by increasing sales. Even if they eliminated their profit margin, I don't think the CD price would change noticeably. Too much goes to overhead, middlemen, and the music store. It's like a box of Wheaties -- you don't think you're paying $3 for the wheat, do you?
Vote with your feet does work, we're doing it right now by refusing to buy on grounds of cost. That's why they're getting desperate, and blaming the loss in sales on piracy (which must be partly true, but they're shooting theie foot in response).
No, but we're really not at a point of no return. I think they're just introducing the extra widgets for Windows first, other platforms later (Linux etc. beinga low low priority; Macs quite plausible).
The argument that small market share contenders don't matter has been refuted repeatedly. It will cost them less to translate to the new platform than they would lose in revenue; plus the software helps undermine demand for piracy and legal changes.
Regardless, I, a Mac user and indirectly a Unix user (OS X), feel snubbed.:)
Actually, I think the intelligence/ogling thing runs in inverse proportion. The smart discreet ones know they have a much better chance of getting a date.
Anyone see the SNL skit years ago with Kirstie Alley where alien women visit, and they've mutated so that their eyes are in their breasts, where men always looked exclusively anyway? The reporters paid lots of attention, but not to what they had to say. Dumb skit, clever premise.
Hey, you're talking about millions of users. Millions of users mean millions of dollars. Ask Apple with their well-received iPod (now available for the PC) whether Mac users (1) have money and (2) listen to music.
I wish Sony all the worst and am glad my CD collection was "completed" when I got pissed off at the ridiculous prices several years ago.
But hey guys, clean up your act and I'll rush out and spends... dollars. The US kind that are worth more than other dollars (at the moment anyhow). Really.
I see, I didn't realize your emphasis was on "silly DRM" rather than "enforce." Agreed.
Yes, it does seem dumb, something recognized by public-key encryption: if you rely on a discoverable key for security, you're vulnerable, and passing a law saying "don't look at my key" is pretty futile.
The copy protection is irritating, and so bad business. MP3 recorders are big business, and a lot of people won't realize their new CD's are "defective" until they get home, and they'll be pissed. So I tend to think these schemes will die as economically suicidal. Or I hope so. I find it as offensive as that fscking FBI copy warning I'm forced to watch at the beginning of a DVD -- who thinks that makes a difference to a pirate? Well, the industry does I guess.
I also don't like the precedent of these enforcement mechanisms -- heavy-handed is an understatement.
Er, you may not realize it but you're changing the subject, or perhaps recognizing the unspoken subject here, which is a disregard for copyright as opposed to copy protection. I'm not sympathetic to the former. I've heard more than one artist complain about the money that's being taken out of their pocket -- and none of us would likely approve of someone skimming off their paychecks, why should artists.
If you don't like copyright, "vote with your feet" and buy only from artists who don't impose copyright. Of course if they waive copyright, why buy in the first place. Just copy it from the internet -- you'll be 100% legal and the artists 100% poor. And then you can sense the problem; unlike free software, the artist will have no second chance at distribution or consulting fees.
Well, I forgot live performances, certainly a viable reason for distributing free music. But not everyone goes in for the grueling work (some are dead, or can't sing any more, like Bob Dylan). Many think writing, composing, and recording songs is work enough... and unlike the functionality of a piece of software, generally each artist's work is in some way unique.
I'm being a little tongue-in-check, but I do see two parallel debates here, one spoken and other subliminal. My idea of progress in the recording industry would be a bigger cut to the artist (current about 50 per $15 CD), a greater variety of alternative low-budget music, and lower prices to the consumer.
Oh, I agree it is off-topic, but it's relevant to a larger issue -- the mistakes look silly, and even sillier is the truculent refusal to fix typos, and even sillier is (as I suspect but hope not) the editor modding down the critic. Typos are are not the result of foolishness, but refusing to acknowledge them?
It's like ketchup on your tie -- off-topic, distracting, and unprofessional. Note that this is not posted as an anonymous coward. I sincerely believe what I'm saying and am not just sniping.
the quality of a woman's interaction with a group of males can be measured by the amount of eye contact with her breasts
You forgot to mention whether it was proportional or inversely proprtional, what effect the size of the breasts, and whether the other interacters were male or female. This is ambiguous.
Sorry to be facetious -- you are the messenger. I remember any number of studies reporting that in univeristy classes, men talked far more and were more likely to interrupt, not just each other but more so female students, and also female instructors. This isn't an indictment of anyone, but a statistical fact, and I'm curious what should be done about it. First off, avert your eyes from the breasts of your colleagues.
Slashdot Mirror
Although you're supposed to explain it as "read the manual." See, then it's a funny joke. Or was a dozen years ago, but i still enjoy it.
The range is really flaky. It depends on antenna orientation and what's between you and the receiver. For example, metal very bad, wood kinda bad, plaster not so bad, air good. Line of sight is critical.
MacAddict I think experiment to see what range they could get from the Golden gate bridge. It was pretty good -- through clear air.
I sold my Apple airport base station on eBay and switched to an SMC Barricade switch/WAP/firewall -- and came out ahead on $$$. The SMC has greater range, too, and not the failure-prone power circuitry of the first-gen Apple bases.
You'd have to be a genius to anticipate them all -- some really benign and arguably necessary words like "nurse," "cheerleading," "magna cum laude," "beavers," or "fiesta," (I lifted these from online articles). Worse, the filters expand with updates, so you'd have to check for forbidden words not yet identified.
:) My URL is my last name "Douglass." Would that get filtered (ass)? Should I change my name (I'm rather fond of it)?
Besides, this is really asinine, isn't it?
Thanks. I think if I were a paying customer -- and I may become one soon -- I would be more irritable about it. Instead I'm just a little uncomprehending.
I'm not sure editors should have unlimited points. Unlike a regular publication this is much more a collaboration between writers and editors, with the writers and readers doing a lot of editing themselves. That editors can override as they please says that they know better than anyone else, which is doubtful. Perhaps they miss the days when they did all the moderation, before that became unfeasible and they had to grudgingly "allow" users to do it. Why not "tag" editor mods? Might get some interesting reader feedback when they detect tampering. One post of mine accumulated like 10 points to end up about where is started, I believe between people who thought it was trollish and others who thought it provoctive. I wonder what the record for dueling points might be.
Whatever. However godlike I thought I was, I would still fix the fscking headline once it had been brought to my attention. And although our conversation is off-topic, this is where the improper (?) peevish modding took place -- they picked the time and place. Critiques should be attached to concrete examples. Besides, if editors act improperly on a trivial issue, what else goes on with, say, an editor's politics?
I'll offer to do support for Macs, since they're what I know best. Oh wait ... I'm done already. ;-)
;-)
I feel ever so slightly guilty about it, but I have for years kept very quiet about knowing *anything* about computers. I used to do tech support (secondary to coding) and don't remember it fondly. If you couldn't fix the problem, you were possibly incompetent; if you could, the problem was maybe your fault, or easy. (OK, that's the mos cynical description.)
Worst of all, people would ask me to work on their PC's (shudder) where I'm pretty ignorant, having tuned out around Windows 3.1. There's an idea out there that if you "know something about computers" that you can strike up a conversation with *any* computer. (You know, like the American theory that anyone anywhere can understand English if you just speak it slowly and loudly enough.
But to help out is great, it's a shame to see $1000+ paperweights. Also, as a Mac fan and investor I have wanted people to enjoy their machine -- that evangelism thang.
Gee, I had a point here. Just some observations I suppose, sitting here with my wireless iBook.... Works great.
I'm not sure I understand the analogy -- drugs must become public domain when their patent term expires, just like copyright -- but just FYI I believe the standard patent term is 20 years, plus possible 5-year extension, plus any special legislation Congress might see fit to enact. Of course the patent can be sold or given away like any other property, but it's not worth a nickle after expiration.
Drug patents are a hot issue to say the least. Prescriptions of Prozac dropped 80% immediately upon the end of its patent. A generic typically costs a fraction of the branded price. There's an industry wisecrack that the first pill costs millions, the second costs 30.
The ransom plan sounds to me more like a sort of layaway plan.
As for vaporware, a refund should be guaranteed on nonperformance. Escrow works, but has transaction costs. One puzzle would be defining performance -- what about buggy code? Who decides it's up to spec? Would problems lead to a full or partial refund? What circumstances?
I'm sure these have been thought of; I'm just thinking aloud, and the random webpage won't load (wonder why). Neat, creative idea.
Note: This site is not up any more.
;-)
Neither are those lumberjacks.
So you do think it's them doing the modding. :) Pathetic if true. I can make up the karma elsewhere -- actually I think the editors are the only people I piss off. I wonder what would happen if we could mod them off the board, assuming they're even responsible here.
I would at least silently fix the headline, even if making the usual excuses about their incredible productivity barring even trivial accuracy were too painful. Heck, I make spelling errirs and typpoes all the time, and would fix them later if I could.
Yes, I do realize this is in vain. I'm just a noodge (sp?) -- and dislike petty big-fish-in-little-pond arrogance. (Says the petty spelling cop.)
who thinks that makes a difference to a pirate?
The critical word is pirate, someone who has already decided they are willing to steal. And the presence of the warning doesn't makes it willful infringement -- you could just say you didn't read it -- nor is it required, but it does help the copyright holder's case slightly. Theoretically it deters the occasional naive piracy, but I seriously doubt it.
A setback thermostat is really very nice and will pay for itself because you'll never leave or go to bed forgetting to back off on the setting. Ours kicks in before we get up in the morning (it even learns how long it takes for the furnace or A/C to do its job), cuts back for the day, back up for the evening, off at night.
:)
Cool (ha-ha), requires no thinking, and cheaper. Occam's Razor baby.
And you can even economize by one "l" in useful.
Net Nanny is reputed to be one of the most brain-dead filters. My favorite example was its blocking "marsexplorer.org." You'll have to study that a little to figure out why. They had to set up a mirror.
Also (in)famous was AOL blocking discussion of "breasts" as in "breast cancer." another software package blocked women's political groups like NOW, for reasons unknown other than perhaps some twisted political agenda. When this was announced by ahacker, the publisher went ballistic with charges of reverse engineering, etc. Scary but true.
Yes, but copying your own music, or even sharing it without profit, is LEGAL -- it's "fair use." The copyproofing scheme makes sense to the degree it bars illegal activity, and not so to the degree it interferes with the sorts of legal uses people have grown accustomed to.
Presumably the labels could create a license barring even "fair use" -- it's an exception to basic copyright law, not a constituional right. But they haven't chosen to do so, yet; they're just interfering with it indirectly, and perhaps this is their intent.
If only the artists had it so good! According to the RIAA, it's more like 50 for the CD, 50 for the artist. Maybe $1.
The expense of the promotion and distribution system is huge. Most products we buy have huge markups as a result.
I don't know -- the folks who posted it prominently got quiet very fast. It was dramatic. They could do the same thing to these other sites until ISP's and universities wanted it off their servers even faster than kiddie porn. Note than I'm not endorsing any of this.
... the crime won't always be so trivial or safe to commit. Either fix the law or somehow make the crime unnecessary. Piracy will never go away, but it can and should be corralled, without destroying innocent fair use.
And DeCSS is laughably simple. I liked the guys who put it on T-shirts, and there's even a haiku. Some scary precedent is getting set down. Don't even ask me to say where the line between protected free speech and unprotected illegal code is drawn, considering we've been pointedly calling them computer languages all these years. I'm a lawyer, not an oracle, but I do know the first amendment doesn't protect everything in writing (copyright for example; trade secrets, espionage, blackmail, obscenity, etc.).
The more complex solutions will be harder to spread around anonymously, and won't look as innocent or amusing as a haiku or T-shirt. (These folks are practicing civil disobedience and rubbing the industry's face in it, which I think is just fine, and probably illegal or it wouldn't be civil disobedience.) Public sympathy will be less, and that's important. Look how hard they came down on Sklarov! He is fortunate to attract a lot of sympathy, and to be a fairly innocent looking guy, an academic more than a black market profiteer. I was amazed, if you look at how lax the gov't is to enforce lots of other "economic harm" laws. I don't know many honest people will want to get involved inthis, and really it's the honest people who need to be won over to the cause.
So
I agree that the music industry, as often the software industry has done, is fantasizing about all the billions of vapordollars that they are supposedly losing to piracy -- and can somehow recover with the right trick.
But I also think they are kind of stuck in their busines model. The RIAA site has a breakdown of the costs of a CD -- less than $1 for media and content, the rest for promotion and markups and so on. They may not be able to cut enough to make more money by increasing sales. Even if they eliminated their profit margin, I don't think the CD price would change noticeably. Too much goes to overhead, middlemen, and the music store. It's like a box of Wheaties -- you don't think you're paying $3 for the wheat, do you?
Vote with your feet does work, we're doing it right now by refusing to buy on grounds of cost. That's why they're getting desperate, and blaming the loss in sales on piracy (which must be partly true, but they're shooting theie foot in response).
No, but we're really not at a point of no return. I think they're just introducing the extra widgets for Windows first, other platforms later (Linux etc. beinga low low priority; Macs quite plausible).
:)
The argument that small market share contenders don't matter has been refuted repeatedly. It will cost them less to translate to the new platform than they would lose in revenue; plus the software helps undermine demand for piracy and legal changes.
Regardless, I, a Mac user and indirectly a Unix user (OS X), feel snubbed.
Actually, I think the intelligence/ogling thing runs in inverse proportion. The smart discreet ones know they have a much better chance of getting a date.
Anyone see the SNL skit years ago with Kirstie Alley where alien women visit, and they've mutated so that their eyes are in their breasts, where men always looked exclusively anyway? The reporters paid lots of attention, but not to what they had to say. Dumb skit, clever premise.
Sorry, I will not be intimidated. At least speak your mind.
Hey, you're talking about millions of users. Millions of users mean millions of dollars. Ask Apple with their well-received iPod (now available for the PC) whether Mac users (1) have money and (2) listen to music.
... dollars. The US kind that are worth more than other dollars (at the moment anyhow). Really.
I wish Sony all the worst and am glad my CD collection was "completed" when I got pissed off at the ridiculous prices several years ago.
But hey guys, clean up your act and I'll rush out and spends
Then I can play all grandfather's Don Ho albums!
He had an 8-track player in his car that he inherited, I remember it 30+ years later. What a remarkable piece of, uh, technology.
Heck of nice guy though! RIP (no, not in the MP3 sense).
I see, I didn't realize your emphasis was on "silly DRM" rather than "enforce." Agreed.
Yes, it does seem dumb, something recognized by public-key encryption: if you rely on a discoverable key for security, you're vulnerable, and passing a law saying "don't look at my key" is pretty futile.
The copy protection is irritating, and so bad business. MP3 recorders are big business, and a lot of people won't realize their new CD's are "defective" until they get home, and they'll be pissed. So I tend to think these schemes will die as economically suicidal. Or I hope so. I find it as offensive as that fscking FBI copy warning I'm forced to watch at the beginning of a DVD -- who thinks that makes a difference to a pirate? Well, the industry does I guess.
I also don't like the precedent of these enforcement mechanisms -- heavy-handed is an understatement.
Er, you may not realize it but you're changing the subject, or perhaps recognizing the unspoken subject here, which is a disregard for copyright as opposed to copy protection. I'm not sympathetic to the former. I've heard more than one artist complain about the money that's being taken out of their pocket -- and none of us would likely approve of someone skimming off their paychecks, why should artists.
... and unlike the functionality of a piece of software, generally each artist's work is in some way unique.
If you don't like copyright, "vote with your feet" and buy only from artists who don't impose copyright. Of course if they waive copyright, why buy in the first place. Just copy it from the internet -- you'll be 100% legal and the artists 100% poor. And then you can sense the problem; unlike free software, the artist will have no second chance at distribution or consulting fees.
Well, I forgot live performances, certainly a viable reason for distributing free music. But not everyone goes in for the grueling work (some are dead, or can't sing any more, like Bob Dylan). Many think writing, composing, and recording songs is work enough
I'm being a little tongue-in-check, but I do see two parallel debates here, one spoken and other subliminal. My idea of progress in the recording industry would be a bigger cut to the artist (current about 50 per $15 CD), a greater variety of alternative low-budget music, and lower prices to the consumer.
Oh, I agree it is off-topic, but it's relevant to a larger issue -- the mistakes look silly, and even sillier is the truculent refusal to fix typos, and even sillier is (as I suspect but hope not) the editor modding down the critic. Typos are are not the result of foolishness, but refusing to acknowledge them?
It's like ketchup on your tie -- off-topic, distracting, and unprofessional. Note that this is not posted as an anonymous coward. I sincerely believe what I'm saying and am not just sniping.
the quality of a woman's interaction with a group of males can be measured by the amount of eye contact with her breasts
You forgot to mention whether it was proportional or inversely proprtional, what effect the size of the breasts, and whether the other interacters were male or female. This is ambiguous.
Sorry to be facetious -- you are the messenger. I remember any number of studies reporting that in univeristy classes, men talked far more and were more likely to interrupt, not just each other but more so female students, and also female instructors. This isn't an indictment of anyone, but a statistical fact, and I'm curious what should be done about it. First off, avert your eyes from the breasts of your colleagues.