How can a US judge which means nothing to anyother country on the planet wave a finger at a group 1000's of km's away?
Easy: simply force to pay the damages out of frozen Iranian assets.
You might also ask, how does the EU get off trying to suppress competition from American companies, or to try and force American companies to comply with EU regulations?
This act is not as foolish or hollow as you think, if Terry Anderson (rightly, IMAO) decides to pursue those frozen assets.
And don't put anything past the US: remember Noriega?
IIRC and M-16A1 (the front-line assult rifle of the US military) costs close to 16 thousand dollars per unit.
Not on the street it don't.. more like US$2000-3000 for a M16A2 (fewer lethal bugs;).. You can even buy bullpup conversion kits for it.. AKs are cheaper and easier to service, but you can't beat the M16 for weight and street cachet..;)
These devices are a paradigm shift in the way you watch television, and as a result many folks have a hard time seeing how they fit in. But that's natural, since they are hardly a year old.
You say 'paradigm shift', I say 'design limitation'..
Really, though, I see your point, that these devices are essentially 'time shifters'. Still, I care mostly for their random-access capability and digital features (pausing live stuff, ease of deletion and selection). I'd be thrilled if I could also archive them in the digital format so I could for example tape a season of the Sopranos on 1-2 DVD-RAMs in HQ, then stick 'em on a shelf for later.. How do you loan copies of your TiVo recordings to friends? How do you make copies of htem in case your TiVo breaks or in case you delete them accidentally?
Nope, I see what you mean but it still remains that I won't be terribly interested in a TiVo-style device until it has removable media and commercial-skip. Now integrating TiVo into a set-top DTV box OTOH.. (YEs, I know about the Dish STB but I won't be wiring 5 TVs to a DBS ssytem anytime soon)
Your Working Boy,
Re:The only "shortage" is of **CHEAP** tech worker
on
The IT Labor Shortage
·
· Score: 1
The jobs are out there. The money is out there. All you need is a pulse and the willingness to move to Silicon Valley.
Weird, IIRC the last pencom survey I checked put NY Metro area as the highest-paying IT region.. Though many of those jobs are as shirt + tie bank/broker slave techs..
Because we know how to figure stuff out. We all know that we don't know everything about software development and are willing to find the best solution.
Not to mention the inferiority complex to provide the impetus to continuously prove yourself..;)
(Besides, quite honestly, things change so quickly that tying yourself to a technology too tightly can be suicide.. Best to have mastery of basics and a whole 'lotta metaknowledge IMHO.. I'd rather understand 10 or 20 good commands or tricks than know every single command line switch to a single command..;)
They've got a bit further to go IMHO.. IIRC ReplayTV has commercial skip, and these systems should have removable media (DVD-RAM? Caddied HDDs?) for archival storage..
I'm happy to wait: I don't watch too much TV anyways..
... I've got a box that needs upgrading which I plan to use as a linux workstation (plus videogames;) and I suppose that seals it: Matrox G400MAX for me...
(Don't forget to update your fileutils to v4.2 and include kernel support for VCR devices.. You'll also need to have Video4Linux support and a compatible adapter, as well as IRDA and a supported VCR remote code..)
but to demonstrate that censorship of items such as DeCSS leads only to more and more widespread distribution, even to the point of datacasting it across Australian television at 3am.
Does Australia have teletext like much (if not all) of Europe? I wonder if buying room on teletext for broadcasting sourcecode is possible...
Who said anything about the Army? There are four other branches of the "Armed Services," smart guy.
But...
Let's take 'em in turn:
Navy: already have access to satellites, as well as AWACS and other theater communications equipment.
Air Force: Hell, these guys RUN the military space program.. Isn't the Space Command USAF?
Marines: While probably more technologically backward than even the Army (hey qloki & winslow;) they've got sharp folks who can do telcom, even the reservists;)
Coast Guard: sheesh, these guys are so close to the US they should already be in analog cellular range;)
Iridium might have been more expedient or cheaper depending on circumstance, but the US armed forces are not going to be affected, readiness-wise, by iridium tanking.
If anyone from the Pentagon is reading this, how about taking any money you're thinking of spending to buy Iridium and put it into salaries and living expenses for your people? Otherwise you're going to continue losing tech-trained personnel to the private sector in droves.. A USAF tech captain IIRC gets like $38k/yr for like 8-10 years experience doing sysadmin..
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."
Now I just need to hook a DVD player + QuadScan (or hell, considering the price it's probably cheaper to build a HTPC w/Matrox G400 + DVD and have scaling from that) up to it. Though in principle I agree with DeCSS and have used it and the LiViD stuff to watch DVDs over 100mbps SSH, I still can't easily use the menus and features of the DVD, and my linux box at work does not and will not have a digital audio out. Still, I could possibly argue for having the DVD player and using it as a monitor stand;);)
btw, that modeline again fro the Sony W900 (works be-yoo-tey-fully with Xf86 4.0 (thank you X4 for DDC support! I even got the monitor's s/n for its inventory sheet without having to turn it around)): ModeLine "1920x1200" 245.500 1920 1984 2240 2584 1200 1203 1206 1250
Hi, I agree that Linux needs stronger security (how about a free Tripwire + active systems security agent?) but a few things first:
o when enough people in the Linux community need more security, it'll happen. o if you can't wait that long, look into openbsd. o encrypt your personal data files and anything that you don't want the world to know about. o run tripwire or a free variant. o whatever the solution, keep it opensource, and GPL if possible. Don't buy into a proprietary product that could possibly be doing naughty things in the background.
wow, now/. should only post what you want, and everyone who actually thinks this should've been posted is unable to understand?
No, but there are probably more deserving technical articles sitting in the queue (or worse, being bumped so this article could be posted). I wouldn't know, as the queue is not public or moderated by/. readership.
This article and issue have been covered many times before on/., as well as in many other places. Until something new or seriously different comes along (again, either legislation, judicial decision, or something equally serious) it's just rehashing the same old net-taxation bugaboo.
While this is not as egregious as some of the other redundant articles on/., it still ends up causing lots of handwaving and bloviating, wasting hundreds of poor kilobytes, on an issue which is pretty much clearly defined. The only interesting discussion of this issue in the foreseeable future would be regarding any specific new actions related to the issue (again, new legislation or judicial decision, or something equally goofy like a consortium of companies attempting to voluntarily collect tax.. tried by many mail-order companies quite recently and failed quite miserably).
Go ahead and talk about what you like, it just annoys me that another submission had to die for this story. Keep this in mind: for every unworthy and/or redundant submission posted, something more interesting probably had to die.
I wonder if a new patch for the/. code could allow 'runner up' submissions to appear in place of submissions whose topics were killfiled..
I wonder if a new Topic for 'internet taxation' should be created... 'Money' seems a little too generic, though I guess I could forgo IPO news for a little sanity...;) AIIGH! How do I exclude 'Money' stories from my homepage? I've already excluded 'Comdex', 'Internet Explorer' and 'Microsoft', but I don't see 'Money' anywhere...
Please tell me where I've been hypocritical? My opinion on the US net.tax issue is constant and pretty much unshakeable: net sales taxes are unconstitutional and unlikely (compared to the e-commerce damage they'd inflict as well as understanding that consumers will simply switch to mail/phone order which are protected by precedent as well as the constitution). In addition, I find that rehashing this issue every frickin week (it feels that way) is simply provoking sound and fury, signifying nothing, and it not only wastes space and eyeballs but it contributes in a negative way to the overall S/N ratio of/. in technical and editorial terms. I am just as free to take issue with this as you are to take issue with my opinions. And my mind is _not_ closed, but it is under a constant barrage of information and anything that adds valueless content to that barrage inspires annoyance and frustration.
NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!! At most you'll see what is going on now (and which I have no prob with): tax sales to states in which the seller has a retail point of presence. Fine, I'll just buy from businesses that don't have POPs in my state (Sorry Hateway, Borders, etc..) and screw the taxman just that little bit more.
Unconstitutional, and I doubt the states will win any appeal. See my previous rant for the constitutional details.
Even if they do, guess what, I'll just use the phone or mail to order my swag, and the government will have succeeded in killing yet another golden goose.. The B&M oldthink shops will still lose business, and life will go on.
Hemos,/., et al, could you please Please PLEASE not bother posting anything about taxing e-commerce in the US unless it involves an explicit attack on the constitution (that is, legislation or judicial decision)? I don't care about any cockamamie theories, or any "it's inevitable" rantings by spread-the-wealthers. According to the Constitution and precedent set by mail-order, phone, and other interstate business concerns, it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL to charge tariffs on goods exported from one state to another state except for 'controlled' items and substances (like liquor, tobacco, etc). The only way to change this short of a constitutional amendment (or by judicial misconduct in not applying the constitution to any erroneous law that finds its way thru the congress) is by federal VAT. I think Washington DC will get anthraxed or nuked before the more reactionary segments of the US Population will permit a nationwide sales tax..
How hard is this to understand?
(but go ahead and post stuff not about the US, as their Constitutions don't necessarily defend the citizenry from the taxman..:p )
o PDF, IIRC, is royalty-free, which IIARC is why Apple is using it (display PDF) instead of display postscript for OSX o The acroread for linux is actually pretty good for viewing and printing PDFs, and I think it has a superior interface to GhostView/PDF (when bookmarks and thumbnails are encoded, particularly). It also feels faster.
Shit, I'd have more of a problem with PostScript, as Adobe still charges royalties/license fees for it (where it can)...
I just did, on my 2x466 Celeron + V770/32MB system, and the 2D performance improvements are startling.. You'll probably have to regenerate your XF86Config but it's definitely worth it, unless you want to use glx (though utah-glx might work, I have yet to try)..
BTW, the DDC stuff is way cool, helped me put in the ideal modeline for 1920x1200 on my Sony W900 24" widescreen, and bring it up to 76Hz refresh!
I saw all versions of the Dune film before I ever read the book. I did love the book, particularly because of its detail and character development, but there are a lot of things I like in the Smithee version (the "full" version, with voiceover, the painting montage at the start, the juicing of the baby worm, etc) and feel it's truest to the novel.
Still, I thought the films downplayed Stilgar too much, and Feyd Rautha was definitely shafted (he went from a hardass to a whiny petulant little snit).
OTOH I actually _liked_ the weirding modules (thoughts being equivalent to actions) and I thought Lynch really nailed the imagery and ambience in a way that very few other directors could. The whole Yueh scene with 'The tooth.. The tooth..' could have been lifted right out of Blue Velvet, and I mean that in the best possible way.. Lynch also handled Paul's visions very well IMHO, better than most directors I could imagine..
I'd love to see Lynch do a TV miniseries of Dune if he could be lured back to the small screen.. Guy's a friggin genius...
Will there be support for rendering 3D audio in Dolby Digital and/or DTS digital output formats? I'd love to play games (and have UI effects) in real home-theatre surround.. (yes, I'd need a coax/spdif soundcard...)
Might as well make it timely and let ya VidGrid DVD.;)
Isn't Jeff Minter working on some kind of game platform that's supposed to be embedded in DVD players? ISTR reading about it in one of the games mags.. VLM and T3k were ported to it IIRC..
It's unlikely that there will be any sociological force great enough to counter the relentless march of technological progress excepting a jihad executed on a massive scale.
Funny, I just finished reading Dune.. (after seeing the movie like 30 times or so) Even after the Butlerian Jihad and the injunction against thinking machines, the Bene Gesserit continued with a secret breeding program whose end result was to be the Kwisatz Haderach (or Super Being)..
So even a Jihad won't change the basic human urge to improve itself (technologically or otherwise). Or rather, those humans that _do_ implement that urge tend to do better than (and, historically, then shortly supplant/conquer/annihilate) those that do not.
Slashdot Mirror
How can a US judge which means nothing to anyother country on the planet wave a finger at a group 1000's of km's away?
Easy: simply force to pay the damages out of frozen Iranian assets.
You might also ask, how does the EU get off trying to suppress competition from American companies, or to try and force American companies to comply with EU regulations?
This act is not as foolish or hollow as you think, if Terry Anderson (rightly, IMAO) decides to pursue those frozen assets.
And don't put anything past the US: remember Noriega?
Your Working Boy,
IIRC and M-16A1 (the front-line assult rifle of the US military) costs close to 16 thousand dollars per unit.
;).. You can even buy bullpup conversion kits for it.. AKs are cheaper and easier to service, but you can't beat the M16 for weight and street cachet.. ;)
Not on the street it don't.. more like US$2000-3000 for a M16A2 (fewer lethal bugs
Your Working Boy,
What do you think, they sell each unit for a loss, but they'll make it up in volume?
Hey, works for Amazon.com...
Your Working Boy,
These devices are a paradigm shift in the way you watch television, and as a result many folks have a hard time seeing how they fit in. But that's natural, since they are hardly a year old.
You say 'paradigm shift', I say 'design limitation'..
Really, though, I see your point, that these devices are essentially 'time shifters'. Still, I care mostly for their random-access capability and digital features (pausing live stuff, ease of deletion and selection). I'd be thrilled if I could also archive them in the digital format so I could for example tape a season of the Sopranos on 1-2 DVD-RAMs in HQ, then stick 'em on a shelf for later.. How do you loan copies of your TiVo recordings to friends? How do you make copies of htem in case your TiVo breaks or in case you delete them accidentally?
Nope, I see what you mean but it still remains that I won't be terribly interested in a TiVo-style device until it has removable media and commercial-skip. Now integrating TiVo into a set-top DTV box OTOH.. (YEs, I know about the Dish STB but I won't be wiring 5 TVs to a DBS ssytem anytime soon)
Your Working Boy,
The jobs are out there. The money is out there. All you need is a pulse and the willingness to move to Silicon Valley.
Weird, IIRC the last pencom survey I checked put NY Metro area as the highest-paying IT region.. Though many of those jobs are as shirt + tie bank/broker slave techs..
Beware the IT Pimps..
Your Working Boy,
Because we know how to figure stuff out. We all know that we don't know everything about software development and are willing to find the best solution.
;)
;)
Not to mention the inferiority complex to provide the impetus to continuously prove yourself..
(Besides, quite honestly, things change so quickly that tying yourself to a technology too tightly can be suicide.. Best to have mastery of basics and a whole 'lotta metaknowledge IMHO.. I'd rather understand 10 or 20 good commands or tricks than know every single command line switch to a single command..
Your Working Boy,
Tobacco plants have been used to clean radioactively contaminated soil because of their amazing ability to leach anything from the ground.
"All new Laramie strontium flavored cigarettes.. They're radioacterrific!"
Your Working Boy,
How about something like Myrinet? Iffen you gots the $$$ ;)
Your Working Boy,
They've got a bit further to go IMHO.. IIRC ReplayTV has commercial skip, and these systems should have removable media (DVD-RAM? Caddied HDDs?) for archival storage..
I'm happy to wait: I don't watch too much TV anyways..
Your Working Boy,
... I've got a box that needs upgrading which I plan to use as a linux workstation (plus videogames ;) and I suppose that seals it: Matrox G400MAX for me...
Your Working Boy,
Obvious...
# dd if=/dev/vcr0 of=/tmp/decss.c conv=vhs2asc
(Don't forget to update your fileutils to v4.2 and include kernel support for VCR devices.. You'll also need to have Video4Linux support and a compatible adapter, as well as IRDA and a supported VCR remote code..)
Your Working Boy,
but to demonstrate that censorship of items such as DeCSS leads only to more and more widespread distribution, even to the point of datacasting it across Australian television at 3am.
Does Australia have teletext like much (if not all) of Europe? I wonder if buying room on teletext for broadcasting sourcecode is possible...
Your Working Boy,
Probably to make room for yet another opinion on sales tax on the internet...
Your Working Boy,
But...
Let's take 'em in turn:
Iridium might have been more expedient or cheaper depending on circumstance, but the US armed forces are not going to be affected, readiness-wise, by iridium tanking.
If anyone from the Pentagon is reading this, how about taking any money you're thinking of spending to buy Iridium and put it into salaries and living expenses for your people? Otherwise you're going to continue losing tech-trained personnel to the private sector in droves.. A USAF tech captain IIRC gets like $38k/yr for like 8-10 years experience doing sysadmin..
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."
Your Working Boy,
.. Once you go wide, you won't go back..
;) ;)
Now I just need to hook a DVD player + QuadScan (or hell, considering the price it's probably cheaper to build a HTPC w/Matrox G400 + DVD and have scaling from that) up to it. Though in principle I agree with DeCSS and have used it and the LiViD stuff to watch DVDs over 100mbps SSH, I still can't easily use the menus and features of the DVD, and my linux box at work does not and will not have a digital audio out. Still, I could possibly argue for having the DVD player and using it as a monitor stand
btw, that modeline again fro the Sony W900 (works be-yoo-tey-fully with Xf86 4.0 (thank you X4 for DDC support! I even got the monitor's s/n for its inventory sheet without having to turn it around)):
ModeLine "1920x1200" 245.500 1920 1984 2240 2584 1200 1203 1206 1250
Your Working Boy,
Hi,
I agree that Linux needs stronger security (how about a free Tripwire + active systems security agent?) but a few things first:
o when enough people in the Linux community need more security, it'll happen.
o if you can't wait that long, look into openbsd.
o encrypt your personal data files and anything that you don't want the world to know about.
o run tripwire or a free variant.
o whatever the solution, keep it opensource, and GPL if possible. Don't buy into a proprietary product that could possibly be doing naughty things in the background.
CHeers,
Your Working Boy,
wow, now /. should only post what you want, and everyone who actually thinks this should've been posted is unable to understand?
/. readership.
/., as well as in many other places. Until something new or seriously different comes along (again, either legislation, judicial decision, or something equally serious) it's just rehashing the same old net-taxation bugaboo.
/., it still ends up causing lots of handwaving and bloviating, wasting hundreds of poor kilobytes, on an issue which is pretty much clearly defined. The only interesting discussion of this issue in the foreseeable future would be regarding any specific new actions related to the issue (again, new legislation or judicial decision, or something equally goofy like a consortium of companies attempting to voluntarily collect tax.. tried by many mail-order companies quite recently and failed quite miserably).
/. code could allow 'runner up' submissions to appear in place of submissions whose topics were killfiled..
;) AIIGH! How do I exclude 'Money' stories from my homepage? I've already excluded 'Comdex', 'Internet Explorer' and 'Microsoft', but I don't see 'Money' anywhere...
.i really do...open source, closed minds, blatant hypocrisy.
/. in technical and editorial terms. I am just as free to take issue with this as you are to take issue with my opinions. And my mind is _not_ closed, but it is under a constant barrage of information and anything that adds valueless content to that barrage inspires annoyance and frustration.
No, but there are probably more deserving technical articles sitting in the queue (or worse, being bumped so this article could be posted). I wouldn't know, as the queue is not public or moderated by
This article and issue have been covered many times before on
While this is not as egregious as some of the other redundant articles on
Go ahead and talk about what you like, it just annoys me that another submission had to die for this story. Keep this in mind: for every unworthy and/or redundant submission posted, something more interesting probably had to die.
I wonder if a new patch for the
I wonder if a new Topic for 'internet taxation' should be created... 'Money' seems a little too generic, though I guess I could forgo IPO news for a little sanity...
Please tell me where I've been hypocritical? My opinion on the US net.tax issue is constant and pretty much unshakeable: net sales taxes are unconstitutional and unlikely (compared to the e-commerce damage they'd inflict as well as understanding that consumers will simply switch to mail/phone order which are protected by precedent as well as the constitution). In addition, I find that rehashing this issue every frickin week (it feels that way) is simply provoking sound and fury, signifying nothing, and it not only wastes space and eyeballs but it contributes in a negative way to the overall S/N ratio of
Time for coffee..
Your Working Boy,
Yeah, it looks like a steaming turd..
Your Working Boy,
NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!! At most you'll see what is going on now (and which I have no prob with): tax sales to states in which the seller has a retail point of presence. Fine, I'll just buy from businesses that don't have POPs in my state (Sorry Hateway, Borders, etc..) and screw the taxman just that little bit more.
/., et al, could you please Please PLEASE not bother posting anything about taxing e-commerce in the US unless it involves an explicit attack on the constitution (that is, legislation or judicial decision)? I don't care about any cockamamie theories, or any "it's inevitable" rantings by spread-the-wealthers. According to the Constitution and precedent set by mail-order, phone, and other interstate business concerns, it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL to charge tariffs on goods exported from one state to another state except for 'controlled' items and substances (like liquor, tobacco, etc). The only way to change this short of a constitutional amendment (or by judicial misconduct in not applying the constitution to any erroneous law that finds its way thru the congress) is by federal VAT. I think Washington DC will get anthraxed or nuked before the more reactionary segments of the US Population will permit a nationwide sales tax..
:p )
Unconstitutional, and I doubt the states will win any appeal. See my previous rant for the constitutional details.
Even if they do, guess what, I'll just use the phone or mail to order my swag, and the government will have succeeded in killing yet another golden goose.. The B&M oldthink shops will still lose business, and life will go on.
Hemos,
How hard is this to understand?
(but go ahead and post stuff not about the US, as their Constitutions don't necessarily defend the citizenry from the taxman..
Your Working Boy,
A couple of things..
o PDF, IIRC, is royalty-free, which IIARC is why Apple is using it (display PDF) instead of display postscript for OSX
o The acroread for linux is actually pretty good for viewing and printing PDFs, and I think it has a superior interface to GhostView/PDF (when bookmarks and thumbnails are encoded, particularly). It also feels faster.
Shit, I'd have more of a problem with PostScript, as Adobe still charges royalties/license fees for it (where it can)...
Your Working Boy,
I just did, on my 2x466 Celeron + V770/32MB system, and the 2D performance improvements are startling.. You'll probably have to regenerate your XF86Config but it's definitely worth it, unless you want to use glx (though utah-glx might work, I have yet to try)..
BTW, the DDC stuff is way cool, helped me put in the ideal modeline for 1920x1200 on my Sony W900 24" widescreen, and bring it up to 76Hz refresh!
That modeline, btw:
ModeLine "1920x1200" 245.500 1920 1984 2240 2584 1200 1203 1206 1250
Your Working Boy,
I saw all versions of the Dune film before I ever read the book. I did love the book, particularly because of its detail and character development, but there are a lot of things I like in the Smithee version (the "full" version, with voiceover, the painting montage at the start, the juicing of the baby worm, etc) and feel it's truest to the novel.
Still, I thought the films downplayed Stilgar too much, and Feyd Rautha was definitely shafted (he went from a hardass to a whiny petulant little snit).
OTOH I actually _liked_ the weirding modules (thoughts being equivalent to actions) and I thought Lynch really nailed the imagery and ambience in a way that very few other directors could. The whole Yueh scene with 'The tooth.. The tooth..' could have been lifted right out of Blue Velvet, and I mean that in the best possible way.. Lynch also handled Paul's visions very well IMHO, better than most directors I could imagine..
I'd love to see Lynch do a TV miniseries of Dune if he could be lured back to the small screen.. Guy's a friggin genius...
Your Working Boy,
Will there be support for rendering 3D audio in Dolby Digital and/or DTS digital output formats? I'd love to play games (and have UI effects) in real home-theatre surround.. (yes, I'd need a coax/spdif soundcard...)
Your Working Boy,
Might as well make it timely and let ya VidGrid DVD. ;)
Isn't Jeff Minter working on some kind of game platform that's supposed to be embedded in DVD players? ISTR reading about it in one of the games mags.. VLM and T3k were ported to it IIRC..
Your Working Boy,
It's unlikely that there will be any sociological force great enough to counter the relentless march of technological progress excepting a jihad executed on a massive scale.
Funny, I just finished reading Dune.. (after seeing the movie like 30 times or so) Even after the Butlerian Jihad and the injunction against thinking machines, the Bene Gesserit continued with a secret breeding program whose end result was to be the Kwisatz Haderach (or Super Being)..
So even a Jihad won't change the basic human urge to improve itself (technologically or otherwise). Or rather, those humans that _do_ implement that urge tend to do better than (and, historically, then shortly supplant/conquer/annihilate) those that do not.
Your Working Boy,