The new Windows logo looks like it was made in MS Paint by a child, and these folder icons fit right in to that aesthetic. Good to see Microsoft bringing some visual consistency to their OS.
Specifically, this post from their blog illustrates how far NFSN will go to defend their users against anybody (in this case, the UK government) who tries to bully them without proper authority.
The official lawyers for the UK government are basically saying on official letterhead (even their own filename contains “Letterhead”), “Hey, we heard you’re small. Well, we’re the world’s 6th largest economy, so we can put you out of business with legal bills if you don’t play ball.” Now, it’s not super-unusual to see a lawyer say something menacing about how if they win, you’ll have to pay their legal fees — even though that’s often not true in the US. What’s different here is that they dropped “if we win” and added “we will ruin you.” Stating that if someone doesn’t cooperate, your strategy will be to run up enough legal bills to put them out of business whether you win or not is a little different. It’s the sort of thing you expect to hear from the smarmy thug lawyer for the big bad corporation in a formulaic TV legal drama. We don’t generally see it in the real world from the legal representatives of a developed country.
Fortunately, they heard wrong. Our excellent legal team is ready, willing, and able to vigorously defend us should the need arise.
So, the story so far is that we asked to have the proper legal process followed, and the UK’s lawyers threatened to destroy us. Despite this, we are refusing to censor our member’s site. We steadfastly believe we are under no legal obligation to do so, that we will prevail in any US legal action that arises from this matter, and that any attempt by the UK government to spend us into oblivion will fail. More news as it happens.
For this (as well as their other policies) I'd recommend NearlyFreeSpeech.net - they have a DMCA policy page which clearly lays out the requirements that must be met to anybody intending to make a takedown claim. They're run as a pay-what-you-use host for people who have at least a small amount of knowledge of what they're doing (no cPanel interfaces here!) and from their blog and general demeanour it's clear that they are a company run by nerds who Do Things Properly.
I have no doubt that they'd follow the law if issued with a full and proper DMCA notice, but I also have no doubt that they would not give the benefit of the doubt to, or go out of their way to assist somebody filing incomplete or incorrect takedown notices.
(Full disclosure: While I've hosted my small website with NFSN for a number of years I've never received a DMCA takedown notice and I have no material which is at all likely to generate any.)
Obvious flamebait as Samsung has been demoing this for quite a while now, Apple just trying to play catch-up and labeling it as innovation, same shit, different day.
More reasons for iShit to be import blocked at the U.S. Borders.
The mystifying part is a contract smartphone is still like $100/month bill, right? So $200 is pocket change to a smartphone contract victim, its like 2 months service.
If you're in the USA, sure. I live in the UK and pay £10/month for unlimited data, texts, and a small number of minutes which I don't use. (GiffGaff - Affiliate link.) It's astounding how deeply Americans get ripped off for phone service, and when I was living over there, shopping for mobile phones was one of the few times I felt genuinely, truly insulted as a customer. There's a lot of industries with shoddy customer service but getting a mobile phone in the US really feels like paying somebody to spit in your face.
If you're talking about VAC-banning then you're just factually incorrect. If not then I'd be interested to know of an example, because I've never heard of somebody's entire Steam account being banned. Phished, perhaps, but not banned.
You'd think the music companies would have at least one economist on staff who could explain to them, slowly and gently, that under certain circumstances it is actually possible to make more money when each individual unit is priced lower. It really takes some stubborn failure of logic to prioritise your sale price above your actual monetary returns.
Of course, it's also possible that the music quality will just decline to compensate for the drop in price.
(that even America is making moves to protect its citizens against)
Why the "even"?
Because America and Britain are supposedly so very close and buddy-buddy, it's more shocking to hear that America is this repelled by British libel law. If it was some middle-eastern country that hates us nobody would be surprised, but it's a point of note and shameful fact to politicians over here that our laws are bad enough that you guys can't even ignore them, but have to actively seek ways to protect yourselves from them.
Seriously, anyone who can claim with a straight face that Britain has less freedom of speech than China (and hence is only beginning to take steps to elevate above it) is living in a fantasy world.
Seriously, anyone who can claim with a straight face that Britain has less freedom of speech than China (and hence is only beginning to take steps to elevate above it) is living in a fantasy world.
You got to posting the important link before me, so let me instead say that even if Simon wins this round there is still a whole lot more work to be done; firstly, this is only the appeal against the previous judge's decision of what was meant by his use of the word 'bogus', and a win here will just make the rest of the case easier to fight. Secondly, Britain still lacks a proper 'public interest' defense in these sorts of cases, and that is why it is important to support full and considered libel reform so that this ridiculous charade does not have to be repeated, at enormous expense, for every individual who would reasonably criticise his peers.
I've had great luck with http://nearlyfreespeech.net/ - they're security-conscious, anti-spam, pay-only-for-what-you-use, and I like their political pro-privacy and pro-free speech stance. I have a feeling most of the people here at Slashdot would be very comfortable with them. They run FBSD, not Linux, but it's really not that huge a difference for web development.
Make sure you read the caveats about what will and won't work with their service. Things like Django and RoR won't really work because of the need for a persistent process, and they don't yet have support for cron jobs (but they're working on it - it's difficult because of the way they're set up). OTOH, MVC frameworks for PHP like CodeIgniter will work just fine, and they've got Catalyst installed for Perl coders. They do make it very clear about what they do and don't support, though.
Echoing this recommendation - have used NFSN for a few years now, and am very pleased with the 'pay for what you actually use' structure. As long as you're comfortable at using FTP without the help of a cPanel interface, they're hands-down the best deal you're going to find.
At last, they've made DRM so obnoxious, intrusive and butt-fuckingly annoying that even the average Joe will become enraged at the audacity of the thing. Hope Ubisoft has a team of people standing by ready to explain to people with shaky wireless routers or traffic-shaping ISPs why their game keeps booting them out.
I'm calling it - less than three months after release before they patch this out due to overwhelmingly bad press. Christ Ubisoft, who do you think you are?
Police might also send an e-mail to a suspect's computer. The message would include an attachment that contained a virus or "malware".
Really? The recommended methodology of the police is the same as that used by opportunistic criminals to steal credit card information, that the police warn about?
C'mon, it's just impossible to satirize this kind of thing. It's not fair.
Another time, the staff at the hospital had baked him a cake for his birthday. Well, before his wife or anybody else arrived the nurse in charge of the cake had to leave the room for a short while to deal with an emergency.
When she got back, the cake was already half-gone. Clive, seeing the cake, assumed it was for him, and so ate a slice - then, seeing the cake, assumed it was for him, and so ate a slice - then, seeing the cake...
Also, the fits and jerks mentioned in the wikipedia article don't happen so much anymore. Early on his condition caused him great confusion, upset and stress, but nowadays (although of course he still has no declarative memory whatsoever) his emotional state is much more stable, and he fits far more rarely.
You're thinking of Clive Wearing - pretty much the most severe case of amnesia ever recorded. His wife has written a book about her experiences in dealing with it.
It's really quite an interesting insight into the way memory functions; for example, he will still hoot with glee whenever his wife enters the room, believing he has not seen her in years. However, even though his illness happened over 30 years ago and his wife has of course visibly aged, he's not surprised by her current appearance.
I was hoping for this myself, and managed to find a solution (for Windows at least). Install the free MIDI loopback driver from http://www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html and set that to be the output of your favourite MIDI player (a quick and easy possibility is http://notation.com/DownloadNotationPlayer.htm) Easy!
Seems to work well as long as the MIDI in question only has one track;)
Slashdot Mirror
The new Windows logo looks like it was made in MS Paint by a child, and these folder icons fit right in to that aesthetic. Good to see Microsoft bringing some visual consistency to their OS.
The list of email addresses (without passwords) is at https://mega.co.nz/#!rgFDDRSD!...
Specifically, this post from their blog illustrates how far NFSN will go to defend their users against anybody (in this case, the UK government) who tries to bully them without proper authority.
The official lawyers for the UK government are basically saying on official letterhead (even their own filename contains “Letterhead”), “Hey, we heard you’re small. Well, we’re the world’s 6th largest economy, so we can put you out of business with legal bills if you don’t play ball.” Now, it’s not super-unusual to see a lawyer say something menacing about how if they win, you’ll have to pay their legal fees — even though that’s often not true in the US. What’s different here is that they dropped “if we win” and added “we will ruin you.” Stating that if someone doesn’t cooperate, your strategy will be to run up enough legal bills to put them out of business whether you win or not is a little different. It’s the sort of thing you expect to hear from the smarmy thug lawyer for the big bad corporation in a formulaic TV legal drama. We don’t generally see it in the real world from the legal representatives of a developed country.
Fortunately, they heard wrong. Our excellent legal team is ready, willing, and able to vigorously defend us should the need arise.
So, the story so far is that we asked to have the proper legal process followed, and the UK’s lawyers threatened to destroy us. Despite this, we are refusing to censor our member’s site. We steadfastly believe we are under no legal obligation to do so, that we will prevail in any US legal action that arises from this matter, and that any attempt by the UK government to spend us into oblivion will fail. More news as it happens.
For this (as well as their other policies) I'd recommend NearlyFreeSpeech.net - they have a DMCA policy page which clearly lays out the requirements that must be met to anybody intending to make a takedown claim. They're run as a pay-what-you-use host for people who have at least a small amount of knowledge of what they're doing (no cPanel interfaces here!) and from their blog and general demeanour it's clear that they are a company run by nerds who Do Things Properly.
I have no doubt that they'd follow the law if issued with a full and proper DMCA notice, but I also have no doubt that they would not give the benefit of the doubt to, or go out of their way to assist somebody filing incomplete or incorrect takedown notices.
(Full disclosure: While I've hosted my small website with NFSN for a number of years I've never received a DMCA takedown notice and I have no material which is at all likely to generate any.)
Obvious flamebait as Samsung has been demoing this for quite a while now, Apple just trying to play catch-up and labeling it as innovation, same shit, different day.
More reasons for iShit to be import blocked at the U.S. Borders.
Mod, mark this "whoosh".
http://grupthinkpro.s3.amazonaws.com/grupthinklive80240347b2eab6b15fd4935656ba50e8
Nobody will ever top Florida "A55 RGY" with the big orange in the middle serving as the letter "O."
A55 O RGY
Step aside, Slashdot... *puts on shades*... I got this.
Your new 'best plate ever'.
Thanks, Bay Area!
The mystifying part is a contract smartphone is still like $100/month bill, right? So $200 is pocket change to a smartphone contract victim, its like 2 months service.
If you're in the USA, sure. I live in the UK and pay £10/month for unlimited data, texts, and a small number of minutes which I don't use. (GiffGaff - Affiliate link.) It's astounding how deeply Americans get ripped off for phone service, and when I was living over there, shopping for mobile phones was one of the few times I felt genuinely, truly insulted as a customer. There's a lot of industries with shoddy customer service but getting a mobile phone in the US really feels like paying somebody to spit in your face.
There's a joke here that's gone right over my head.
If you're talking about VAC-banning then you're just factually incorrect. If not then I'd be interested to know of an example, because I've never heard of somebody's entire Steam account being banned. Phished, perhaps, but not banned.
You'd think the music companies would have at least one economist on staff who could explain to them, slowly and gently, that under certain circumstances it is actually possible to make more money when each individual unit is priced lower. It really takes some stubborn failure of logic to prioritise your sale price above your actual monetary returns.
Of course, it's also possible that the music quality will just decline to compensate for the drop in price.
(that even America is making moves to protect its citizens against) Why the "even"?
Because America and Britain are supposedly so very close and buddy-buddy, it's more shocking to hear that America is this repelled by British libel law. If it was some middle-eastern country that hates us nobody would be surprised, but it's a point of note and shameful fact to politicians over here that our laws are bad enough that you guys can't even ignore them, but have to actively seek ways to protect yourselves from them.
Seriously, anyone who can claim with a straight face that Britain has less freedom of speech than China (and hence is only beginning to take steps to elevate above it) is living in a fantasy world.
"When it comes to censoring publications and blocking online content, it is arguable that Britain has an even worse record than China." - Simon Singh, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7294539/Simon-Singh-it-is-too-late-for-me-but-libel-laws-must-change-for-the-public-good.html
But yes, there may have been a trace of hyperbole in my post, on the internet. Gold star!
Seriously, anyone who can claim with a straight face that Britain has less freedom of speech than China (and hence is only beginning to take steps to elevate above it) is living in a fantasy world.
"When it comes to censoring publications and blocking online content, it is arguable that Britain has an even worse record than China." - from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7294539/Simon-Singh-it-is-too-late-for-me-but-libel-laws-must-change-for-the-public-good.html
However, yes, there may have been a trace of hyperbole in this post, on the internet. Gold star!
Well, given that it is now approaching 9PM in the UK, it is more correct to say Simon Singh was in court today. And so far things look promising – Lord Judge is less than impressed by BCA's case. See http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2010/02/simon-singh-chiropractic-bca-libel-appeal
You got to posting the important link before me, so let me instead say that even if Simon wins this round there is still a whole lot more work to be done; firstly, this is only the appeal against the previous judge's decision of what was meant by his use of the word 'bogus', and a win here will just make the rest of the case easier to fight. Secondly, Britain still lacks a proper 'public interest' defense in these sorts of cases, and that is why it is important to support full and considered libel reform so that this ridiculous charade does not have to be repeated, at enormous expense, for every individual who would reasonably criticise his peers.
Jesus Christ all this talk of hyperbole makes me want to shoot a nuclear rocket through my fucking head.
I've had great luck with http://nearlyfreespeech.net/ - they're security-conscious, anti-spam, pay-only-for-what-you-use, and I like their political pro-privacy and pro-free speech stance. I have a feeling most of the people here at Slashdot would be very comfortable with them. They run FBSD, not Linux, but it's really not that huge a difference for web development.
Make sure you read the caveats about what will and won't work with their service. Things like Django and RoR won't really work because of the need for a persistent process, and they don't yet have support for cron jobs (but they're working on it - it's difficult because of the way they're set up). OTOH, MVC frameworks for PHP like CodeIgniter will work just fine, and they've got Catalyst installed for Perl coders. They do make it very clear about what they do and don't support, though.
Echoing this recommendation - have used NFSN for a few years now, and am very pleased with the 'pay for what you actually use' structure. As long as you're comfortable at using FTP without the help of a cPanel interface, they're hands-down the best deal you're going to find.
At last, they've made DRM so obnoxious, intrusive and butt-fuckingly annoying that even the average Joe will become enraged at the audacity of the thing. Hope Ubisoft has a team of people standing by ready to explain to people with shaky wireless routers or traffic-shaping ISPs why their game keeps booting them out.
I'm calling it - less than three months after release before they patch this out due to overwhelmingly bad press. Christ Ubisoft, who do you think you are?
It's like The Secret Life of Adam West or something.
Oh, hey, I wonder if there's a "Replied To Own Post" achievement....
Or 'have a post replied to'? ;)
Really? The recommended methodology of the police is the same as that used by opportunistic criminals to steal credit card information, that the police warn about?
C'mon, it's just impossible to satirize this kind of thing. It's not fair.
There's also an episode of NPR's RadioLab on memory, with a segment on Clive. (Audio file.)
I highly recommend listening to it (and other episodes of RadioLab), it's a great show.
Already heard it ;) But yes, RadioLab is an excellent podcast. Along with AstronomyCast, one of a very few I listen to regularly.
When she got back, the cake was already half-gone. Clive, seeing the cake, assumed it was for him, and so ate a slice - then, seeing the cake, assumed it was for him, and so ate a slice - then, seeing the cake...
Also, the fits and jerks mentioned in the wikipedia article don't happen so much anymore. Early on his condition caused him great confusion, upset and stress, but nowadays (although of course he still has no declarative memory whatsoever) his emotional state is much more stable, and he fits far more rarely.
You're thinking of Clive Wearing - pretty much the most severe case of amnesia ever recorded. His wife has written a book about her experiences in dealing with it. It's really quite an interesting insight into the way memory functions; for example, he will still hoot with glee whenever his wife enters the room, believing he has not seen her in years. However, even though his illness happened over 30 years ago and his wife has of course visibly aged, he's not surprised by her current appearance.
The human body is beautiful
In a vacuum perhaps, but in practice there are some damn ugly humans.
In a vacuum? They tend to get too bloaty and cold for my liking, but if you're into that sort of thing then be my guest.
I was hoping for this myself, and managed to find a solution (for Windows at least). Install the free MIDI loopback driver from http://www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html and set that to be the output of your favourite MIDI player (a quick and easy possibility is http://notation.com/DownloadNotationPlayer.htm) Easy! Seems to work well as long as the MIDI in question only has one track ;)