so it's clear - unequivocably clear - that all music that people want ends up on P2P networks, for anyone to get hold of. thus it is up to the music providers to realise this, take realistic stock, take advantage of the opportunity, and make some money by providing people what they want!
it is only by NOT selling people what they want (DRM-free music) that they are hurting their profits!
so this is something that the BBC Trust could learn from, and also the HD video data providers. it's quite simple: there's not really that much difference between music and video. programmes _will_ end up on P2P networks, period. thus there is absolutely no point in driving up the cost of set top boxes by adding in DRM that's going to be bypassed, regardless.
Up until it was made illegal only relatively recently, you CHOSE to buy and sell slaves. do you view such practices as acceptable? except, now, the slavery isn't recognised as such, because it is several degrees removed, behind "Intellectual Property" laws. so your post basically says that you are ignorant and happy with it. please remind me where you come from, where you were educated and what you believe in: i would like to make sure i never go there, and i would like to be inspired never to be like you.
/. has one of the best censorship systems in existence. Troll mods will rescue us all!
:) whew, thank god: for a minute there i was worried that people might think i was being serious. instead, fortunately, people think i'm seriously promoting "myself" and deliberately saying things just for the sake of causing trouble.
paraphrasing aldous huxley: facts don't go away just because you ignore them.
the trouble is that empirical evidence - especially that of personally-experienced evidence and thus the conclusions that can be derived from those personal experiences - _can_ be ignored...
i know. amazing, isn't it. i put it down to being realistic and mentioning the phrase "statistical sample of one", and specifically mentioning that it's "personal experience and observation" rather than "fact". if i'd said "it's a fact! because i said so!" then quite rightly i'd be called out as being a nut-job and a dick.
ahh, that would be telling:) but seriously, you can do the google searches for "TETRA modem", "Ontology Classifier", "Knowledge Systems" for a few weeks just as well as anyone can.
and no, i'm not "important", just reasonably persistent and intelligent.
i don't know if people are going to believe this (but i don't care) because i'm a "statistical sample of one", but there is empirical evidence (on a statistical sample of one - me) to suggest that real-time Internet Censorship operates in the United States on a level far more sophisticated than that of China.
when i was last in the U.S. i happened to be making enquiries about "knowledge-based" systems and about TETRA modems. unfortunately, the best "knowledge-based" software happens to fall into a category of tools (ontology classifiers for example) used and deployed by Intelligence Agencies; and unfortunately, the best companies that do TETRA also happen to do APCO P25 radios used by Police, Homeland Security, Airports, the FBI etc.
so there's little me, waving a red flag to a bull, and finding that web site browsing was behaving particularly odd. one moment web sites would be accessible and the next they would be offline.
i surmised that i was finding "stuff" that, embarrassingly for the people monitoring my internet traffic, they had never encountered before, never evaluated and so out of knee-jerk fear reaction slapped a block on it.
it also turns out that one of the companies i had found had _just_ been funded by InQTel.
it took some phone calls to stop the censorship.
so if you push the right buttons and wave the right kind of red flags, there's enough empirical evidence to suggest that the United States also performs Internet Censorship.
of course, nobody's told Mrs Clinton that, before she began getting righteous, which is very embarrassing for her and for the U.S. government she's representing. it also puts the comments made by the Chinese Government into perspective: namely that the Chinese Government know damn well that the U.S. Government also performs Internet Censorship; Ma Zhaoxu is simply calling things "as they are".
p.s. in replies to this, i don't want to see any messages saying "But That's All Irrelevant Because China Has A Bad Human Rights Record" to which the response is "Guantanamo Bay? remember that place?"
you're forgetting something: china has 1.3 billion people, and a millenia-long tradition of practicing tai ji martial arts. oh. and you've also forgotten the fact that they're a nuclear superpower. so the days of war-mongering are over. get used to it.
very gooood. i think this is highly amusing, on several fronts. the first is just the irony of the country touted as having "A Bad Human Rights Record" (when in fact they are just using common sense to keep control over 1.3 billion people) happens to now hold a damocles sword over the rest of the world if it wants to go "green".
the second irony is that it takes rare metals, which are, by definition, in limited supply, to go "green" in the first place. the missing bit that is not specifically stated is, "if the world wants to 'Go Green' (tm) and still maintain a high level of technology".
there is a simpler way to "go green" and not be dependent on chinese exports of rare earth metals: a return to subsistence-style living and community-driven societies, with countries like Poland, who have just absolutely amazing self-reliant and vibrant communities, already leading the way in that regard, having not really changed their way of living for centuries in the first place as "technology" passed them by.
whilst this suggestion of a solution is pretty much guaranteed to provoke outrage in certain (lazy) 1st world westerners, such lazy individuals might want to think about this: that the combination of restrictions on supply of "rare earth" metals, and the predicted "peak oil" period due to hit only next year, i think it's pretty much on the cards that the "technological age" which consumes 50% of the world's resources in the U.S. alone is almost certainly coming to an end.
so the only remaining question to ask is: are you ready for that change; are you just going to "wing it", are you going to stick your head in the sand, or are you just going to sit there until you die, waiting for the lights to come back on, the phone to ring and the gas boiler to provide you with heating again?
um... wasn't there a slashdot report about whitelisting of all foreign web sites, so that no external porn would get into the country?? did someone in the chinese government forget about the concept of a) mirrors b) home-grown porn, then?
you're talking to the person who implemented samba's 2nd nmbd improvements, back in 1996, and demonstrated the world's first multi-workgroup / multi-PDC server on microsoft's campus, in about 1998.
NetBIOS is NOT an "API". or - it is, but only in the sense that most early implementations were user-space (in the same way that WINSOCK.DLL was userspace), and RFC 1001/1002 showed how to _proxy_ what is effectively its own transport (equivalent to TCP/IP) and naming service (equivalent to DNS) over other transports at the same ISO layer.
it's very unfortunate and particularly sad that the robustness of the NetBIOS naming / registration service (in the face of absolute ignorance and total misconfiguration) is not respected, studied, improved and modernised.
it's also rather unfortunate that the "scope" field, which was what the DNS "zone" field was renamed as, was not respected by early windows implementations. this _could_ have been re-used for its original purpose: the DNS "zone". in this way, NetBIOS _could_ have been extended out onto the Internet, could have been extended with DNSSEC, and thus turned into something very very useful and very exciting.
but - as i mentioned in an earlier post, we're relying on microsoft engineers to implement it, and all the ones who understand this stuff retired as millionaires quite some time ago, now.
nooo, congratulations, you've made the exact same mistake that everyone makes. NetBEUI is the equivalent of Ethernet (MAC addresses). NetBIOS is the equivalent of TCP/IP, IPX/SPX etc.
examination of RFC1001 shows that the NetBIOS protocol is actually DNS with enhancements and a few different meanings of some of the bits. there is therefore absolutely no reason why NetBIOS should not have the DNSSEC security system added to it.... except, that would mean that microsoft had to do some work, on some code that was written well over twenty years ago. so the trouble is that microsoft doesn't actually have anyone left at the company who understands what was written, let alone why it was written.
and neither really does anyone else. incredibly, comparison of NetBIOS to the Mobile IPv6 protocols developed a few years ago showed the *Mobile IPv6* protocols to be severely lacking.
the entire NetBIOS protocol, apart from the obvious lack of security (because it was designed for LAN use) is incredibly far-sighted.
the most important thing about sci-fi is not the technology itself, but the stories that use sci-fi blended into the background. the mistake of "Glorifying" technology is more often made by hollywood film directors than it is by sci-fi writers.
so, yes: sci-fi is often predictive of the near future (stephenson, gibson), and comes up with "the goods" but to be honest that's quite a specific genre of sci-fi, leaving out a whole range of books that are absolutely mind-blowing (asimov, reynolds and hamilton to name just three).
Particles the size of a grain of sand - assume 1 gram. Speed: 8333 metres per second. Kinetic Energy Formula: 0.5 * mass * velocity * velocity.
Kinetic Energy of grain of sand: 34,719 joules.
Small car travelling at 30mph, mass 1000kg. Speed: 13 metres per second.
Kinetic Energy of car: 84,500 joules.
Area to which impact of grain of sand occurs: assume 1mm square.
Kinetic Energy per square metre when grain impacts: 34 billion Joules/Sqm.
Area to which impact of car occurs at 30mph: assume 1 sq m.
Kinetic Energy per square metre when car impacts: 84 thousand Joules/Sqm.
this is why, if a dust particle the size of a grain of sand hits a spacecraft it would leave a micro hole on one side, vapourise and turn to plasma, cutting its way through absolutely everything in its path in a geometrically predictable and expanding pattern. net result is a gaping cone of missing spacecraft on the other side of the dot, significant additional debris, and some dead astronauts.
and that's just the dust particles.
Materials science is simply not up to the job of dealing with this kind of energy impact, which is why, instead, NASA tracks several tens of thousands of objects including an Astronaut's boot, and makes sure that everything that goes up stays well clear.
Exceptions would be made for online banking and shopping using a dedicated system that can't be used for anything else.
which means that the truly hardened criminals will create an online shopping cart in order to commit crimes. (like they don't already... to whit: money-laundering)
Other than that - mandatory government-issued spyware?
what - like in china? that's working out well, for them, i understand.
could someone please seriously enlighten me as to why the UK government believes this has a chance of succeeding?
TalkTalk's director has already said unequivocably that TalkTalk will sue the UK Government if they proceed with policies like this, on the basis that presumably the TalkTalk director does not want to be put in jail for being ultimately responsible for implementing UK government policies that violate E.U and International Laws on privacy and human rights.
Additionally, the UK's secret service has warned the UK government that raising people's awareness of attacks on their privacy simply raises their awareness of techniques to keep their conversations private, thus making the job of snooping on conversations that really *matter* just that much more difficult and costly.
it's the lack of thought for consequences of censorship that has me confused. in this day and age, with the overwhelming occurrences of embarrassment that occurs repeatedly over censorship attempts and cover-up attempts, surely businesses would work out by now that a "thank you! we'll fix this IMMEDIATELY! and we'll even pay you some money, and, for anyone else who is listening, we'll pay a BOUNTY to anyone else who privately reports security problems in the future!" approach would make them appear to be a much more enlightened and responsible company.... or am i just expecting too much?
Installed linux on it: i got an Acer C112 i'm not using, battery's stuffed but the keyboard is almost brand-new, replaced it only a couple of months before getting a new one:)... but seriously, i'm not here to sell you my old laptop, but to recommend that you look up any 2nd hand smartphone or touchscreen PDA, and use the "drawing" program, simple as that.
you can then insert the images into your notes, afterwards. pay attention _do_ try to get a linux-based one: not only do my natural instincts abhor proprietary software but you may find it inconvenient to convert from proprietary PDA / Wince image formats into something you can actually use.
of course, when you've got a "real" job you can afford $1000+ on a decent tablet PC, but then you'll not be needing to take maths notes from lecturers:)
The UD-160A gives you a full set of ports (4x USB2, VGA-out, 10/100 Ethernet) thanks to DisplayLink drivers. Price: $90-ish.
If you don't need a screen, you can get away with a 4x USB2 hub ($8) or a 7x USB2 hub ($12) and spang on peripherals as you need.
Then, if it turns out that you do want a screen after all, you can always go for a Doublesight DS-90U USB 1024x600 screen, again, using DisplayLink free software drivers.
There are plenty of other ARM-based low-power CPUs with at least 512mb of RAM: the beagleboard and the IGEP-v2 go for $100 appx at 600mhz.
i'd like to see the trike sent to the moon. and stay there.
a web site with remote control options, like that guy who allowed people to control his 2x2 grid of christmas lights over the internet, would be icing on the cake.
ah, yes, i heard about plasma. the general consensus is that whilst the developers creating widgets are extremely competent, and having a lot of fun and doing fantastic creative work, the actual core of plasma is... strained.
plus, also, remember: KDE is based on QT. QT is nowhere near as powerful as DOM / browser technology, requiring code to be written in c++ to workaround its limitations. bottom line: Browser engines such as Trident, Webkit and XULrunner absolutely piss all over "desktop" widget sets for flexibility, reach and maturity.
You can't beat approx 45% market share of MSHTML/Trident, so... if you can't beat-em, join-em.
Slashdot Mirror
yah, good point. except... P2P levels the playing field, there, too...
so it's clear - unequivocably clear - that all music that people want ends up on P2P networks, for anyone to get hold of. thus it is up to the music providers to realise this, take realistic stock, take advantage of the opportunity, and make some money by providing people what they want!
it is only by NOT selling people what they want (DRM-free music) that they are hurting their profits!
so this is something that the BBC Trust could learn from, and also the HD video data providers. it's quite simple: there's not really that much difference between music and video. programmes _will_ end up on P2P networks, period. thus there is absolutely no point in driving up the cost of set top boxes by adding in DRM that's going to be bypassed, regardless.
Up until it was made illegal only relatively recently, you CHOSE to buy and sell slaves. do you view such practices as acceptable? except, now, the slavery isn't recognised as such, because it is several degrees removed, behind "Intellectual Property" laws. so your post basically says that you are ignorant and happy with it. please remind me where you come from, where you were educated and what you believe in: i would like to make sure i never go there, and i would like to be inspired never to be like you.
/. has one of the best censorship systems in existence. Troll mods will rescue us all!
:) whew, thank god: for a minute there i was worried that people might think i was being serious. instead, fortunately, people think i'm seriously promoting "myself" and deliberately saying things just for the sake of causing trouble.
paraphrasing aldous huxley: facts don't go away just because you ignore them.
the trouble is that empirical evidence - especially that of personally-experienced evidence and thus the conclusions that can be derived from those personal experiences - _can_ be ignored...
i know. amazing, isn't it. i put it down to being realistic and mentioning the phrase "statistical sample of one", and specifically mentioning that it's "personal experience and observation" rather than "fact". if i'd said "it's a fact! because i said so!" then quite rightly i'd be called out as being a nut-job and a dick.
ahh, that would be telling :) but seriously, you can do the google searches for "TETRA modem", "Ontology Classifier", "Knowledge Systems" for a few weeks just as well as anyone can.
and no, i'm not "important", just reasonably persistent and intelligent.
i don't know if people are going to believe this (but i don't care) because i'm a "statistical sample of one", but there is empirical evidence (on a statistical sample of one - me) to suggest that real-time Internet Censorship operates in the United States on a level far more sophisticated than that of China.
when i was last in the U.S. i happened to be making enquiries about "knowledge-based" systems and about TETRA modems. unfortunately, the best "knowledge-based" software happens to fall into a category of tools (ontology classifiers for example) used and deployed by Intelligence Agencies; and unfortunately, the best companies that do TETRA also happen to do APCO P25 radios used by Police, Homeland Security, Airports, the FBI etc.
so there's little me, waving a red flag to a bull, and finding that web site browsing was behaving particularly odd. one moment web sites would be accessible and the next they would be offline.
i surmised that i was finding "stuff" that, embarrassingly for the people monitoring my internet traffic, they had never encountered before, never evaluated and so out of knee-jerk fear reaction slapped a block on it.
it also turns out that one of the companies i had found had _just_ been funded by InQTel.
it took some phone calls to stop the censorship.
so if you push the right buttons and wave the right kind of red flags, there's enough empirical evidence to suggest that the United States also performs Internet Censorship.
of course, nobody's told Mrs Clinton that, before she began getting righteous, which is very embarrassing for her and for the U.S. government she's representing. it also puts the comments made by the Chinese Government into perspective: namely that the Chinese Government know damn well that the U.S. Government also performs Internet Censorship; Ma Zhaoxu is simply calling things "as they are".
p.s. in replies to this, i don't want to see any messages saying "But That's All Irrelevant Because China Has A Bad Human Rights Record" to which the response is "Guantanamo Bay? remember that place?"
you're forgetting something: china has 1.3 billion people, and a millenia-long tradition of practicing tai ji martial arts. oh. and you've also forgotten the fact that they're a nuclear superpower. so the days of war-mongering are over. get used to it.
very gooood. i think this is highly amusing, on several fronts. the first is just the irony of the country touted as having "A Bad Human Rights Record" (when in fact they are just using common sense to keep control over 1.3 billion people) happens to now hold a damocles sword over the rest of the world if it wants to go "green".
the second irony is that it takes rare metals, which are, by definition, in limited supply, to go "green" in the first place. the missing bit that is not specifically stated is, "if the world wants to 'Go Green' (tm) and still maintain a high level of technology".
there is a simpler way to "go green" and not be dependent on chinese exports of rare earth metals: a return to subsistence-style living and community-driven societies, with countries like Poland, who have just absolutely amazing self-reliant and vibrant communities, already leading the way in that regard, having not really changed their way of living for centuries in the first place as "technology" passed them by.
whilst this suggestion of a solution is pretty much guaranteed to provoke outrage in certain (lazy) 1st world westerners, such lazy individuals might want to think about this: that the combination of restrictions on supply of "rare earth" metals, and the predicted "peak oil" period due to hit only next year, i think it's pretty much on the cards that the "technological age" which consumes 50% of the world's resources in the U.S. alone is almost certainly coming to an end.
so the only remaining question to ask is: are you ready for that change; are you just going to "wing it", are you going to stick your head in the sand, or are you just going to sit there until you die, waiting for the lights to come back on, the phone to ring and the gas boiler to provide you with heating again?
um... wasn't there a slashdot report about whitelisting of all foreign web sites, so that no external porn would get into the country?? did someone in the chinese government forget about the concept of a) mirrors b) home-grown porn, then?
you're talking to the person who implemented samba's 2nd nmbd improvements, back in 1996, and demonstrated the world's first multi-workgroup / multi-PDC server on microsoft's campus, in about 1998.
NetBIOS is NOT an "API". or - it is, but only in the sense that most early implementations were user-space (in the same way that WINSOCK.DLL was userspace), and RFC 1001/1002 showed how to _proxy_ what is effectively its own transport (equivalent to TCP/IP) and naming service (equivalent to DNS) over other transports at the same ISO layer.
it's very unfortunate and particularly sad that the robustness of the NetBIOS naming / registration service (in the face of absolute ignorance and total misconfiguration) is not respected, studied, improved and modernised.
it's also rather unfortunate that the "scope" field, which was what the DNS "zone" field was renamed as, was not respected by early windows implementations. this _could_ have been re-used for its original purpose: the DNS "zone". in this way, NetBIOS _could_ have been extended out onto the Internet, could have been extended with DNSSEC, and thus turned into something very very useful and very exciting.
but - as i mentioned in an earlier post, we're relying on microsoft engineers to implement it, and all the ones who understand this stuff retired as millionaires quite some time ago, now.
nooo, congratulations, you've made the exact same mistake that everyone makes. NetBEUI is the equivalent of Ethernet (MAC addresses). NetBIOS is the equivalent of TCP/IP, IPX/SPX etc.
examination of RFC1001 shows that the NetBIOS protocol is actually DNS with enhancements and a few different meanings of some of the bits. there is therefore absolutely no reason why NetBIOS should not have the DNSSEC security system added to it. ... except, that would mean that microsoft had to do some work, on some code that was written well over twenty years ago. so the trouble is that microsoft doesn't actually have anyone left at the company who understands what was written, let alone why it was written.
and neither really does anyone else. incredibly, comparison of NetBIOS to the Mobile IPv6 protocols developed a few years ago showed the *Mobile IPv6* protocols to be severely lacking.
the entire NetBIOS protocol, apart from the obvious lack of security (because it was designed for LAN use) is incredibly far-sighted.
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:E6SCqgDxxGAJ:www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/mfreed/erroneous-dmca-notices-and-copyright-enforcement-part-deux+freedom+to+tinker+erroneous+dmca&hl=en&gl=uk&strip=1
the most important thing about sci-fi is not the technology itself, but the stories that use sci-fi blended into the background. the mistake of "Glorifying" technology is more often made by hollywood film directors than it is by sci-fi writers.
so, yes: sci-fi is often predictive of the near future (stephenson, gibson), and comes up with "the goods" but to be honest that's quite a specific genre of sci-fi, leaving out a whole range of books that are absolutely mind-blowing (asimov, reynolds and hamilton to name just three).
fine: who gives a fuck. make it 0.01 grams. the kinetic energy per metre squared is 340 million joules per metre squared instead of 34 billion.
Particles the size of a grain of sand - assume 1 gram. Speed: 8333 metres per second. Kinetic Energy Formula: 0.5 * mass * velocity * velocity.
Kinetic Energy of grain of sand: 34,719 joules.
Small car travelling at 30mph, mass 1000kg. Speed: 13 metres per second.
Kinetic Energy of car: 84,500 joules.
Area to which impact of grain of sand occurs: assume 1mm square.
Kinetic Energy per square metre when grain impacts: 34 billion Joules/Sqm.
Area to which impact of car occurs at 30mph: assume 1 sq m.
Kinetic Energy per square metre when car impacts: 84 thousand Joules/Sqm.
this is why, if a dust particle the size of a grain of sand hits a spacecraft it would leave a micro hole on one side, vapourise and turn to plasma, cutting its way through absolutely everything in its path in a geometrically predictable and expanding pattern. net result is a gaping cone of missing spacecraft on the other side of the dot, significant additional debris, and some dead astronauts.
and that's just the dust particles.
Materials science is simply not up to the job of dealing with this kind of energy impact, which is why, instead, NASA tracks several tens of thousands of objects including an Astronaut's boot, and makes sure that everything that goes up stays well clear.
Exceptions would be made for online banking and shopping using a dedicated system that can't be used for anything else.
which means that the truly hardened criminals will create an online shopping cart in order to commit crimes. (like they don't already... to whit: money-laundering)
Other than that - mandatory government-issued spyware?
what - like in china? that's working out well, for them, i understand.
could someone please seriously enlighten me as to why the UK government believes this has a chance of succeeding?
TalkTalk's director has already said unequivocably that TalkTalk will sue the UK Government if they proceed with policies like this, on the basis that presumably the TalkTalk director does not want to be put in jail for being ultimately responsible for implementing UK government policies that violate E.U and International Laws on privacy and human rights.
Additionally, the UK's secret service has warned the UK government that raising people's awareness of attacks on their privacy simply raises their awareness of techniques to keep their conversations private, thus making the job of snooping on conversations that really *matter* just that much more difficult and costly.
it's the lack of thought for consequences of censorship that has me confused. in this day and age, with the overwhelming occurrences of embarrassment that occurs repeatedly over censorship attempts and cover-up attempts, surely businesses would work out by now that a "thank you! we'll fix this IMMEDIATELY! and we'll even pay you some money, and, for anyone else who is listening, we'll pay a BOUNTY to anyone else who privately reports security problems in the future!" approach would make them appear to be a much more enlightened and responsible company. ... or am i just expecting too much?
.
http://lkcl.net/reports/bing.censorship.attempt - additional mirrors will be added as i find them.
Installed linux on it: i got an Acer C112 i'm not using, battery's stuffed but the keyboard is almost brand-new, replaced it only a couple of months before getting a new one :) ... but seriously, i'm not here to sell you my old laptop, but to recommend that you look up any 2nd hand smartphone or touchscreen PDA, and use the "drawing" program, simple as that.
you can then insert the images into your notes, afterwards. pay attention _do_ try to get a linux-based one: not only do my natural instincts abhor proprietary software but you may find it inconvenient to convert from proprietary PDA / Wince image formats into something you can actually use.
of course, when you've got a "real" job you can afford $1000+ on a decent tablet PC, but then you'll not be needing to take maths notes from lecturers :)
The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug runs a 1.2ghz Marvell PXA 270 ARM, and costs $99.
The UD-160A gives you a full set of ports (4x USB2, VGA-out, 10/100 Ethernet) thanks to DisplayLink drivers. Price: $90-ish.
If you don't need a screen, you can get away with a 4x USB2 hub ($8) or a 7x USB2 hub ($12) and spang on peripherals as you need.
Then, if it turns out that you do want a screen after all, you can always go for a Doublesight DS-90U USB 1024x600 screen, again, using DisplayLink free software drivers.
There are plenty of other ARM-based low-power CPUs with at least 512mb of RAM: the beagleboard and the IGEP-v2 go for $100 appx at 600mhz.
i'd like to see the trike sent to the moon. and stay there.
a web site with remote control options, like that guy who allowed people to control his 2x2 grid of christmas lights over the internet, would be icing on the cake.
ah, yes, i heard about plasma. the general consensus is that whilst the developers creating widgets are extremely competent, and having a lot of fun and doing fantastic creative work, the actual core of plasma is... strained.
plus, also, remember: KDE is based on QT. QT is nowhere near as powerful as DOM / browser technology, requiring code to be written in c++ to workaround its limitations. bottom line: Browser engines such as Trident, Webkit and XULrunner absolutely piss all over "desktop" widget sets for flexibility, reach and maturity.
You can't beat approx 45% market share of MSHTML/Trident, so... if you can't beat-em, join-em.