I don't think there is any scanner with a 10'000 dpi resolution. Yes, I know it says 19'200 dpi on the boxes of ordinary scanners for home use, but they don't actually sample at 19'200 dpi. They sample at more like 600x600 dpi, and then use mathematical algorithms to extrapolate up to higher and higher resolutions. They won't be able to extract the information from a CD.
Swedish law adresses this problem. In Sweden, contracts must be entered *before* the purchase to be valid. Agreements of the type "If you open this envelope, you implicitly agree to this contract" are invalid in Sweden. Disclaimers are equally invalid.
So, if anybody needs to disassemble a piece of proprietary software, just send it here, and I can do it legally. As long as I don't give away copies of the software, I can do whatever I like with it. Those little pesky legal labels on the CD envelopes don't mean a thing here.
Of course, most people don't know that, so the software companies try to pull a fast one on us and include the contracts and disclaimers anyway.
But, who would want to disassemble Microsoft software anyway...
I think the end of Tim Burton's Planet of The Apes was good, especially considering what he had to work with.
It can't be easy being compared to one of the greatest classical science fiction movies (the original Planet of The Apes). Since the first movie had a surprise ending, Burton had to come up with a surprise ending too. And just rehashing the old ending wouldn't make it a surprise, would it? So he had to come up with his own unexpected ending.
Apparently, the main character and the space station were sent *back* in time at the beginning of the movie, to before the human race evolved technology, making the apes the dominant species. At the end of the movie, the main character travels back to his own time -- but history is irrevocably changed. At the national monument where he crash lands, instead of a statue of a human founding father, there is a statue of an ape.
The other senses woule be 'lazy' only if you used them significantly less. The 'bat' sense would probably not be very useful, and thus not compete with the other senses. But, I think with enough practice, the right kind of practice, and enough time, the sense could probably be a little useful. I don't think training his gray matter for this new sense, somehow give less brain volume to his other senses. The same part of the brain can learn several tasks by forming new connections.
Maybe. But I doubt Amazon.com et al would allow them to hijack links or artificially inflate referrals even for a second, since they wuould have to shell out the dough and it scares away other affiliate partners. That's why I assumed the referrals either were from the shopping section inside Morpheus, or inserted into the browser without hijacking other people's links.
But time will tell.
If StreamCast really does try something ugly, I don't think they'll get away with it, because people can just as well switch to Gnutella now when Morpheus is just another Gnutella client...
Hm... You're right. I mistakenly thought StreamCast would insert referrals into the browser in a second way, not related to the redirects.
But please note, the article only says the redirects can be used to get referrals, not that StreamCast actually plans to use them that way. StreamCast says that most referrals will happen inside the shopping section of Morpheus, and that Morpheus will use the redirects merely to collect usage statistics:
"Most of the referrals will happen inside the Morpheus application itself after the new version is launched with a commerce section, [Griffin] said."
"The company on Tuesday said it has begun installing a Web browser add- on that sends some Morpheus users on an invisible Web detour aimed at capturing data about file swappers' surfing habits. [...]
Those separate servers, run by marketing companies including Be Free, count how many times Morpheus users stop by."
Well, you're right, it does say how the referrals are done technically speaking.
What I meant was, it doesn't say if the referrals will be done in an intrusing or deceptive way, like, hijacking other people's referrals, inserting links into innocent web pages, displaying ads in extra frames, etc.
I think there isn't any competition between different Linux kernels, simply because it's not needed. The current team is doing such a good job, and it's easier and better to make an addition to the kernel than to split the source tree.
Or are we talking about the user's need to choose between different kernels?
Well, you can run roughly the same software on the FreeBSD kernel as you can on Linux. Gnome, Konqueror, Ghostscript... it's all there.
There aren't many commercial vendors selling BSD versions, but that doesn't matter so much when you can just get BSD and install the software you need yourself.
But if there was a significant need for alternative Linux kernels, I'm sure the competition would crop up faster than you can say "ego-boosting Linux fanatic".;-)
Re:Gotta represent (er, maintain)
on
More Marcelo Tosatti
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
There may be a simple practical reason that such a small group of people maintains the kernel:
It takes a lot of work.
Anybody can program kernel code (or at least try:) in their spare time, there is no time limit, so you can just use the time you have over, and do as much or as little as you want. But maintaining the kernel is nearly a full-time job. It puts everything else aside.
Seriously, I don't think the editors of Slashdot do any censoring and manipulate the users to up their advertising $$.
I think it's just lack of quality control in the articles posted, and that so many people jump to conclusions instead of checking the facts, that the factual postings get buried under the avalanche.
True, if StreamCast really detoured people to another site to collect referral bonuses, they would be violating the rules, and Amazon would most likely refuse to pay up.
However, according to the News.com article, they are merely detouring people to collect usage statistics.
They'll also put referrals inside the browser window in some unspecified manner. Maybe this will take the form of some annoying extra ad banner, or maybe they will put a link to the Amazon.com page selling Britney Spears stuff every time the phrase Britney Spears appears in a web document. But that's only annoying, not "sleazy business practices".
More specifically, there's nothing in the article saying they'll hijack other people's links. See my other post, #3192878.
... but this is a storm in a waterglass. I must point out what the article actually said and didn't say.
The article said that StreamCast will:
1. Redirect users to another site to collect usage statistics before sending them to the site they wanted to go to. This might be seen as invading people's privacy, but no personal data will be collected, merely usage statistics.
2. Put up a shopping section in Morpheus. That sounds perfectly legitimate to me.
3. Put referrals to online stores inside the browser window in some unspecified manner.
Please note that 1) and 3) are two separate points. They won't redirect you to another site when you're trying to go to Amazon.com, and then claim the referral bonus. The redirection is only for collecting usage statistics.
And the referrals inside the browser window have nothing to do with the redirection.
There's nothing in the article saying that StreamCast will hijack other people's referrals.
There's nothing in the article saying that StreamCast will pretend to refer people to sites (like Amazon.com) when they go there themselves.
"The company on Tuesday said it has begun installing a Web browser add-on that sends some Morpheus users on an invisible Web detour aimed at capturing data about file swappers' surfing habits."
I.e, so far it's only about collecting usage statistics. It's simple spyware, not stealing referrals from someone else.
A little further down, the article goes on to say:
"By invisibly inserting the redirect into Web surfers' browsers, StreamCast can make it look like it is referring traffic to shopping Web sites without the shopper ever being aware that the Morpheus technology was involved."
The keyword here is "can". It doesn't say they do it yet. It doesn't say how the referrals are inserted into the browser either.
Maybe Morpheus just makes your browser have an extra, annoying banner-line with referrals.
Or maybe, if there's a web page with the text "Britney Spears" it inserts a referral to the Amazon.com page where Britney Spears albums are sold if there isn't already a referral there.
If StreamCast was going to hijack other people's referrals, I doubt they'd be so open about it. I don't think StreamCast would ever try something like that, because it would be stopped by the vendors themselves faster than anybody can say "litigation".
More from the article:
"Most of the referrals will happen inside the Morpheus application itself after the new version is launched with a commerce section, he said."
Putting referrals inside the Morpheus application sounds pretty legitimate to me. There's just the issue about just how exactly the other referrals, inside the browser, are done.
Slashdot Mirror
As part of "the rest of the world", I can confirm it's a hate-love relationship.
I don't think there is any scanner with a 10'000 dpi resolution. Yes, I know it says 19'200 dpi on the boxes of ordinary scanners for home use, but they don't actually sample at 19'200 dpi. They sample at more like 600x600 dpi, and then use mathematical algorithms to extrapolate up to higher and higher resolutions. They won't be able to extract the information from a CD.
Swedish law adresses this problem. In Sweden, contracts must be entered *before* the purchase to be valid. Agreements of the type "If you open this envelope, you implicitly agree to this contract" are invalid in Sweden. Disclaimers are equally invalid.
So, if anybody needs to disassemble a piece of proprietary software, just send it here, and I can do it legally. As long as I don't give away copies of the software, I can do whatever I like with it. Those little pesky legal labels on the CD envelopes don't mean a thing here.
Of course, most people don't know that, so the software companies try to pull a fast one on us and include the contracts and disclaimers anyway.
But, who would want to disassemble Microsoft software anyway...
I don't know where the protons go, but the elections go down the drain.
I think the black hole would get a stronger and stronger negative charge, until it was impossible to drop any more electrons into it.
Good point there, Tim Burton could have insisted on his artistic integrity.
Nah -- a *real* engineer is at the peak of motivation when people say it *can't* be done.
I think the end of Tim Burton's Planet of The Apes was good, especially considering what he had to work with.
It can't be easy being compared to one of the greatest classical science fiction movies (the original Planet of The Apes).
Since the first movie had a surprise ending, Burton had to come up with a surprise ending too. And just rehashing the old ending wouldn't make it a surprise, would it?
So he had to come up with his own unexpected ending.
Apparently, the main character and the space station were sent *back* in time at the beginning of the movie, to before the human race evolved technology, making the apes the dominant species. At the end of the movie, the main character travels back to his own time -- but history is irrevocably changed. At the national monument where he crash lands, instead of a statue of a human founding father, there is a statue of an ape.
"Why didn't we think of this. Let's get patents on watermarking and other intrusive technologies being rammed down our throats by content providers."
Water marking? Great! Then the gov't wouldn't be able to cram their proprietary currency down our throats anymore.
The other senses woule be 'lazy' only if you used them significantly less. The 'bat' sense would probably not be very useful, and thus not compete with the other senses.
But, I think with enough practice, the right kind of practice, and enough time, the sense could probably be a little useful.
I don't think training his gray matter for this new sense, somehow give less brain volume to his other senses. The same part of the brain can learn several tasks by forming new connections.
I assumed the poster was talking about using a third-party website for apps and data storage, like FusionOne.
Maybe. But I doubt Amazon.com et al would allow them to hijack links or artificially inflate referrals even for a second, since they wuould have to shell out the dough and it scares away other affiliate partners.
That's why I assumed the referrals either were from the shopping section inside Morpheus, or inserted into the browser without hijacking other people's links.
But time will tell.
If StreamCast really does try something ugly, I don't think they'll get away with it, because people can just as well switch to Gnutella now when Morpheus is just another Gnutella client...
But please note, the article only says the redirects can be used to get referrals, not that StreamCast actually plans to use them that way. StreamCast says that most referrals will happen inside the shopping section of Morpheus, and that Morpheus will use the redirects merely to collect usage statistics:
"Most of the referrals will happen inside the Morpheus application itself after the new version is launched with a commerce section, [Griffin] said."
"The company on Tuesday said it has begun installing a Web browser add- on that sends some Morpheus users on an invisible Web detour aimed at capturing data about file swappers' surfing habits. [...]
Those separate servers, run by marketing companies including Be Free, count how many times Morpheus users stop by."
Yeah I remember that!
Did you have any interesting hardware to run it on?
The best Amiga I ever had was an Amiga 1200 with a 68030@50MHz card.
Well, you're right, it does say how the referrals are done technically speaking. What I meant was, it doesn't say if the referrals will be done in an intrusing or deceptive way, like, hijacking other people's referrals, inserting links into innocent web pages, displaying ads in extra frames, etc.
That was about when I left the Amiga.
Were Amigas with accelerator cards really faster than Macs? How could that be?
Is TopText doing this right now? And Amazon et al allows it?
Or are we talking about the user's need to choose between different kernels?
Well, you can run roughly the same software on the FreeBSD kernel as you can on Linux. Gnome, Konqueror, Ghostscript... it's all there.
There aren't many commercial vendors selling BSD versions, but that doesn't matter so much when you can just get BSD and install the software you need yourself.
But if there was a significant need for alternative Linux kernels, I'm sure the competition would crop up faster than you can say "ego-boosting Linux fanatic". ;-)
There may be a simple practical reason that such a small group of people maintains the kernel:
:) in their spare time, there is no time limit, so you can just use the time you have over, and do as much or as little as you want.
It takes a lot of work.
Anybody can program kernel code (or at least try
But maintaining the kernel is nearly a full-time job. It puts everything else aside.
Or what do you think?
Seriously, I don't think the editors of Slashdot do any censoring and manipulate the users to up their advertising $$.
I think it's just lack of quality control in the articles posted, and that so many people jump to conclusions instead of checking the facts, that the factual postings get buried under the avalanche.
Aha, so it's not really StreamCast that collects ad revenue through sleazy business practices, it's the Slashdot editors!
The conspiracy goes deeper than I thought...
(Just joking here, AnalogBoy. Your point is valid. A lot of the Slashdot articles are way too sensationalist.)
However, according to the News.com article, they are merely detouring people to collect usage statistics.
They'll also put referrals inside the browser window in some unspecified manner. Maybe this will take the form of some annoying extra ad banner, or maybe they will put a link to the Amazon.com page selling Britney Spears stuff every time the phrase Britney Spears appears in a web document. But that's only annoying, not "sleazy business practices".
More specifically, there's nothing in the article saying they'll hijack other people's links. See my other post, #3192878.
The article said that StreamCast will:
1. Redirect users to another site to collect usage statistics before sending them to the site they wanted to go to. This might be seen as invading people's privacy, but no personal data will be collected, merely usage statistics.
2. Put up a shopping section in Morpheus. That sounds perfectly legitimate to me.
3. Put referrals to online stores inside the browser window in some unspecified manner.
Please note that 1) and 3) are two separate points. They won't redirect you to another site when you're trying to go to Amazon.com, and then claim the referral bonus. The redirection is only for collecting usage statistics.
And the referrals inside the browser window have nothing to do with the redirection.
There's nothing in the article saying that StreamCast will hijack other people's referrals.
There's nothing in the article saying that StreamCast will pretend to refer people to sites (like Amazon.com) when they go there themselves.
Or if you're downloading both Britney Spears and Black Sabbath: Multiple personalites.
From the News.com article:
"The company on Tuesday said it has begun installing a Web browser add-on that sends some Morpheus users on an invisible Web detour aimed at capturing data about file swappers' surfing habits."
I.e, so far it's only about collecting usage statistics. It's simple spyware, not stealing referrals from someone else.
A little further down, the article goes on to say:
"By invisibly inserting the redirect into Web surfers' browsers, StreamCast can make it look like it is referring traffic to shopping Web sites without the shopper ever being aware that the Morpheus technology was involved."
The keyword here is "can". It doesn't say they do it yet. It doesn't say how the referrals are inserted into the browser either.
Maybe Morpheus just makes your browser have an extra, annoying banner-line with referrals.
Or maybe, if there's a web page with the text "Britney Spears" it inserts a referral to the Amazon.com page where Britney Spears albums are sold if there isn't already a referral there.
If StreamCast was going to hijack other people's referrals, I doubt they'd be so open about it. I don't think StreamCast would ever try something like that, because it would be stopped by the vendors themselves faster than anybody can say "litigation".
More from the article:
"Most of the referrals will happen inside the Morpheus application itself after the new version is launched with a commerce section, he said."
Putting referrals inside the Morpheus application sounds pretty legitimate to me. There's just the issue about just how exactly the other referrals, inside the browser, are done.