"Hi, I'm sosume. I say I'm sosume, and that's all that matters. Please enjoy the random stuff I have to say, and log in with an otherwise pointless username and password if you want to leave comments."
See how it changes when it's just some random dude's website?
Obviously, there's no way for Firefox to tell the difference between a bank's website and some random dude's blog, but it seems to me there must be a middle ground between a tiny little notification saying, "Hey, you should worry about this website!" and an error page saying, "I didn't load this website because of a serious security error! Proceed at your own peril!".
I've never put any music on it because every program I've found to put music on the iPod (iTunes, Winamp, etc...) makes me put it in some asinine Music Library rather than using this filing system I call a Hierarchical Directory Structure that my 17,050 music files (60.8GB) are already in?
Then you must really, really hate trying hard.
Here's a hint for you: you can set iTunes to index the music you have in an arbitrary folder structure without moving, copying, or in any other way messing with your actual music files.
That's your experience, with the people in your circle. Mine is the opposite. I still have to explain what web browsers are to people, and some of them still don't understand it, because they just don't have a place in their mind labeled "web browser" the way we do, and having it explained to them once won't change that.
What you say gives me hope, but please don't make the mistake of thinking that it's universal.
Worse yet, they've captured enough marketshare to where the idea of IE being the "only option" has mostly gone the way of the dodo.
I'm sorry, but this is just not true.
Outside of geek circles—and in this case, I'm using "geek" to mean "people who know what the phrase web browser means"—many, many people still don't even have a concept of getting on the internet by using anything but the big blue "e". That is the Internet to them.
Some of them will have noticed the name "Internet Explorer," but for a great many non-technically-savvy users, it's still true that that's just "the internet," and if you told them about Firefox as a potential replacement for IE, they'd just look at you askance and ask, "So...I open up the blue "e", then I open up this Foxfire thing, and it'll keep me safer?"
Yes, alternative browsers are gaining ground, and there are many fewer of this type of user than there were a few years ago. But please don't make the mistake of thinking that nearly everyone on the Internet now knows that they have the choice of switching to Firefox, or even realizes that they're using Internet Explorer in the first place.
Dan Aris
Re:Not just unknown, incompatible
on
R.I.P. FTP
·
· Score: 1
Windows Server 2008 has a free downloadable add on for FTPS in IIS 7.0. I have had success in implementing this with FileZilla as an FTPS client.
Very nice, for those who can afford Windows Server 2008.
However, a) we can't, b) it's on a Linux server, and c) this was before Windows Server 2008 was even in public beta (so far as I know).
Dan Aris
Not just unknown, incompatible
on
R.I.P. FTP
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I have tried to set up an FTPS site.
Even with vsftpd, I was unable to configure it with settings that allowed it to connect with more than 1 different type of client at a time. So far as I can tell, there are a half-dozen different implementation of FTPS out there, none of which are able to interoperate properly.
SFTP is much more standard and well-supported, and more or less just works, and there are various tutorials out there for setting it up.
If fifty years ago I came up with a way to manufacture ball bearings - independently of an existing, patented method - would I not be sued by the patent holder of the bearing production process if I brought a product to market using my bearings?
Only if your method was identical (or very similar) to his method.
Despite modern corruptions, particularly in software patents, most patents are not, and should not be, of the form "A patent on making type of object X". They are and should be "A patent on a method for making type of object X."
In the patent, the entire method is clearly spelled out—it is made "patent," or obvious—and from the patent, anyone in the field and with the requisite equipment/money could produce the same object X by the same method. This, too, is missing from software patents, because to truly match a regular patent in this, the software patent would need to include the source code.
Let's hope this is a sign of things to come. With some luck, we might even see various patents on codecs invalidated, thus allowing much more freedom for which formats to use with the HTML5 <video> element...
Too bad we probably have to see the patents invalidated one by one, rather than getting the entire class thrown out in one swell foop.
Any person who has
1) A computer
2) Access to the Internet
3) A Gnutella "servent" (Limewire, Bearshare, etc., which can be downloaded for free from the net.)
has access to Gnet. Since pretty much anybody can obtain all of the three, I would consider that public.
Any person who has the keys to my office and the combination to my safe can access what I have in there. Does that make it 'public'?
Come now, that's being deliberately disingenuous.
There is only one key to your office (or a very limited number). The combination to your safe is not something that is available to most people.
Computers are quite common, and most people above a very low income threshold have the ability to acquire one easily. Similarly, unless you live way out in the sticks, internet access is available to anyone over a slightly higher income threshold (assuming you're after broadband).
Once you have internet access, you can download any of the Gnutella clients for free.
In order to access your keys, someone would presumably have to steal them. In order to access your safe combination, someone would presumably have to either torture you for the information, or guess.
There's an enormous difference there in who things are available to.
What if I think the Libertarian Party fields lousy candidates who would do far worse a job than more Republicans or Democrats? Shouldn't I then want the all-or-nothing kind of voting?
If you really believe that the country is better off having no practical choice other than Republicans and Democrats for the foreseeable future, then yes, you should oppose alternative election systems.
As for voting, in America if it isn't a republican or democrat you are out of luck.
And this will remain the case as long as we have a single-vote, winner-take-all system. WIth something more like approval voting, people would be able to vote Libertarian and still vote for a candidate who has a chance of winning...which means that a Libertarian candidate might actually stand a chance of winning.
So support election system reform if you want to really make your voice heard.
ANY company that tries to tell its employees what they are allowed to do on their own time is in the wrong, both morally and legally. They have no more power to tell me what to do with my time than I do to tell you.
How about if, on their own time, they sell company secrets to competitors? Not necessarily applicable to newspapers, I know, but I don't think it's unreasonable to tell people they're not allowed to do that.
There are certainly many things that companies should never tell you you must or must not do outside of work hours, and should be roundly punished for attempting to control. However, there are also plenty of things that, for one reason or another, it is perfectly acceptable for a company to tell their employees they can't do and still keep their jobs. Various kinds of conflict of interest, for instance. (Maybe in certain kinds of investigative journalism the reporters could be prohibited from getting too close, personally, to those they're supposed to be investigating.)
Trust me, I'm no advocate of "corporate rights" or anything; I'm just a pedant who objects to absolutist statements like yours when the world's a more complicated place.:-)
The device was sold specifically without that capability, so why is modding it to do so seen as a right?
It's my right because I OWN the device.
Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean the manufacturer has to support it.
You are perfectly free to jailbreak your iPhone and install all sorts of unapproved software on it. So far as I know, there's nothing illegal about it, and the jailbreak community is pretty good at keeping on top of updates that fix previous methods of jailbreaking. Personally, I'm pretty happy with the selection of apps available through the App Store, and don't consider the hassle of jailbreaking worth the extra functionality I would be able to get. For others, the calculation is different.
Apple can decide to have whatever the hell they want in their store... without worrying about your hurt feelings, because the App Store is their property.
Maybe... but they're still dicks, any way you slice it, and that's why I decided to go for a G1 instead.
This isn't Apple using their broad unspecified powers to reject an app arbitrarily or for a moronic reason. If it were, I'd agree with you.
This is an app that should never have even been started, because it very clearly violates the SDK agreement, and anyone with half a brain would have known that Apple would reject it.
As for the assertion that Sega's games are just emulators...
Is there any proof of this?
Even if there is, there is a distinct difference between an emulator packaged with a single ROM, such that it can only run that one game, and an emulator designed to, well, emulate the full capabilities of a system.
So get the hell off your high horse already and live in the real world.
It most certainly does. The iPod touch is, for all intents and purposes, the iPhone without the phone part and the cellular data. If you've got a Wifi signal, you're online.
I have a first-gen Touch, and I'm very happy with it, though I still drool over an iPhone (but am put off by the rather high monthly prices).
No; I don't think I've ever owned a single item of clothing that cost even as much as $100, in fact. (Though I've never liked blue jeans; I much prefer khakis.) And, though I know that expensive tailored clothing is more comfortable than its cheaper counterparts, I'm not about to invest $1000 in something like a suit purely on the off-chance that it could get me a higher-paying job...particularly when, as you mention, the jobs I would be going after would not be customer-facing jobs where such an appearance would actually be reasonable to demand.
This sounds to me like just one more method the rich use to make sure that those who are not already rich can never become so...
A thousand dollar suit *might* help you get you a job and sadly a $1K suit really isn't exceptionally expensive these days for a decent suit. A $15K car will not get you a job though it will get you to said job.
Any job where having a $1000 suit rather than an ordinary (but nice-looking) jacket and tie will make a difference in getting it is probably not a job I want in the first place...either because they have unreasonable expectations in their dress code, or because they're a law firm and I'm not a lawyer.
Now, if it's a job that will buy me a $1000 suit, that might be different...
Yes, the truly daring ask if the church might be responsible, but they usually move off to safer terrain soon, when they outline that it's the patriarchial history, the strict hierarchy, or the amount of power the church gives its priests over children. I've not yet seen one mainstream article about priestly child abuse that even dares to ask if, you know, the one thing that links them all together - that they were religious people - just might play a part.
Now, I'm not saying you're wrong here, but I do wonder just what part of their religiosity it is that you think made/induced/led/whatever them to abuse young children?
Personally, I'm far, far more inclined to believe that
People with that sort of urge saw the church as a place where they would come into contact with lots of children,
People with that sort of urge saw the church as a place where they could go to be "healed" of their urges (and were wrong), or, possibly most likely,
People who joined the Catholic priesthood, which (unlike various other denominations) enforces celibacy on its priests, ended up with all kinds of suppressed urges, which ended up leaking out in bad ways.
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible that there's something about excessive religion itself that draws people to become child abusers. I'm just saying that, given the evidence we have (which, to my understanding, is that it's way, way disproportionately the Catholic church that this happened in...though I could be wrong about that, too, which would cast serious doubt on #3), there's very little in the Bible which suggests that priests should abuse boys, and there are already links known between suppressing sexual desire and...deviant behaviour.
I know you like to bash religion at every chance you get, Tom, and I'd tend to agree that the Catholic church in particular is not much better than Scientology (sale of indulgences, anyone?), but...don't you think it's more reasonable to actually look at logical cause-and-effect relationships?
(Note: None of this in any way absolves the Catholic church of its responsibility to have addressed these problems the moment they cropped up, a responsibility which it almost totally abandoned in its self-serving effort to project its image of infallibility...)
The telco market is rapidly imploding, and very soon there will not be enough competitors left in the business to create an actual market.
Well, in most places in the US, there weren't to begin with.
Competition isn't really meaningful when the cost of switching from one provider to another is moving to another state.
Even when there were lots of little regional cable companies, there wasn't a lot of meaningful competition. It wasn't quite so bad with telcos, but it's becoming so again.
At the moment, I'm lucky enough that Time-Warner is giving decent speeds and service in my area. If that changes, there won't really be much of anything I can do about it—the only other internet service I could switch to is Verizon DSL, and
They're just about as bad as Time-Warner
From what I've heard, their speed and service are considerably worse than Time-Warner in the area
We don't currently have any landline service, and since we bought our house new, it's never even been connected, so it would require a considerably more involved setup than the norm.
So, yeah. There's already no competition. Why do you think Time-Warner thought they could get away with this kind of BS in the first place?
I think the entire ad leading up to announcing the name "Linux" presented familiar icons and controls of computing in general: mouse cursor, resizing, screen manipulation. This sets up a familiar environment.
Those are so ubiquitous today, and are presented so vaguely, that for someone who has never heard of Linux before, the ad could just as easily be for a new drug. Lots of drug ads talk about freedom, after all, and many of them don't tell you anything about what the drug is for...though they do, of course, run through a list of side effects as long as my arm.
Slashdot Mirror
"Hi, I'm sosume. I say I'm sosume, and that's all that matters. Please enjoy the random stuff I have to say, and log in with an otherwise pointless username and password if you want to leave comments."
See how it changes when it's just some random dude's website?
Obviously, there's no way for Firefox to tell the difference between a bank's website and some random dude's blog, but it seems to me there must be a middle ground between a tiny little notification saying, "Hey, you should worry about this website!" and an error page saying, "I didn't load this website because of a serious security error! Proceed at your own peril!".
Dan Aris
I've never put any music on it because every program I've found to put music on the iPod (iTunes, Winamp, etc...) makes me put it in some asinine Music Library rather than using this filing system I call a Hierarchical Directory Structure that my 17,050 music files (60.8GB) are already in?
Then you must really, really hate trying hard.
Here's a hint for you: you can set iTunes to index the music you have in an arbitrary folder structure without moving, copying, or in any other way messing with your actual music files.
Enjoy your iPod.
Dan Aris
Does it matter? The point is that there are enough normal people who still don't get it that we can't just rest on our laurels.
Dan Aris
That's your experience, with the people in your circle. Mine is the opposite. I still have to explain what web browsers are to people, and some of them still don't understand it, because they just don't have a place in their mind labeled "web browser" the way we do, and having it explained to them once won't change that.
What you say gives me hope, but please don't make the mistake of thinking that it's universal.
Dan Aris
Worse yet, they've captured enough marketshare to where the idea of IE being the "only option" has mostly gone the way of the dodo.
I'm sorry, but this is just not true.
Outside of geek circles—and in this case, I'm using "geek" to mean "people who know what the phrase web browser means"—many, many people still don't even have a concept of getting on the internet by using anything but the big blue "e". That is the Internet to them.
Some of them will have noticed the name "Internet Explorer," but for a great many non-technically-savvy users, it's still true that that's just "the internet," and if you told them about Firefox as a potential replacement for IE, they'd just look at you askance and ask, "So...I open up the blue "e", then I open up this Foxfire thing, and it'll keep me safer?"
Yes, alternative browsers are gaining ground, and there are many fewer of this type of user than there were a few years ago. But please don't make the mistake of thinking that nearly everyone on the Internet now knows that they have the choice of switching to Firefox, or even realizes that they're using Internet Explorer in the first place.
Dan Aris
Windows Server 2008 has a free downloadable add on for FTPS in IIS 7.0. I have had success in implementing this with FileZilla as an FTPS client.
Very nice, for those who can afford Windows Server 2008.
However, a) we can't, b) it's on a Linux server, and c) this was before Windows Server 2008 was even in public beta (so far as I know).
Dan Aris
I have tried to set up an FTPS site.
Even with vsftpd, I was unable to configure it with settings that allowed it to connect with more than 1 different type of client at a time. So far as I can tell, there are a half-dozen different implementation of FTPS out there, none of which are able to interoperate properly.
SFTP is much more standard and well-supported, and more or less just works, and there are various tutorials out there for setting it up.
Dan Aris
Only if your method was identical (or very similar) to his method.
What is a "method" if not a specific algorithm for doing something?
Apologies; I was less precise than I should have been.
It has to be a method using a physical apparatus, or the way of constructing said physical apparatus.
But, of course, I'm not a patent lawyer (or any other kind of lawyer). Season as desired.
Dan Aris
If fifty years ago I came up with a way to manufacture ball bearings - independently of an existing, patented method - would I not be sued by the patent holder of the bearing production process if I brought a product to market using my bearings?
Only if your method was identical (or very similar) to his method.
Despite modern corruptions, particularly in software patents, most patents are not, and should not be, of the form "A patent on making type of object X". They are and should be "A patent on a method for making type of object X."
In the patent, the entire method is clearly spelled out—it is made "patent," or obvious—and from the patent, anyone in the field and with the requisite equipment/money could produce the same object X by the same method. This, too, is missing from software patents, because to truly match a regular patent in this, the software patent would need to include the source code.
Dan Aris
Let's hope this is a sign of things to come. With some luck, we might even see various patents on codecs invalidated, thus allowing much more freedom for which formats to use with the HTML5 <video> element...
Too bad we probably have to see the patents invalidated one by one, rather than getting the entire class thrown out in one swell foop.
Dan Aris
Any person who has 1) A computer 2) Access to the Internet 3) A Gnutella "servent" (Limewire, Bearshare, etc., which can be downloaded for free from the net.) has access to Gnet. Since pretty much anybody can obtain all of the three, I would consider that public.
Any person who has the keys to my office and the combination to my safe can access what I have in there. Does that make it 'public'?
Come now, that's being deliberately disingenuous.
There is only one key to your office (or a very limited number). The combination to your safe is not something that is available to most people.
Computers are quite common, and most people above a very low income threshold have the ability to acquire one easily. Similarly, unless you live way out in the sticks, internet access is available to anyone over a slightly higher income threshold (assuming you're after broadband).
Once you have internet access, you can download any of the Gnutella clients for free.
In order to access your keys, someone would presumably have to steal them. In order to access your safe combination, someone would presumably have to either torture you for the information, or guess.
There's an enormous difference there in who things are available to.
Dan Aris
What if I think the Libertarian Party fields lousy candidates who would do far worse a job than more Republicans or Democrats? Shouldn't I then want the all-or-nothing kind of voting?
If you really believe that the country is better off having no practical choice other than Republicans and Democrats for the foreseeable future, then yes, you should oppose alternative election systems.
Dan Aris
As for voting, in America if it isn't a republican or democrat you are out of luck.
And this will remain the case as long as we have a single-vote, winner-take-all system. WIth something more like approval voting, people would be able to vote Libertarian and still vote for a candidate who has a chance of winning...which means that a Libertarian candidate might actually stand a chance of winning.
So support election system reform if you want to really make your voice heard.
Dan Aris
ANY company that tries to tell its employees what they are allowed to do on their own time is in the wrong, both morally and legally. They have no more power to tell me what to do with my time than I do to tell you.
How about if, on their own time, they sell company secrets to competitors? Not necessarily applicable to newspapers, I know, but I don't think it's unreasonable to tell people they're not allowed to do that.
There are certainly many things that companies should never tell you you must or must not do outside of work hours, and should be roundly punished for attempting to control. However, there are also plenty of things that, for one reason or another, it is perfectly acceptable for a company to tell their employees they can't do and still keep their jobs. Various kinds of conflict of interest, for instance. (Maybe in certain kinds of investigative journalism the reporters could be prohibited from getting too close, personally, to those they're supposed to be investigating.)
Trust me, I'm no advocate of "corporate rights" or anything; I'm just a pedant who objects to absolutist statements like yours when the world's a more complicated place. :-)
Dan Aris
It's my right because I OWN the device.
Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean the manufacturer has to support it.
You are perfectly free to jailbreak your iPhone and install all sorts of unapproved software on it. So far as I know, there's nothing illegal about it, and the jailbreak community is pretty good at keeping on top of updates that fix previous methods of jailbreaking. Personally, I'm pretty happy with the selection of apps available through the App Store, and don't consider the hassle of jailbreaking worth the extra functionality I would be able to get. For others, the calculation is different.
"Moral authority" doesn't enter into it, mate.
Dan Aris
Apple can decide to have whatever the hell they want in their store... without worrying about your hurt feelings, because the App Store is their property.
Maybe ... but they're still dicks, any way you slice it, and that's why I decided to go for a G1 instead.
And thus does the free market work.
Wow, whodathunkit?
Dan Aris
This isn't Apple using their broad unspecified powers to reject an app arbitrarily or for a moronic reason. If it were, I'd agree with you.
This is an app that should never have even been started, because it very clearly violates the SDK agreement, and anyone with half a brain would have known that Apple would reject it.
As for the assertion that Sega's games are just emulators...
So get the hell off your high horse already and live in the real world.
Dan Aris
People keep spouting off hype about Apple getting into games.
They will fail.
No one can take on Nintendo in the handheld department and win.
Because, of course, there is absolutely no middle ground between "win out over Nintendo" and "fail completely."
Dan Aris
Does the Touch do email?
It most certainly does. The iPod touch is, for all intents and purposes, the iPhone without the phone part and the cellular data. If you've got a Wifi signal, you're online.
I have a first-gen Touch, and I'm very happy with it, though I still drool over an iPhone (but am put off by the rather high monthly prices).
Dan Aris
No; I don't think I've ever owned a single item of clothing that cost even as much as $100, in fact. (Though I've never liked blue jeans; I much prefer khakis.) And, though I know that expensive tailored clothing is more comfortable than its cheaper counterparts, I'm not about to invest $1000 in something like a suit purely on the off-chance that it could get me a higher-paying job...particularly when, as you mention, the jobs I would be going after would not be customer-facing jobs where such an appearance would actually be reasonable to demand.
This sounds to me like just one more method the rich use to make sure that those who are not already rich can never become so...
Dan Aris
A thousand dollar suit *might* help you get you a job and sadly a $1K suit really isn't exceptionally expensive these days for a decent suit. A $15K car will not get you a job though it will get you to said job.
Any job where having a $1000 suit rather than an ordinary (but nice-looking) jacket and tie will make a difference in getting it is probably not a job I want in the first place...either because they have unreasonable expectations in their dress code, or because they're a law firm and I'm not a lawyer.
Now, if it's a job that will buy me a $1000 suit, that might be different...
Dan Aris
Yes, the truly daring ask if the church might be responsible, but they usually move off to safer terrain soon, when they outline that it's the patriarchial history, the strict hierarchy, or the amount of power the church gives its priests over children. I've not yet seen one mainstream article about priestly child abuse that even dares to ask if, you know, the one thing that links them all together - that they were religious people - just might play a part.
Now, I'm not saying you're wrong here, but I do wonder just what part of their religiosity it is that you think made/induced/led/whatever them to abuse young children?
Personally, I'm far, far more inclined to believe that
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible that there's something about excessive religion itself that draws people to become child abusers. I'm just saying that, given the evidence we have (which, to my understanding, is that it's way, way disproportionately the Catholic church that this happened in...though I could be wrong about that, too, which would cast serious doubt on #3), there's very little in the Bible which suggests that priests should abuse boys, and there are already links known between suppressing sexual desire and...deviant behaviour.
I know you like to bash religion at every chance you get, Tom, and I'd tend to agree that the Catholic church in particular is not much better than Scientology (sale of indulgences, anyone?), but...don't you think it's more reasonable to actually look at logical cause-and-effect relationships?
(Note: None of this in any way absolves the Catholic church of its responsibility to have addressed these problems the moment they cropped up, a responsibility which it almost totally abandoned in its self-serving effort to project its image of infallibility...)
Dan Aris
The telco market is rapidly imploding, and very soon there will not be enough competitors left in the business to create an actual market.
Well, in most places in the US, there weren't to begin with.
Competition isn't really meaningful when the cost of switching from one provider to another is moving to another state.
Even when there were lots of little regional cable companies, there wasn't a lot of meaningful competition. It wasn't quite so bad with telcos, but it's becoming so again.
At the moment, I'm lucky enough that Time-Warner is giving decent speeds and service in my area. If that changes, there won't really be much of anything I can do about it—the only other internet service I could switch to is Verizon DSL, and
So, yeah. There's already no competition. Why do you think Time-Warner thought they could get away with this kind of BS in the first place?
Dan Aris
But until then, this ad doesn't tell a non-geek anything...except that Linux is pretentious.
That works for Apple.
Pretentious + Already seen as "cool" = Sales
Pretentious + Who the hell are you? = Fails
Dan Aris
I think the entire ad leading up to announcing the name "Linux" presented familiar icons and controls of computing in general: mouse cursor, resizing, screen manipulation. This sets up a familiar environment.
Those are so ubiquitous today, and are presented so vaguely, that for someone who has never heard of Linux before, the ad could just as easily be for a new drug. Lots of drug ads talk about freedom, after all, and many of them don't tell you anything about what the drug is for...though they do, of course, run through a list of side effects as long as my arm.
Dan Aris