Why? Because they want to be bought outright, perhaps:)
Traditional IP extortion wisdom holds that you go after the smaller fish first, build up a 'war chest' with your 'winnings', and then take on the jackpot companies.
SCO went after IBM first, probably in hopes they'd be bought. IBM didn't bite and called their bluff. Now they are going after companies whose core products rely on Linux. Red hat, and now Google. Since IBM and Red Hat are comfortable with the idea of duking it out with SCO in court, I doubt that Google is going to meekly pony up the license fees.
The irony of going to jail for using a legal service begars description.
... To me, what he got at was information that should be publically accessible without tresspass.
He broke into a premium online service in order to use it without paying the fees. The fact that it's a legal service bears no relevance to this case whatsoever.
If he thought that the information should be publicly accessible, he should have lobbied to make it available, not break in and steal the information.
Though I've never played with them because I'm a grown up now
Remember: we do not stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.
Re:The Real Wiretap Statistics 1968-2002
on
Feds Want to Tap VoIP
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
There were only 1358 wiretaps for 2002 BUT over 2000 conversations per wiretap
From http://www.epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/wiretap_ stats.html
Year Total Authorized Federal State Total Denied
1968 174 0 174 0
They forgot the most important one: Unauthorised Taps!
I'm only half joking... I suspect that the police in the USA do this just as often as the police in my own country. Dutch police have often been caught performing unauthorised taps (or illegal searches), not to gather evidence obviously, but to find clues, leads, and accomplices to the crime.
The author of the above post has not once considered the posibility of the other side's views, let alone the ramifications.
I am sure the author has considered these ramifications, just like most opponents to draconian measures to save the environment. The perceived climatic changes will potentially have a great impact on our way of life, but so will many of the proposed countermeasures!
It's hard to prove a negative, and thus we see fear and doubt instilled into the doubters' hearts in much the same way as religion has done for centuries: "Yeah, but what if it's true after all?".
Who am I supposed to trust?
... Why isn't this front page news? Why aren't we fighting tooth and nail to try and save our planet, our resources and ultimately our way of life?
It is front-page news; I'm seeing news of this study everywhere. By the way... our way of life is ultimately what the poster is trying to save, and what environmentalists are trying to change. The poster warned about far-reaching policies and legislation to try and 'save the planet', which will have a considerable impact on our way of life.
As for trust... trust no one! It seems that everyone these days, industrialists, politicians, climatologists, even 'well-meaning' activists such as Greenpeace, are all pushing a hidden agenda that has nothing to do with the environment.
Will the UI and secondary services (such as the ODP, and Google Groups) be as good as Google itself?
A good point. I switched to Altavista back in the days, because they had a relatively clean layout of the search results, which came up on the screen really fast. Later I switched to Google because of their even cleaner and more functional UI, not because I was getting better search results from them (there wasn't much difference that I noticed).
Google is simple, fast and uncluttered, as opposed to some of the ad-ridden monstrosities like Yahoo. These services would do well to follow this example.
We in Holland enjoy a generous fair-use policy. I am even allowed to make copies of borrowed or rented movies/music! (strictly for personal use only) This privilege is supposedly paid for by the levies on blank media, so in contrast to other countries, we actually get something in return for these levies.
As for fair rights laws... I would like to see these rights codified to be proper rights rather than a privilege. That would mean that "the right to make copies for personal use under the fair-rights provisions shall not be abridged", ie. DRM and copy protection should be illegal if it would prevent making copies under the fair-rights laws.
Call me paranoid, but is it really that far-fetched a notion that the RIAA may have had considerable direct influence over what was written in that report?
Nah... I would have thought that it is in the RIAA's best interests to claim that P2P filesharing is at an all-time high. That would be more in line with their other extravagant claims with regards to music swapping and declining sales. "105% of all Americans are using P2P! There are active music pirate rings in kindergartens! Terrorist camps are being funded with sales of pirated music!". They need politicians to believe all that nonsense in order to push their draconian legislation.
I've seen a telemetry system for horses about 15 years ago, that measured speed, heart rate, blood pressure and some other things.
These systems haven't become very widespread because of their cost... and even if we can make them really cheap, I'm not so sure what use it'll have. It's probably interesting to know a horse is running at x km/h, with a heart rate of y and blood pressure z, but what are you going to do with that information?
While you could buy one of these cheaper DVD players, considering that it has fewer features anyway than the higher-end, and more expensive models, when it won't last long, why would you?
I'll tell you why. I bought a cheapo Daytek DVD player, which has all the important features like S-video, optical and AC3 out, DD and DTS; it plays DVD+R/RW and DVD-R, it plays MP3s, it can play SVCD files off of a DVD+R, the audio and video quality is quite good, and it's region-free. The price was 50 Euro.
Compare that with my 300 Euro Pioneer player... It doesn't play anything except prerecorded DVDs, and I had to pay another 50 Euro to get it region free. The motor burned out after 6 months and I had to have it replaced at over twice the purchase price of my Daytek player. When I got it back repaired, it was no longer region free.
So, social issues aside, I'm better off getting the cheapo unit again next time. If it breaks or doesn't live up to my expectations, I'll just be out 50 Euros...
If it's dirt cheap, then if it dies, you throw it away, you buy more dirt cheap.
It's not just these Chinese el cheapo electronics; I find that it's less and less economically viable to have even the premium brand stuff fixed. Stores don't want to deal with repairs: it's a hassle, and they don't make any money on repairs unless they do them themselves. And with today's electronics, shops find they can fix less themselves than they used to.
Most shops seem to solve this by pretending to look at your malfunctioning unit, charge you a $50 'analysis fee', then ship the unit off to the manufacturer. They'll probably just swap out the electronics and dump the broken bits in the landfill.
Re:what's the use of internet with an empty belly?
on
Joining the Global Village
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I used to think that access to info, such as the internet, would soon translate into more aware people that would afterwards bring some sort of change in their societies.
The Internet access provided to these Indian farmers servers a much more mundane purpose: it is supposed to help them to be better farmers.
Information is not the main driver for change, prosperity is. Poor and hungry subjects are easily controlled, whereas relatively wealthy people are much less inclined to aid a dictator or sit idly by while he gains power. After all, wealthy people have more to loose.
Look at China! While hardly an enlightened and democratic country, China has seen some undeniable changes for the better in the past decade... and I think these changes were brought about by their newfound prosperity.
Re:what's the use of internet with an empty belly?
on
Joining the Global Village
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
As many Non-gov agencies will tell you in order to help someone you have to feed him and provide him with clothing and shelter first. Then you can start thinking about an education.
My cynical and distrustful self would think it only natural for the non-gov't agencies (charities, food programmes, medical aid organisations) to say this, because once these people are able to provide for themselves, they will no longer need said organisations. I know I am being a bit too cynical here, and such organisations do a lot of good. However, I know of no single organisation that does not look after its own interests in this manner... they are wont to say "They don't need Internet (yet), they need more of our programme instead, and incidentally we could do with more funding".
If you feed but don't teach, you'll just be left with the same hungry people the next year. Besides, you cannot keep a nation such as India fed with crappy rural farming methods and food aid (free food, which kills whatever farming is left in the area). India has a large population that cannot be fed by simple farming methods alone; they need technology. Do you think our own farmers use Internet because it's interesting, or because they need it to be as productive as they are?
Besides, it's not all of India that is starving. I bet that the villages that are being provided with this service are already quite self-sufficient, or at least close to it. After all, the company providing the service expects to make some money off it. Education and information will take these farmers to a new level of productivity and prosperity, and that prosperity will benefit others in the region as well. Or are you saying that we should not start education and technology in India before the very last person there is fed, clothed and healthy? That's a good way to keep them in the stone age for the next century, and all the while they'll have to draw on our support...
Lets have a little self government. Lets not make a thousand oppressive laws that just replace laws already in place.
I'm all for that... if you don't want to wear your seatbelts or wear a helmet on your bike, that's fine by me. I don't mind if you splatter yourself all over the road... that should be your choice by rights.
However, some things do need to be regulated. Certain things have been proven to have a negative effect on your driving ability, like using a cellphone while driving (without hands-free), or drinking and driving. Rather than use a generic 'you are not allowed to hit other people' law, we need specific laws for these specific dangerous activities. Why? So that we can take the drivers' license away from dangerous people who engage in these dangerous activities, while allowing persons who hit someone by accident to keep theirs (at least for the first few occurances:-)
It's all very well to talk about 'responsible citizens', but a few moments on the highway and you will probably agree that this phrase does not apply to many of your fellow motorists. If you are going to be driving anywhere near me, I want you to have your full attention on driving. I believe you have been driving accident-free so far... but when you find yourself distracted in a situation that demands your full attention for the road, your chances suddenly don't look so good, and neither do the chances of the other people near you. I welcome laws that take care of some of these distractive activities to some extend at least; activities that I see careless drivers engage in every day.
Everyone in their country may not have access to running water and basic medical care but they are building a fscking Space Plane!
WFT are they thinking?
They are rightly thinking that hand-woven blankets, farming, and tourism aren't going to bring the country prosperity, but that high-tech industry and endeavours to inspire the nation are.
That sounds reasonable. Outsourcing to India or hiring local guys aren't your only two choices though.
I work for a large European IT company, and a good part of our business is taking on outsourced jobs. Companies can have us do their projects, either on a time and materials basis, or as a fixed-price deal where we assume the risk of budget overrun. We offer the same advantages as the Indian firms, including the flexibility to throw extra people or a few experts on a problematic project. In addition, we are closeby and in fact often work on the client site. Yes, our hourly rates per person are higher, which we've noticed: rates have been under pressure a lot, and staff hasn't seen a raise in 3 years since the CEO still wants to see double-digit margins. Then again, we still have our jobs:)
I daresay that for many kinds of projects, outsourcing to local companies is still competitive and cost-effective.
I don't like unions... the problem with unions, and with many other succesful 'social' organisations (environmental, foreign aid, even governmental task forces), is that they tend to gradually shift from goals that serve the membership (or whatever cause they have taken up), to goals that serve mainly the organisation itself. These self-serving goals are sometimes actually against the membership's best interests.
Case in point: the unions and management of a large European steel mill were in dispute over wage levels. Just before the final rounds of negotiations were entered, management announced that it would meet all of the the diminished demands that the unions announced earlier. Even so, the unions declined this offer during the meetings, and called for their strike the next day, which they had prepared in advance despite assurances of a favourable offer from management. The reason? It had been years since the news had shown masses of protesting workers picketing a steel plant, and union membership had been dropping in that industry sector. The unions thought that the free publicity brought by the strike outweighed the resolution of the conflict with management. In short, they screwed both management and the membership out of a good deal, to further their own cause.
Other nasty examples abound, you only need to look. Yes, unions can and do achieve a lot for their membership. But having a little experience in dealing with them, I would be very wary of entrusting my interests to them.
I can think of a couple of hacks to do:
1) Disable it
2) Stop other people's cars
Yes: Finally we give the true meaning to the word "war driving"! I always though that the word is a poor descriptor for the activity of finding WiFi spots.
Holland has a law that states "any data about the customer that is gathered into a databank, shall not be re-sold or used for any purpose other than the one stated without the customer's consent". So if I sign up for OnStar, the data cannot be sold to insurance companies, unless the fine print in the contract allows the company (GM?) to do that. Not a bad law...
Even so, I still don't trust this. Naturally, governmental organisations are more or less exempt from these rules, not so much by the letter of the law as in the way it is enforced. The law does not allow law enforcment to use the data without a search warrant... which means that they cannot use it to gather evidence that is admissible in court, for example to give me speeding tickets. But, it can still be used to gather interesting data. As another reader pointed out, the police might use OnStar records to check on every person in the vicinity when a homicide has taken place. Not admissible in court, but it may still expose you to some interest from the police, perhaps even arrest.
Farfetched? Our country has seen many illegal phone taps and even searches of peoples' houses, not to gather evidence for a court case, but to gather clues in order to further certain crime investigations. Mind you, the people being investigated were suspect, but with such tenous ties to the case that no court would and has issued search warrants. It became quite the political scandal, but in our fine tradition of sweeping internal governmental affairs under the rug, nothing ever came of the inquiry.
Yes, you would do well to mistrust your government.
Yes, you are right... Now show me the software/hardware that meets these requirements. Please don't tell me that Linux fits the bill. Your suggestion that Microsoft is somehow to blame for this lack is beyond belief... if anything, Microsoft have tried very hard to make the use of computers, and tasks performed on these computers, much easier for the average end-user. (Sure, they have piled bug upon bug in the process)
The continued existance of fax machines is a condemnation of the world's most prevalent computer software, Microsoft.
With all due respect: bollocks.
Fax is still popular because:
- It's 'always-on' and easy to use. No need to wait for booting, start the software, select options and whatnot. Just stick the paper in, dial the number and press 'send'. Compare that to any fax software on any OS.
- It's reasonably idiot-proof, and even idiots can see if something's wrong with the machine, and often they can even fix the problem.
- Faxes are legal documents. Emails are not.
Fax machines will not go away for these reasons, despite the growing popularity of email.
My hope was that Star Wars Galaxies would offer FPS-style combat, like Planetfall. In other words: you still have to level and gain skill points, which will earn you a steadier aim and certifications on bigger weapons... but you will have to aim and fire those weapons yourself!
*sigh* I was really disappointed to see that SWG's combat system was like all the other MMORPGs out there: dice rolls and special moves. Yawn.
If someone creates an action-based MMORPG, I'll join it in a heartbeat.
There is the old story about the guy who takes a stack of bumper stickers for the opposing canidate and puts one on every cars bumper... With political spam it becomes SO much easier and fun.
OT but still amusing... Years ago, the PvdA party (one of the opposition parties in Holland) made a bumper sticker that read "OUT with the CDA, IN with the PvdA". (The CDA was the incumbent at the time).
The stickers proved wildly popular with CDA voters, who pasted them on trash cans, wastebaskets and dumpsters all over town.
Slashdot Mirror
Why? Because they want to be bought outright, perhaps :)
Traditional IP extortion wisdom holds that you go after the smaller fish first, build up a 'war chest' with your 'winnings', and then take on the jackpot companies.
SCO went after IBM first, probably in hopes they'd be bought. IBM didn't bite and called their bluff. Now they are going after companies whose core products rely on Linux. Red hat, and now Google. Since IBM and Red Hat are comfortable with the idea of duking it out with SCO in court, I doubt that Google is going to meekly pony up the license fees.
If he thought that the information should be publicly accessible, he should have lobbied to make it available, not break in and steal the information.
I'm only half joking... I suspect that the police in the USA do this just as often as the police in my own country. Dutch police have often been caught performing unauthorised taps (or illegal searches), not to gather evidence obviously, but to find clues, leads, and accomplices to the crime.
It is front-page news; I'm seeing news of this study everywhere. By the way... our way of life is ultimately what the poster is trying to save, and what environmentalists are trying to change. The poster warned about far-reaching policies and legislation to try and 'save the planet', which will have a considerable impact on our way of life.
As for trust... trust no one! It seems that everyone these days, industrialists, politicians, climatologists, even 'well-meaning' activists such as Greenpeace, are all pushing a hidden agenda that has nothing to do with the environment.
Google is simple, fast and uncluttered, as opposed to some of the ad-ridden monstrosities like Yahoo. These services would do well to follow this example.
You better hope the GS recruiters won't come across your .sig here ;-)
I wasn't aware of such UK regulations?
We in Holland enjoy a generous fair-use policy. I am even allowed to make copies of borrowed or rented movies/music! (strictly for personal use only) This privilege is supposedly paid for by the levies on blank media, so in contrast to other countries, we actually get something in return for these levies.
As for fair rights laws... I would like to see these rights codified to be proper rights rather than a privilege. That would mean that "the right to make copies for personal use under the fair-rights provisions shall not be abridged", ie. DRM and copy protection should be illegal if it would prevent making copies under the fair-rights laws.
I've seen a telemetry system for horses about 15 years ago, that measured speed, heart rate, blood pressure and some other things.
These systems haven't become very widespread because of their cost... and even if we can make them really cheap, I'm not so sure what use it'll have. It's probably interesting to know a horse is running at x km/h, with a heart rate of y and blood pressure z, but what are you going to do with that information?
Compare that with my 300 Euro Pioneer player... It doesn't play anything except prerecorded DVDs, and I had to pay another 50 Euro to get it region free. The motor burned out after 6 months and I had to have it replaced at over twice the purchase price of my Daytek player. When I got it back repaired, it was no longer region free.
So, social issues aside, I'm better off getting the cheapo unit again next time. If it breaks or doesn't live up to my expectations, I'll just be out 50 Euros...
Most shops seem to solve this by pretending to look at your malfunctioning unit, charge you a $50 'analysis fee', then ship the unit off to the manufacturer. They'll probably just swap out the electronics and dump the broken bits in the landfill.
Information is not the main driver for change, prosperity is. Poor and hungry subjects are easily controlled, whereas relatively wealthy people are much less inclined to aid a dictator or sit idly by while he gains power. After all, wealthy people have more to loose.
Look at China! While hardly an enlightened and democratic country, China has seen some undeniable changes for the better in the past decade... and I think these changes were brought about by their newfound prosperity.
If you feed but don't teach, you'll just be left with the same hungry people the next year. Besides, you cannot keep a nation such as India fed with crappy rural farming methods and food aid (free food, which kills whatever farming is left in the area). India has a large population that cannot be fed by simple farming methods alone; they need technology. Do you think our own farmers use Internet because it's interesting, or because they need it to be as productive as they are?
Besides, it's not all of India that is starving. I bet that the villages that are being provided with this service are already quite self-sufficient, or at least close to it. After all, the company providing the service expects to make some money off it. Education and information will take these farmers to a new level of productivity and prosperity, and that prosperity will benefit others in the region as well. Or are you saying that we should not start education and technology in India before the very last person there is fed, clothed and healthy? That's a good way to keep them in the stone age for the next century, and all the while they'll have to draw on our support...
However, some things do need to be regulated. Certain things have been proven to have a negative effect on your driving ability, like using a cellphone while driving (without hands-free), or drinking and driving. Rather than use a generic 'you are not allowed to hit other people' law, we need specific laws for these specific dangerous activities. Why? So that we can take the drivers' license away from dangerous people who engage in these dangerous activities, while allowing persons who hit someone by accident to keep theirs (at least for the first few occurances
It's all very well to talk about 'responsible citizens', but a few moments on the highway and you will probably agree that this phrase does not apply to many of your fellow motorists. If you are going to be driving anywhere near me, I want you to have your full attention on driving. I believe you have been driving accident-free so far... but when you find yourself distracted in a situation that demands your full attention for the road, your chances suddenly don't look so good, and neither do the chances of the other people near you. I welcome laws that take care of some of these distractive activities to some extend at least; activities that I see careless drivers engage in every day.
That sounds reasonable. Outsourcing to India or hiring local guys aren't your only two choices though.
:)
I work for a large European IT company, and a good part of our business is taking on outsourced jobs. Companies can have us do their projects, either on a time and materials basis, or as a fixed-price deal where we assume the risk of budget overrun. We offer the same advantages as the Indian firms, including the flexibility to throw extra people or a few experts on a problematic project. In addition, we are closeby and in fact often work on the client site. Yes, our hourly rates per person are higher, which we've noticed: rates have been under pressure a lot, and staff hasn't seen a raise in 3 years since the CEO still wants to see double-digit margins. Then again, we still have our jobs
I daresay that for many kinds of projects, outsourcing to local companies is still competitive and cost-effective.
I don't like unions... the problem with unions, and with many other succesful 'social' organisations (environmental, foreign aid, even governmental task forces), is that they tend to gradually shift from goals that serve the membership (or whatever cause they have taken up), to goals that serve mainly the organisation itself. These self-serving goals are sometimes actually against the membership's best interests.
Case in point: the unions and management of a large European steel mill were in dispute over wage levels. Just before the final rounds of negotiations were entered, management announced that it would meet all of the the diminished demands that the unions announced earlier. Even so, the unions declined this offer during the meetings, and called for their strike the next day, which they had prepared in advance despite assurances of a favourable offer from management. The reason? It had been years since the news had shown masses of protesting workers picketing a steel plant, and union membership had been dropping in that industry sector. The unions thought that the free publicity brought by the strike outweighed the resolution of the conflict with management. In short, they screwed both management and the membership out of a good deal, to further their own cause.
Other nasty examples abound, you only need to look. Yes, unions can and do achieve a lot for their membership. But having a little experience in dealing with them, I would be very wary of entrusting my interests to them.
Yes: Finally we give the true meaning to the word "war driving"! I always though that the word is a poor descriptor for the activity of finding WiFi spots.
Holland has a law that states "any data about the customer that is gathered into a databank, shall not be re-sold or used for any purpose other than the one stated without the customer's consent". So if I sign up for OnStar, the data cannot be sold to insurance companies, unless the fine print in the contract allows the company (GM?) to do that. Not a bad law...
Even so, I still don't trust this. Naturally, governmental organisations are more or less exempt from these rules, not so much by the letter of the law as in the way it is enforced. The law does not allow law enforcment to use the data without a search warrant... which means that they cannot use it to gather evidence that is admissible in court, for example to give me speeding tickets. But, it can still be used to gather interesting data. As another reader pointed out, the police might use OnStar records to check on every person in the vicinity when a homicide has taken place. Not admissible in court, but it may still expose you to some interest from the police, perhaps even arrest.
Farfetched? Our country has seen many illegal phone taps and even searches of peoples' houses, not to gather evidence for a court case, but to gather clues in order to further certain crime investigations. Mind you, the people being investigated were suspect, but with such tenous ties to the case that no court would and has issued search warrants. It became quite the political scandal, but in our fine tradition of sweeping internal governmental affairs under the rug, nothing ever came of the inquiry.
Yes, you would do well to mistrust your government.
Yes, you are right... Now show me the software/hardware that meets these requirements. Please don't tell me that Linux fits the bill. Your suggestion that Microsoft is somehow to blame for this lack is beyond belief... if anything, Microsoft have tried very hard to make the use of computers, and tasks performed on these computers, much easier for the average end-user. (Sure, they have piled bug upon bug in the process)
Fax is still popular because:
- It's 'always-on' and easy to use. No need to wait for booting, start the software, select options and whatnot. Just stick the paper in, dial the number and press 'send'. Compare that to any fax software on any OS.
- It's reasonably idiot-proof, and even idiots can see if something's wrong with the machine, and often they can even fix the problem.
- Faxes are legal documents. Emails are not.
Fax machines will not go away for these reasons, despite the growing popularity of email.
My hope was that Star Wars Galaxies would offer FPS-style combat, like Planetfall. In other words: you still have to level and gain skill points, which will earn you a steadier aim and certifications on bigger weapons... but you will have to aim and fire those weapons yourself!
*sigh* I was really disappointed to see that SWG's combat system was like all the other MMORPGs out there: dice rolls and special moves. Yawn.
If someone creates an action-based MMORPG, I'll join it in a heartbeat.
The stickers proved wildly popular with CDA voters, who pasted them on trash cans, wastebaskets and dumpsters all over town.