"There's no good way to "beam" energy from the moon"
Nope. There's a damn good way to "beam" it from the sun, though.
Which leads to the question: If we can't economically build arrays of solar panels in the desert, what makes people think they could build a huge array of receivers to get energy back from the moon?
A practical solution (surely not!) is: we already have loads of energy being sent back from the moon - it's known as the tide, and we have some great, efficient, and economical machines to use that energy. So let's get those installed before we start listening to the more wacky schemes...
I believe that was their point. If you want to buy music now, you're not left with a lot of options. Even if you get a 'real' CD for a good price, you'll still be financing the industry which is hiring the lawyers to make you a criminal.
Surprisingly, it does get worse. Even if you support independant small artists and buy CDs directly, each time you go into a pub (bar), shopping centre (mall) or any public place with music playing, you're subsidising the "top 100" artists in the popular music chart.
"Summing it up, if you want your rights back, stay offline and move abroad."
Or buy an MP3.com CD, and tell anyone who likes it they can download the whole album for free if they've got the bandwidth, or they can listen online.
I didn't get the "import" bit of that game though. Perhaps it's because I'm English, but we don't generally get a choice between "expensive" and "cheaper but crippled" CDs, they're just all expensive!
Anything with copy protection is going straight back to the store for a refund. There's a limit to what I'll put up with before I call the trading standards department.
"I've already sent the link to dozens of friends. And you?"
Well, it failed to load in Mozilla1, so I had to use internet explorer to run it... is it one of my privacy preferences? Maybe my "no animations" policy, but it definitely didn't work in 'standard' mozilla.
Nonetheless, I've linked it from my site, so those 73% who are using IE can see it... the people with proper browsers know about the music issues anyway.
When a clueless (in computer terms, not in power engineering terms;-) supervisor at my university sent out presentation timetables in MS-Word format, most of the year couldn't read them -- the department had got rid of all their Office software, presumably for licensing difficulties.
As someone running AbiWord on linux, it was ironic to be one of the few people who could read this guy's Word table -- Openoffice struggled, and people with MsWord had problems because it was a different version...
"Perhaps MS can sue them for 'theft of look and feel.'"
Failed: Financial times today, Philips vs. Remington: "A trademark cannot be held on a unique look-and-feel when it comes as a result of engineering decisions".
i.e. if that's the best way for it to work, it can't be trademarked.
I did read a really great article on that, essence of which...
US = Capitalist, therefore money rules supreme
The People's democratic republic of China has enough money to purchase AolMicrosoftTimeWarnerDisney, otherwise known as The Corporation.
Given their complete control over everything you watch, the software you need for business, the films you see, the newspapers you read, and the copyright laws and EULAs which allow them to invade your home and put you in jail for any copies of anything they find, where does that leave the country?
Well at least people stopped calling it 9/11 and confusing all of us, what the hell is important about the 9th of november.
Onto (slightly) serious matters then: When your pres says "if we have to change our lifestyles then the terrorists have won", and now the US' view of everything changes, you rip up the constitution in favour of a police state, and turn on anyone who criticizes government as a traitor...
so the terrorists won then? Was it really that easy?
Yes it's f*in evil -- for a company to try and shut down our whole culture through bribing congress to pass unconsidered laws to line Disney's pockets, and then to help themself to software given as a gift to the free-software community. Don't expect any bugfixes!
Which would best survive being sued for shoody software?
(a) A company with $6 billion in cash (yes, cash), and several hundred full-time lawyers, which shows no signs of complying with US laws despite many months in court with the government suing them
(b) A group of 3 teenagers in differnet countries, with $20 between them?
Bonus question: who'd be more likely to continue selling the same unfixed software even after their fine?
Yeah, light sensors would work well in a typical geek's machine. "Error: we've detected a 40-watt neon tube in the case, and sunlight shining through the window. Somebody's obviously trying to grab the PC!"
I've used a cable-and-superglued-mountings set to protect my PC for 2 years now, and I only just found out how trivial it was to open the padlock with a lock-pick set (about 20 seconds for a beginner)
Next project will almost certainly be a pager, perhaps transmitting it's code to a 'hidden' telephone-connected box somewhere else in the room...
Prevention, detection, response... did I mention the broadsword?
WHEREAS Congress notes the slow take-up of broadband internet services in the US, we reccommend that copyright protection be reduced to three (3) years, so that people can buy lots of WiFi kit to share newly public-domain films, music, and artwork...
"Its mail-and-newsgroups module offers limited support for multiple mail accounts and weak filtering options compared with Eudora or Outlook Express."
Excuse me? I've got 3 email accounts and 2 newsgroups setup on my Mozilla mail, and its "weak filtering" is correctly deleting some 30 spam per day, something which Outlook Express never managed to do.
"The ChatZilla instant-messaging program connects only to Internet Relay Chat networks, not the more popular systems of AOL, MSN and Yahoo."
Right. So it only supports the 600,000 people on DALnet, to name just one of the tens of thousands of IRC servers available, each of which is the equivalent of Yahoo!Chat...
Some surprise they didn't support these other advertising-supported networks then, given their history of changing protocols to try and make 3rd party clients break. (lookup the GAIM history as one example, or see the prominent, flashing advertising banners on Yahoo's own chat client)
"Future versions of Mozilla may fix these problems"
I sincerely hope not. I hope they work on the IRC client, rather than wasting their time on Yahoo. I hope they keep the filtering pretty much as it is, and continue their support for multiple email clients.
The only feature I really miss is having "popunder" tabs like in Galeon, so you can open a whole array of links without having to switch back to your original window. Being able to filter flash animations would be good too, although kudos for filtering the signal-to-noise ratio of most sites by removing animations, doubleclick banners, and popup windows.
And at only 15Mb, no excuses for not taking ten minutes to install it!
Just a question: did you not consider just running PGP-Fone on people's desktops, and buying the $20 telephone handsets which plug into your sound card?
"I wonder, does anyone mistake.uk or.nz people for being overly patriotic?"
No, they mistake us for people who don't want to fight domain-name disputes in foreign courts, or for people who don't want to lose their website if some american monolith decides they want to screw us.
Also, it works well for shops. I'm generally a lot happier buying from a.co.uk website than from a.com, because it makes it so easy to see that they're in the same country as me. When I visit a.com, I generally have to trawl through the site, visit the shopping cart, and look at "delivery opttions" before I find out they're in the US and will charge me $30 for postage on a T-shirt.
If you want to be 'patriotic', people in the UK wear flags on their T-shirts (you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in town not wearing a george flag during the world cup), or they go to London and line the streets of the Queen's jubilee procession.
*.uk makes stuff easier to find, makes it more reliable, and means that we don't have to deal with dirty foreigners when we register our domains!
The reading of RIP is strange whichever way you argue it:
Either: You are presumed guilty of Some Crime and you must prove your innocence by revealing your secret (which contradicts english laws over a milennia old "innocent until proved guilty")
Or: Keeping a secret from government is itself a crime (which is what RIP actually says), which contradicts the European convention on human rights ("right to privacy for your correspondance")
Interestingly, the victims won't even be able to argue this "illegality of laws" in court, because RIP now makes it a crime to tell anyone that you're being investigated.
Ironically, writing to your MP requires using the Post Office. Who will shortly be able to find out that I edit a pro-privacy website, and will be able to list all the people (EPIC, EFF, PI, FIPR, Stand) that I visit, donate to, or keep in contact with.
More ironically, to get a letter to my MP in time, I'd have to send it first class (next day delivery guaranteed) which now takes at least two days because the Post Office just sacked most of their workers without thinking who's going to deliver the letters.
"Letter for Alan Simpson MP on the eve of a privacy debate? (P.O. supervisor thinks, and points at a bin) That pile right there"
Slashdot Mirror
"There's no good way to "beam" energy from the moon"
Nope. There's a damn good way to "beam" it from the sun, though.
Which leads to the question: If we can't economically build arrays of solar panels in the desert, what makes people think they could build a huge array of receivers to get energy back from the moon?
A practical solution (surely not!) is: we already have loads of energy being sent back from the moon - it's known as the tide, and we have some great, efficient, and economical machines to use that energy. So let's get those installed before we start listening to the more wacky schemes...
"Since I write scientific articles and need to be able to do all of the above ( cross-references, tables, figures, sections, formulas and headings)"
Have you tried LaTeX?
"pdfelatex" on linux, and MikTeX / WinEDT on windows, tutorials here
Type "ID-DQD", and shift-apple-click on her left nipple. You get to see the kung-fu sequence between the chick with the CDs and the microsoft lawyer.
"It's impossible."
I believe that was their point. If you want to buy music now, you're not left with a lot of options. Even if you get a 'real' CD for a good price, you'll still be financing the industry which is hiring the lawyers to make you a criminal.
Surprisingly, it does get worse. Even if you support independant small artists and buy CDs directly, each time you go into a pub (bar), shopping centre (mall) or any public place with music playing, you're subsidising the "top 100" artists in the popular music chart.
"The day the music died"
"Summing it up, if you want your rights back, stay offline and move abroad."
Or buy an MP3.com CD, and tell anyone who likes it they can download the whole album for free if they've got the bandwidth, or they can listen online.
I didn't get the "import" bit of that game though. Perhaps it's because I'm English, but we don't generally get a choice between "expensive" and "cheaper but crippled" CDs, they're just all expensive!
Anything with copy protection is going straight back to the store for a refund. There's a limit to what I'll put up with before I call the trading standards department.
"I've already sent the link to dozens of friends. And you?"
Well, it failed to load in Mozilla1, so I had to use internet explorer to run it... is it one of my privacy preferences? Maybe my "no animations" policy, but it definitely didn't work in 'standard' mozilla.
Nonetheless, I've linked it from my site, so those 73% who are using IE can see it... the people with proper browsers know about the music issues anyway.
So Openoffice.org doesn't infringe OpenOffice's trademark, but LindowsOs does infringe MsWindows' trademark ?!?
Wait, no it didn't, did it? That was a frivolous lawsuit. Aren't frivolous lawsuits illegal in america?
When a clueless (in computer terms, not in power engineering terms ;-) supervisor at my university sent out presentation timetables in MS-Word format, most of the year couldn't read them -- the department had got rid of all their Office software, presumably for licensing difficulties.
As someone running AbiWord on linux, it was ironic to be one of the few people who could read this guy's Word table -- Openoffice struggled, and people with MsWord had problems because it was a different version...
"Perhaps MS can sue them for 'theft of look and feel.'"
Failed: Financial times today, Philips vs. Remington: "A trademark cannot be held on a unique look-and-feel when it comes as a result of engineering decisions".
i.e. if that's the best way for it to work, it can't be trademarked.
"if the French are so darned smart, explain the Maginot line please?"
If the USians are so smart, explain the missile sheild please?
And the roquefort ban???
I did read a really great article on that, essence of which...
US = Capitalist, therefore money rules supreme
The People's democratic republic of China has enough money to purchase AolMicrosoftTimeWarnerDisney, otherwise known as The Corporation.
Given their complete control over everything you watch, the software you need for business, the films you see, the newspapers you read, and the copyright laws and EULAs which allow them to invade your home and put you in jail for any copies of anything they find, where does that leave the country?
Remember, this is capitalism.
"Yes, you can say "post-Semtember 11 world"
Well at least people stopped calling it 9/11 and confusing all of us, what the hell is important about the 9th of november.
Onto (slightly) serious matters then: When your pres says "if we have to change our lifestyles then the terrorists have won", and now the US' view of everything changes, you rip up the constitution in favour of a police state, and turn on anyone who criticizes government as a traitor...
so the terrorists won then? Was it really that easy?
(-5: Unamerican troll)
Yes it's f*in evil -- for a company to try and shut down our whole culture through bribing congress to pass unconsidered laws to line Disney's pockets, and then to help themself to software given as a gift to the free-software community. Don't expect any bugfixes!
Which would best survive being sued for shoody software?
(a) A company with $6 billion in cash (yes, cash), and several hundred full-time lawyers, which shows no signs of complying with US laws despite many months in court with the government suing them
(b) A group of 3 teenagers in differnet countries, with $20 between them?
Bonus question: who'd be more likely to continue selling the same unfixed software even after their fine?
Yeah, light sensors would work well in a typical geek's machine. "Error: we've detected a 40-watt neon tube in the case, and sunlight shining through the window. Somebody's obviously trying to grab the PC!"
I've used a cable-and-superglued-mountings set to protect my PC for 2 years now, and I only just found out how trivial it was to open the padlock with a lock-pick set (about 20 seconds for a beginner)
Next project will almost certainly be a pager, perhaps transmitting it's code to a 'hidden' telephone-connected box somewhere else in the room...
Prevention, detection, response... did I mention the broadsword?
WHEREAS Congress notes the slow take-up of broadband internet services in the US, we reccommend that copyright protection be reduced to three (3) years, so that people can buy lots of WiFi kit to share newly public-domain films, music, and artwork...
Nah, that would be too much like common sense!
W.T.F. ???
The Washington Post says:
"Its mail-and-newsgroups module offers limited support for multiple mail accounts and weak filtering options compared with Eudora or Outlook Express."
Excuse me? I've got 3 email accounts and 2 newsgroups setup on my Mozilla mail, and its "weak filtering" is correctly deleting some 30 spam per day, something which Outlook Express never managed to do.
"The ChatZilla instant-messaging program connects only to Internet Relay Chat networks, not the more popular systems of AOL, MSN and Yahoo."
Right. So it only supports the 600,000 people on DALnet, to name just one of the tens of thousands of IRC servers available, each of which is the equivalent of Yahoo!Chat...
Some surprise they didn't support these other advertising-supported networks then, given their history of changing protocols to try and make 3rd party clients break. (lookup the GAIM history as one example, or see the prominent, flashing advertising banners on Yahoo's own chat client)
"Future versions of Mozilla may fix these problems"
I sincerely hope not. I hope they work on the IRC client, rather than wasting their time on Yahoo. I hope they keep the filtering pretty much as it is, and continue their support for multiple email clients.
The only feature I really miss is having "popunder" tabs like in Galeon, so you can open a whole array of links without having to switch back to your original window. Being able to filter flash animations would be good too, although kudos for filtering the signal-to-noise ratio of most sites by removing animations, doubleclick banners, and popup windows.
And at only 15Mb, no excuses for not taking ten minutes to install it!
My site usage policy
( -5: Not funny.)
Just a question: did you not consider just running PGP-Fone on people's desktops, and buying the $20 telephone handsets which plug into your sound card?
Article 8
"I wonder, does anyone mistake .uk or .nz people for being overly patriotic?"
.co.uk website than from a .com, because it makes it so easy to see that they're in the same country as me. When I visit a .com, I generally have to trawl through the site, visit the shopping cart, and look at "delivery opttions" before I find out they're in the US and will charge me $30 for postage on a T-shirt.
No, they mistake us for people who don't want to fight domain-name disputes in foreign courts, or for people who don't want to lose their website if some american monolith decides they want to screw us.
Also, it works well for shops. I'm generally a lot happier buying from a
If you want to be 'patriotic', people in the UK wear flags on their T-shirts (you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in town not wearing a george flag during the world cup), or they go to London and line the streets of the Queen's jubilee procession.
*.uk makes stuff easier to find, makes it more reliable, and means that we don't have to deal with dirty foreigners when we register our domains!
ojw
The reading of RIP is strange whichever way you argue it:
Either: You are presumed guilty of Some Crime and you must prove your innocence by revealing your secret (which contradicts english laws over a milennia old "innocent until proved guilty")
Or: Keeping a secret from government is itself a crime (which is what RIP actually says), which contradicts the European convention on human rights ("right to privacy for your correspondance")
Interestingly, the victims won't even be able to argue this "illegality of laws" in court, because RIP now makes it a crime to tell anyone that you're being investigated.
Ironically, writing to your MP requires using the Post Office. Who will shortly be able to find out that I edit a pro-privacy website, and will be able to list all the people (EPIC, EFF, PI, FIPR, Stand) that I visit, donate to, or keep in contact with.
More ironically, to get a letter to my MP in time, I'd have to send it first class (next day delivery guaranteed) which now takes at least two days because the Post Office just sacked most of their workers without thinking who's going to deliver the letters.
"Letter for Alan Simpson MP on the eve of a privacy debate? (P.O. supervisor thinks, and points at a bin) That pile right there"
so do you know when we get to see an article by Bill Gates saying how great his product is?
April 1st, 2003
For anyone interested in open-source (sic) books, I highly reccomend Stallman's (auto)?biography...