That aside, I'm guessing you have very little rights in that regard. It's their building, they have the right to control what comes into and out of their building. We sometimes forget that the Bill of Rights often falls apart when we're talking about private organisations dealing with private people... they were designed to protect people from the Government.
The searches out of the building sound frivolous, unless they're afraid you really are going to take dangerous stuff out of there. I'd talk to the head of your department or the dean's office that runs that building.
All I know is that security checkpoints are hardly "unreasonable" and cases right and left have been lost trying to beat them.
I'd hate for it to accidentally arrive at Venus because someone loaded "1984" on it and it thought 2+2=5. That would be, you know, mightily embarrasing if millions of dollars were spent on a probe that couldn't do math.
I wonder what kind of data will come from this experiment that will send the religious nuts into a frenzy. Maybe we'll find the "neck of Jesus" to go along with the "face of Jesus"
People like to expound on the successes of tortured geniuses who work 20 hour days, failing to recognize that for the most part, they fail miserably at the tasks they set themselves out to do. It's true, some people do work their best when left alone, but most of us would rather just not work if we're not being scrutinized. Laziness is always easier.
It's a fact of human nature that we limit our perceptions... our eyes can sometimes ignore a certain color, we tone out people we don't want to hear, and we don't see that extra " mark in the code no matter how hard we try. Working on a team might add an extra amount of burden to solo-flying engineer, but it also means someone can catch the big, flaming errors he makes.
Having recently been in the "want-to-be-hired" position, I found many jobs were wary of hiring people that had an abundance of technical skills and no interpersonal skills. Ten years ago a company would have to just suffer with those quirky engineers... these days, there are lots of great workers who might be 90% of what the "quirky" guy is, but who you definitely would rather have around more.
Hardly. Microsoft has and always will market to the lowest common denominator. This means that deep down they don't care one bit about a small group of people who may be cracking their copy protections, because they know the vast majority of people don't have the knowhow or exposure to ever run across something like this. It will, for the most part, do very little to the investment they put in it.
Think of DeCSS... the vast majority of people don't have any idea this thing exists, despite the fact that it was (in computer circles) a HUGE story.
The real story will come if the RIAA companies decide to feed into the "cracked" panic and not implement WMA. Then it will be wasted money on MS's part. Then again, IIS has been a piece of shit for years and it gets installed on new severs every single day.
I said it once, and I'll say it again: Never underestimate the power of ignorance in your enemies... or your friends.
Who do they possibly hope to attact with this product? There's nothing very useful about buying an OS that can only emulate your preferred platform unless you actually like the OS more. It's like installing win2000 on a box and then running only DOS programs on it. Why not just install a simple dos? In this case, why not simply install one of the many... many forms of linux and run all of these programs directly.
Suppose the RIAA wins the right to actually get into your computer and delete files. There is simply no way for them to know which ones you actually have the copyright to. Right there are grounds for *countless* lawsuits.
Secondly, if the RIAA decides to start DoSing a bunch of machines running WinMX or gnutella or whatever, then they're going to be attacking millions of computers at once. That's better than most worms and viruses can claim. How many class action lawsuits, or business lawsuits can the RIAA face? The point made about universities is important. A lot of file trading goes on through their networks, but so does a lot of very *costly* information. Block the important stuff so you can stop a few music pirates, and you're going to piss off a lot of very rich and very influential people and organisations.
Re:More proof that we are moving away from democra
on
RIAA to DoS Pirates?
·
· Score: 1
Hmmm... perhaps it's time to go back to poly sci class. America isn't a democracy and never has been. The founding fathers feared what would happen if power should ever fall into the hands of the common man.
On another point, your topic seems to suggest that somehow this one case makes money a more relevant issue than "rights" or "freedom." The fact of the matter is, in terms of the law and politics, money has *always* been able to crush rights and freedom if enough of it is spread around.
One would have to wonder how long your programs are. I've written small programs (read: very small) and had them come out bug free. Then again, I was the only person using it. The fact of the matter is that "bugs" aren't necessarily always lazy or illogical... there are so many ways a small logically correct sequence can suddenly fail when given a specific set of circumstances. Consider also that the kind of software this article is talking about contains hundreds of thousands (dare I say millions) of lines of code... hardly conducive to eyeing out bugs.
I've rarely seen a software house that released perfect software in the beta phase (by your logic, good programming should be bug free at the beta phase.) The idea would seem to me not to "lock in" bugs as a beta expires, but to not finish the beta until all bugs have been seen and fixed.
Does that mean bugs will be gone if everyone dilligently pushes their software through a harsh beta phase? Nope, it just means the bugs will tend to be rarer, so you end up pissing off less people.
I would put forth the idea that bug-free software isn't impossible... it's just becomes more unlikely as you add lines of code.
Derisive laughter coming from the Mac lab techs
on
Autonomic Computing
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Hmmm... a computer that's supposed to run perfectly all the time and doesn't let the user get in and mess with anything. It sounds vaguely familiar, like a fleet of old Macs booting up at the same time. One thing I know, don't make the power switch software-dependent, or we'll never be able to turn the bastards off without unplugging them... or throwing them out of the window.
The RIAA doesn't sell anything directly. It has no customers it needs to keep happy. That's what lobbying groups are for, so that actual companies don't have to get their hands dirty. Even if people despise the RIAA for this, most of them aren't going to know that Sony is a member, and even less are going to know the individual labels (like, say, Epic) are a part of sony. So really, the don't run any risk proposing something like this.
Slashdot Mirror
if anything, asking EA for permission to remake Ultima 1 is like asking MGM for permission to reissue the print Wizard of Oz
That aside, I'm guessing you have very little rights in that regard. It's their building, they have the right to control what comes into and out of their building. We sometimes forget that the Bill of Rights often falls apart when we're talking about private organisations dealing with private people... they were designed to protect people from the Government.
The searches out of the building sound frivolous, unless they're afraid you really are going to take dangerous stuff out of there. I'd talk to the head of your department or the dean's office that runs that building.
All I know is that security checkpoints are hardly "unreasonable" and cases right and left have been lost trying to beat them.
I'd hate for it to accidentally arrive at Venus because someone loaded "1984" on it and it thought 2+2=5. That would be, you know, mightily embarrasing if millions of dollars were spent on a probe that couldn't do math.
I wonder what kind of data will come from this experiment that will send the religious nuts into a frenzy. Maybe we'll find the "neck of Jesus" to go along with the "face of Jesus"
People like to expound on the successes of tortured geniuses who work 20 hour days, failing to recognize that for the most part, they fail miserably at the tasks they set themselves out to do. It's true, some people do work their best when left alone, but most of us would rather just not work if we're not being scrutinized. Laziness is always easier.
It's a fact of human nature that we limit our perceptions... our eyes can sometimes ignore a certain color, we tone out people we don't want to hear, and we don't see that extra " mark in the code no matter how hard we try. Working on a team might add an extra amount of burden to solo-flying engineer, but it also means someone can catch the big, flaming errors he makes.
Having recently been in the "want-to-be-hired" position, I found many jobs were wary of hiring people that had an abundance of technical skills and no interpersonal skills. Ten years ago a company would have to just suffer with those quirky engineers... these days, there are lots of great workers who might be 90% of what the "quirky" guy is, but who you definitely would rather have around more.
Hardly. Microsoft has and always will market to the lowest common denominator. This means that deep down they don't care one bit about a small group of people who may be cracking their copy protections, because they know the vast majority of people don't have the knowhow or exposure to ever run across something like this. It will, for the most part, do very little to the investment they put in it.
Think of DeCSS... the vast majority of people don't have any idea this thing exists, despite the fact that it was (in computer circles) a HUGE story.
The real story will come if the RIAA companies decide to feed into the "cracked" panic and not implement WMA. Then it will be wasted money on MS's part. Then again, IIS has been a piece of shit for years and it gets installed on new severs every single day.
I said it once, and I'll say it again: Never underestimate the power of ignorance in your enemies... or your friends.
Who do they possibly hope to attact with this product? There's nothing very useful about buying an OS that can only emulate your preferred platform unless you actually like the OS more. It's like installing win2000 on a box and then running only DOS programs on it. Why not just install a simple dos? In this case, why not simply install one of the many... many forms of linux and run all of these programs directly.
Suppose the RIAA wins the right to actually get into your computer and delete files. There is simply no way for them to know which ones you actually have the copyright to. Right there are grounds for *countless* lawsuits. Secondly, if the RIAA decides to start DoSing a bunch of machines running WinMX or gnutella or whatever, then they're going to be attacking millions of computers at once. That's better than most worms and viruses can claim. How many class action lawsuits, or business lawsuits can the RIAA face? The point made about universities is important. A lot of file trading goes on through their networks, but so does a lot of very *costly* information. Block the important stuff so you can stop a few music pirates, and you're going to piss off a lot of very rich and very influential people and organisations.
Hmmm... perhaps it's time to go back to poly sci class. America isn't a democracy and never has been. The founding fathers feared what would happen if power should ever fall into the hands of the common man. On another point, your topic seems to suggest that somehow this one case makes money a more relevant issue than "rights" or "freedom." The fact of the matter is, in terms of the law and politics, money has *always* been able to crush rights and freedom if enough of it is spread around.
One would have to wonder how long your programs are. I've written small programs (read: very small) and had them come out bug free. Then again, I was the only person using it. The fact of the matter is that "bugs" aren't necessarily always lazy or illogical... there are so many ways a small logically correct sequence can suddenly fail when given a specific set of circumstances. Consider also that the kind of software this article is talking about contains hundreds of thousands (dare I say millions) of lines of code... hardly conducive to eyeing out bugs. I've rarely seen a software house that released perfect software in the beta phase (by your logic, good programming should be bug free at the beta phase.) The idea would seem to me not to "lock in" bugs as a beta expires, but to not finish the beta until all bugs have been seen and fixed. Does that mean bugs will be gone if everyone dilligently pushes their software through a harsh beta phase? Nope, it just means the bugs will tend to be rarer, so you end up pissing off less people. I would put forth the idea that bug-free software isn't impossible... it's just becomes more unlikely as you add lines of code.
Hmmm... a computer that's supposed to run perfectly all the time and doesn't let the user get in and mess with anything. It sounds vaguely familiar, like a fleet of old Macs booting up at the same time. One thing I know, don't make the power switch software-dependent, or we'll never be able to turn the bastards off without unplugging them... or throwing them out of the window.
The RIAA doesn't sell anything directly. It has no customers it needs to keep happy. That's what lobbying groups are for, so that actual companies don't have to get their hands dirty. Even if people despise the RIAA for this, most of them aren't going to know that Sony is a member, and even less are going to know the individual labels (like, say, Epic) are a part of sony. So really, the don't run any risk proposing something like this.