More than likely speeds of 6.5k/s are server throttled. Broadband ISPs offer a lot of bandwidth, but you'll never see a server give that much bandwidth (well you can, but rarely). The true test of an Internet Connection is try a direct computer to computer connection..say like an IRC DCC send. I've seen speeds on that get to absurd levels.
What broadband gives you is not a fast connection, per se, but a BROAD connection. You can make multiple smaller connections without one trampling upon the other.
You're right. This is this years Hidden Tiger Crouching Dragon. A movie that would be otherwised ignore but is too big to ignore.
I'm not a big fan of Disney's business practices..but..but..I'm a huge fan of art. I believe in supporting high quality art and that tends to trump these things. Only in this quality of art can we actually turn this whale of a society around into something a lot more beautiful.
Spirited Away is a beautiful fable. A story of a girl who gives up everything to save those close to her. Then gives that up to save a stranger. It's a wonderful movie that should be seen by as many people as possible.
FF:TSW IMO is one of the best science-fiction movies to come out over the last few years. The story itself and the characters kinda sucked. However, I for one can see the raw pleasure in a well detailed, plausible idea of some sort of alternative future. I'm the type of person who finds the Star Wars/Star Trek psudo-science intreguing. The movement of the ships, the look of the computer screens, the way the guns worked through wave dispersal (for every sound there's an equal and opposite sound that will null it out), the look of the cities. It was wonderfully imaginative. So what if the story could have been better. It was a romp through a wonderfully interesting sci-fi setting.
The FF:TSW story was sort of the FFVII story set on our world. FFXI also featured a similar story but slightly different.
The Final Fantasy games are not a series. It's more like a thematic style that these games have in common. It's about armageddon. The final battle between good and evil for each of the individual worls. FFX2 is going to be the first TRUE sequal in the series. (That's why the 2!)
Square and Enix are both unfairly maligned IMO. Square in particular does go overboard on the FMV, but there is a ton of gameplay in the games. Tons of secret bosses, hidden powers, character customization. The games are great FRPGs. Same with Enix. Frankly, I'm hoping that Enix gets turned around a bit and does more of their supurb Zelda-esque adventures. (Illusion of Gaia, SoulBlazer, Terrinagma)..or even better...a TRUE ActRaiser sequal..yummm...
Movie tickets/DVD Sales/Video Game sales have all pretty much increased the last two years. These are the industries that are providing better and better quality, unlike the recording indeustry.
All the current US parties just happen to be throwing away your vote because for most people, you end up voting against the principles that brought you there in the first place.
A little off-topic, but the idea that the LP is somehow anti-DMCA and its ilk is complete and total bullshit. It's quite simple. The LP, in everything I've read supports the idea of property, including IP.
They believe that property rights are sacrosanct.
Let's take for example the case of a programmer who is trying to break an encryption scheme to enable...say e-books to be read through third party voice readers.
The act of breaking the encryption in fact does irreprable harm to the IP rights of those that own the IP for the encryption scheme. Which would make the violation of which an intrusion on property, with all the civil and criminal penalties intact. Which would make the DMCA and its ilk AUTOMATIC.
America needs a new direction. It is not a political direction, but a cultural direction. It doesn't matter who you vote for. It matters who you CONVINCE of your ideals.
Chances are no matter what the provider is, you'd have crap service. If the service is crapping out every time it is windy or rainy, I would say that there is serious infrastructure problems in your area. In most places in the US, that infrastructure is actually run by the local government. You need to lobby your local government to get this fixed. It may raise your taxes, but I'm sure it's worth the cost to you.
"I pay for the software others steal. I pay for the music others steal."
Actually you don't. Software, music and movies are sold at industry standard prices for the most part that stand completely aside from how many copies they actually sell. They are priced depending on what they think what people are willing to pay, not based on a forumla like a majority of consumer goods. (Production+Marketing+Shipping+Profit).
The public at large doesn't get much guilt from copying material. This may be for a reason.
Unless the spammer is on the ISPs domain, an ISP can do very little to stop the spammer outside of the domain. Well..we could start a pissing contest between ISPs..but trust me, NOBODY wants that. It's ugly.
That said, unless there's a really really good TECHNICAL reason, it's bad PR to block ports. If an ISP blocks one port, people do wonder if other ports are blocked. Note the feedback on/. whenever an ISP announces that they are either shaping packets or blocking ports. These Messaging Popups are annoying, but they are harmless (thus far) and easily stopped, even without a firewall.
The one exception to the no blocked ports is in the case of certain DSL modem/routers and Code Red/NIMDA They were vulnurable to the virus, and the virus would literally fry the programming for the devices.
Actually there's a good chance that Linux will hit critical mass where it grows exponetially rather than the leaps and bounds it is currently making. Every Linux distro seems to be getting better and better, while both Apple and Microsoft are retrogressing. Once Linux becomes a good protion of the marketplace, more software will be released for it, making more users come to it..around and round in a circle.
The problem isn't the hardware, it's the software.
Modern P2P software is very very messy TCP/IP wise. It wastes a lot more bandwith than it actually uses. Like it or not, it's a necessary evil right now. When P2P software makers finally make the software not so messy, then I'll bitch and complain.
The question isn't if such laws are good or bad. (My opinion is both are good..within reason). The point is that a government that has the right to restrict what I can do with my body has the right to restrict what I can do with my body.
If I want to walk in the middle of somebody else's property, why is that somehow forbidden but doping yourself up in a way to lose all self-control legal?
Don't take any of this as an endoresment of any opinion...if you want to know my personal views...
Property rights end where your property ends. Pollution is bad because it can't be kept to your property. Likewise the effects of deforestation and the like. IP is good in theory but should be extremely limited, and completely limited to commercial applications.
Drug use should be legal within ones personal home. Drug use in public is potentially dangerous and should be illegal (but not a felony). This extends to alcohol.
Any orginization that keeps the power to dole out property and the like also has the power to restrict drug use.
My personal opinion is that I support the legalization of drugs...within limits and property rights and the free market...within limits.
The point is that the fundimentalist spin of drug laws bad property laws good is blindly hypocritical. A government that has the right to enforce the latter also has the right to enforce the first. (Not that they should..)
The problem I had with the campaign Nader ran in 2000 was that it was high on rebellion and low on ideas. Even though the Green party has a really good platform IMO, they did a piss-poor job of communicating it. They were more concerned with being a third-party than being a first-party. That's why their advertising campaign fell flat.
(In my opinion the damage Nader did in 2000 was in more of a meme-damage than any sort of vote damage...spreading that meme that Bush==Gore is...erg...bad)
People should suck it up and face it. In order to have their idea forwarded as policy, they have to convice a substantial portion of the populace of the validity of their argument. The one thing I don't like about the fringe parties is how anti-democratic they seem sometimes. They talk about how the democratic process doesn't work because they are not elected, not that they have much work to do in order to convince the people that they should be elected.
Most of Perot's votes came from the McCain type middle. Perot took the vote pretty evenly from both Clinton and Bush. You really can't compare the two cases. In one you have a candidate running a policy-driven campaign from the middle, in the other you have a candidate running a personality based campaign from the fringes.
In other related news, Alberta Premiere Ralph Klein has announced the construction of a large bubble over Alberta, to ensure that the pollution does not leave the province.
What do you expect from a flawed society? Seriously.
Let's take the Presidential campaign of 2000. What choices did the people have. Let's take the two mainstream candidates first for example. Here's the story that was created by the media. You have the straight-talking cowboy with a heart of gold vs. the lying politician who can't even make up his mind on himself. And oh by the way, they will do exactly the same thing once they get in office. The people didn't stand a chance.
Nader:Not a viable option. Not to the fact that he's a third party, but the fact that Nader was more concerned with burying the Democrats than actually convincing people of things. (I'm a strong supporter of the Green platform, so cut that one off at the pass)
Buchanan:A viable option in my mind. People knew what he stood for. They just didn't like what he stood for.:)
Libertarian:The Libs. have the same problem as the Greens, in getting out an actual platform. With the Libertarians it's a bit more ingrained because the platform sometimes falls into hypocritical thought. (Drug Laws Bad, Property Laws Good!..BZZZT)
The problem in the US is not the voting systems. Well, the voting systems are a problem, but not quite in the way listed. The problem with US voting systems is that different areas use different voting systems with different margin of errors, which creates some differential in the actual vote count.
The problem in the US is the entertainment base of the media. They try to create a horse-race out of EVERYTHING. They equivicate the Democrats and the Republicans on everything, and pretty much ignore anything that would pretty much end one of the parties. For example, a massive coverage of the Pitt/Webster scandal right now would in essence make the election next Tuesday unwatchable. Why? The result would not be in question. It doesn't make for good TV.
News as entertainment. Sorry, I get enough of that from Jon Stewart. I want the rest of my news to be damn serious.
On one hand I agree with you..if the company made a mistake in cutting off her account, they may be partially liable..
But...
Nobody ever ever ever ever ever should be doing important business over e-mail. Never. Never. At least nothing where the person recieving the message is a must recieve.There's too much chance of a black hole these days sucking up your e-mail. Seriously. Don't try it.
Let me say this once for EVERYBODY.
CEO != Owner!
If the above poster is still the owner of his company, he's more than welcome to all the profits for his company. In reality his CEO salery is meaningless because it comes out of his own profits anyway.
What the 'troll' was talking about was the money that goes towards CEOs in PUBLICLY..(let me repeat that) PUBLICLY held companies. In these cases, often it's a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse. The CEO controls the CEO compensation. In this case..IN NO WAY can one say that this has anything to do with "market forces". Like it or not, in most cases one could fine equally qualified individuals who would take these jobs for 1/4th..1/8th/..1/10th the salary!
As for the fraud angle..I'm not sure if it's fraud, but it's unethical. Paul Krugman has an interesting (but rather long) article in the NYT magazine today on this issue. The problem is a corporate culture that is ME ME ME, rather than company based like it used to be.
Maybe this is lame..but I don't have any mod points so I have to say...
Please mod this up. What knobbie said is completely true. Going through this process right now, you do have to sign a document stating that you will not go on social assistance for 10 years from entry.
I can respect the whole idea that ROMS and emulation are unethical. I mean, for sure the producer is not being rewarded for the effort.
But this really irritates me. People dump on ROMS and emulation and other similar activities...yet will tell you to go to e-bay or Electronics Bout. or Blockbuster to purchase used games. Last time I checked the producer doesn't recieve any benefit for used games either! In fact, from an ethical standpoint it's worse than downloading a rom..because there is profit involved. Even though I support the right of an individual to do this, doesn't mean that I have to think it's ethical. (In a nutshell, profiting from other people's work without giving the producer their is bad).
I don't mean to rag on you..it's just that I've seen some pretty bad hypocrisy due to this. As far as I'm concerned, ethically, when I can't choose to reward the producer anymore, it's fair game. In this day and age it shouldn't be too difficult for a company to still market these products if they are intent on protecting them.
Overall, P2P increases music sales. However, what has happened is that sales of top-40 profitmaking stuff have been replaced with sales of either indie artists or older material. (Often used). That's what the RIAA doesn't like. It's not about piracy, it's about market share.
Just to let you know, that it's the private, competitive, and expensive health care that has most of the bureacracy. Each HMO has their own set of forms to fill out, and legal hoops to jump through, which puts a real strain on those actually providing medical care. Single-payer systems tend to only have one set of rules and regulations, making things a lot less wasteful.
"You personally must tell someone to get off your property if you want to define a trespass situation. You personally must put locks on your doors and use them to ensure the "breaking" part of "breaking and entering" is defined (and so someone can't claim confusion with your place being a 24-hour commercial establishment). Your safety is ultimately your responsibility -- sometimes you might choose to invite the police to help you."
Just a note. The "Breaking" in breaking and entering doesn't refer to breaking a lock or anything like that. All it refers to is opening up something that you're not permitted to open. Like a door or a window.
Slashdot Mirror
More than likely speeds of 6.5k/s are server throttled. Broadband ISPs offer a lot of bandwidth, but you'll never see a server give that much bandwidth (well you can, but rarely). The true test of an Internet Connection is try a direct computer to computer connection..say like an IRC DCC send. I've seen speeds on that get to absurd levels.
What broadband gives you is not a fast connection, per se, but a BROAD connection. You can make multiple smaller connections without one trampling upon the other.
You're right. This is this years Hidden Tiger Crouching Dragon. A movie that would be otherwised ignore but is too big to ignore.
I'm not a big fan of Disney's business practices..but..but..I'm a huge fan of art. I believe in supporting high quality art and that tends to trump these things. Only in this quality of art can we actually turn this whale of a society around into something a lot more beautiful.
Spirited Away is a beautiful fable. A story of a girl who gives up everything to save those close to her. Then gives that up to save a stranger. It's a wonderful movie that should be seen by as many people as possible.
Reply to most of the various Movie comments:
FF:TSW IMO is one of the best science-fiction movies to come out over the last few years. The story itself and the characters kinda sucked. However, I for one can see the raw pleasure in a well detailed, plausible idea of some sort of alternative future. I'm the type of person who finds the Star Wars/Star Trek psudo-science intreguing. The movement of the ships, the look of the computer screens, the way the guns worked through wave dispersal (for every sound there's an equal and opposite sound that will null it out), the look of the cities. It was wonderfully imaginative. So what if the story could have been better. It was a romp through a wonderfully interesting sci-fi setting.
The FF:TSW story was sort of the FFVII story set on our world. FFXI also featured a similar story but slightly different.
The Final Fantasy games are not a series. It's more like a thematic style that these games have in common. It's about armageddon. The final battle between good and evil for each of the individual worls. FFX2 is going to be the first TRUE sequal in the series. (That's why the 2!)
Square and Enix are both unfairly maligned IMO. Square in particular does go overboard on the FMV, but there is a ton of gameplay in the games. Tons of secret bosses, hidden powers, character customization. The games are great FRPGs. Same with Enix. Frankly, I'm hoping that Enix gets turned around a bit and does more of their supurb Zelda-esque adventures. (Illusion of Gaia, SoulBlazer, Terrinagma)..or even better...a TRUE ActRaiser sequal..yummm...
Movie tickets/DVD Sales/Video Game sales have all pretty much increased the last two years. These are the industries that are providing better and better quality, unlike the recording indeustry.
This is why sales are down.
All the current US parties just happen to be throwing away your vote because for most people, you end up voting against the principles that brought you there in the first place.
A little off-topic, but the idea that the LP is somehow anti-DMCA and its ilk is complete and total bullshit. It's quite simple. The LP, in everything I've read supports the idea of property, including IP.
They believe that property rights are sacrosanct.
Let's take for example the case of a programmer who is trying to break an encryption scheme to enable...say e-books to be read through third party voice readers.
The act of breaking the encryption in fact does irreprable harm to the IP rights of those that own the IP for the encryption scheme. Which would make the violation of which an intrusion on property, with all the civil and criminal penalties intact. Which would make the DMCA and its ilk AUTOMATIC.
America needs a new direction. It is not a political direction, but a cultural direction. It doesn't matter who you vote for. It matters who you CONVINCE of your ideals.
Chances are no matter what the provider is, you'd have crap service. If the service is crapping out every time it is windy or rainy, I would say that there is serious infrastructure problems in your area. In most places in the US, that infrastructure is actually run by the local government. You need to lobby your local government to get this fixed. It may raise your taxes, but I'm sure it's worth the cost to you.
"I pay for the software others steal. I pay for the music others steal."
Actually you don't. Software, music and movies are sold at industry standard prices for the most part that stand completely aside from how many copies they actually sell. They are priced depending on what they think what people are willing to pay, not based on a forumla like a majority of consumer goods. (Production+Marketing+Shipping+Profit).
The public at large doesn't get much guilt from copying material. This may be for a reason.
Unless the spammer is on the ISPs domain, an ISP can do very little to stop the spammer outside of the domain. Well..we could start a pissing contest between ISPs..but trust me, NOBODY wants that. It's ugly.
/. whenever an ISP announces that they are either shaping packets or blocking ports. These Messaging Popups are annoying, but they are harmless (thus far) and easily stopped, even without a firewall.
That said, unless there's a really really good TECHNICAL reason, it's bad PR to block ports. If an ISP blocks one port, people do wonder if other ports are blocked. Note the feedback on
The one exception to the no blocked ports is in the case of certain DSL modem/routers and Code Red/NIMDA They were vulnurable to the virus, and the virus would literally fry the programming for the devices.
Actually there's a good chance that Linux will hit critical mass where it grows exponetially rather than the leaps and bounds it is currently making. Every Linux distro seems to be getting better and better, while both Apple and Microsoft are retrogressing. Once Linux becomes a good protion of the marketplace, more software will be released for it, making more users come to it..around and round in a circle.
The problem isn't the hardware, it's the software.
Modern P2P software is very very messy TCP/IP wise. It wastes a lot more bandwith than it actually uses. Like it or not, it's a necessary evil right now. When P2P software makers finally make the software not so messy, then I'll bitch and complain.
See the above post, but in a nutshell
The question isn't if such laws are good or bad. (My opinion is both are good..within reason). The point is that a government that has the right to restrict what I can do with my body has the right to restrict what I can do with my body.
If I want to walk in the middle of somebody else's property, why is that somehow forbidden but doping yourself up in a way to lose all self-control legal?
Don't take any of this as an endoresment of any opinion...if you want to know my personal views...
Property rights end where your property ends. Pollution is bad because it can't be kept to your property. Likewise the effects of deforestation and the like. IP is good in theory but should be extremely limited, and completely limited to commercial applications.
Drug use should be legal within ones personal home. Drug use in public is potentially dangerous and should be illegal (but not a felony). This extends to alcohol.
Actually you kind of missed the point.
Any orginization that keeps the power to dole out property and the like also has the power to restrict drug use.
My personal opinion is that I support the legalization of drugs...within limits and property rights and the free market...within limits.
The point is that the fundimentalist spin of drug laws bad property laws good is blindly hypocritical. A government that has the right to enforce the latter also has the right to enforce the first. (Not that they should..)
Bravo! Nice post.
The problem I had with the campaign Nader ran in 2000 was that it was high on rebellion and low on ideas. Even though the Green party has a really good platform IMO, they did a piss-poor job of communicating it. They were more concerned with being a third-party than being a first-party. That's why their advertising campaign fell flat.
(In my opinion the damage Nader did in 2000 was in more of a meme-damage than any sort of vote damage...spreading that meme that Bush==Gore is...erg...bad)
People should suck it up and face it. In order to have their idea forwarded as policy, they have to convice a substantial portion of the populace of the validity of their argument. The one thing I don't like about the fringe parties is how anti-democratic they seem sometimes. They talk about how the democratic process doesn't work because they are not elected, not that they have much work to do in order to convince the people that they should be elected.
It's ALL about meme-warfare.
Not necessarly.
Most of Perot's votes came from the McCain type middle. Perot took the vote pretty evenly from both Clinton and Bush. You really can't compare the two cases. In one you have a candidate running a policy-driven campaign from the middle, in the other you have a candidate running a personality based campaign from the fringes.
Apples and ornges.
In other related news, Alberta Premiere Ralph Klein has announced the construction of a large bubble over Alberta, to ensure that the pollution does not leave the province.
Wait. He hasn't. Please. Please shut up then.
What do you expect from a flawed society? Seriously.
Let's take the Presidential campaign of 2000. What choices did the people have. Let's take the two mainstream candidates first for example. Here's the story that was created by the media. You have the straight-talking cowboy with a heart of gold vs. the lying politician who can't even make up his mind on himself. And oh by the way, they will do exactly the same thing once they get in office. The people didn't stand a chance.
Nader:Not a viable option. Not to the fact that he's a third party, but the fact that Nader was more concerned with burying the Democrats than actually convincing people of things. (I'm a strong supporter of the Green platform, so cut that one off at the pass)
Buchanan:A viable option in my mind. People knew what he stood for. They just didn't like what he stood for.:)
Libertarian:The Libs. have the same problem as the Greens, in getting out an actual platform. With the Libertarians it's a bit more ingrained because the platform sometimes falls into hypocritical thought. (Drug Laws Bad, Property Laws Good!..BZZZT)
The problem in the US is not the voting systems. Well, the voting systems are a problem, but not quite in the way listed. The problem with US voting systems is that different areas use different voting systems with different margin of errors, which creates some differential in the actual vote count.
The problem in the US is the entertainment base of the media. They try to create a horse-race out of EVERYTHING. They equivicate the Democrats and the Republicans on everything, and pretty much ignore anything that would pretty much end one of the parties. For example, a massive coverage of the Pitt/Webster scandal right now would in essence make the election next Tuesday unwatchable. Why? The result would not be in question. It doesn't make for good TV.
News as entertainment. Sorry, I get enough of that from Jon Stewart. I want the rest of my news to be damn serious.
Anything short of a T-1 you're not going to get any reliablity out of..at least not guarenteed. Sorry. The lines just suck too much:(
On one hand I agree with you..if the company made a mistake in cutting off her account, they may be partially liable.. But... Nobody ever ever ever ever ever should be doing important business over e-mail. Never. Never. At least nothing where the person recieving the message is a must recieve.There's too much chance of a black hole these days sucking up your e-mail. Seriously. Don't try it.
Heh.
I do a little more than think of Arthur.
I smell lawsuit!
Let me say this once for EVERYBODY. CEO != Owner! If the above poster is still the owner of his company, he's more than welcome to all the profits for his company. In reality his CEO salery is meaningless because it comes out of his own profits anyway. What the 'troll' was talking about was the money that goes towards CEOs in PUBLICLY..(let me repeat that) PUBLICLY held companies. In these cases, often it's a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse. The CEO controls the CEO compensation. In this case..IN NO WAY can one say that this has anything to do with "market forces". Like it or not, in most cases one could fine equally qualified individuals who would take these jobs for 1/4th..1/8th/..1/10th the salary! As for the fraud angle..I'm not sure if it's fraud, but it's unethical. Paul Krugman has an interesting (but rather long) article in the NYT magazine today on this issue. The problem is a corporate culture that is ME ME ME, rather than company based like it used to be.
Maybe this is lame..but I don't have any mod points so I have to say...
Please mod this up. What knobbie said is completely true. Going through this process right now, you do have to sign a document stating that you will not go on social assistance for 10 years from entry.
I can respect the whole idea that ROMS and emulation are unethical. I mean, for sure the producer is not being rewarded for the effort.
But this really irritates me. People dump on ROMS and emulation and other similar activities...yet will tell you to go to e-bay or Electronics Bout. or Blockbuster to purchase used games. Last time I checked the producer doesn't recieve any benefit for used games either! In fact, from an ethical standpoint it's worse than downloading a rom..because there is profit involved. Even though I support the right of an individual to do this, doesn't mean that I have to think it's ethical. (In a nutshell, profiting from other people's work without giving the producer their is bad).
I don't mean to rag on you..it's just that I've seen some pretty bad hypocrisy due to this. As far as I'm concerned, ethically, when I can't choose to reward the producer anymore, it's fair game. In this day and age it shouldn't be too difficult for a company to still market these products if they are intent on protecting them.
Overall, P2P increases music sales. However, what has happened is that sales of top-40 profitmaking stuff have been replaced with sales of either indie artists or older material. (Often used). That's what the RIAA doesn't like. It's not about piracy, it's about market share.
Just to let you know, that it's the private, competitive, and expensive health care that has most of the bureacracy. Each HMO has their own set of forms to fill out, and legal hoops to jump through, which puts a real strain on those actually providing medical care. Single-payer systems tend to only have one set of rules and regulations, making things a lot less wasteful.
"You personally must tell someone to get off your property if you want to define a trespass situation. You personally must put locks on your doors and use them to ensure the "breaking" part of "breaking and entering" is defined (and so someone can't claim confusion with your place being a 24-hour commercial establishment). Your safety is ultimately your responsibility -- sometimes you might choose to invite the police to help you."
Just a note. The "Breaking" in breaking and entering doesn't refer to breaking a lock or anything like that. All it refers to is opening up something that you're not permitted to open. Like a door or a window.