Short version: local guy wins.
Longer version: Local guy loses, loses again, appeals to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and wins.
Thanks for the follow-up. I forgot about this case until today, and after I had posted I was able to spend about two minutes trying to find out how it ended.
Well, we can hope that the next administration is less hostile to the citizens. The general track-record for both major parties hasn't been that good, though.
Just FYI, you don't need IIS installed to use VMWare server. You only need it if you want to use a web-based interface. The VMWare management software quite happily connects to remote VMWare services without IIS being installed.
Way cool tip!! THANK YOU! I spent FOREVER the first time I put in on a Windows XP machine wondering why I couldn't connect, until I found some guy's blog entry on how to do disable the default web site. WOO HOO!! Now I get to take IIS off of my kids' Windows XP machine. Ironically, the whole reason I have VMWare Server on it is to host my Debian server, for Apache and FTP. Yeah, I know, sounds backwards, but my kids use the machine for (Windows) games, and I wanted to have a machine that was always on to host my server.
Reminds me of this one from 2001: Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress Texas town has the writing of the building code outsourced. Local guy obtains a copy and posts on the Internet, only to get sued for copyright infringement.
You definitely can't run Windows in order to utilize this, but it should be a minimal effort to setup a quick netboot lab to test it with.
One could envision setting up small VMWare Player instances running under a different account on Windows launch using "Scheduled Tasks" for that account (set to launch on reboot). Or - run VMWare Player as a service. A little beefier would be VMWare Server (free), but a bit more of a hassle (need to also install IIS on each XP Machine). The advantage of either setup is that the VM instance will run without a window, but will be visible as a running task in the Task Manager. The Scheduled Task approach would also let you tinker with scheduling, such as a VM that powers up at 6pm and powers down at 6am.
Install Debian or distro of choice in VMWare image, giving it a massive virtual drive in a user account directory. Keeping it a specific user account directory will hide it from non-admin eyes. I mention Debian because it's the one I have the most experience with, with good flexibility in image size.
Admittedly, it wouldn't be the fastest array in the world, but it should work. The bonus is that the Windows machines would continue running as usual, with only slight memory and disk performance drop. That hit would be scattered among the machines at random times based on usage of this virtual array.
If it works well with one machine, you could duplicate the whole VM and just give it a new machine name on the network and move on.
What's funny and ironic about this is that the U.S. has had a National ID card for several decades. It's called a Social Security card. Just try to do something -- get a credit card, borrow money (any amount, any reason), get any form of insurance, get a job, get a driver's license -- without giving them your Social Security Number. In most cases it's impossible.
Interestingly, the requirement is for a number, not a card. A random nine digit number is much easier to 'forge' or 'steal' than a physical card. By the time the crime is complete, the criminal is long gone. Illegal immigrants can get a job by providing the number to the employer, and it may take months for the mismatch to be recognized; if the name and ss# are a match, then it may never get recognized.
Identity theft is so common and easy because just about all it requires is that nine digit number. My mother's neighbor is a hardworking guy who for some reason has over a dozen credit cards and cell phones in his name all over the country, and several outstanding warrants for his arrest. HE'S done nothing wrong, but his number apparently was pretty popular for a while, and he has to bat clean-up on it on a continuous basis. He actually carries a card in his wallet that effectively says "I'm not the man you're looking for" to the police in case he gets pulled over for anything. In spite of that, it still often means a drive down to the station and waiting while higher-ups check out his story.
Sadly, the SS# fails as a security identifier because it was never intended as such; it was strictly supposed to be a primary key for identifying your contributions to the US Social Security system. In any security system, there should be at least a 'two-part' login process: who you are and what you know. The SS# is now being taken for granted as the 'what you know' part, and sometimes even as the 'who you are' part. Additionally, it's not a secret (you can't use a different SS# for each organization you give it to) and you can't change it.
Thought exercise: imagine that you're email address is your login and your ss# is your password for every site you visit on the internet; including your online banking. Now: imagine that one of the sites gets compromised.
Who the heck's idiotic idea was it that companies could make software to count votes, and then not let anybody look at the software and see what it actually does because it's "proprietary"?
Why, it would probably be Walden O'Dell, former CEO of Diebold. Of course, he's not alone in the software world for wanting to keep software secret (I know that my firm is big on it!!!) but given his past, and the later revelations of the actual quality of the software and design, his motives are suspect.
Yes, I know, it was rhetorical. Still, running an election system on the Microsoft Jet database engine was pure folly. Come on: democracy hinges on an Access database?!?
I realize you think burning the US flag (assuming you're a US citizen) is a freedom that shouldn't be restricted. But the flag is a symbol of the Nation itself. So burning of the Flag is symbolic of what? Yeah, the destruction of the nation.
I think the point of many flag-burners is to protest the government, not the nation. Unfortunately, the government doesn't have an obvious symbol to which we can point. In the past we've had more obvious symbols for government policies (such as draft cards) and people have used them effectively.
People in countries other than the US often do a better job of making such distinctions. I had a relative visiting pre-9/11 Iraq and he encountered plenty of anti-US President sentiment, but everyone there loved America and Americans. The pro-American citizen sentiment has cooled recently there since they've met so many of us carrying guns, plus the fact that we (collectively) chose the current President TWICE (technicalities and controversy aside).
- All Americans have health care, even those that cannot afford it, and the idea that there are people without access to health care is a myth that inflames the clueless and serves the purposes of political propaganda. The quality is mediocre, but what do you expect with socialized medicine. It is not hypothetical, I was one of those invisible souls raised on government health care for the destitute.
There's a fairly large set of holes defined by the "underinsured" and the "uninformed".
The uninformed are those who qualify for Medicaid, but are unaware of how to apply for it, or unwilling to do so because of legal dubious status (arrest warrant, dubious immigration status, etc.). Their unwillingness may not be rational, but it's real and contributes to a LOT of people sitting around with treatable conditions, waiting until those conditions get untreatable, or just really expensive to treat.
The underinsured are those whose insurance doesn't cover what they have, or covers only a small fraction of it, or would have covered it if conditions were slightly different. They're the ones with passable or decent jobs with insurance companies that have horrible payment schedules and are slow to pay, on top of it. If their insurance is relatively new and they had ANY gap in prior coverage, there's a strong chance that it will be defined as "pre-existing condition" and they'll be completely denied.
This twist happened to a friend of mine about ten years ago; he had recently got a new job, and soon after he started was complaining of stomach pains. His employer told him that since he had been employed more than a month, his insurance had kicked in and he should get checked out. It was diagnosed as "diverticulitis", and he was given some medications and food recommendations. Fast forward two more weeks and the pain has increased and turned out to be full-blown pancreatitis. Huge chunks of his pancreas were removed, making him a diabetic. His insurance pointed back to the earlier misdiagnosis of diverticulitis, indicated that the pancreatitis was pre-existing even the start of his coverage, and denied his bill: his $120,000 bill. 25 years old, new job, 120,000 in debt. He died a year later in a diabetic coma due to poor glucose control, completely unable to pay for any medical care. He was working on bankruptcy proceedings, but this was back when it was "easier" to get a medical bankruptcy; current bankruptcy laws in the US are dramatically different - against him.
But you know what? They taste that way because of very careful and scientific studies done by the company. They do focus groups and test marketing and they make what the vest majority of their customers want.
Also: they add artificial flavors back in to make it taste like meat again. "Fast Food Nation" had some very good research into it. They didn't directly pan the usage of artificial flavors in the book; in fact the author pointed out that the naturally obtained version of almond flavor contains cyanide, but the artificial version does not.
Still, it's interesting to note that the beef at McDs has been mixed with some "ingredients" that you don't normally find laying around in your kitchen before a cook-out.
It all comes down to your definition of "real legitimate laws" now doesn't it? I personally don't see them as being very legitimate.
And, regarding this statement: "....no one has the right to just take something of mine for free that I only offered them for sale. That's just theft." If you offer good software at a reasonable price (that your market can afford) people will buy it. If you charge more than the market is willing to pay then people will steal it.
Please don't continue using the words "steal" and "theft". They continue to cloud the issue. They continue to imply the taking of physical property, and the depriving others of said property. This is different. Not being pedantic or anything, but lots of these battles can be won or lost early-on by proper "framing" of terms. If you accept your opponents terms and definitions, you're already losing. Examples: "Right to life" and "death tax".
Do you really need air conditioning? What do you think they did a hundred years ago?
1) They stayed the hell away from the south western US.
2) They used the evaporative cooling.
3) They had ice shipped in, and paid exorbitant fees for it.
4) The old and infirm, quite simply, died.
I think people overlook point #1 quite frequently. The population maps of the US prior to WW2 were heavily skewed towards places that were either cold or temperate; it's been easy to add heat to a system for thousands of years, but removing heat on the scale of a building is a relatively new proposition. Post-Air Conditioning, people were able to build anywhere at all.
Houses built prior to that point, esp. in hotter areas, were built to work with the climate not against it. Southern exposures were typical no matter which side was the "front yard", awnings were in place to block high "summer sun" but allow in the low winter sun, and many houses had a single channel for air-flow from the open front door to the open back door. Today's construction is typically the same "insulated box" everywhere in the country, designed to fight the climate rather than work with it.
Bonus: the culture of the hottest parts of the country and world allow for "siesta" where natural human activity comes to a halt during the hottest part of the day.
When his initial e-mails to the Microsoft blog asking it to remove links to his photo didn't immediately work, Kennedy replaced the image with one of a man engaging in an activity best described as "extreme mooning." Visitors to the Microsoft blog who clicked on the innocent-looking link were guided to the new photo. Says Kennedy, "They pulled down the link within 15 minutes."
Six years ago the TechReport web site had a review stolen by a different site (a site that primarily sold hardware). Not only did they lift the text, but they linked directly to the pics on the TechReport server. Techreport swapped in new pictures to replace the existing graphs and pics. Tastefully, they put in photos of a child with power tools captioned to reflect that the kid was actually a tech at the infringing company. Priceless.
If your computer switches on and acts as a computer should, then it's clearly not a bomb. There is absolutely no way to replace the hard drive with a miniature solid-state device running a basic OS install, and the battery with a much smaller one sacrificing battery life for extra room, and use the space saved for a big lump of Semtex to be triggered by echo detonate
Actually, a fair number of laptops come with removable modules for floppy, DVD, and battery. Removing the floppy unit and replacing with another battery is an easy way to double your 'unplugged' time. Removing the floppy unit and replacing with an explosive in the the remaining space is also trivial, also leaving you with a fully functional laptop. No need for any special command codes sent over the OS - simply remove fake "floppy" drive and real battery, and push the 20v, high amp battery terminals against the explosive. Heck, there's usually enough inert space for PCMCIA/PCCard slots to get quite a mess.
If we instead use x=version no. (5 for 2000, 5.1 for XP and 6 for Vista) then we get the formula -27.778(x^2)+310.56x-857.33 then Windows 7 would have -44.532 editions.
OK, you're my hero, I'll admit it. But seriously, what software did you use to turn the datapoints into polynomials?
In fact, in some circles it's become fashionable to be stupid. Cue a downward spiral as each member tries to not end up in the upper 50% of their group.
The John Allen Paulos "Innumeracy" is a good study in mathematical illiteracy, and talks in passing on the "pride of ignorance" when it comes to math, but I think it also applies more broadly to other tech subjects. Nobody would think of telling strangers on a bus "I can't read", but many feel comfortable telling complete strangers "math is hard" or "I can't even balance my checkbook".
Paul Graham's Nerd Article from 2003 is pretty good, and while it doesn't sum it up entirely, it gives a few hints. It DOESN'T indicate why it's such a Western cultural issue, and doesn't indicate gender differences; girls dumb down for slightly different reasons than boys.
One thing children reward is conformity. They dislike things and kids that are too different, and will reward, or at least fail to torment, the mundane. To be different is to take a strong chance to get praise, but also to get beat down, and stats show that a school child will hear eleven negative things for every one positive thing about themselves every day, so odds reward keeping a low profile.
My favorite story about usability testing came from "Ask Tog", one of the original UI designers of the Mac OS (pre-OSX). The challenge was getting users to fill out a web-based form, and dealing with the possibility that their web browser might not be maximized. They went through a torturous set of steps to make sure that all levels of users knew how to maximize their web browser.
Cingular took over ATT and was sending me two bills. I asked for the accounts to be merged, they told me i'd have to scrap my old phone number.
Interesting information and thanks for it - good to know.
I've had cell service with them (as Cingular) for years, and the home phone has been with SBC on my wife's name. When all of the mergers went through, they offered to merge the bills and reduce the rate by (I believe) $2. BUT: because the phones were set up under two different names, and SBC, AT&T and Cingular were all still incompatible, they would only allow it if I shut down either service and set them all up with the same names, with corresponding charges and loss of numbers, etc. PITA - pain in the ass.
My town is going for whole-town wireless broadband - operational in May. When that day comes, I wanna ditch the Borg.
Hell, just to make things interesting - I'll send one of my OpenTracker+ kits, free, anywhere in the world, to anyone with a Slashdot account that already exists as of today who gets a license before the end of February 2008. It may not be everyone's thing, but A) it's free and B) it comes with source code. Email scott@argentdata.com.
OK - mine expired back in Feb of 2007. (DARNIT!) Looking at this nifty kit, I may have to get back into it again.
See, he was trying to string together an ethernet LAN without using a hub or switch (because that's wrong, or something) but instead by installing two network cards in each of the fifteen computers and cabling them one to the next to the next in a lovely bastardization of, I dunno, token ring with ethernet with thinnet with...
Interesting. There was a story not too long ago about how science teaching in England was getting dumbed down. Instead of focusing on hard questions on tests, there would be questions like "How do cell phones make you feel?" I wish I could find the link...
The going rate for the year 2000 election was the $200-300 tax rebate Bush promised. I remember, quite explicitly, a colleague saying "I want $200, I'm voting for Bush."
The real kicker is that $200-300 was actually an advance on your tax return. When you did your taxes later that year, your refund was reduced by that much. Not only could you have gotten that money by just getting your withholdings in balance in the first place, but IT WAS YOUR MONEY ANYWAY.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, we can hope that the next administration is less hostile to the citizens. The general track-record for both major parties hasn't been that good, though.
Way cool tip!! THANK YOU! I spent FOREVER the first time I put in on a Windows XP machine wondering why I couldn't connect, until I found some guy's blog entry on how to do disable the default web site. WOO HOO!! Now I get to take IIS off of my kids' Windows XP machine. Ironically, the whole reason I have VMWare Server on it is to host my Debian server, for Apache and FTP. Yeah, I know, sounds backwards, but my kids use the machine for (Windows) games, and I wanted to have a machine that was always on to host my server.
Reminds me of this one from 2001: Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress Texas town has the writing of the building code outsourced. Local guy obtains a copy and posts on the Internet, only to get sued for copyright infringement.
One could envision setting up small VMWare Player instances running under a different account on Windows launch using "Scheduled Tasks" for that account (set to launch on reboot). Or - run VMWare Player as a service. A little beefier would be VMWare Server (free), but a bit more of a hassle (need to also install IIS on each XP Machine). The advantage of either setup is that the VM instance will run without a window, but will be visible as a running task in the Task Manager. The Scheduled Task approach would also let you tinker with scheduling, such as a VM that powers up at 6pm and powers down at 6am.
Install Debian or distro of choice in VMWare image, giving it a massive virtual drive in a user account directory. Keeping it a specific user account directory will hide it from non-admin eyes. I mention Debian because it's the one I have the most experience with, with good flexibility in image size.
Admittedly, it wouldn't be the fastest array in the world, but it should work. The bonus is that the Windows machines would continue running as usual, with only slight memory and disk performance drop. That hit would be scattered among the machines at random times based on usage of this virtual array.
If it works well with one machine, you could duplicate the whole VM and just give it a new machine name on the network and move on.
Interestingly, the requirement is for a number, not a card. A random nine digit number is much easier to 'forge' or 'steal' than a physical card. By the time the crime is complete, the criminal is long gone. Illegal immigrants can get a job by providing the number to the employer, and it may take months for the mismatch to be recognized; if the name and ss# are a match, then it may never get recognized.
Identity theft is so common and easy because just about all it requires is that nine digit number. My mother's neighbor is a hardworking guy who for some reason has over a dozen credit cards and cell phones in his name all over the country, and several outstanding warrants for his arrest. HE'S done nothing wrong, but his number apparently was pretty popular for a while, and he has to bat clean-up on it on a continuous basis. He actually carries a card in his wallet that effectively says "I'm not the man you're looking for" to the police in case he gets pulled over for anything. In spite of that, it still often means a drive down to the station and waiting while higher-ups check out his story.
Sadly, the SS# fails as a security identifier because it was never intended as such; it was strictly supposed to be a primary key for identifying your contributions to the US Social Security system. In any security system, there should be at least a 'two-part' login process: who you are and what you know. The SS# is now being taken for granted as the 'what you know' part, and sometimes even as the 'who you are' part. Additionally, it's not a secret (you can't use a different SS# for each organization you give it to) and you can't change it.
Thought exercise: imagine that you're email address is your login and your ss# is your password for every site you visit on the internet; including your online banking. Now: imagine that one of the sites gets compromised.
Using the internet traffic report site, I can see at this time that Florida has 100% packet loss, too. Creepy.
Why, it would probably be Walden O'Dell, former CEO of Diebold. Of course, he's not alone in the software world for wanting to keep software secret (I know that my firm is big on it!!!) but given his past, and the later revelations of the actual quality of the software and design, his motives are suspect.
Yes, I know, it was rhetorical. Still, running an election system on the Microsoft Jet database engine was pure folly. Come on: democracy hinges on an Access database?!?
I think the point of many flag-burners is to protest the government, not the nation. Unfortunately, the government doesn't have an obvious symbol to which we can point. In the past we've had more obvious symbols for government policies (such as draft cards) and people have used them effectively.
People in countries other than the US often do a better job of making such distinctions. I had a relative visiting pre-9/11 Iraq and he encountered plenty of anti-US President sentiment, but everyone there loved America and Americans. The pro-American citizen sentiment has cooled recently there since they've met so many of us carrying guns, plus the fact that we (collectively) chose the current President TWICE (technicalities and controversy aside).
There's a fairly large set of holes defined by the "underinsured" and the "uninformed".
The uninformed are those who qualify for Medicaid, but are unaware of how to apply for it, or unwilling to do so because of legal dubious status (arrest warrant, dubious immigration status, etc.). Their unwillingness may not be rational, but it's real and contributes to a LOT of people sitting around with treatable conditions, waiting until those conditions get untreatable, or just really expensive to treat.
The underinsured are those whose insurance doesn't cover what they have, or covers only a small fraction of it, or would have covered it if conditions were slightly different. They're the ones with passable or decent jobs with insurance companies that have horrible payment schedules and are slow to pay, on top of it. If their insurance is relatively new and they had ANY gap in prior coverage, there's a strong chance that it will be defined as "pre-existing condition" and they'll be completely denied.
This twist happened to a friend of mine about ten years ago; he had recently got a new job, and soon after he started was complaining of stomach pains. His employer told him that since he had been employed more than a month, his insurance had kicked in and he should get checked out. It was diagnosed as "diverticulitis", and he was given some medications and food recommendations. Fast forward two more weeks and the pain has increased and turned out to be full-blown pancreatitis. Huge chunks of his pancreas were removed, making him a diabetic. His insurance pointed back to the earlier misdiagnosis of diverticulitis, indicated that the pancreatitis was pre-existing even the start of his coverage, and denied his bill: his $120,000 bill. 25 years old, new job, 120,000 in debt. He died a year later in a diabetic coma due to poor glucose control, completely unable to pay for any medical care. He was working on bankruptcy proceedings, but this was back when it was "easier" to get a medical bankruptcy; current bankruptcy laws in the US are dramatically different - against him.
Also: they add artificial flavors back in to make it taste like meat again. "Fast Food Nation" had some very good research into it. They didn't directly pan the usage of artificial flavors in the book; in fact the author pointed out that the naturally obtained version of almond flavor contains cyanide, but the artificial version does not.
Still, it's interesting to note that the beef at McDs has been mixed with some "ingredients" that you don't normally find laying around in your kitchen before a cook-out.
DOH! They got me. On the other hand, looks a few other people got hit, too. In my defense: the funny mod didn't show up until after I posted.
Please don't continue using the words "steal" and "theft". They continue to cloud the issue. They continue to imply the taking of physical property, and the depriving others of said property. This is different. Not being pedantic or anything, but lots of these battles can be won or lost early-on by proper "framing" of terms. If you accept your opponents terms and definitions, you're already losing. Examples: "Right to life" and "death tax".
I think people overlook point #1 quite frequently. The population maps of the US prior to WW2 were heavily skewed towards places that were either cold or temperate; it's been easy to add heat to a system for thousands of years, but removing heat on the scale of a building is a relatively new proposition. Post-Air Conditioning, people were able to build anywhere at all.
Houses built prior to that point, esp. in hotter areas, were built to work with the climate not against it. Southern exposures were typical no matter which side was the "front yard", awnings were in place to block high "summer sun" but allow in the low winter sun, and many houses had a single channel for air-flow from the open front door to the open back door. Today's construction is typically the same "insulated box" everywhere in the country, designed to fight the climate rather than work with it.
Bonus: the culture of the hottest parts of the country and world allow for "siesta" where natural human activity comes to a halt during the hottest part of the day.
Six years ago the TechReport web site had a review stolen by a different site (a site that primarily sold hardware). Not only did they lift the text, but they linked directly to the pics on the TechReport server. Techreport swapped in new pictures to replace the existing graphs and pics. Tastefully, they put in photos of a child with power tools captioned to reflect that the kid was actually a tech at the infringing company. Priceless.
Could it just be that when two geeky parents breed, the geek factor is just over-enforced in the genes of their kids. I think there was a good treatment of this years ago in Wired's article on "The Geek Syndrome: Autism in Silicon Valley".
Actually, a fair number of laptops come with removable modules for floppy, DVD, and battery. Removing the floppy unit and replacing with another battery is an easy way to double your 'unplugged' time. Removing the floppy unit and replacing with an explosive in the the remaining space is also trivial, also leaving you with a fully functional laptop. No need for any special command codes sent over the OS - simply remove fake "floppy" drive and real battery, and push the 20v, high amp battery terminals against the explosive. Heck, there's usually enough inert space for PCMCIA/PCCard slots to get quite a mess.
OK, you're my hero, I'll admit it. But seriously, what software did you use to turn the datapoints into polynomials?
The John Allen Paulos "Innumeracy" is a good study in mathematical illiteracy, and talks in passing on the "pride of ignorance" when it comes to math, but I think it also applies more broadly to other tech subjects. Nobody would think of telling strangers on a bus "I can't read", but many feel comfortable telling complete strangers "math is hard" or "I can't even balance my checkbook".
Paul Graham's Nerd Article from 2003 is pretty good, and while it doesn't sum it up entirely, it gives a few hints. It DOESN'T indicate why it's such a Western cultural issue, and doesn't indicate gender differences; girls dumb down for slightly different reasons than boys.
One thing children reward is conformity. They dislike things and kids that are too different, and will reward, or at least fail to torment, the mundane. To be different is to take a strong chance to get praise, but also to get beat down, and stats show that a school child will hear eleven negative things for every one positive thing about themselves every day, so odds reward keeping a low profile.
Only on Slashdot do you need to to qualify the word "wine" in that manner!
http://www.asktog.com/columns/000maxscrns.html
Interesting information and thanks for it - good to know.
I've had cell service with them (as Cingular) for years, and the home phone has been with SBC on my wife's name. When all of the mergers went through, they offered to merge the bills and reduce the rate by (I believe) $2. BUT: because the phones were set up under two different names, and SBC, AT&T and Cingular were all still incompatible, they would only allow it if I shut down either service and set them all up with the same names, with corresponding charges and loss of numbers, etc. PITA - pain in the ass.
My town is going for whole-town wireless broadband - operational in May. When that day comes, I wanna ditch the Borg.
OK - mine expired back in Feb of 2007. (DARNIT!) Looking at this nifty kit, I may have to get back into it again.
You had me crying... that was priceless.
Here's a recent one on the A-Levels being dumbed down. http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_7088000/7088628.stm
Here's some accusations of political meddling bringing down the GCSEs: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/11/ncivitas111.xml
The real kicker is that $200-300 was actually an advance on your tax return. When you did your taxes later that year, your refund was reduced by that much. Not only could you have gotten that money by just getting your withholdings in balance in the first place, but IT WAS YOUR MONEY ANYWAY.
Sheesh.