Downloading music, without paying for it, is copyright infringement. It is not theft. It just isn't. Look up the definition of theft. In order to commit therf, or steal something, you must deprive someone of property.
You loose. End of story.
From dictionary.com:
The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
You can talk about what the store cares about all you want, but that doesn't change the law or the defintion of theft.
BTW, people should feel as bad about "stealing" from RIAA members, as they should the mafia. Do you have any idea how badly they screw over both consumers and artists? Have you conveniently forgotten that the RIAA's members were recently convicted of price-fixing? This by your logic, is probably theft too. In your fantasy-land they should all already be in jail. After all, they "stole" $5 from everyone who bought a CD.
Cringely once pointed out, unless you are a graphic artist, your personal data probably fits well within 500Mb of storage. Why the hell is it that the smallest drives I can purchase nowadays are around 30Gb (120Gb for SCSI), at a time when my data storage needs still have not exceeded that 500Mb per user quota?
500MB!? All I can say is dude, get with the times!
First off, I would look into these files called "mp3s" people seem to be filling up a lot of disk space with them these days.
Did you know that computers are fast enough to play movies now? That's right you can actually watch movies on your computer. (Or if you're me, your handheld:)
Every heard of digital cameras?
Did you know you can buy a scanner and keep documents in your computer? No more endless piles of dead trees!
[user@localhost user]$ du -s Mail
254932 Mail
Play any modern games? I didn't think so.
Your head would probably explode if you head how much HD space you need if you want to hook up a digital video camera to your computer.
Of course, if you're happy with your 2GB HDDs and your 640KB of RAM, that's fine with me. Me, I'm running out of space with 80GB of storage. I would have 120GB, but I have 2 drives RAIDed to handle that reliability problem you were talking about. I don't really see what you're complaining about. Back in the 2GB days, do you remember how much HDDs cost? You can by 2 drives today for those prices and use one as backup.
Quite simply, you're wrong.
Case in point: the driver published in SOURCE FORM by NVidia builds upon information which they are unwilling to release to the public.
They release source code which uses information which would be available only under NDA. It's not a matter of publishing the information contained in the NDA, it's a matter of making use of it.
Not I'm not. I think you need to read your own comment (especially the text I put in bold) and my previous one a little more closely. Yes Nvidia released a driver is source form based on information they might make you sign an NDA to get. That's what I was saying. You're not getting it. Your "case in point" doesn't prove anything. It doesn't invalidate a single thing I said. It also doesn't do anything to back up your statement that the GPL is as restrictive as an NDA.
There is a huge difference between using the the information contained in a document and republishing that document. You can use the information contained in a book to write a paper, but you can't republish a book. Understand?
I think I already explained this point pretty well:
Refer to many graphics drivers included in XFree86. Often information obtained under an NDA can be used to develop a freely available work.
Right, the infomation can be used. Just like you could look and the Linux kernel and use the ideas it uses to write your own OS with any license you want. The NDA does not allow you to republish the information itself as part of your work. At all. Period. You can't do it. The GPL lets you use both the information, and the actual work itself (if you accept the GPL).
You said:
The GNU Project is shady. Make no mistake about it: The GPL restricts choice as much as an NDA would.
I've just demonstrated that you have more choices with information you recieve under the GPL than with information you recieve under an NDA. Yes, someone could release a driver they developed under an NDA using any license they want. If that same person had developed that same driver using information they had recieved under the GPL, they could release the driver they developed under any license they want, and they could reproduce the information they used to do it under the terms of the GPL. Thus, the GPL restricts choice less than an NDA.
I can potentially write something under an NDA which can be released under whatever license I want.
No you can't. If you sign an NDA you're agreeing not to disclose certain things. That's why it's called a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Publishing source code with discloses anything covered by an NDA would be a violation of that agreement.
The only way you can publish something is if it is not covered by the NDA or if you are released from the agreement. Neither one of those is publishing something under an NDA.
Your original comment is just wrong. The GPL does not restrict choice as much as an NDA. An NDA says "You can't publish this." The GPL says "You can publish this, but only under these terms."
Your graphics drivers example doesn't work. In that example, the company is providing information, only some of which is covered by an NDA. The NDA'ed info CAN'T BE PUBLISHED. It's just there to help the programmer understand what's going on.
Refer to many graphics drivers included in XFree86. Often information obtained under an NDA can be used to develop a freely available work.
Right, the infomation can be used. Just like you could look and the Linux kernel and use the ideas it uses to write your own OS with any license you want. The NDA does not allow you to republish that information itself as part of your work. At all. Period. You can't do it. The GPL lets you use both the information, and the actual work itself (if you accept the GPL).
Also: But how does this make it any less stupid that you have to assign copyright to the FSF to contribute to GCC? I see no reason this would be a problem unless the FSF wanted the option to release GCC under a license other than their own GPL.
Exactly. There are multiple versions of the GPL, and one can reasonably expect that it will be revised again in the furure. The only way for them to release GCC under the newest version of the GPL is for them to own the copyright. It's just now feasible for them to contact everyone who has ever contributed to GCC and get their written approval to change the license to the GPL v 15.3.
Besides, once something released under version X of the GPL, it can always be used under that license, even if RMS went nuts and decided to start using Microsoft's Shared Source license. Everyone could just fork the code under the most recent GPL'ed release and say "screw you RMS."
Stick to public domain. GPL is no more free than Microsoft, just each end an extreme. Microsoft, no source, no tampering, no nothing. GPL, Always source, no matter what. Sure it works for some, I have a few projects I own that are GPL, incidentally because I originally unknowingly GPL'd them, and a few now that are public domain. I prefer public domain, there is little to no worries at all on it. I'm even more free in the choice because I could one day take works I put into public domain and use them in a closed source application, such as for consulting work. People will benefit from the source I had originally made, and I benefit in the fact I can use the work in closed environments.
The problem here isn't the GPL. You just don't understand it right.
If you put a project under the GPL, you can still use your own code in a closed project. Since you own the copyright, you can release the code under multiple copyrights. Releasing it under the GPL is actually better because it means no one else can use your code in a closed product.
Stick to public domain. GPL is no more free than Microsoft, just each end an extreme.
This really makes me wonder if you're trolling. This statement is just silly. With MS software you have the rights granted to you by copyright law, but they are restriced by a license. With GPL'ed software you get the rights granted to you by copyright law, plus additional rights are granted to you is you agree to the GPL. The GPL does not attempt to remove any of the rights granted by copyright, it actually gives you more. MS licences try to remove rights granted to you by copyright while not giving you any more.(BTW, this makes the GPL perhaps the most legally binding of software licences.) This is like saying that $1,000,000,000 is no better than $.01 because they're different ends of an extreme. It's nonsense. It's like saying facism is no different than democracy because they're both forms of government.
If you ask a victim of identity theft whether they "think things are relatively agreeable at present" you will probably find out that not everyone agrees with that assessment.
Privacy and activity requiring "automated identification" (e.g., on-line, electronic banking, voting, commerce, etc.) are mutually exclusive. The only way you can be positively identified is if a trusted third party has sufficient knowledge of you that they can verify that you really are who you say you are (good-bye privacy) or you have some sort of unique identification that cannot be forged and that absolutely identifies you (hello government IDs).
Sorry, but this is just not true. There are plently of ways for me to be sure you are who you are, without me ever knowing your name. This is a very common misconecption and I would like to illustrate why it's wrong.
Say I want to be able to send you email, and let you be able to positive verify that it's always coming from the same sender everytime, yet never be able to link that sender with and actual person:
1. I send you an email with my a public encryption key.
2. I can then sign all subsequent communication with that key. You then can be sure that and email you get comes from the person who generated that key.
3. I send all communications through an anonymous remailer. There is no way for you to track my key back to an actual person.
4. If my key is comprimised, I send you a revocation certificate.
The point here is that I've been able to securely identify myself to you without giving you any information I didn't want to. If I want to tell you my eye color, I can, but it's not needed every time to verify that I'm the same person. These same priciples can be applied to a lot of things. For example:
Say I want to have an online bank account. I can give them money, and they could give me a certain encryption key. I then keep this key secret and it identifies me in later transactions. There is no reason for them to need my personal info to verify my identity. If they want extra info to be able to use in case they think my key has been stolen, they can ask me for non-identifying personal information such as the name of my first pet, which is basically impossible to link to a specfic person.
This brings us full circle, back to when the first displays had nothing but an on switch.
Actually, the first displays were old-style tektronix analog oscilloscopes. Have you ever seen one of those? I have one on my desk right now.....it has 1..2..3...4.....35 buttons, knobs, or switches on the front. It would take the average joe a few minutes just to find the power switch. (Not that I don't think they're great pieces of equipment, at least for their time.)
I'm not sure which old-school display you're thinking of, but I've never seen any display that didn't have more than one control (maybe they were hidden on the back but they were still there). Every display basiclly had to. You have to be talking about a CRT, and CRTs get dimmer over time, and also need other adjustment to function optimally. This is a result of the fact the magnetic fields aren't exactly the same everywhere on earth. That's why true A/V nuts buy AVIA test DVDs and adjust their TV once they get it home.
Uh, it's not unique -- atleast the idea isn't. Ever read Plato? It's in The Republic -- The Allegory of the Cave.
That's the Matrix preloaded.
Actually, a movie that is much closer to "The Allegory of the Cave" is "The Truman Show."
True-man show, get it? I don't think The Matrix really fits with Plato's allegory very well, Neo doesn't realize he's a prisoner on his own, he gets a lot of help. In the Truman Show everyone is trying to prevent Truman from find out the truth, which is much closer to Plato's allegory.
I once had the network manager ask me my password.
I replied, "Real systems administators will never need to ask for a user's password. If someone asks you for your password, they must be trying to infilitrate the system."
This caused his boss, who was standing next to him, to burst out laughing.
I don't know what he needed to do, but I didn't give him my password.
That's not only hilarious, it really is the way the world should be. At even a medium sized company it's pretty much impossible to know how much access each person is supposed to have to the network.
Examples:
The payroll system, users with access to classifed information, etc.
Maybe the guy asking is a low-level sysadmin, but he might not be allowed access to everything you are. Users should be taught to NEVER give out their password. If the guy doesn't have the ability to "su your-account" then he definately should not be given your password, and if he does, what does he need you password for?
Way to be very authoritatively wrong. SNR is not worthless. THD is important, but so is SNR, so is RMS output, so are a lot of things. THD only describes nonlinear distortion. Here's a diagram for you to look at. It will give you a better idea what all these specs measure. And if you want to know what the THDs for those amps are, I posted links to the damn specs, look at them!
Your analogy is worthless. First off, there's no Signal on the other side of your relay...you know? As in Signal to Noise Ratio? Second, the other side of your relay has 0% THD, does that mean THD is a worthless spec?
BTW, even if you were thinking of using a relay as an amplifier, it's not going to have 1000 db SNR or 100% THD. The SNR would be around 7.78 db (for a sufficiently harmonically complex signal), and THD would be very dependent on the signal you fed it.
I've already see a few posts on this topic that just made my stomach turn. Here's an example:
D&M isn't high end.
It's more of a high-end of the low-end.
Rotel, Krell, Sunfir, Mark Levinson, anything with vaccum tubes and the list goes on are more towards the middle and hugh end of the audiophile spectrum.
You know stuff where each mono-block amp costs more than the most expensive D&M box. Or when your system has a phono cartridge that costs 5-15,000 bucks, that's high-end.
But me, I'm happy with my Denon AVR-3803
Here's another one:
Dude, you are probably not an audiophile. Denon and Marantz are related to the likes of Kenwood, Sony and Pioneer like a ferrari to a volkswagen. You probably also never heard of Quad or Nakamichi? heh... now that's an audio system.
I'm not an "audiophile" if by audiophile you mean "sucker." People who spend a ton of money on this stuff are buying some VERY overpriced equipment. Just because something is the most expensive in the world doesn't make it the best. And tubes? Yeah, you can make a good amp with tubes, but you can make just as good or better of and amp with transistors. (Guitar amps are a slightly different story.) Saying something has tubes, doesn't necessarily make it good.
I've decided to stick to pro-audio gear for all new audio purchases. There's just something stupid about spending $200 on unbalanced phono cables, but "audiophilies" have no problem with that. Nor do they seem to have a problem with $1000 speaker cables, etc.
If you're going to spend a ton of money on your audio system, I suggest you buy the same things a recording studio buys.
Just to show you guys are being a pompus asses, here's a brochure from quad: here
check out those power amp specs:
108 db SNR
Now lets go look at some pro gear:
Check out the specs. page for this Crown amplifier.
SNR 120dB
People "in the know" don't buy that ridiculously overpriced "high end" stuff, they buy pro grear. It performs wonderfully, takes abuse, and costs less.
Re:May as well be the first to say it
on
AOL Sues Spammers
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· Score: 1
I can't believe this was modded up to 5. Give me a break, people. You aren't paying extra for trash pickup to deal with the pound or two of junkmail that you get each week.
Actually, I am. (I can't believe you got modded to +5.)
Last I knew, AOL CDs, true to the laws of physics, both had mass and took up space. Since I am charged by volume or mass for disposing of trash, then yes I am paying extra. It costs me $1/6 to dispose of two pounds of trash.
I wouldn't be suprised if this is actually more money than I spend downloading all the spam I get sent. Let's see:
200KB/sec DSL for $50/month.
200KB * 60 *60 * 24 * 30 = 518400000 KB/month total
200KB Spam/day * 30 days = 6000 KB/month of spam
1.1574e-03 percent of my monthly bandwidth is spent on spam I spend $0.00057870 / month downloading spam.
I spend $0.71429 / month disposing of junk mail.
I have to pay much more to dispose of my snail mail spam than I have to pay to get my electronic spam.
You might get more electronic spam if you just look at the numbers, but you're not considering how much cheaper it is to dispose of 1 billion spam emails than it is to dispose of 1 billion AOL CDs. Not only that, it's easier to sort spam than physical junk mail, since I can't buy a mailbox that automatically throws out 90% of the physical junk mail I get.
The NSA has some pretty cool puzzles up there. Some are pretty easy, but there are plently that will even confound most adults. If you want them to really stretch their minds, have them try it. (Try have difficulty ratings for things to help you decide what to try too.)
From the site: Puzzles come in three levels. Elementary level is appropriate in content and difficulty for elementary school students in grades three through five. Intermediate level puzzles are geared for middle school students. Master puzzles are the most difficult and are designed to be challenging for high school, college students, and adults as well.
The day you get 100 'free CDs' every day and have to foot the postage charge yourself, you might have a valid complaint.
How about disposing of them? AOL doesn't pay for my garbage removal, I do. They're sending me something I don't want, without return postage, therefore I am forced to dispose of it, at my cost.
If they did send me 100 cds, I would be forced to pay to dispose of them. Given how many of those damn things they send out, I would say I've probably already recieved 100 of them.:P
Actual 24 bit conversion is actually extremely hard. I am not aware of any standard device capable of this level of precision at audio frequencies, let alone 200KHz.
I suggest you look around more then, and maybe even RTFA. This company has the response of their 24-bit A/D convertor right there on the page linked to in this story. Duh.
Also you will not find any mic or concert venue enabling you to deliver 144dB dynamic range into the adc. You will likely actually get somwhere between 30-60dB
You can pretty easily get a mic which will give you 144db of dynamic range, they're just not cheap. Here's a mic that will handle 160 db maximum.
Dude, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. I wouldn't be so rough on you except that you're calling those of us who do know something "clueless audiophile wannabes."
First, 16bits is not enough to cover the dynamic range of human hearing. 16 bits only amounts to ninety-something db of dynamic range, and the human range is greater than that (Yes, I know about amplitude and frequency masking effects). 120db is the threshold of pain, and is relative to the quiestest observable sound.
Second, sampling beyond the highest frequency you want to record is very useful:
-Filters are not perfect. In fact, it is impossible to build a perfect filter. You must filter whatever you're sampling in order to avoid alaising (higher frequencies you didn't want in the first place being turned into lower ones which mess up your signal).
-Also, sampling at a higher rate amounts to oversampling. Ever seen a CD player that says one bit D/A convertor on it? That cd player upsamples the 16 bit signal into a one bit signal with a higher sampling rate and then uses that to drive your headphones. Oversampling allows them to get 16 bit like D/A performance from a 1 bit D/A convertor. Oversampling also works when you're recording.
I honestly don't know if 96KHz audio streams are filtered at 20KHz or so, so that the extra speed is oversampling, or if it is just used to provide increased frequency range. Even if it isn't there are other factors:
You have to sample HIGHER than 2x the minimum frequency you want to record. The Nyquist rate is 2x the highest frequency content in the signal, but in the real world, components are not prefect. The transistors in A/D and D/A convertors do not switch instantaneoulsly, etc. Sampling faster helps to account for this.
And using 24 bits also helps in other ways. It reduces the noise floor/THD of your signal. In going from an analog signal to a digital one there is a certain amount of quantitization noise produced (the actual value of the analog signal is rounded to the closest digital value). This noise can be modeled as a nomally distributed signal arcoss the frequency range of the digital signal, and decreasing the size of the steps that the signal changes in, lowers the amplitude of this noise signal, reducing SNR/THD.
Noise is also added to the signal if you try and do any type of digital filtering (such as an equalizer). This makes 24/96 an especially good idea to use when you're making an album.
So anyways, 24bit/96KHz is worthwhile. Especially the 24 bit part IMSHO. It kinda sucks having speakers that will put out 130+ db, an amplfier with >123db SNR, yet the SNR of all my music is less than 100 db.
Here's a link about some of this stuff, just be prepared for some math (I'm currently taking this course):
http://courses.ece.cornell.edu/ece426/files/fwl.pd f
I won't even get into the validty of compression here, just do a search on "perceptual coding" and read a little bit. One basic point is that, while we can hear with over 100db of dynamic range, we can't hear a 1db 1002 Hz signal if we're hearing a 100db 1000 Hz signal.
Finally, Minidisc IS compressed too. Using what kind of messed up logic is a compressed 16bit 44.1KHz signal, better quality than an uncompressed 24 bit 96 KHz signal? Your MHz myth comment is total B.S. With a digital signal, 2 things matter: sampling rate, and bits per sample. That's all there is (unless you're talking about mu-law encoding, which you clearly weren't if you're talking about minidisc.)
If you want to run a real mail server, perhaps you should get a real internet conenction, like Colocation or T1.
I normally don't resort to profanity but,
FUCK OFF!
Maybe some of us don't have the money for our own T1. Maybe some of us can just afford our dsl connections.
I shouldn't have to spend $1000/year just to be able to send outgoing mail with a return address of me@mydomain.com. I registered a domain specfically so I have control over my email. No matter what actual account I use for my email, I can have email to my domain forwarded to that account. There are lots of other good reasons not to send mail through my ISP's server too.
Do you have your own personal T1 for sending your own personal email?
Sure it will block some spam, but it's also a remarkably stupid way to block spam. Scan the server sending you spam, check it against a blacklist, check the actual content of the message, etc. This is only going to block a small fraction of spam anyways, since there are plenty of other computers, not on dsl, that spammers can use. It's a half-assed measure that may temporarily inconvenience some spammers, but will be trivial for them to work around, while at the same time blocking tons of legitimate email (and being much harder for legitmate senders to work around). As a "network engineer" you should understand that.
The best way to keep anything hidden from anybody is to keep them from ever knowing it existed in the first place - if they already know, or suspect, then it's already too late.
The best way is to both, try and keep anyone from knowing it exists in the first place AND to cover your ass. Yeah you should try to keep things hidden, obviously. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take precautions in case the worst does happen.
Sure, you might have your super-leet miniserver stuck in your heating ducts, powered by a little mini-windmill and linked via 802.11g to your house, with an emergency "shut up for 24 hours" command
Actually, your desktop should send the hidden PC "stay alive" commands as long as you're logged in. Once you disappear suspiciously, it should begin making preparations to destroy all data. Depending on the size of the data it could start loading it all into RAM and wiping the contents of the HD's. After a certain amount of time, it would then reboot killing the data for good.
So the day after you are hauled downtown, one of the forensics team says "Hey, there's a signal here on 5GHz - get the spec-an in here and let's DF that puppy."
First off, by then the PC has probably had enough time to destroy anything sensitive. Maybe it's even had enough time to load some dummy data in its place as well. Second, the network interfave doesn't have to beacon, or even respond to packets if they don't have the proper WEP key.
Robert Heinlein made the point in "If This Goes On..." that the best thing in the world is to let them find something bad, but not bad enough to get you into trouble. So, if you are plotting the overthrow of the known world, you keep that info a deep, dark secret tattooed on the inside of your eyelids encrypted with a 4096 bit key, but you keep your goat porn on a drive they will find (with a little looking). Then, when they think you are hiding something and find the drive, they look a little longer, don't find anything, and move on.
Right. The PC will automatically have wiped the really bad stuff by the time they even ask for your WEP key (As a side note, it should have a UPS good enough to allow for this.) When the finally get to your house with the WEP and SSH keys you gave them, they find your dummy data. This actually seems like it could be a pretty good way to handle things if the system was designed properly.
I am seriously tempted to carry around a couple of grapefruits in my bag, just so I can stuff them into any exhaust tip that looks big enough to hold one.
Please post pics when you do! Or video of the thing shooting out:)
So, but cutting down and removing parts of the car until it's basicall useless, they can make it do 0-60 in 5.8 seconds. Why bother?
First, the thing probably isn't legal for any sort of competition now. Nobody would let you race this thing, It's too dangerous. What if it rolls?
Second, it's "fast" but it's not that fast. Why not put all that effort into making a car that already a little fast, go really fast? You can buy a car that does 0-60 in 5.8seconds, and we're not talking a Ferrari either.
I get really sick of seeing hondas with huge wings on the back and coffee can exhaust pipes. There are people out there that will till you adding a big exhaust TIP will give you like 5hp! WTF? What's wrong with these people!?
I'm only 22 so I don't have any kids, but this is definately the way I will looks at things when raising my kids. As a kid I was very well behaved, and my parents respected that, by not hassling me with a million questions about everything I did or getting permission for it. This was particularly important during my teenage years.
Parents need to remeber that at some point their kids are going to become independent members of society. The best way to get someone to act resbonsibly is to treat them like them are. Don't ignore them, just treat them with the respect you would give an adult.
Also, I have to agree with the kid posting this story that it probably is screwing up his life. I never did homework right after I came home from school and I don't understand how others could. The kid should be out playing basketball, riding a bike, etc. He can do his homework when it's dark. Kids need social lives. It's important to learn how to interact with other human beings, rather than being cooked up in front of the TV everyday after your parents made you stay in to finish your homework.
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Downloading music, without paying for it, is copyright infringement. It is not theft. It just isn't. Look up the definition of theft. In order to commit therf, or steal something, you must deprive someone of property.
You loose. End of story.
From dictionary.com:
You can talk about what the store cares about all you want, but that doesn't change the law or the defintion of theft.
BTW, people should feel as bad about "stealing" from RIAA members, as they should the mafia. Do you have any idea how badly they screw over both consumers and artists? Have you conveniently forgotten that the RIAA's members were recently convicted of price-fixing? This by your logic, is probably theft too. In your fantasy-land they should all already be in jail. After all, they "stole" $5 from everyone who bought a CD.
500MB!? All I can say is dude, get with the times!
- First off, I would look into these files called "mp3s" people seem to be filling up a lot of disk space with them these days.
- Did you know that computers are fast enough to play movies now? That's right you can actually watch movies on your computer. (Or if you're me, your handheld
:)
- Every heard of digital cameras?
- Did you know you can buy a scanner and keep documents in your computer? No more endless piles of dead trees!
- [user@localhost user]$ du -s Mail
- Play any modern games? I didn't think so.
- Your head would probably explode if you head how much HD space you need if you want to hook up a digital video camera to your computer.
Of course, if you're happy with your 2GB HDDs and your 640KB of RAM, that's fine with me. Me, I'm running out of space with 80GB of storage. I would have 120GB, but I have 2 drives RAIDed to handle that reliability problem you were talking about. I don't really see what you're complaining about. Back in the 2GB days, do you remember how much HDDs cost? You can by 2 drives today for those prices and use one as backup.254932 Mail
Quite simply, you're wrong. Case in point: the driver published in SOURCE FORM by NVidia builds upon information which they are unwilling to release to the public. They release source code which uses information which would be available only under NDA. It's not a matter of publishing the information contained in the NDA, it's a matter of making use of it.
Not I'm not. I think you need to read your own comment (especially the text I put in bold) and my previous one a little more closely. Yes Nvidia released a driver is source form based on information they might make you sign an NDA to get. That's what I was saying. You're not getting it. Your "case in point" doesn't prove anything. It doesn't invalidate a single thing I said. It also doesn't do anything to back up your statement that the GPL is as restrictive as an NDA.
There is a huge difference between using the the information contained in a document and republishing that document. You can use the information contained in a book to write a paper, but you can't republish a book. Understand?
I think I already explained this point pretty well:
Refer to many graphics drivers included in XFree86. Often information obtained under an NDA can be used to develop a freely available work.
Right, the infomation can be used. Just like you could look and the Linux kernel and use the ideas it uses to write your own OS with any license you want. The NDA does not allow you to republish the information itself as part of your work. At all. Period. You can't do it. The GPL lets you use both the information, and the actual work itself (if you accept the GPL).
You said:
The GNU Project is shady. Make no mistake about it: The GPL restricts choice as much as an NDA would.
I've just demonstrated that you have more choices with information you recieve under the GPL than with information you recieve under an NDA. Yes, someone could release a driver they developed under an NDA using any license they want. If that same person had developed that same driver using information they had recieved under the GPL, they could release the driver they developed under any license they want, and they could reproduce the information they used to do it under the terms of the GPL. Thus, the GPL restricts choice less than an NDA.
I can potentially write something under an NDA which can be released under whatever license I want.
No you can't. If you sign an NDA you're agreeing not to disclose certain things. That's why it's called a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Publishing source code with discloses anything covered by an NDA would be a violation of that agreement.
The only way you can publish something is if it is not covered by the NDA or if you are released from the agreement. Neither one of those is publishing something under an NDA.
Your original comment is just wrong. The GPL does not restrict choice as much as an NDA. An NDA says "You can't publish this." The GPL says "You can publish this, but only under these terms."
Your graphics drivers example doesn't work. In that example, the company is providing information, only some of which is covered by an NDA. The NDA'ed info CAN'T BE PUBLISHED. It's just there to help the programmer understand what's going on.
Refer to many graphics drivers included in XFree86. Often information obtained under an NDA can be used to develop a freely available work.
Right, the infomation can be used. Just like you could look and the Linux kernel and use the ideas it uses to write your own OS with any license you want. The NDA does not allow you to republish that information itself as part of your work. At all. Period. You can't do it. The GPL lets you use both the information, and the actual work itself (if you accept the GPL).
Also:
But how does this make it any less stupid that you have to assign copyright to the FSF to contribute to GCC? I see no reason this would be a problem unless the FSF wanted the option to release GCC under a license other than their own GPL.
Exactly. There are multiple versions of the GPL, and one can reasonably expect that it will be revised again in the furure. The only way for them to release GCC under the newest version of the GPL is for them to own the copyright. It's just now feasible for them to contact everyone who has ever contributed to GCC and get their written approval to change the license to the GPL v 15.3.
Besides, once something released under version X of the GPL, it can always be used under that license, even if RMS went nuts and decided to start using Microsoft's Shared Source license. Everyone could just fork the code under the most recent GPL'ed release and say "screw you RMS."
Stick to public domain. GPL is no more free than Microsoft, just each end an extreme. Microsoft, no source, no tampering, no nothing. GPL, Always source, no matter what. Sure it works for some, I have a few projects I own that are GPL, incidentally because I originally unknowingly GPL'd them, and a few now that are public domain. I prefer public domain, there is little to no worries at all on it. I'm even more free in the choice because I could one day take works I put into public domain and use them in a closed source application, such as for consulting work. People will benefit from the source I had originally made, and I benefit in the fact I can use the work in closed environments.
The problem here isn't the GPL. You just don't understand it right.
If you put a project under the GPL, you can still use your own code in a closed project. Since you own the copyright, you can release the code under multiple copyrights. Releasing it under the GPL is actually better because it means no one else can use your code in a closed product.
Stick to public domain. GPL is no more free than Microsoft, just each end an extreme.
This really makes me wonder if you're trolling. This statement is just silly. With MS software you have the rights granted to you by copyright law, but they are restriced by a license. With GPL'ed software you get the rights granted to you by copyright law, plus additional rights are granted to you is you agree to the GPL. The GPL does not attempt to remove any of the rights granted by copyright, it actually gives you more. MS licences try to remove rights granted to you by copyright while not giving you any more.(BTW, this makes the GPL perhaps the most legally binding of software licences.) This is like saying that $1,000,000,000 is no better than $.01 because they're different ends of an extreme. It's nonsense. It's like saying facism is no different than democracy because they're both forms of government.
Sorry, but this is just not true. There are plently of ways for me to be sure you are who you are, without me ever knowing your name. This is a very common misconecption and I would like to illustrate why it's wrong.
Say I want to be able to send you email, and let you be able to positive verify that it's always coming from the same sender everytime, yet never be able to link that sender with and actual person:
1. I send you an email with my a public encryption key.
2. I can then sign all subsequent communication with that key. You then can be sure that and email you get comes from the person who generated that key.
3. I send all communications through an anonymous remailer. There is no way for you to track my key back to an actual person.
4. If my key is comprimised, I send you a revocation certificate.
The point here is that I've been able to securely identify myself to you without giving you any information I didn't want to. If I want to tell you my eye color, I can, but it's not needed every time to verify that I'm the same person. These same priciples can be applied to a lot of things. For example:
Say I want to have an online bank account. I can give them money, and they could give me a certain encryption key. I then keep this key secret and it identifies me in later transactions. There is no reason for them to need my personal info to verify my identity. If they want extra info to be able to use in case they think my key has been stolen, they can ask me for non-identifying personal information such as the name of my first pet, which is basically impossible to link to a specfic person.
This brings us full circle, back to when the first displays had nothing but an on switch.
Actually, the first displays were old-style tektronix analog oscilloscopes. Have you ever seen one of those? I have one on my desk right now.....it has 1..2..3...4.....35 buttons, knobs, or switches on the front. It would take the average joe a few minutes just to find the power switch. (Not that I don't think they're great pieces of equipment, at least for their time.)
I'm not sure which old-school display you're thinking of, but I've never seen any display that didn't have more than one control (maybe they were hidden on the back but they were still there). Every display basiclly had to. You have to be talking about a CRT, and CRTs get dimmer over time, and also need other adjustment to function optimally. This is a result of the fact the magnetic fields aren't exactly the same everywhere on earth. That's why true A/V nuts buy AVIA test DVDs and adjust their TV once they get it home.
Uh, it's not unique -- atleast the idea isn't. Ever read Plato? It's in The Republic -- The Allegory of the Cave. That's the Matrix preloaded.
Actually, a movie that is much closer to "The Allegory of the Cave" is "The Truman Show."
True-man show, get it? I don't think The Matrix really fits with Plato's allegory very well, Neo doesn't realize he's a prisoner on his own, he gets a lot of help. In the Truman Show everyone is trying to prevent Truman from find out the truth, which is much closer to Plato's allegory.
Examples:
The payroll system, users with access to classifed information, etc.
Maybe the guy asking is a low-level sysadmin, but he might not be allowed access to everything you are. Users should be taught to NEVER give out their password. If the guy doesn't have the ability to "su your-account" then he definately should not be given your password, and if he does, what does he need you password for?
SNR on an amp is 100% worthless.
Way to be very authoritatively wrong. SNR is not worthless. THD is important, but so is SNR, so is RMS output, so are a lot of things. THD only describes nonlinear distortion. Here's a diagram for you to look at. It will give you a better idea what all these specs measure. And if you want to know what the THDs for those amps are, I posted links to the damn specs, look at them!
Your analogy is worthless. First off, there's no Signal on the other side of your relay...you know? As in Signal to Noise Ratio? Second, the other side of your relay has 0% THD, does that mean THD is a worthless spec?
BTW, even if you were thinking of using a relay as an amplifier, it's not going to have 1000 db SNR or 100% THD. The SNR would be around 7.78 db (for a sufficiently harmonically complex signal), and THD would be very dependent on the signal you fed it.
Here's another one:
I'm not an "audiophile" if by audiophile you mean "sucker." People who spend a ton of money on this stuff are buying some VERY overpriced equipment. Just because something is the most expensive in the world doesn't make it the best. And tubes? Yeah, you can make a good amp with tubes, but you can make just as good or better of and amp with transistors. (Guitar amps are a slightly different story.) Saying something has tubes, doesn't necessarily make it good.
I've decided to stick to pro-audio gear for all new audio purchases. There's just something stupid about spending $200 on unbalanced phono cables, but "audiophilies" have no problem with that. Nor do they seem to have a problem with $1000 speaker cables, etc.
If you're going to spend a ton of money on your audio system, I suggest you buy the same things a recording studio buys.
Just to show you guys are being a pompus asses, here's a brochure from quad:
here
check out those power amp specs: 108 db SNR
Now lets go look at some pro gear:
Check out the specs. page for this Crown amplifier.
SNR 120dB
People "in the know" don't buy that ridiculously overpriced "high end" stuff, they buy pro grear. It performs wonderfully, takes abuse, and costs less.
I can't believe this was modded up to 5. Give me a break, people. You aren't paying extra for trash pickup to deal with the pound or two of junkmail that you get each week.
/day * 30 days = 6000 KB/month of spam
Actually, I am. (I can't believe you got modded to +5.)
Last I knew, AOL CDs, true to the laws of physics, both had mass and took up space. Since I am charged by volume or mass for disposing of trash, then yes I am paying extra. It costs me $1/6 to dispose of two pounds of trash.
I wouldn't be suprised if this is actually more money than I spend downloading all the spam I get sent. Let's see:
200KB/sec DSL for $50/month.
200KB * 60 *60 * 24 * 30 = 518400000 KB/month total
200KB Spam
1.1574e-03 percent of my monthly bandwidth is spent on spam
I spend $0.00057870 / month downloading spam.
I spend $0.71429 / month disposing of junk mail.
I have to pay much more to dispose of my snail mail spam than I have to pay to get my electronic spam.
You might get more electronic spam if you just look at the numbers, but you're not considering how much cheaper it is to dispose of 1 billion spam emails than it is to dispose of 1 billion AOL CDs. Not only that, it's easier to sort spam than physical junk mail, since I can't buy a mailbox that automatically throws out 90% of the physical junk mail I get.
You might want to show them this page:h tml
http://www.nsa.gov/programs/kids/standard/index.s
The NSA has some pretty cool puzzles up there. Some are pretty easy, but there are plently that will even confound most adults. If you want them to really stretch their minds, have them try it. (Try have difficulty ratings for things to help you decide what to try too.)
From the site:
Puzzles come in three levels. Elementary level is appropriate in content and difficulty for elementary school students in grades three through five. Intermediate level puzzles are geared for middle school students. Master puzzles are the most difficult and are designed to be challenging for high school, college students, and adults as well.
The day you get 100 'free CDs' every day and have to foot the postage charge yourself, you might have a valid complaint.
:P
How about disposing of them? AOL doesn't pay for my garbage removal, I do. They're sending me something I don't want, without return postage, therefore I am forced to dispose of it, at my cost.
If they did send me 100 cds, I would be forced to pay to dispose of them. Given how many of those damn things they send out, I would say I've probably already recieved 100 of them.
Wouldn't it be kinda funny if all the John Does turned out to be in foreign countries?
Back to the drawing board huh guys?
Actual 24 bit conversion is actually extremely hard. I am not aware of any standard device capable of this level of precision at audio frequencies, let alone 200KHz.
6 38141149239237800975/search/g=rec/detail/base_id/5 5354
I suggest you look around more then, and maybe even RTFA. This company has the response of their 24-bit A/D convertor right there on the page linked to in this story. Duh.
Also you will not find any mic or concert venue enabling you to deliver 144dB dynamic range into the adc. You will likely actually get somwhere between 30-60dB
You can pretty easily get a mic which will give you 144db of dynamic range, they're just not cheap. Here's a mic that will handle 160 db maximum.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=030414183
It may not have 160db SNR but I would willing to bet that it has an SNR much better that the ninety something 16bit audio allows for.
Dude, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. I wouldn't be so rough on you except that you're calling those of us who do know something "clueless audiophile wannabes."
d f
First, 16bits is not enough to cover the dynamic range of human hearing. 16 bits only amounts to ninety-something db of dynamic range, and the human range is greater than that (Yes, I know about amplitude and frequency masking effects). 120db is the threshold of pain, and is relative to the quiestest observable sound.
Second, sampling beyond the highest frequency you want to record is very useful:
-Filters are not perfect. In fact, it is impossible to build a perfect filter. You must filter whatever you're sampling in order to avoid alaising (higher frequencies you didn't want in the first place being turned into lower ones which mess up your signal).
-Also, sampling at a higher rate amounts to oversampling. Ever seen a CD player that says one bit D/A convertor on it? That cd player upsamples the 16 bit signal into a one bit signal with a higher sampling rate and then uses that to drive your headphones. Oversampling allows them to get 16 bit like D/A performance from a 1 bit D/A convertor. Oversampling also works when you're recording.
I honestly don't know if 96KHz audio streams are filtered at 20KHz or so, so that the extra speed is oversampling, or if it is just used to provide increased frequency range. Even if it isn't there are other factors:
You have to sample HIGHER than 2x the minimum frequency you want to record. The Nyquist rate is 2x the highest frequency content in the signal, but in the real world, components are not prefect. The transistors in A/D and D/A convertors do not switch instantaneoulsly, etc. Sampling faster helps to account for this.
And using 24 bits also helps in other ways. It reduces the noise floor/THD of your signal. In going from an analog signal to a digital one there is a certain amount of quantitization noise produced (the actual value of the analog signal is rounded to the closest digital value). This noise can be modeled as a nomally distributed signal arcoss the frequency range of the digital signal, and decreasing the size of the steps that the signal changes in, lowers the amplitude of this noise signal, reducing SNR/THD.
Noise is also added to the signal if you try and do any type of digital filtering (such as an equalizer). This makes 24/96 an especially good idea to use when you're making an album.
So anyways, 24bit/96KHz is worthwhile. Especially the 24 bit part IMSHO. It kinda sucks having speakers that will put out 130+ db, an amplfier with >123db SNR, yet the SNR of all my music is less than 100 db.
Here's a link about some of this stuff, just be prepared for some math (I'm currently taking this course):
http://courses.ece.cornell.edu/ece426/files/fwl.p
I won't even get into the validty of compression here, just do a search on "perceptual coding" and read a little bit. One basic point is that, while we can hear with over 100db of dynamic range, we can't hear a 1db 1002 Hz signal if we're hearing a 100db 1000 Hz signal.
Finally, Minidisc IS compressed too. Using what kind of messed up logic is a compressed 16bit 44.1KHz signal, better quality than an uncompressed 24 bit 96 KHz signal? Your MHz myth comment is total B.S. With a digital signal, 2 things matter: sampling rate, and bits per sample. That's all there is (unless you're talking about mu-law encoding, which you clearly weren't if you're talking about minidisc.)
You might care to note that that company sells mics as well. (This device does not use the PDA's internal microphone).
If you want to run a real mail server, perhaps you should get a real internet conenction, like Colocation or T1.
I normally don't resort to profanity but,
FUCK OFF!
Maybe some of us don't have the money for our own T1. Maybe some of us can just afford our dsl connections.
I shouldn't have to spend $1000/year just to be able to send outgoing mail with a return address of me@mydomain.com. I registered a domain specfically so I have control over my email. No matter what actual account I use for my email, I can have email to my domain forwarded to that account. There are lots of other good reasons not to send mail through my ISP's server too.
Do you have your own personal T1 for sending your own personal email?
Sure it will block some spam, but it's also a remarkably stupid way to block spam. Scan the server sending you spam, check it against a blacklist, check the actual content of the message, etc. This is only going to block a small fraction of spam anyways, since there are plenty of other computers, not on dsl, that spammers can use. It's a half-assed measure that may temporarily inconvenience some spammers, but will be trivial for them to work around, while at the same time blocking tons of legitimate email (and being much harder for legitmate senders to work around). As a "network engineer" you should understand that.
See here:0 048
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=60592&cid=572
There's an HP48 emulator under development specficially for the Zaurus.
f =1&t=364&hl=calculator&s=4c6299ed04882e2042fe717bd 714b527
Read this thread:
http://www.zaurus.com/dev/board/index.php?act=ST&
It may have been discussed in other places on that board as well.
IMHO, you're thinking about this all wrong:
The best way to keep anything hidden from anybody is to keep them from ever knowing it existed in the first place - if they already know, or suspect, then it's already too late.
The best way is to both, try and keep anyone from knowing it exists in the first place AND to cover your ass. Yeah you should try to keep things hidden, obviously. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take precautions in case the worst does happen.
Sure, you might have your super-leet miniserver stuck in your heating ducts, powered by a little mini-windmill and linked via 802.11g to your house, with an emergency "shut up for 24 hours" command
Actually, your desktop should send the hidden PC "stay alive" commands as long as you're logged in. Once you disappear suspiciously, it should begin making preparations to destroy all data. Depending on the size of the data it could start loading it all into RAM and wiping the contents of the HD's. After a certain amount of time, it would then reboot killing the data for good.
So the day after you are hauled downtown, one of the forensics team says "Hey, there's a signal here on 5GHz - get the spec-an in here and let's DF that puppy."
First off, by then the PC has probably had enough time to destroy anything sensitive. Maybe it's even had enough time to load some dummy data in its place as well. Second, the network interfave doesn't have to beacon, or even respond to packets if they don't have the proper WEP key.
Robert Heinlein made the point in "If This Goes On..." that the best thing in the world is to let them find something bad, but not bad enough to get you into trouble. So, if you are plotting the overthrow of the known world, you keep that info a deep, dark secret tattooed on the inside of your eyelids encrypted with a 4096 bit key, but you keep your goat porn on a drive they will find (with a little looking). Then, when they think you are hiding something and find the drive, they look a little longer, don't find anything, and move on.
Right. The PC will automatically have wiped the really bad stuff by the time they even ask for your WEP key (As a side note, it should have a UPS good enough to allow for this.) When the finally get to your house with the WEP and SSH keys you gave them, they find your dummy data. This actually seems like it could be a pretty good way to handle things if the system was designed properly.
I am seriously tempted to carry around a couple of grapefruits in my bag, just so I can stuff them into any exhaust tip that looks big enough to hold one.
:)
Please post pics when you do! Or video of the thing shooting out
So, but cutting down and removing parts of the car until it's basicall useless, they can make it do 0-60 in 5.8 seconds. Why bother?
First, the thing probably isn't legal for any sort of competition now. Nobody would let you race this thing, It's too dangerous. What if it rolls?
Second, it's "fast" but it's not that fast. Why not put all that effort into making a car that already a little fast, go really fast? You can buy a car that does 0-60 in 5.8seconds, and we're not talking a Ferrari either.
I get really sick of seeing hondas with huge wings on the back and coffee can exhaust pipes. There are people out there that will till you adding a big exhaust TIP will give you like 5hp! WTF? What's wrong with these people!?
Bravo!
I'm only 22 so I don't have any kids, but this is definately the way I will looks at things when raising my kids. As a kid I was very well behaved, and my parents respected that, by not hassling me with a million questions about everything I did or getting permission for it. This was particularly important during my teenage years.
Parents need to remeber that at some point their kids are going to become independent members of society. The best way to get someone to act resbonsibly is to treat them like them are. Don't ignore them, just treat them with the respect you would give an adult.
Also, I have to agree with the kid posting this story that it probably is screwing up his life. I never did homework right after I came home from school and I don't understand how others could. The kid should be out playing basketball, riding a bike, etc. He can do his homework when it's dark. Kids need social lives. It's important to learn how to interact with other human beings, rather than being cooked up in front of the TV everyday after your parents made you stay in to finish your homework.