On the Tivo forums one of the Tivo techs has made it clear that in the event of Tivo's demise, he will personally provide the backdoor code to "free" the Tivo from the subscription services.
And he would then be arrested and charged with a DMCA violation at the behest of the company that acquired their assets. He won't keep that promise, I'd wager.
Which also means they're no longer writing downgrades, which, given what TiVo's been doing, is probably a good thing.
Re:Apple II was forever by todays standards!!!!!
on
Apple Licenses CUPS
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· Score: 1
There are lots of tasks, such as basic word processing, home budgeting, etc., that old 8-bit machines perform perfectly well. In fact, to a trained user, they are faster than a Windows XP machine with 128MB of RAM and a P4 1.5GHz loaded down with cruft and 80MB of OS and associated spyware before startup.
In my case, it's just nostalgia. I have all the 8-bit machines I couldn't afford when I was a kid now, along with the gaggle of low end Pentiums and 486s as you describe. My router/firewall box is a (shudder) Packard Bell P-150 that I saved from the dumpster.
I'm doing a new filesharing protocol samizdat . ..
Love the name. Funny that a phenonemon that arose from a totalitarian government's oppression of speech is now a logical name for a tool to allow Americans to communicate.
And the ideas sound cool. (Although the URL anonymizer concept would seem to fail with a hostile node offering services.) Any whitepapers, etc. yet?
Jesus H. Christ. Have you read the replies? It ought to be obvious that I at least thought the telco wasn't going to pro rata refund for the time he was out.
It didn't say he asked for lost wages, business degradation, or bad attitude compensation. It didn't say I thought he should get "5 9's uptime" for $39 per month. It just said that he should contact the regulators if he didn't get the service he paid for, which I stand by.
It said they wouldn't compensate him. That read to me like they wouldn't give him his "$4 dollars" you're talking about, which would be wrong. And it's not like you need a
lawyer to write to the regulators, anyay. It
said they wouldn't compensate him, not that he's
illiterate.
Do the "business class" service contracts typically offered by providers provide for compensation for lost wages, etc.? I don't have first-hand knowledge, but I'd wager a few bucks that that kind of compensation is specifically excluded in most cases.
I got the impression that they guy was only looking for a refund for service not delivered, like your $1.67 example. I agree that it would be a waste to pursue a refund for < 1 day outage.
You contracted with them to provide service--which is no different between residential and business accounts. If they refuse to provide a credit for an outage, contact the state regulating authority for that particular utility. You may not get a partial refund, but at least you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you cost them a few bucks in having to respond.
That's a myth. They repackage commodity hardware into pretty boxes (ATA drives, ATI/nVidia video, PCI bus, USB, la la la), bundle it with a closed, non-standard operating system, price it at 175% of commodity prices, and do brilliant marketing to convince people like you that they're buying "quality." You haven't bought quality, my friend, you've bought an image. And, like the guy in the Sprite commercial said, "Image is nothing."
Wasn't that after the legal troubles with Fastrack started? This looks more like a replacement than a merger, though I admit that was probably the plan all along.
Looks also like there might have been a falling out between those running the Fastrack network and the people at Morpheus (from further reading at zeropaid). It looks more like a lockout of Morpheus by those controlling the servers than a DoS attack, but I might have tried to spin it that way, too.
OK, I haven't read the paper yet, but it's easy to see that simple flooding doesn't scale. However, it seems like being able to aggregate a large file transfer with a little bit of bandwidth from multiple sources rather than all of it from one large source might benefit the network, and decrease the load on the core routers (yes, there are more connections, but the pipes don't have to be clogged).
This feature also allows users with upstream caps and those on dialups to contribute _something_ to the network. And in this case, every little bit helps.
eDonkey has the right idea in that direction--each user is at least required to share the parts he or she has downloaded thus far, and to give up an amount of upstream capacity to the network in return for a proportionally increasing download capacity.
. . . more like a convenient way to claim a third party was threatening their existence than to admit that a central server based, closed authentication system was very vulnerable to legal attacks, as the *AA have demonstrated to them.
This move to Gnutella allows them to survive and to purport to offer a distinct file sharing product. Perhaps this will lead to some enhancements that make it back to Gnutella, since without the central login servers, they have no reason to repeat their forcing out of open source clients.
I receive one of these, and I don't live in CA, anyway. I just figured it was an opponent trying to screw up his campaign, and did the usual SpamCop reporting thing.
I'm dumbfounded that a real life political candidate would exhibit that degree of cluelessness, yet attempt to stump on the Internet.
Re:Fragmentation...
on
BeOS For Linux
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Except that Apple has demonstrated a tendency to threaten to sue any entity that dares even make skins that look like their "innovative" eye candy user interface.
Sure, they might be the lesser of evils as far as usability goes, but I don't think any C&D letter wielding corporation deserves to have its products plugged by a bunch of Linux users.
. . . Slashdot is to be a casualty of September 11th. Due to the concerns of the DOJ that terrorist messages (e.g. a Penis Bird with two equal signs means "proceed with the bombing") have been communicated using the forum, along with dangerous open source digital rights circumvention data, threats against officials, libel against judges, and misuse of the Freedom of Information Act, VA was obviously "nicely asked" by the FBI to pull the plug on the renegade site.
However, since the Slashdot crew would not want to appear to be acquiescing to the demands of a newly powerful government, they are pursuing the following course of action:
- announce a subscription fee
- use a payment method most/.ers would find abhorrent
- report insufficient revenue to continue operating
- "regretfully" shut the doors
- destroy the archived posts to protect "copyrights"
For what it's worth, the only artists from the music industry that showed up to testify at the PMRC hearings were Frank Zappa and John Denver. Of course both of them are dead now.
We give the industry their SSSCA, lock up all the hardware, and outlaw all operating systems except DRM-OS.
Since this will now result in the total demise of copyright infringement, the movie, recording, and video game industries then immediately pay taxes on the hojillionsofdollars they claim to be losing per year, at the prevailing highest corporate tax rate, with no writeoffs on this amount. These additional taxes should be a small price for industry to pay for the increased profits that would result from all that sudden demand now that their material isn't available for copying in digital form, now that general purpose computers would be outlawed.
Oh--you mean they aren't going to sell all that, because the people they claimed as having been costing them money wouldn't have bought the product anyway? That's OK--we can just sell the assets of the companies benefiting from the SSSCA to take care of the taxes, then.
He reported it to the CompUSA staff and was laughed at
And hopefully had his car keyed or tires slashed in the parking lot by the kid later. What kind of motherless prick would tattle on someone for a victimless act like that?
I'm much more worried that unfettered machines that could use DRM content would be unavailable than that there would be unfettered machines which couldn't use DRM content.
DRM itself is its own issue--I agree with the points laid out by RMS in his "Right to Read" essay. If I had any faith in my countrymen, I'd expect that the intellectual "property" barons would be pulled from their homes and torn to shreds (note to NSA--it's a metaphor, not a threat) on the street, along with the politicans that supported them. Unfortunately, we're a nation of sheep.
But so long I can buy hardware that isn't subservient to the *AA, then I could care less--I don't use their content anyway, and I sure as hell won't buy it now.
Slashdot Mirror
. . . Disney wasn't around to petition William the Conqueror for perpetual copyright extensions.
And he would then be arrested and charged with a DMCA violation at the behest of the company that acquired their assets. He won't keep that promise, I'd wager.
Which also means they're no longer writing downgrades, which, given what TiVo's been doing, is probably a good thing.
In my case, it's just nostalgia. I have all the 8-bit machines I couldn't afford when I was a kid now, along with the gaggle of low end Pentiums and 486s as you describe. My router/firewall box is a (shudder) Packard Bell P-150 that I saved from the dumpster.
Love the name. Funny that a phenonemon that arose from a totalitarian government's oppression of speech is now a logical name for a tool to allow Americans to communicate.
And the ideas sound cool. (Although the URL anonymizer concept would seem to fail with a hostile node offering services.) Any whitepapers, etc. yet?
. . . the only one to have read that at first as "Disney acquires Senator Tochihiro . . ."?
It didn't say he asked for lost wages, business degradation, or bad attitude compensation. It didn't say I thought he should get "5 9's uptime" for $39 per month. It just said that he should contact the regulators if he didn't get the service he paid for, which I stand by.
It said they wouldn't compensate him. That read to me like they wouldn't give him his "$4 dollars" you're talking about, which would be wrong. And it's not like you need a lawyer to write to the regulators, anyay. It said they wouldn't compensate him, not that he's illiterate.
I got the impression that they guy was only looking for a refund for service not delivered, like your $1.67 example. I agree that it would be a waste to pursue a refund for < 1 day outage.
The combative reply from the telephone worker I received might result from the same misunderstanding.
You contracted with them to provide service--which is no different between residential and business accounts. If they refuse to provide a credit for an outage, contact the state regulating authority for that particular utility. You may not get a partial refund, but at least you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you cost them a few bucks in having to respond.
or maybe a shortening on digital material copyrights to something at least sane, like ten years, retroactively.
That's a myth. They repackage commodity hardware into pretty boxes (ATA drives, ATI/nVidia video, PCI bus, USB, la la la), bundle it with a closed, non-standard operating system, price it at 175% of commodity prices, and do brilliant marketing to convince people like you that they're buying "quality." You haven't bought quality, my friend, you've bought an image. And, like the guy in the Sprite commercial said, "Image is nothing."
Wasn't that after the legal troubles with Fastrack started? This looks more like a replacement than a merger, though I admit that was probably the plan all along.
Looks also like there might have been a falling out between those running the Fastrack network and the people at Morpheus (from further reading at zeropaid). It looks more like a lockout of Morpheus by those controlling the servers than a DoS attack, but I might have tried to spin it that way, too.
This feature also allows users with upstream caps and those on dialups to contribute _something_ to the network. And in this case, every little bit helps.
eDonkey has the right idea in that direction--each user is at least required to share the parts he or she has downloaded thus far, and to give up an amount of upstream capacity to the network in return for a proportionally increasing download capacity.
This move to Gnutella allows them to survive and to purport to offer a distinct file sharing product. Perhaps this will lead to some enhancements that make it back to Gnutella, since without the central login servers, they have no reason to repeat their forcing out of open source clients.
Gnutella + bandwidth aggregation = good.
I'm dumbfounded that a real life political candidate would exhibit that degree of cluelessness, yet attempt to stump on the Internet.
Sure, they might be the lesser of evils as far as usability goes, but I don't think any C&D letter wielding corporation deserves to have its products plugged by a bunch of Linux users.
However, since the Slashdot crew would not want to appear to be acquiescing to the demands of a newly powerful government, they are pursuing the following course of action:
- announce a subscription fee
- use a payment method most /.ers would find abhorrent
- report insufficient revenue to continue operating
- "regretfully" shut the doors
- destroy the archived posts to protect "copyrights"
- Intel supports the idea of locking you out of your own machine, just not the law to require it.
The answer? Stock up on the best machines you can afford now, before the ban. And make them AMDs.
Coincidence? Hmmmm.
~~~
Since this will now result in the total demise of copyright infringement, the movie, recording, and video game industries then immediately pay taxes on the hojillions of dollars they claim to be losing per year, at the prevailing highest corporate tax rate, with no writeoffs on this amount. These additional taxes should be a small price for industry to pay for the increased profits that would result from all that sudden demand now that their material isn't available for copying in digital form, now that general purpose computers would be outlawed.
Oh--you mean they aren't going to sell all that, because the people they claimed as having been costing them money wouldn't have bought the product anyway? That's OK--we can just sell the assets of the companies benefiting from the SSSCA to take care of the taxes, then.
And hopefully had his car keyed or tires slashed in the parking lot by the kid later. What kind of motherless prick would tattle on someone for a victimless act like that?
DRM itself is its own issue--I agree with the points laid out by RMS in his "Right to Read" essay. If I had any faith in my countrymen, I'd expect that the intellectual "property" barons would be pulled from their homes and torn to shreds (note to NSA--it's a metaphor, not a threat) on the street, along with the politicans that supported them. Unfortunately, we're a nation of sheep.
But so long I can buy hardware that isn't subservient to the *AA, then I could care less--I don't use their content anyway, and I sure as hell won't buy it now.