At $95 million they're practically giving that software away...;)
The worst part is that they aren't even selling software so much as licenses. The "sell organizations a bunch of numbers that enable them to use software they already have" business model isn't illegal, of course, but it is morally reprehensible. I'm not just talking about oracle, I'm talking about the whole concept of license-based profit models. *glares north toward the evil empire of redmond*
Only after the whitehouse got made a mockery of in the press and on the internet did they finnally do the right thing and update their transcript to say what it should've said in the first place (an accurate transcript of what he actually said, with a '**' noting what he meant to say).
Of course, there was no public acknowledgement that the initial transcript was inaccurate and only changed due to public outcry; but I saw it when the "smoking gun" (inaccurate) transcript was still up at whitehouse.gov, and I can tell you for 100% certain that they actually did this.
The inevitable direct 1984/Eastasia (hey, his speech says eastasia) comparison is here (linking to the google cache because some asshole hacked that site so the original is down).
Theres numerous other examples of the bush whitehouse revising transcripts so they don't make the president look like such a dolt. There was a interesting article I saw about it a few days ago, that mentioned this example and several others (including rumsfeld transcripts being revised too) but even with google I am unable to find it now. If anyone knows the article I'm thinking of, please post a link.
xs4all has also taken heat for hosting some anti-scientology pages. There's some interesting stuff about when they got raided by the CoS (church of scientology) here.
Excerpt: A corporation like CoS, having its' own security service with a capacity equal to that of a small country, would scare the shit out of any normal firm. XS4ALL, however, is NOT a normal middle-sized firm. It is an ex-foundation, an offshoot of the Dutch hacker-magazine "HackTic". The staff at XS4ALL are ALL cyberpunks, former long-haired anarchists happy to find themselves in charge of a company so fast growing, that it is considered important for the Dutch national economy. And as you can tell from its' name, this is a company which wants to give everyone access to information, worldwide.
See how the script calls an alert() with the contents of a local file from your drive? Thats very very bad.
If a remote script can read a file off your hard drive, it can then write bits of data into an img tag on the page, passing your stolen information to a remote server (via the image's src element) without your knowledge. Very very bad.
When somebody dies because they couldn't call 911 from their VoIP phone, how long do you think it will take the lawyers to wake up and start filing lawsuits?
This technology seems really cool, but I don't get why they can't figure out a way to offer 911 service too.
Imagine if they pulled this crap while introducing cell phones...
Bandwidth Limit Exceeded The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later. ---------------------- Apache/1.3.22 Server at www.stonedcow.com Port 80
A call to get rid of libraries as they damage sales?
According to bezos' letter, this is coming from the same organization that from time to time has advocated charging public libraries royalties on books they loan out.
I get the impression the people from the Authors Guild are the type who would get along real well with Hilary Rosen and her friends...
"Included in FAST's software is Webcam software that captures a live example of the site for evidence as well as other basic information about the site," Heathcote Hobbins said.
Methinks Heathcote Hobbins has absolutely no idea what a webcam is.
So, you can execute 1,000 searches a day through their API, OR you can code your program to do a normal google search and parse the results out of the returned html (like people have had to do until now)...
How many projects can't afford the overhead of a little html parsing but CAN afford to be limited to 1,000 searches/day? I'm sure they'll offer higher limits for a fee, but I think the DIY-html-parsing google "api" is going to keep on working just fine (and for free).
Richard Robison of ZapMedia wrote in... ...In other words, a $600 stereo component PC ready to connect to your TV... ...this thing may deserve a serious second look... ...just be sure and enter slashdot referal code 'JUST LINUX' so they know who sold it to you...
Silly me, I thought that whole Slashvertisements bit was just a joke!
...you need permission from the copyright holders to do that...
No, I don't. Maybe you need [sissy-voice]permission from the copyright holders[/sissy-voice], but those of us with common sense, self respect, and/or an ounce of dignity will go on continuing to do whatever we damn well please with whatever digital media we can get our grubby unwashed hands onto, regardless of who owns what or how many people are listening.
If you go to www.com.com you'll see the cnet networks corporate homepage. All of their sites are within the.com.com domain so they can share cookies (ie download.com.com, and so on). Or so I've been told (and that explanation does seem to make sense..).
But I'd like Apple to take a look at Red Hat's up2date.
I'd rather see them look at debian's apt-get. It's already available via fink for accessing ported unix software, why not make it the official system update mechanism too?
And, as another post mentions below, rh's up2date has that nasty account requirement, which nobody is a big fan of. Why do we need a profile on their server? Why not create a local profile, and let the client request the stuff it wants? WHY?
I long for the day that apt-get is the standard package management tool accross unices.
The interactive map is -really- well done, but requires flash...
Actually, I thought it kind of sucked. Try viewing the west-most section at 1-photo-per-mile resolution. Unless I'm missing something, it requires clicking individually many many times from some point east of carson city, nevada, in little tiny increments. You can quickly move accross most of the country by setting the scale to 100-mile, but if you go all the way west and then change to 1-mile it leaves you in nevada. And you've got to click many many times to get to CA and view all the pictures, which was what I tried to do first.
You'd think a company the size of SEGA could afford to keep a couple native english speakers around to translate things. Aparently not though:
The highly efficient library which our company developed uniquely this time and which makes drawing expression rich is included in the demonstration software introduced by the conference. the company which can develop the application of rich game development or rich power of expression -- since offer is planned like, please contact me to the following mail address about a library and application
I also don't need someone "telling" me how to administer my machines.
Exactly. What if the new version of the software has changes I don't like, and there turns out to be no problem with the old version? It's quite common for people to make the informed descision of sticking with an older version of a particular piece of software, and it's arrogant to try and restrict that. The open-source factor obviously makes it a bit less of a problem, but it's still a bad idea. Users shouldn't have to strip timebombs out of the source to keep from upgrading.
I just don't see the logic in being bastardly with drivers. Whats the worst that can happen? Someone ports it, and your hardware is available on another OS with another base of potential customers?
Doubt it's going to happen. We've had an IIS/Win2k machine up with SQL server and everything for a year now. We've done nothing extreme to secure it, just patches, etc. No one's even touched it. No firewalls, nothing. Any braindead admin can secure a windows machine.
MCSE Admin: "Ooh, nobody's hacked us yet, so we must be secure! Wheee! I live in the land of make-believe! I'm gonna go huff some more glue! I'm still alive, so it surely can't be bad for me!"
--
Maybe you should get a less braindead admin.
And if you're so confident, care to post to URL on slashdot?
By your logic, car salesmen should buy new vehicles everytime they change jobs.
Thats a very poor metaphor. If you've got to use a car metaphor, it's more like if you were shopping for an american car, and the sales guy goes off on a rant about how much japaneese cars suck, and then later you find out that the salesman drives a japaneese car himself.
[ot] My Honda is made in the good ol' U.S.A.. I still find it sort of funny that a "japaneese" company is employing americans on the auto line, while many "american" cars are actually made in Mexico. [/ot]
Slashdot Mirror
At $95 million they're practically giving that software away... ;)
The worst part is that they aren't even selling software so much as licenses. The "sell organizations a bunch of numbers that enable them to use software they already have" business model isn't illegal, of course, but it is morally reprehensible. I'm not just talking about oracle, I'm talking about the whole concept of license-based profit models. *glares north toward the evil empire of redmond*
wow.. right outta 1984, editing history on the fly. It could have just been a typo but why not just own up to it?
Want to see something scarier than newspapers silently revising things? How about the whitehouse? Here is a video clip of George W. claiming we've been alies with japan for a century and a half, and heres the original whitehouse transcript (mirrored) that quietly changes "because for a century and a half now" (which is clearly what he says in the video) to "because for half a century now".
Only after the whitehouse got made a mockery of in the press and on the internet did they finnally do the right thing and update their transcript to say what it should've said in the first place (an accurate transcript of what he actually said, with a '**' noting what he meant to say).
Of course, there was no public acknowledgement that the initial transcript was inaccurate and only changed due to public outcry; but I saw it when the "smoking gun" (inaccurate) transcript was still up at whitehouse.gov, and I can tell you for 100% certain that they actually did this.
The inevitable direct 1984/Eastasia (hey, his speech says eastasia) comparison is here (linking to the google cache because some asshole hacked that site so the original is down).
Theres numerous other examples of the bush whitehouse revising transcripts so they don't make the president look like such a dolt. There was a interesting article I saw about it a few days ago, that mentioned this example and several others (including rumsfeld transcripts being revised too) but even with google I am unable to find it now. If anyone knows the article I'm thinking of, please post a link.
Chuck was talking about data: URLs, not this IE hole.
Oops, sorry. Didn't see that before..
:/
xs4all has also taken heat for hosting some anti-scientology pages.
There's some interesting stuff about when they got raided by the CoS (church of scientology) here.
Excerpt: A corporation like CoS, having its' own security service with a capacity equal to that of a small country, would scare the shit out of any normal firm. XS4ALL, however, is NOT a normal middle-sized firm. It is an ex-foundation, an offshoot of the Dutch hacker-magazine "HackTic". The staff at XS4ALL are ALL cyberpunks, former long-haired anarchists happy to find themselves in charge of a company so fast growing, that it is considered important for the Dutch national economy. And as you can tell from its' name, this is a company which wants to give everyone access to information, worldwide.
Look at the exploit code.
See how the script calls an alert() with the contents of a local file from your drive? Thats very very bad.
If a remote script can read a file off your hard drive, it can then write bits of data into an img tag on the page, passing your stolen information to a remote server (via the image's src element) without your knowledge. Very very bad.
When somebody dies because they couldn't call 911 from their VoIP phone, how long do you think it will take the lawyers to wake up and start filing lawsuits?
This technology seems really cool, but I don't get why they can't figure out a way to offer 911 service too.
Imagine if they pulled this crap while introducing cell phones...
A call to get rid of libraries as they damage sales?
According to bezos' letter, this is coming from the same organization that from time to time has advocated charging public libraries royalties on books they loan out.
I get the impression the people from the Authors Guild are the type who would get along real well with Hilary Rosen and her friends...
Methinks Heathcote Hobbins has absolutely no idea what a webcam is.
So, you can execute 1,000 searches a day through their API, OR you can code your program to do a normal google search and parse the results out of the returned html (like people have had to do until now)...
How many projects can't afford the overhead of a little html parsing but CAN afford to be limited to 1,000 searches/day? I'm sure they'll offer higher limits for a fee, but I think the DIY-html-parsing google "api" is going to keep on working just fine (and for free).
Will Robots Cheer Up the Elderly?
Based on the ones I've met, I think it's more likely robots will scare the elderly.
but is it published by O'Reilly?
No, it's actually Bantam Books.
You'd think O'Reilly would have a trademark on "... in a Nutshell" books...
wonder how that all works out.
Richard Robison of ZapMedia wrote in...
...In other words, a $600 stereo component PC ready to connect to your TV...
...this thing may deserve a serious second look...
...just be sure and enter slashdot referal code 'JUST LINUX' so they know who sold it to you...
Silly me, I thought that whole Slashvertisements bit was just a joke!
...you need permission from the copyright holders to do that...
No, I don't. Maybe you need [sissy-voice]permission from the copyright holders[/sissy-voice], but those of us with common sense, self respect, and/or an ounce of dignity will go on continuing to do whatever we damn well please with whatever digital media we can get our grubby unwashed hands onto, regardless of who owns what or how many people are listening.
when did News.com become News.com.com
.com.com domain so they can share cookies (ie download.com.com, and so on). Or so I've been told (and that explanation does seem to make sense..).
If you go to www.com.com you'll see the cnet networks corporate homepage. All of their sites are within the
Others? I'm sure I'm missing some.
:)
How about MacOS 1.0 through 9.2?
Am I falling for a Troll?
I beleive it does look that way...
But I'd like Apple to take a look at Red Hat's up2date.
I'd rather see them look at debian's apt-get.
It's already available via fink for accessing ported unix software, why not make it the official system update mechanism too?
And, as another post mentions below, rh's up2date has that nasty account requirement, which nobody is a big fan of. Why do we need a profile on their server? Why not create a local profile, and let the client request the stuff it wants? WHY?
I long for the day that apt-get is the standard package management tool accross unices.
The interactive map is -really- well done, but requires flash...
Actually, I thought it kind of sucked. Try viewing the west-most section at 1-photo-per-mile resolution. Unless I'm missing something, it requires clicking individually many many times from some point east of carson city, nevada, in little tiny increments. You can quickly move accross most of the country by setting the scale to 100-mile, but if you go all the way west and then change to 1-mile it leaves you in nevada. And you've got to click many many times to get to CA and view all the pictures, which was what I tried to do first.
You'd think a company the size of SEGA could afford to keep a couple native english speakers around to translate things. Aparently not though:
The highly efficient library which our company developed uniquely this time and which makes drawing expression rich is included in the demonstration software introduced by the conference. the company which can develop the application of rich game development or rich power of expression -- since offer is planned like, please contact me to the following mail address about a library and application
I also don't need someone "telling" me how to administer my machines.
Exactly. What if the new version of the software has changes I don't like, and there turns out to be no problem with the old version? It's quite common for people to make the informed descision of sticking with an older version of a particular piece of software, and it's arrogant to try and restrict that. The open-source factor obviously makes it a bit less of a problem, but it's still a bad idea. Users shouldn't have to strip timebombs out of the source to keep from upgrading.
I just don't see the logic in being bastardly with drivers.
Whats the worst that can happen?
Someone ports it, and your hardware is available on another OS with another base of potential customers?
great, now native apps will be opening popups!
Actually, popups (and any untrusted web stuff) getting access to native apps should be a far bigger concern.
Do you browse from the MS campus?
I'd imagine some corporate gateway has flagged you a subversive by now if so.
Doubt it's going to happen. We've had an IIS/Win2k machine up with SQL server and everything for a year now. We've done nothing extreme to secure it, just patches, etc. No one's even touched it. No firewalls, nothing. Any braindead admin can secure a windows machine.
MCSE Admin: "Ooh, nobody's hacked us yet, so we must be secure! Wheee! I live in the land of make-believe! I'm gonna go huff some more glue! I'm still alive, so it surely can't be bad for me!"
--
Maybe you should get a less braindead admin.
And if you're so confident, care to post to URL on slashdot?
By your logic, car salesmen should buy new vehicles everytime they change jobs.
:)
Thats a very poor metaphor. If you've got to use a car metaphor, it's more like if you were shopping for an american car, and the sales guy goes off on a rant about how much japaneese cars suck, and then later you find out that the salesman drives a japaneese car himself.
[ot] My Honda is made in the good ol' U.S.A.. I still find it sort of funny that a "japaneese" company is employing americans on the auto line, while many "american" cars are actually made in Mexico. [/ot]
Jaysyn
(son of a car saleman)
I'm so sorry