After our (US) government spends our tax dollars for nanotech research, I hope the technology that comes from it is not co-opted and patented by corporations. We the public should own the results of this research that we paid for.
Unfortunately, this is not a given! For example, pharmaceutical companies get millions (billions?) of tax dollars each year for their research. Then they own the drugs we paid them to create. Then they sell them for what the market will bear (think: life-or-death situations, and wealthy insurance companies), rather than what it costs to produce them (likely minimal in bulk). Then they let people die who can't pay market price.
We shouldn't let the same thing happen with this nanotech research, or any other tax-funded research for that matter. Be wary of politicians who want to put too much in the hands of corporations-- they are likely just giving our goods to their friends and campaign contributors.
You know, how when all colors mix together they eventually end up as brown? If the ventilation was bad, would all the smells hang around, and eventually mix into some high-entropy funky stank?
Ob. contest entry: For all e-commerce sites anywhere, I hereby nominate the sickly artificial chemical smell of new packaging. You know the one, like new car smell but bad. Sometimes really bad. Varies by package.
According to 2600's page, Time Warner is one of the plaintiffs. Given their impending merger with AOL, two things come to mind:
1) This shows that the AOL-TimeWarner merger is indeed news for nerds, and all the naysayers last week had valid concerns. Big Media are not on our side, and they're invading our space from the inside (the merger) as well as attacking from the outside (the DVD actions).
2) Conversely, maybe Time Warner has a more direct interest in not pissing us off, or at least as much AOL ever did. Does anyone have good contact info for them?
Most important is to pass legislation to get the law on our side.
Until then, or if (God forbid) that fails, then there are grassroots alternatives: Install proxies that allow users to route around censorware. The more proxies that are installed, the better. True port-based proxies are the most reliable, but are easily detected by censorware. CGI-based proxies are more obscurable, and more people have the access to install them than to install port-based proxies.
Here's one CGI-based proxy. There are others. Get a copy of at least one and store it in a safe place.
I think he's just experimenting with all facets of money, trying to get a handle on what it means and implies in our society. I mean, he sold stock in his back catalog, but I doubt he needed to raise money, which is the normal reason for selling stock. I think he's exploring money as an artist would, now that he has the means for these experiments... and how many artists have ever had as much financial means as he does today? Somehow this seems like a very Bowie thing to do.
A law declaring a database to be owned by the creating person/company would be a huge coup for large corporations that collect all our personal data. This law is probably the result of heavy lobbying by them. With this law in place, individuals will not be able to claim ownership over data that is about them.
People should own data that is about them, no matter who collects it. Failing that, they should have unrestricted access and use of data that is about them. It's time to value human rights over corporate rights. This will not cause the collapse of civilization as we know it; it will mean we can all breathe a little easier.
Lucky for us, someone is giving us a good open source encryption toolbox, instead of charging for it like everyone else. OpenSSL is the basis of much (most?) encryption in open-source software. Where would we be without it?
It may be illegal, but it's not slander. Slander is speaking false and damaging statements about someone else. (Libel is writing false and damaging statements about someone else.)
If AllAdvantage is lying here, it's not slander or libel. There are a several kinds of lying that are against the law, one or more of which may apply here. It may be breach of contract, if this is part of a user agreement, or it may be something like a deceptive claim or making misleading statements. I'm not sure, IANAL.
Uh, that's what I'm doing. Did anyone actually stock up on food? Hello?
Some gun-toter once said "If one person has food and another has a gun, the one with the gun is gonna eat." He forgot that if both people have food, they'll both eat, but if they both have guns, than neither one will eat.
So let's set up a page "collecting evidence of horrible copyright violations on the Internet." Just to prove how dastardly these MP3 miscreants have become, we can prove how prevalent the violations are by cataloging and linking to all MP3 anywhere, with a fully indexed and searchable interface. We wouldn't actually have the MP3 files on our site. Kind of like a fundamentalist site linking to all porn everywhere.
I may be loading things I don't need. Is there a Howto on ways to minimize start/shut time? I want a near instant shutdown like Win95.
Well, I don't know of a HOWTO, but I just exit X to text mode, then press Ctrl-Alt-Delete. This is a clean way to shutdown Linux, and it is fast. It sends TERM signals to all the processes, then when everything is safe, it says "System halted" or something like that, and you can turn off the machine.
If Quake was a real-world commerce application, with a financial incentive for cheating, this would have happened long before the source was opened up. People, perhaps companies, would have long ago reverse-engineered the client and communication protocols to take advantage of these cheats.
ESR is right when he says the problem is in the program design, and has nothing to do with open source. If you need reliable security, use proven security tools like encryption, not security through obscurity.
Long reboot? I've always had exactly the opposite experience. Currently, I boot a fully-loaded Linux with graphics in about 30 seconds, and it takes maybe 2-3 minutes for Windows 95. Older Linuxes and hardware setups always showed similar results. The fast boot is one thing I always LIKED about Linux.
First of all, just having a GUI doesn't make an OS "Windows-like". Having a lousy GUI that crashes is what makes an OS "Windows-like". A good GUI can be great. (In case it matters to you, I've been programming for 20 years.)
Second, don't you have any non-technical friends? Relatives? Listen to any music made by non-geeks? All of these people benefit from easier-to-use computers. If they spent all their time learning computers they wouldn't have any left to make music, etc. The price of admission to technology should not be understanding the format of makefiles. I would like everyone I know to reap the benefits of Linux and not be trapped in Windows.
If the only people you know and care about are geeks, I highly encourage you to get out more. There are more worlds out there than you can imagine, and a lot of those people are really great. And smart enough to teach you a few things, too.
If enough people install proxies, censorware will be effectively bypassed. A proxy can be "real" proxy listening on a port, that you can configure in your browser, or it can be a CGI script (which more people have the privileges to install). For one CGI-based proxy, see
I'm amazed that people here have lept to Bush's defense. Hello, people... the emperor has no clothes! He's using heavy-handed police tactics to silence his critics. It's his way of doing things. What else would it take to show you that Bush is not on our side? Burst that bubble of yours ASAP, or we'll be sorry.
Bush is at least as sleazy as Clinton. He's been bought and sold ten times over, long before the first primary. He'll only act in the interest of his major campaign contributors. The only things he has going for him are that no one knows him yet (and he's trying to keep it that way), and that he's not associated with Clinton. He's "tough on crime" (read: police state), and now he's alienating both China and Russia. Yeah, that's a great idea. Brilliant foreign policy mind.
If Gore did what Bush is doing to this Web site, I bet a lot of people here would be ripping him a new one.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with a profit motive,...
Yes there is, if it's to the exclusion of all else. I think it's fair to blame many of the world's problems on the blind profit motive. It has corrupted government, news media, schools, our justice system, and other crucial elements of a free society. We'll be lucky if we can recover from it.
with men like Al Gore still holding elected office, many people doubt that governments can understand the basic issues (technical and otherwise) required for passing reasonable laws.
(Kind of a stretch to get political here. Any excuse to bash Democrats, Thrush?) Actually, Gore is ahead of the pack. He was more cognizant of Internet issues in 1992 than most politicians are today; he promoted it loudly and, FWIW, coined the term "information superhighway". Granted, he hasn't done much with it lately.
Just so you know, Bush would be worse. Here's a great example of his political doublespeak from his hi-tech plan, regarding encryption export restrictions:
"Second, we must allow American companies to sell products in the international marketplace when those products are readily available from their foreign competitors. That means easing export controls on computers and encryption products that can already be purchased on the open market. At the same time, as the use of encryption programs increases, American law enforcement must always have the resources to stay ahead of the criminal use of that technology."
News flash to Bush: You can't have it both ways. This is ignorant doublespeak written by a well-paid political consultant. He's NOT on our side, if you watch him closely (which many people are happy to avoid doing). It's classic Bush-- he winks in every direction, so all sides say "HE'S our man!" But in truth, he's pro-business, because that's who gives him money. And in the matter at hand, pro-business means pro-data-profiling.
But I do agree with you that a) less Internet regulation is better, and b) we may need some, unfortunately, if private industry keeps abusing personal data.
Actually, Gore fully admits he inhaled. You're confusing him with Clinton, but the two have very different political views. Clinton chose him as a running mate in 1992 to appease the environmentalists, who knew Clinton's anti-environmental policies all too well.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, this is not a given! For example, pharmaceutical companies get millions (billions?) of tax dollars each year for their research. Then they own the drugs we paid them to create. Then they sell them for what the market will bear (think: life-or-death situations, and wealthy insurance companies), rather than what it costs to produce them (likely minimal in bulk). Then they let people die who can't pay market price.
We shouldn't let the same thing happen with this nanotech research, or any other tax-funded research for that matter. Be wary of politicians who want to put too much in the hands of corporations-- they are likely just giving our goods to their friends and campaign contributors.
Ob. contest entry: For all e-commerce sites anywhere, I hereby nominate the sickly artificial chemical smell of new packaging. You know the one, like new car smell but bad. Sometimes really bad. Varies by package.
1) This shows that the AOL-TimeWarner merger is indeed news for nerds, and all the naysayers last week had valid concerns. Big Media are not on our side, and they're invading our space from the inside (the merger) as well as attacking from the outside (the DVD actions).
2) Conversely, maybe Time Warner has a more direct interest in not pissing us off, or at least as much AOL ever did. Does anyone have good contact info for them?
Until then, or if (God forbid) that fails, then there are grassroots alternatives: Install proxies that allow users to route around censorware. The more proxies that are installed, the better. True port-based proxies are the most reliable, but are easily detected by censorware. CGI-based proxies are more obscurable, and more people have the access to install them than to install port-based proxies.
Here's one CGI-based proxy. There are others. Get a copy of at least one and store it in a safe place.
Mr. Fa-Cha says hello. But he also says "kill many people", so maybe that's someone else I'm hearing.
A fellow named Klein once confided
His bottle was not quite one-sided.
But add a dimension
To Felix' invention,
Have mathematicians delighted.
I think he's just experimenting with all facets of money, trying to get a handle on what it means and implies in our society. I mean, he sold stock in his back catalog, but I doubt he needed to raise money, which is the normal reason for selling stock. I think he's exploring money as an artist would, now that he has the means for these experiments... and how many artists have ever had as much financial means as he does today? Somehow this seems like a very Bowie thing to do.
People should own data that is about them, no matter who collects it. Failing that, they should have unrestricted access and use of data that is about them. It's time to value human rights over corporate rights. This will not cause the collapse of civilization as we know it; it will mean we can all breathe a little easier.
Lucky for us, someone is giving us a good open source encryption toolbox, instead of charging for it like everyone else. OpenSSL is the basis of much (most?) encryption in open-source software. Where would we be without it?
It may be illegal, but it's not slander. Slander is speaking false and damaging statements about someone else. (Libel is writing false and damaging statements about someone else.)
If AllAdvantage is lying here, it's not slander or libel. There are a several kinds of lying that are against the law, one or more of which may apply here. It may be breach of contract, if this is part of a user agreement, or it may be something like a deceptive claim or making misleading statements. I'm not sure, IANAL.
Some gun-toter once said "If one person has food and another has a gun, the one with the gun is gonna eat." He forgot that if both people have food, they'll both eat, but if they both have guns, than neither one will eat.
So let's set up a page "collecting evidence of horrible copyright violations on the Internet." Just to prove how dastardly these MP3 miscreants have become, we can prove how prevalent the violations are by cataloging and linking to all MP3 anywhere, with a fully indexed and searchable interface. We wouldn't actually have the MP3 files on our site. Kind of like a fundamentalist site linking to all porn everywhere.
Well, I don't know of a HOWTO, but I just exit X to text mode, then press Ctrl-Alt-Delete. This is a clean way to shutdown Linux, and it is fast. It sends TERM signals to all the processes, then when everything is safe, it says "System halted" or something like that, and you can turn off the machine.
ESR is right when he says the problem is in the program design, and has nothing to do with open source. If you need reliable security, use proven security tools like encryption, not security through obscurity.
Long reboot? I've always had exactly the opposite experience. Currently, I boot a fully-loaded Linux with graphics in about 30 seconds, and it takes maybe 2-3 minutes for Windows 95. Older Linuxes and hardware setups always showed similar results. The fast boot is one thing I always LIKED about Linux.
Here's one.
Save copies of such tools and send them to people in need (the Web pages themselves may be filtered by censorware).
Second, don't you have any non-technical friends? Relatives? Listen to any music made by non-geeks? All of these people benefit from easier-to-use computers. If they spent all their time learning computers they wouldn't have any left to make music, etc. The price of admission to technology should not be understanding the format of makefiles. I would like everyone I know to reap the benefits of Linux and not be trapped in Windows.
If the only people you know and care about are geeks, I highly encourage you to get out more. There are more worlds out there than you can imagine, and a lot of those people are really great. And smart enough to teach you a few things, too.
Bush is at least as sleazy as Clinton. He's been bought and sold ten times over, long before the first primary. He'll only act in the interest of his major campaign contributors. The only things he has going for him are that no one knows him yet (and he's trying to keep it that way), and that he's not associated with Clinton. He's "tough on crime" (read: police state), and now he's alienating both China and Russia. Yeah, that's a great idea. Brilliant foreign policy mind.
If Gore did what Bush is doing to this Web site, I bet a lot of people here would be ripping him a new one.
There's a visual similarity between river deltas, and code forks with too many deltas.
Well, sure. Bacteriae are multiple groups of single-celled organisms. And bacteriaes are when you have more than one of these collections of groups.
:)
There is, of course, nothing wrong with a profit motive, ...
Yes there is, if it's to the exclusion of all else. I think it's fair to blame many of the world's problems on the blind profit motive. It has corrupted government, news media, schools, our justice system, and other crucial elements of a free society. We'll be lucky if we can recover from it.
with men like Al Gore still holding elected office, many people doubt that governments can understand the basic issues (technical and otherwise) required for passing reasonable laws.
(Kind of a stretch to get political here. Any excuse to bash Democrats, Thrush?) Actually, Gore is ahead of the pack. He was more cognizant of Internet issues in 1992 than most politicians are today; he promoted it loudly and, FWIW, coined the term "information superhighway". Granted, he hasn't done much with it lately.
Just so you know, Bush would be worse. Here's a great example of his political doublespeak from his hi-tech plan, regarding encryption export restrictions:
News flash to Bush: You can't have it both ways. This is ignorant doublespeak written by a well-paid political consultant. He's NOT on our side, if you watch him closely (which many people are happy to avoid doing). It's classic Bush-- he winks in every direction, so all sides say "HE'S our man!" But in truth, he's pro-business, because that's who gives him money. And in the matter at hand, pro-business means pro-data-profiling.But I do agree with you that a) less Internet regulation is better, and b) we may need some, unfortunately, if private industry keeps abusing personal data.
Inside the sphere on top? Yes, that's very much a real guy, I promise.
Actually, Gore fully admits he inhaled. You're confusing him with Clinton, but the two have very different political views. Clinton chose him as a running mate in 1992 to appease the environmentalists, who knew Clinton's anti-environmental policies all too well.
That's where the REAL money in hacking/cracking is.