I encourage my kids to make fun of the ads by suggesting alternative interpretations the ads were never meant to express. For example, one that springs to mind is a cellphone ad (can't remember the company...). Husband, wife and 2 kids are at the mall. They're going to split up and are arranging to call each other when they're done. As they start to move off, one of the kids says, "Wait, I don't have a cellphone." The wife says, "I don't have a cellphone". The husband says, "I don't have one either". Cut to voiceover extolling the advantages of a family plan with multiple phones.
At the point, I said to my kids, "OK, so what message do you get from this ad?? That these people are stupid enough to make plans to call each other, without realizing they have no phones. So, obviously, this particular provider is going for the dumb-as-a-brick category of consumer..."
But they won't call the show a commercial - it'll still be *called* a show, even if it's stuffed to the gills with product placements. In theory, the people placing ads would move to product placement, thereby reducing the number of ads.
In practise, however, the TV stations won't make the ad gaps smaller, they'll just reduce the price so that less well funded advertizers will be able to fill the available ad space.
If this insane amendment passes, the tech people can fight back with paperwork. The Secretary wants to make all the decisions about IT, cellphones, etc?? Fine, let him - divide all requests down to the smallest possible slices and submit them separately. For example, if a 20-person dept needs phones, submit 20 separate requests.
Somewhere in the stack, bury a couple of innocuous things like, "upgrade the Secretary's desktop computer to a state-of-the-art 486" or "switch the Secretary's cellphone for an Iridium satphone"...
Perhaps it is time for general ban "riders" and "amendments" that change the overall meaning of some proposed regulation
You might want to support these people. Put simply, they want to make Congress actually read every single bill out loud, in its entirety, and have those who vote on it sign an affidavit stating that they understand what they're voting for. This implies that any post-reading amendments would require another full reading before being voted on, which would stop any secret clauses being inserted "in committee".
I don't know about fake news, per se, but just recently around here there have been numerous TV news stories about such things as registered sex offenders "living in YOUR neighborhood", or "near YOUR kid's day-care", etc. The problem I have with that is that, theoretically, these people have done their time, supposedly "paid their debt to society", and are *still* being hounded. OK, so I wouldn't want a registered sex offender actually *teaching* my kids, but neither would I want someone convicted of, say, domestic violence. Why single out sex offenders?? Why isn't there a register of every damn criminal?? I'll bet there are people convicted of firearms offences living near schools, but that's just fine, right??
The way the current administration is blatantly disregarding Constitutionally guaranteed rights, I'd say they'll interpret the act any way they damn well please.
How do you know that a hamster hovering near the walls is feeling anxiety?
Well, that's obvious - if the hamster's feet aren't touching the floor it will drift helplessly around its cage, bouncing off the walls and ceiling, propelled by any random passing breeze. That would make any sentient being anxious...
he doesn't consider that the restrictions on OOo code may be keeping some programmers away since they have to sign everything over to Sun.
Also, to be fair, an office suite is a giant, unweildy, unUNIXy type of program. Digging through the monsterous codebase is a high barrier to fixing a bug that may just be a minor annoyance.
I think the sheer size of the codebase is definitely a big factor. I just got through compiling OOo-2.0 on my laptop. It took around 7 hours, starting from scratch, and about 4.5Gb of disk. OK, so if I then fiddle with some fraction of the source and recompile, it (probably) won't take 7 hours, unless I touch something fundamental like a commonly used header file. The OOo core tarfile unpacks to around 800Mb - just typing make at the top of that tree is going to give me time to get coffee, even if there's nothing to compile. I hate to think how long it would take to find and fix the word wrap problem...
Last time they gave me a list of all the machines I'm registered on, I counted over 1800 entries. Assuming it takes one minute to change a password, that's over 30 hours of password changing. Some of those passwords expire every 30 days, some every 45 days, and some have SeOS, which manages passwords similarly to NIS. In most cases, there's a dictionary list of words that can't be used, and a word can't be reused in 6 months. It seems like not all the systems have the same dictionary, or the same rules. All this crap means that I can't use perfectly good words because they partially match the dictionary. On the other hand, I *can* use abcd1234 one month, then a1b2c3d4 the next month, and somehow that doesn't trip the "too many similar characters" rule...
True - I didn't think of that side of it. But isn't that a EULA violation?? Windows isn't *supposed* to be used where public safety could be put at risk. At least, the EULA *used* to say something like that.
Hopefully the business world has backups, but can you imagine the global disaster that would follow? In 30 minutes almost every computer in the world is down. Airlines will be grounded, you may lose electricity, you might not be able to order a mocha frappancino(tm) at your favorite fourbucks.
You're making a couple of assumptions there - 1) that the virus/worm would work on *most* computer operating systems, not just Windows; 2) that *most* critical systems run on Windows. Not 100 yards from where I'm sitting there's a mainframe complex and multiple midrange systems, all of which manage maintenance tracking, flight listings and routings, and passenger bookings for a number of large airlines. True, everybody's desktop could be turned to mush by a Windows virus (except mine, heh), but that wouldn't slow down air travel much.
... in states that *have* annual inspections... For no reason that makes any sense to me, Oklahoma dropped state inspections a couple of years ago. So now any random car on the road could be a rolling deathtrap, with inadequate brakes, or loose steering, or no tire tread, etc... I suppose it made sense to someone, and I hope that whoever it was gets sued into bankruptcy by the families of people killed in/by unsafe vehicles.
If you can't convince somebody to pay you a certain amount for an idea, then it wasn't really worth what you thought it was.
Or, possibly, you're an individual trying to license your idea to a big company that finds it easier to simply steal the idea, knowing that if you attempt to litigate they'll win by attrition, because their battalion of lawyers can drag the case out for years.
Getting a bit off topic here, but I'd like to see courts take something like "the EU Commission hid the software patent act in a Fisheries and Agriculture Bill" and only allow the software patent part to be applied to software pertaining *directly* to Fisheries and Agriculture. I suppose such riders are allowed through because *all* the legislators involved have their own pet projects and don't want to risk them by preventing someone else's rider from being attached to some irrelevant bill.
The "RealID" thing in the US is another prime example of that stupidity - no Senator or Congressman would risk voting against an appropriations bill allocating money to the troops in Iraq and to the tsunami victims, so that's a perfect vehicle for getting RealID passed when it had already been thrown out a couple of times.
After reading a bunch of opinions and translations, it would appear they're trying to prohibit OSS products that can be used for copyright infringement. As someone else pointed out, that includes various P2P solutions including, presumably, NFS, though I suspect MS Windows file sharing would be legitimate because that's not OSS...
Specifically, it's Free Software giving access to culture that's the problem. It could be that someone stole the code that controls yoghurt and cheese production and is about to publish a ripoff Open Source copy...
There are roughly 200 million computers in the United States; just 800,000 of them acting as honeypots would restrict a viral outbreak to 2,000 machines.
"And as the network grows, the same proportion of honeypots, around 0.4%, gives you even better protection," says Shir. He and his team present their proposal in this month's edition of Nature Physics.
Personally, I'd like to see a Congressman's name on the list, or a Senator... I don't know if they have to pursue *all* known violations - I think you've confused that with trademark violations - but if they *had* to go after highly placed public figures, maybe the legislation would experience a swift reversal... Hmmm, I wonder if one of Dubya's kids might have *ever* downloaded anything??
Actually, to quote the referenced ArsTechnica article:
To date, more than three thousand people have coughed up.
I guess the other 14,000+ lawsuits are still under negotiation, though possibly some have been dropped, such as the one against the dead grandmother... That's still $9M, though. Hmm, d'you think anyone from the IRS reads SlashDot??
...they're picking on "little guys" to create an impression that nobody is safe from their elite strike force of lawyers.
I thought we were all agreed that they're mostly picking on "little guys" in order to build up a portfolio of people that folded?? That way, if/when someone finally let it go to court, the RIAA would have "precedent" on their side. Sure, it wouldn't be actual legal precedent such as comes from a judge's decision, but right now they can pull out their list of thousands of people that settled and say, "look at all these people who admitted guilt - how can our detection methods possibly be faulty??"
If only the first few cases had been fought, instead of caving...
This isn't very useful to those of us who wear glasses.
So get a pair of prescription sunglasses and an iPod. Both Oakley & Maui Jim do prescription sunglasses, or you could drop $10 at Walmart on a cheap pair if you don't care about looking cool. Either way you'd look substantially less of a jackass than if you waste a court's time with a frivolous lawsuit.
Oh sure, I could do that, but I think the Mythbusters would have more fun, though. They'd probably dynamite the tailgate hinges while driving down an old airstrip, to test the effect of sudden tailgate loss...
Slashdot Mirror
At the point, I said to my kids, "OK, so what message do you get from this ad?? That these people are stupid enough to make plans to call each other, without realizing they have no phones. So, obviously, this particular provider is going for the dumb-as-a-brick category of consumer..."
In practise, however, the TV stations won't make the ad gaps smaller, they'll just reduce the price so that less well funded advertizers will be able to fill the available ad space.
Somewhere in the stack, bury a couple of innocuous things like, "upgrade the Secretary's desktop computer to a state-of-the-art 486" or "switch the Secretary's cellphone for an Iridium satphone"...
You might want to support these people. Put simply, they want to make Congress actually read every single bill out loud, in its entirety, and have those who vote on it sign an affidavit stating that they understand what they're voting for. This implies that any post-reading amendments would require another full reading before being voted on, which would stop any secret clauses being inserted "in committee".
Flame away, I'm wearing fire-retardant underwear...
The way the current administration is blatantly disregarding Constitutionally guaranteed rights, I'd say they'll interpret the act any way they damn well please.
Well, that's obvious - if the hamster's feet aren't touching the floor it will drift helplessly around its cage, bouncing off the walls and ceiling, propelled by any random passing breeze. That would make any sentient being anxious...
I must get more sleep. I would have sworn that said Java tubes. Exploring tubes of coffee?? Exploring tubes of a programming language?? Hrmm...
I think the sheer size of the codebase is definitely a big factor. I just got through compiling OOo-2.0 on my laptop. It took around 7 hours, starting from scratch, and about 4.5Gb of disk. OK, so if I then fiddle with some fraction of the source and recompile, it (probably) won't take 7 hours, unless I touch something fundamental like a commonly used header file. The OOo core tarfile unpacks to around 800Mb - just typing make at the top of that tree is going to give me time to get coffee, even if there's nothing to compile. I hate to think how long it would take to find and fix the word wrap problem...
Last time they gave me a list of all the machines I'm registered on, I counted over 1800 entries. Assuming it takes one minute to change a password, that's over 30 hours of password changing. Some of those passwords expire every 30 days, some every 45 days, and some have SeOS, which manages passwords similarly to NIS. In most cases, there's a dictionary list of words that can't be used, and a word can't be reused in 6 months. It seems like not all the systems have the same dictionary, or the same rules. All this crap means that I can't use perfectly good words because they partially match the dictionary. On the other hand, I *can* use abcd1234 one month, then a1b2c3d4 the next month, and somehow that doesn't trip the "too many similar characters" rule...
True - I didn't think of that side of it. But isn't that a EULA violation?? Windows isn't *supposed* to be used where public safety could be put at risk. At least, the EULA *used* to say something like that.
You're making a couple of assumptions there - 1) that the virus/worm would work on *most* computer operating systems, not just Windows; 2) that *most* critical systems run on Windows. Not 100 yards from where I'm sitting there's a mainframe complex and multiple midrange systems, all of which manage maintenance tracking, flight listings and routings, and passenger bookings for a number of large airlines. True, everybody's desktop could be turned to mush by a Windows virus (except mine, heh), but that wouldn't slow down air travel much.
... in states that *have* annual inspections... For no reason that makes any sense to me, Oklahoma dropped state inspections a couple of years ago. So now any random car on the road could be a rolling deathtrap, with inadequate brakes, or loose steering, or no tire tread, etc... I suppose it made sense to someone, and I hope that whoever it was gets sued into bankruptcy by the families of people killed in/by unsafe vehicles.
Or, possibly, you're an individual trying to license your idea to a big company that finds it easier to simply steal the idea, knowing that if you attempt to litigate they'll win by attrition, because their battalion of lawyers can drag the case out for years.
So, New Journalists get their training right here, and graduate when their karma goes negative due to adverse moderation??
The "RealID" thing in the US is another prime example of that stupidity - no Senator or Congressman would risk voting against an appropriations bill allocating money to the troops in Iraq and to the tsunami victims, so that's a perfect vehicle for getting RealID passed when it had already been thrown out a couple of times.
After reading a bunch of opinions and translations, it would appear they're trying to prohibit OSS products that can be used for copyright infringement. As someone else pointed out, that includes various P2P solutions including, presumably, NFS, though I suspect MS Windows file sharing would be legitimate because that's not OSS...
Specifically, it's Free Software giving access to culture that's the problem. It could be that someone stole the code that controls yoghurt and cheese production and is about to publish a ripoff Open Source copy...
You mispelled crackers, I think
The summary is wrong, the article is correct...
Personally, I'd like to see a Congressman's name on the list, or a Senator... I don't know if they have to pursue *all* known violations - I think you've confused that with trademark violations - but if they *had* to go after highly placed public figures, maybe the legislation would experience a swift reversal... Hmmm, I wonder if one of Dubya's kids might have *ever* downloaded anything??
I guess the other 14,000+ lawsuits are still under negotiation, though possibly some have been dropped, such as the one against the dead grandmother... That's still $9M, though. Hmm, d'you think anyone from the IRS reads SlashDot??
I thought we were all agreed that they're mostly picking on "little guys" in order to build up a portfolio of people that folded?? That way, if/when someone finally let it go to court, the RIAA would have "precedent" on their side. Sure, it wouldn't be actual legal precedent such as comes from a judge's decision, but right now they can pull out their list of thousands of people that settled and say, "look at all these people who admitted guilt - how can our detection methods possibly be faulty??"
If only the first few cases had been fought, instead of caving...
So get a pair of prescription sunglasses and an iPod. Both Oakley & Maui Jim do prescription sunglasses, or you could drop $10 at Walmart on a cheap pair if you don't care about looking cool. Either way you'd look substantially less of a jackass than if you waste a court's time with a frivolous lawsuit.
Oh sure, I could do that, but I think the Mythbusters would have more fun, though. They'd probably dynamite the tailgate hinges while driving down an old airstrip, to test the effect of sudden tailgate loss...