- Anyone in the US who emails me gets a bounced reply saying their message won't be accepted without encryption. - Anyone in Britain who emails me gets a bounced reply saying that British Citizens' e-signatures cannot be trusted. - Anyone in China, Korea, or Taiwan just gets deleted, period.
Try it sometime, it'll cut-down on all the crap you get. Until you post the address to slashdot.
(Win32)
- Download "The Bat"
- Install The Bat
- Set a rule to delete anything over 100k without a specified password in the subject
- Pay a $30 license fee (optional but worth it)
(Linux)
- Use Kmail
- Set a rule to delete anything over 100k without a specified password in the subject
- Mail the password to anyone who has good reason to send you massive files
OJW "Why the f* is there a shark swimming across this window?"
More to the point, they want to be able to install something without getting a list of 200 broken dependancies which they must install and compile themselves.
(yes this happened during my Evolution installation, even with gnome installed, and even when using a package manager. Linux installs are just plain obstinate)
You can email things from work but it's far from untracable. Yes of course it's encrypted, but when did you last check your work machine for key-loggers (software _or_ hardware, they only cost $50 now) ? (hint: you need a different and temporary PGP key to use at work)
And to think that emails to your home account are unmonitored... surely those attract the most suspicion. And no, steganography doesn't work, as you'll find out the first time you try to explain emailing a 200Mb wave file.
I heard a rumour that Doc was the binary-version of RTF, that's why MsWord doesn't warn you "you may lose formatting information" when you save a file into RTF.
Any idea if that's likely? (given that not many people have seen the official definition of a Word file)
PDF is a useful intermediate stage between the computer and a printer, but it's not good for much else.
I find it great for previewing pdflatex files before I print them, but trying to read internet documents on Acrobat Reader is just painful. Please can they fix the broken up/down pageup/pagedown buttons?
Acrobat reader on linux stands out like a sore thumb for the same reason: "We know best, we'll program our own GUI" so it looks like a malformed concrete block amongst pretty aqua-themed gnome apps.
Well, microserfs send us.DOC files assuming that everyone in the world can open them (of course I can, but no need to tell them that) we ought to have a standard filetype of our own to challenge it.
On the frivolous note, we can email it back in response to doc files and say "see if Word opens this then, you bastard!"*
More seriously, MS Word files change every year, yet are still considered "a standard" (standard in the sense that if you can't open them, you're obviously too cheap to buy the latest version of MSOffice)
So if every other word processor in the world each used RTF as its native format (which most already support) then we can say "why are you using that format? why don't you use The One True Standard.RTF format?"
* Actually I prefer to email people a MsWord macro that changes their default filetype to RTF. Pity the recent versions of Word warn you before they run malicious code...
p.s. Take RTF file. Rename it as.doc. Send it to Word-user. Word opens it. Word-user thinks it's a word file. Job-application-in-word-format-only problem solved
A license like that would seem to be similar to the Microsoft's OEM license: "it's illegal to sell Linux computers while you also sell Windows ones" (It's also similar in the sense that many Windows "features" end up making a linux partition unusable.)
The equivalent would have to be a television which you're not allowed to use in the same house as certain brands of vaccuum cleaner.
(one might even argue the analogy between vacuum-cleaners and RadLight goes further, but enough about things which suck...)
Also, there is no getting around the legal problem
Yeah there is. Not every country has laws as fucked as those of the US (remember, johanson's code was legal in Norway) -- if an american accesses my website, it's no more under the DMCA than if they were offended at a sign in my garden they could only see with a spy satellite.
Okay, I wasn't fussing about the definition of free software, my point was them saying "without commercial advertising, nobody will write free software"
Well I write free software. And it doesn't advertise. And I don't get paid for it. So do thousands of other people, and it belittles all of their work to compare them to advertising supported loss-leaders
"Piracy hurts everyone by diminishing the incentive to invest in the creation of music"
No, piracy diminishes big companies' incentive to promote crap music. It also provides more incentive for smaller/better artists, who become more easily discovered, and for independant artists, who become more widely distributed.
There's an alternative way to promote it, of course: The MPAA is asking that resources be diverted away from the Feds' anti-hacker programs.
Given the hacker theat to national infrastructure, the possibility of terrorist-hacker attacks, and the tendancy of the public to panic about such threats, it might be worth pointing out that the MPAA is trying to hinder the police's antiterrorism campaign.
It's quite unfortunate that they use this as an example of "without the advertising revenue [from spyware], people can't create free software any more"
They're right that "without this spyware advertising revenue, commercial advertisers can't continue giving their commercial software away without charge", but it's quite insulting to see it compared to free software
Slashdot Mirror
- Anyone in the US who emails me gets a bounced reply saying their message won't be accepted without encryption.
- Anyone in Britain who emails me gets a bounced reply saying that British Citizens' e-signatures cannot be trusted.
- Anyone in China, Korea, or Taiwan just gets deleted, period.
Try it sometime, it'll cut-down on all the crap you get. Until you post the address to slashdot.
It is possible to setup a mailing list such that "X-mailer: Outlook*" is prohibited from positing.
(Win32)
- Download "The Bat"
- Install The Bat
- Set a rule to delete anything over 100k without a specified password in the subject
- Pay a $30 license fee (optional but worth it)
(Linux)
- Use Kmail
- Set a rule to delete anything over 100k without a specified password in the subject
- Mail the password to anyone who has good reason to send you massive files
OJW "Why the f* is there a shark swimming across this window?"
Strange I just opened some gif's yesterday with GIMP 1.2
In the Windows version? Without having to declare that Unisys' patent doesn't apply in your country and download a special patch?
Try telling windows users to switch to a Gimp which doesn't support GIF files. How does anyone plan to open their files with it?
More to the point, they want to be able to install something without getting a list of 200 broken dependancies which they must install and compile themselves.
(yes this happened during my Evolution installation, even with gnome installed, and even when using a package manager. Linux installs are just plain obstinate)
Why should there be "anything there"? It's surely not beyond your abilities to burn OpenOffice onto a CD and give it to someone?
Cost to you: £1. Saving to them: £300, or whatever MsOffice is nowadays.
Put PGP on it too, so that finally people will stop emailing me plaintext.
You can email things from work but it's far from untracable. Yes of course it's encrypted, but when did you last check your work machine for key-loggers (software _or_ hardware, they only cost $50 now) ? (hint: you need a different and temporary PGP key to use at work)
And to think that emails to your home account are unmonitored... surely those attract the most suspicion. And no, steganography doesn't work, as you'll find out the first time you try to explain emailing a 200Mb wave file.
Damn that's good.
The Guild
I heard a rumour that Doc was the binary-version of RTF, that's why MsWord doesn't warn you "you may lose formatting information" when you save a file into RTF.
Any idea if that's likely? (given that not many people have seen the official definition of a Word file)
BTW which do you prefer? Coke, Pepsi or RC?
Dammit, OpenCola rules. Not that I've tried it, but it is open-source.
Sometimes you have to make-do with jolt-cola. Or coffee.
PDF is a useful intermediate stage between the computer and a printer, but it's not good for much else.
I find it great for previewing pdflatex files before I print them, but trying to read internet documents on Acrobat Reader is just painful. Please can they fix the broken up/down pageup/pagedown buttons?
Acrobat reader on linux stands out like a sore thumb for the same reason: "We know best, we'll program our own GUI" so it looks like a malformed concrete block amongst pretty aqua-themed gnome apps.
I've seen so-called Word-experts struggle for hours to do simple things correctly in Word.
As the saying goes, "I need a word processor which knows how to number its pages..."
(says someone using LaTeX. WhooHoo! no need for a word processor ever again!)
Well, microserfs send us .DOC files assuming that everyone in the world can open them (of course I can, but no need to tell them that) we ought to have a standard filetype of our own to challenge it.
.RTF format?"
.doc. Send it to Word-user. Word opens it. Word-user thinks it's a word file. Job-application-in-word-format-only problem solved
On the frivolous note, we can email it back in response to doc files and say "see if Word opens this then, you bastard!"*
More seriously, MS Word files change every year, yet are still considered "a standard" (standard in the sense that if you can't open them, you're obviously too cheap to buy the latest version of MSOffice)
So if every other word processor in the world each used RTF as its native format (which most already support) then we can say "why are you using that format? why don't you use The One True Standard
* Actually I prefer to email people a MsWord macro that changes their default filetype to RTF. Pity the recent versions of Word warn you before they run malicious code...
p.s. Take RTF file. Rename it as
A license like that would seem to be similar to the Microsoft's OEM license: "it's illegal to sell Linux computers while you also sell Windows ones" (It's also similar in the sense that many Windows "features" end up making a linux partition unusable.)
The equivalent would have to be a television which you're not allowed to use in the same house as certain brands of vaccuum cleaner.
(one might even argue the analogy between vacuum-cleaners and RadLight goes further, but enough about things which suck...)
Also, there is no getting around the legal problem
Yeah there is. Not every country has laws as fucked as those of the US (remember, johanson's code was legal in Norway) -- if an american accesses my website, it's no more under the DMCA than if they were offended at a sign in my garden they could only see with a spy satellite.
Okay, I wasn't fussing about the definition of free software, my point was them saying "without commercial advertising, nobody will write free software"
Well I write free software. And it doesn't advertise. And I don't get paid for it. So do thousands of other people, and it belittles all of their work to compare them to advertising supported loss-leaders
Why is this score 0?
Oh, because we all support Israel's war crimes. They're doing the good fight "against terrorism"
To quote a debate in the house of commons: "This house knows state terrorism when we see it"
"Piracy hurts everyone by diminishing the incentive to invest in the creation of music"
No, piracy diminishes big companies' incentive to promote crap music. It also provides more incentive for smaller/better artists, who become more easily discovered, and for independant artists, who become more widely distributed.
There's an alternative way to promote it, of course: The MPAA is asking that resources be diverted away from the Feds' anti-hacker programs.
Given the hacker theat to national infrastructure, the possibility of terrorist-hacker attacks, and the tendancy of the public to panic about such threats, it might be worth pointing out that the MPAA is trying to hinder the police's antiterrorism campaign.
If you're at work, then you DO get paid to read the EULA.
Boss: "Okay, here's your new machine, and a set of office CDs. And here's a list of stuff to get from the web"
You (sitting down with a cup of tea and a stack of license agreements) "Okay..."
4 hours later, you've not done anything, and it's time to go home
The directions for a bottle of shampoo...
Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
Which is why C programmers spend so long in the shower, trying to resolve this infinite loop.
It's quite unfortunate that they use this as an example of "without the advertising revenue [from spyware], people can't create free software any more"
They're right that "without this spyware advertising revenue, commercial advertisers can't continue giving their commercial software away without charge", but it's quite insulting to see it compared to free software
I personally favour the idiot tax. All politicians favouring new and innovative taxes will give 50% of their earnings to NASA
They already have an idiot tax. It involves a well-known office suite and operating-system combo which costs more than your computer.
I personally favour the idiot tax. All politicians favouring new and innovative taxes will give 50% of their earnings to NASA
They already have an idiot tax. They sell lottery tickets