You forgot to mention that volume licensing is available if you don't want to be limited to 5 unique passengers.
Also, make sure you don't change too much of your hardware. If you change your oil, hope you don't get a flat tire because that will be too many hardware changes and you will need to reactivate. If you can't get to an Internet-enabled Windows PC, you can call their toll-free customer service hotline and speak to a representative about reactivation and the Microsoft Genuine Advantage.
Oh yeah, almost forgot - make sure you scan your entire car for spyware every time you go to a gas station. You never know when a purple monkey is going to try to sell you toothpaste while you are driving.
Macromedia and advertizers should donate some bucks to homestarrunner.com. Not for advertising on the site though - merely for keeping so many users from getting rid of flash heh.
Sounds like a "You're either with us or you're against us" argument. Or have you been taught that anyone who has Kazaa on their computer will never ever buy anything when they can "steal" it instead?
I forgot to mention that I worked part-time as a computer tech until late last year. Though I didn't manage to infect my own computer much, I finally got tired of many of the things about Windows, decided to forgo most of my games, and switched to Linux about a year ago. Been happy and productive since.
I don't know about you, but I'd take cleaning a Linux machine over cleaning a Windows machine any day.
Under normal circumstances with Linux, the only place a user may modify is ~. A user cannot install software for the system nor stick files anywhere on the computer. There isn't much you would have to look at to find the culprit.
With Windows, under normal circumstances, the entire family has Administrator (or almost) privileges. This is because many things just don't work without the user having high privileges (such as games). Not to mention the de facto web browser that is tightly intertwined with the system's files. Last but not least, we can't forget the magical place called the Windows Registry. I have spent countless hours looking and looking and looking through that humongous haystack trying to find the hidden needle haranguing the machine.
At the risk of being labeled unpatriotic pro-spyware scum, I don't see this article as good news. I really don't think Congress is competent enough to come up with an effective solution. Rather, I think that any legislation on this will be like one of Microsoft's patches. In other words, I think we will see them close one loophole and open two others.
I think the solution to this would be if people saw this as Microsoft's fault. Their OS seems to be the only one targetted. People need to demand better and hopefully make good on their threats if Microsoft doesn't find a way to put an end to this. Unix was around much earlier than Windows. Hell, the Microsoft corporation even used to work with Unix back in the day. Microsoft chose to deviate from what was tried and true. Hopefully, Congress won't goof. Hopefully, people will see Mac computers and Linux distros as viable choices if Microsoft doesn't find a way to finally end this nonsense.
"American" can technically refer to any American country - North American or South American. Every other country in the Americas that I know of has a respective pronoun for their countrymen in our language.
That aside, I would like to suggest that "USians" is just as wrong as calling the country "The United States of America".
The name "United States" just seems somewhat incorrect to me. The name was established under our first constitution - when the country was established as a confederacy. I suppose the idea is that all of the soveriegn colonies decided to unite as soveriegn states under the new confederacy.
Today, and for a great many years, we have been a federation, not a confederation. The idea of states that are united seems somewhat strange. It's not as if the states have a choice to be in or out of the union as it was in earlier days.
A few facts that you seem to have neglected to mention:
-No one made "big bucks". The Commerce Commission fined the restauraunt $3000. The court took $260 to cover court costs.
-The restauraunt knew that their site had caused one or more customers to visit the restauraunt on false pretenses.
From the article: "The complaining customer had notified both the restaurant and the Restaurant Association of New Zealand that the website menu was out of date and misleading, but the operator, despite knowing about the issue, had done nothing to correct the website."
Also,
"His Honour agreed with the Commission that the breaches [i.e. false advertisement] were not inadvertent."
If I were running a restauraunt, and a customer pointed out a mistake in my advertising, I would have made their meal gratis. Then I would have posted a sign in the lobby letting people know of the mistake (in case more people were coming because of it), and got to work on correcting the advertising. After one week I would take down the sign. I believe most businesses are supposed to follow a similar procedure - at least here in California.
Although many BT clients let you prioritize, the rest of the network seems to have to make up for the prioritization. It would take a lot longer to get a torrent rolling if every single client prioritized the first parts of the file. It would make the whole network depend on the seeds a lot more, because everyone would keep requesting the same part again and again from the seed (it would take longer for a seed to upload the entire file to the network).
Personally, I start BT before I go to bed, and have it running when I'm doing some non-Internet task (such as watching video). I rarely torrent during "peak times", and almost always have something ready to watch or whatever. Though not everyone cares to plan what they are going to watch the next day.
I could see a set-top system down the road that would use a broadband connection and torrent media from trackers run by content distribution networks or TV stations. People could decide what they would want their box to "record", and watch it an hour later. TV would no longer have to adhere strictly to a broadcast schedule. Though for this to happen, there would have to be more (and hopefully somewhat faster) broadband connections. Also, the entertainment industry would have to get used to the idea of such a new business model. Unfortunately, I think the social aspects of this would pose a greater challenge than the technical challenges.
$7,000 non-essential device... $6,700 in government subsidies per each $7000 non-essential device... 300,000,000 Americans who want said non-essential device... equals.. $2,010,000,000,000 (that's two-trillion and 10 billion dollars)
Well, considering the budget for Fiscal Year 2006 is $2,130,000,000,000 , we would only need to cut governmental spending in all other areas by, oh, only about 95%. I hope you don't happen to work for the Fed govt, because you can expect a pay cut or two =).
Pretty good idea. No wonder it was modded insightful heh.
I have seen somewhat the opposite, where the Windows PCs have high restrictions on them and you can't install anything.
With *nix machines OTOH, lack of root access doesn't necessarily mean the user's hands are tied.
From my experience with Linux and Solaris, most userland programs out there can install without superuser access. The nice thing is that the only changes are made in the particular user's home directory. Bob won't know Mike installed Firefox unless Bob looks over Mike's shoulder while Mike is logged into the computer. In my experience, most Windows programs simply will not install without Power User / Administrator rights. In fact, after installation, many DirectX games that have already been installed (EverQuest for example) will not run at all without Administrator (maybe power user too) rights!
Just curious, but do you use filtering systems? As someone else noted, a lot of support calls are PEBKAC, and the same goes in my experience working in a PC repair shop. I'm making a wild-assed guess that most known malware sites are being blocked by a content filter just because you have an almost 2000:1 ratio. I'll continue to guess and say that all e-mail is virus scanned server-side. If I am right, would you mind posting about which filtering systems have treated your team right?
It seems more likely that he copy/pasted a post into a text editor and did a find/replace of BSD to SCO.
If you look closely, a couple of sentences mention OpenBSD and NetBSD. Those should have been altered or removed, if the "troll" was going for credibility;-).
Aside from the three grammar/spelling mistakes I found, I did not mention the word "free" in my post. The point I was trying to make was that the TV industry does not need to set up a charge system or anything like that - just show the shows as they do on TV. The demand for "illegal" tv torrents will go away because the legitimate offerings will come out faster, have more users, etc. And why would the current groups and trackers bother releasing and hosting episodes when places like ABC, UPN, etc have already done so? If commercials are really that big of a deal they technically can be skipped.
What you said makes sense. Unfortunately that doesn't matter because content industries as a whole seems slow/stupid.
While there are many who would be willing to pay for this, there are many others who wouldn't. I'm a poor college student and I simply can't pay everyone on the face of this earth. So why not release original broadcasts - including the commercials? I realize some things would have to be worked out with advertisers and content suppliers, and sadly irrational fear in the industry will prevent this from ever happening.
Before you post and say "Nobody is going to watch the commercials", realize that many people record shows and simply fast forward with tapes. With live TV, many people channel surf. Lots of others will take a bathroom break or make a sandwich (not stay glued to the TV). Others mute the TV when commercials come on and use that time to talk to each-other. The point is, there are people who will watch commercials, and there are people who won't.
Not only would it be a great way for TV stations to reach a wider audience but it would also make it easier to gauge ratings (the person running the tracker can tell how many people are using it). If an industry standard was made, there is no reason set-top boxes couldn't be developed to download TV torrents for chosen series' and play them on demand. The Internet has VERY great potential for TV, but sadly an excelent opportunity will be overlooked making the world suck a little more for everyone.
Funny thing is, I'm not sure the parent was talking about the cats dying from starvation. Keep in mind that right now his website is being slashdotted.
From the site:
Feel free to go to the Web site and give Cotton and Tulip a treat.
Some animals don't know when to stop eating. I'm not sure how many treats that contraption holds, but I'm guessing it holds more than the two cats can fit in their stomach. (pictures 100 nerds clicking the Give a Treat button at the same time) I hope they don't die from overeating hehe.
I too have had many bad experiences with Real in the past.
Though recently I installed the Real+Helix player on my desktop (yes I use Linux on my desktop). It's browser integration actually wasn't good enough - I couldn't watch the state of the union stream no matter what I tried. Ultimately I had to use my Windows laptop.
Though I must say that the Real+Helix player for Linux is not at all bloated. I think there is still a prompt to register, but easily skipable. It's bloat is about the same as XMMS or Totem.
One thing to factor in is that the stench of drugs was leaking out of the vehicle. Assume for a moment that transporting a dead skunk is illegal - would it be an unreasonable search if a cop got a whoof of dead skunk in the trunk?
I would say the difference between this incident and packet sniffing is that the drugs were passively detected - the dog couldn't help but smell the odor. The stench of the drugs was there out in the open for everyone to notice.
OTOH, packet monitoring would be an active search. While breathing, a dog/cop can't help but smell drugs that have been poorly packaged. But without cause, they have no business examining the entire contents of the car. Similarly, while doing it's job, a router can't help but examine the packet headers. Though examining more than the headers is unnecessary for the router to perform it's job and an invasion of privacy since it is clearly not the intended recipient. Examining the contents of a packet is like examining the contents of this person's car - it should be done only with probable cause.
My guess is that a site most people didn't know of until now isn't going to be able to/. one of the largest server farms in the world.
I was using the site, but it got rapidly slashdotted. I may be hazarding a guess here, but I would think the person who created this is using http://www.google.com/apis/. In that case, I don't think the 1000 query limit will be enough now =p.
Step 1: Get rope Step 2: Tie it in a noose Step 3: Get a chair and stand on it Step 4: Tie other end of rope to ceiling fan Step 5: Put noose over head, snugly over neck Step 6: Kick chair out from under yourself Step 7: ??? Step 8: Newsletter!
*Poster does not endorce subscriptions to this newsletter.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot to mention that volume licensing is available if you don't want to be limited to 5 unique passengers.
Also, make sure you don't change too much of your hardware. If you change your oil, hope you don't get a flat tire because that will be too many hardware changes and you will need to reactivate. If you can't get to an Internet-enabled Windows PC, you can call their toll-free customer service hotline and speak to a representative about reactivation and the Microsoft Genuine Advantage.
Oh yeah, almost forgot - make sure you scan your entire car for spyware every time you go to a gas station. You never know when a purple monkey is going to try to sell you toothpaste while you are driving.
Macromedia and advertizers should donate some bucks to homestarrunner.com. Not for advertising on the site though - merely for keeping so many users from getting rid of flash heh.
Sounds like a "You're either with us or you're against us" argument. Or have you been taught that anyone who has Kazaa on their computer will never ever buy anything when they can "steal" it instead?
I forgot to mention that I worked part-time as a computer tech until late last year. Though I didn't manage to infect my own computer much, I finally got tired of many of the things about Windows, decided to forgo most of my games, and switched to Linux about a year ago. Been happy and productive since.
I don't know about you, but I'd take cleaning a Linux machine over cleaning a Windows machine any day.
Under normal circumstances with Linux, the only place a user may modify is ~. A user cannot install software for the system nor stick files anywhere on the computer. There isn't much you would have to look at to find the culprit.
With Windows, under normal circumstances, the entire family has Administrator (or almost) privileges. This is because many things just don't work without the user having high privileges (such as games). Not to mention the de facto web browser that is tightly intertwined with the system's files. Last but not least, we can't forget the magical place called the Windows Registry. I have spent countless hours looking and looking and looking through that humongous haystack trying to find the hidden needle haranguing the machine.
At the risk of being labeled unpatriotic pro-spyware scum, I don't see this article as good news. I really don't think Congress is competent enough to come up with an effective solution. Rather, I think that any legislation on this will be like one of Microsoft's patches. In other words, I think we will see them close one loophole and open two others.
I think the solution to this would be if people saw this as Microsoft's fault. Their OS seems to be the only one targetted. People need to demand better and hopefully make good on their threats if Microsoft doesn't find a way to put an end to this. Unix was around much earlier than Windows. Hell, the Microsoft corporation even used to work with Unix back in the day. Microsoft chose to deviate from what was tried and true. Hopefully, Congress won't goof. Hopefully, people will see Mac computers and Linux distros as viable choices if Microsoft doesn't find a way to finally end this nonsense.
"American" can technically refer to any American country - North American or South American. Every other country in the Americas that I know of has a respective pronoun for their countrymen in our language.
That aside, I would like to suggest that "USians" is just as wrong as calling the country "The United States of America".
The name "United States" just seems somewhat incorrect to me. The name was established under our first constitution - when the country was established as a confederacy. I suppose the idea is that all of the soveriegn colonies decided to unite as soveriegn states under the new confederacy.
Today, and for a great many years, we have been a federation, not a confederation. The idea of states that are united seems somewhat strange. It's not as if the states have a choice to be in or out of the union as it was in earlier days.
(no, I'm not the O.P.)
A few facts that you seem to have neglected to mention:
-No one made "big bucks". The Commerce Commission fined the restauraunt $3000. The court took $260 to cover court costs.
-The restauraunt knew that their site had caused one or more customers to visit the restauraunt on false pretenses.
From the article:
"The complaining customer had notified both the restaurant and the Restaurant Association of New Zealand that the website menu was out of date and misleading, but the operator, despite knowing about the issue, had done nothing to correct the website."
Also,
"His Honour agreed with the Commission that the breaches [i.e. false advertisement] were not inadvertent."
If I were running a restauraunt, and a customer pointed out a mistake in my advertising, I would have made their meal gratis. Then I would have posted a sign in the lobby letting people know of the mistake (in case more people were coming because of it), and got to work on correcting the advertising. After one week I would take down the sign. I believe most businesses are supposed to follow a similar procedure - at least here in California.
Although many BT clients let you prioritize, the rest of the network seems to have to make up for the prioritization. It would take a lot longer to get a torrent rolling if every single client prioritized the first parts of the file. It would make the whole network depend on the seeds a lot more, because everyone would keep requesting the same part again and again from the seed (it would take longer for a seed to upload the entire file to the network).
Personally, I start BT before I go to bed, and have it running when I'm doing some non-Internet task (such as watching video). I rarely torrent during "peak times", and almost always have something ready to watch or whatever. Though not everyone cares to plan what they are going to watch the next day.
I could see a set-top system down the road that would use a broadband connection and torrent media from trackers run by content distribution networks or TV stations. People could decide what they would want their box to "record", and watch it an hour later. TV would no longer have to adhere strictly to a broadcast schedule. Though for this to happen, there would have to be more (and hopefully somewhat faster) broadband connections. Also, the entertainment industry would have to get used to the idea of such a new business model. Unfortunately, I think the social aspects of this would pose a greater challenge than the technical challenges.
$7,000 non-essential device...
$6,700 in government subsidies per each $7000 non-essential device...
300,000,000 Americans who want said non-essential device...
equals.. $2,010,000,000,000 (that's two-trillion and 10 billion dollars)
Well, considering the budget for Fiscal Year 2006 is $2,130,000,000,000 , we would only need to cut governmental spending in all other areas by, oh, only about 95%. I hope you don't happen to work for the Fed govt, because you can expect a pay cut or two =).
Pretty good idea. No wonder it was modded insightful heh.
I have seen somewhat the opposite, where the Windows PCs have high restrictions on them and you can't install anything.
With *nix machines OTOH, lack of root access doesn't necessarily mean the user's hands are tied.
From my experience with Linux and Solaris, most userland programs out there can install without superuser access. The nice thing is that the only changes are made in the particular user's home directory. Bob won't know Mike installed Firefox unless Bob looks over Mike's shoulder while Mike is logged into the computer. In my experience, most Windows programs simply will not install without Power User / Administrator rights. In fact, after installation, many DirectX games that have already been installed (EverQuest for example) will not run at all without Administrator (maybe power user too) rights!
Just curious, but do you use filtering systems? As someone else noted, a lot of support calls are PEBKAC, and the same goes in my experience working in a PC repair shop. I'm making a wild-assed guess that most known malware sites are being blocked by a content filter just because you have an almost 2000:1 ratio. I'll continue to guess and say that all e-mail is virus scanned server-side. If I am right, would you mind posting about which filtering systems have treated your team right?
It seems more likely that he copy/pasted a post into a text editor and did a find/replace of BSD to SCO.
;-).
If you look closely, a couple of sentences mention OpenBSD and NetBSD. Those should have been altered or removed, if the "troll" was going for credibility
Bah, I hit the wrong button.
Aside from the three grammar/spelling mistakes I found, I did not mention the word "free" in my post. The point I was trying to make was that the TV industry does not need to set up a charge system or anything like that - just show the shows as they do on TV. The demand for "illegal" tv torrents will go away because the legitimate offerings will come out faster, have more users, etc. And why would the current groups and trackers bother releasing and hosting episodes when places like ABC, UPN, etc have already done so? If commercials are really that big of a deal they technically can be skipped.
What you said makes sense. Unfortunately that doesn't matter because content industries as a whole seems slow/stupid.
While there are many who would be willing to pay for this, there are many others who wouldn't. I'm a poor college student and I simply can't pay everyone on the face of this earth. So why not release original broadcasts - including the commercials? I realize some things would have to be worked out with advertisers and content suppliers, and sadly irrational fear in the industry will prevent this from ever happening.
Before you post and say "Nobody is going to watch the commercials", realize that many people record shows and simply fast forward with tapes. With live TV, many people channel surf. Lots of others will take a bathroom break or make a sandwich (not stay glued to the TV). Others mute the TV when commercials come on and use that time to talk to each-other. The point is, there are people who will watch commercials, and there are people who won't.
Not only would it be a great way for TV stations to reach a wider audience but it would also make it easier to gauge ratings (the person running the tracker can tell how many people are using it). If an industry standard was made, there is no reason set-top boxes couldn't be developed to download TV torrents for chosen series' and play them on demand. The Internet has VERY great potential for TV, but sadly an excelent opportunity will be overlooked making the world suck a little more for everyone.
From the site:
Some animals don't know when to stop eating. I'm not sure how many treats that contraption holds, but I'm guessing it holds more than the two cats can fit in their stomach. (pictures 100 nerds clicking the Give a Treat button at the same time) I hope they don't die from overeating hehe.
Understandable.
I too have had many bad experiences with Real in the past.
Though recently I installed the Real+Helix player on my desktop (yes I use Linux on my desktop). It's browser integration actually wasn't good enough - I couldn't watch the state of the union stream no matter what I tried. Ultimately I had to use my Windows laptop.
Though I must say that the Real+Helix player for Linux is not at all bloated. I think there is still a prompt to register, but easily skipable. It's bloat is about the same as XMMS or Totem.
Bleah, slashdot ate my post
Litterally
One thing to factor in is that the stench of drugs was leaking out of the vehicle. Assume for a moment that transporting a dead skunk is illegal - would it be an unreasonable search if a cop got a whoof of dead skunk in the trunk?
I would say the difference between this incident and packet sniffing is that the drugs were passively detected - the dog couldn't help but smell the odor. The stench of the drugs was there out in the open for everyone to notice.
OTOH, packet monitoring would be an active search. While breathing, a dog/cop can't help but smell drugs that have been poorly packaged. But without cause, they have no business examining the entire contents of the car. Similarly, while doing it's job, a router can't help but examine the packet headers. Though examining more than the headers is unnecessary for the router to perform it's job and an invasion of privacy since it is clearly not the intended recipient. Examining the contents of a packet is like examining the contents of this person's car - it should be done only with probable cause.
Try $8.50/hr in college with A+ and CCNA.
Hmm no wonder I've been feeling cheated hehe.
Are there any said countries?
Surely marketers wouldn't decieve us to make money?
Alright I gotta go - I'm off to get my wool cut.
"In other encryption techniques, such as Public Key Encryption, the decryption algorithm is public."
Don't you mean the _encryption_ algorithm is public?
My guess is that a site most people didn't know of until now isn't going to be able to /. one of the largest server farms in the world.
I was using the site, but it got rapidly slashdotted. I may be hazarding a guess here, but I would think the person who created this is using http://www.google.com/apis/. In that case, I don't think the 1000 query limit will be enough now =p.
Step 1: Get rope
Step 2: Tie it in a noose
Step 3: Get a chair and stand on it
Step 4: Tie other end of rope to ceiling fan
Step 5: Put noose over head, snugly over neck
Step 6: Kick chair out from under yourself
Step 7: ???
Step 8: Newsletter!
*Poster does not endorce subscriptions to this newsletter.