Yes. Unfortunately, US fair use is not as progressive as in Europe. Copying is copying. It used to be that if you didn't make a profit, it was a "civil offense" (no real fines, just a slap on the wrist), and if you made a profit, it was criminal. But with the DMCA, if you use any "digital means" to perform the copyright infringement, it's automatically a criminal offense. Either way, it's still illegal to copy something in its entirety that you don't already own.
People just don't care so much about copying books because it's a real pain and not really worth the effort. The one and only time I bothered to scan a book in its entirety (back in college) was for a book that was long out of print, and the 2 used copies for sale in the US were over $250 apiece (more than a college student could afford). It took me about 2 weeks of my free time to scan the 200 or so pages. Hardly a comparison when it takes 5 minutes to rip a cd.
Checking a book out of the library and scanning the contents is fair use.
Since when? Last time I tried to copy pages out a a book at a library, there were signs saying that there was something around a 15 page limit per-book. Fair use for copying books relates specifically for using the books as reference materials, where you wouldn't need the entire book. If you copy the whole book, it's just as much a copyright violation as if you copied a CD (incidentally, there is also a fair use of copying audio and video allowed to students and news organizations -- I think it's 45 seconds).
They could always add support for something like Debian
Until recently, there has been no easy way to do a large number of Debian installs. And now, you have to use the "unstable" version to get any of that functionality. RedHat has a lot going for it with kickstart. I can boot a machine over pxe, pick from any number of standard install images, and then let the machine set itself up (including all kinds of post-install scripts for custom images). Then again, most of our customers are getting Fedora, not RHEL, since RHEL would get a bit expensive for 100+ servers at a time.
I recently moved into a new phone number (my last one was registered long before the list went active), and though it's more than enough time since registering, I still get the occasional solicitation. Got one the other day that was a recording, asking me to press 9 if I wanted to wait and talk to an operator and get more info on my "free vacation" (obviously one of those timeshare "scams"). So I waited for a minute or so, got an operator, and asked to speak to her supervisor. Click!
How are we supposed to report these places if they resort to tactics like this? Next time, I'll be smarter and get the phone number (in case we're disconnected, of course) before asking for a supervisor.
Re:no no no
on
Hacking Vodka
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
For those who don't know, Arak is the Israeli (and Lebanese and Syrian) word for the anise liquor known in Greece as Uozo and in Turkey as Raki. There are variations of this drink around the world (from South America to India), and though people may argue that one is better than the other, they're all basically the same idea (I hear that Syrian Arak is the best of the bunch). And I agree, much better than vodka. Especially for the science nerd in all of us as we marvel at the totally clear liquid turning milky white as the water from melting ice mixes with the alcoholic beverage.
What is really needed is publicly-available source code that anyone can view.
This comes up time and time again on/., and personally I don't care if the code is open or not. The touchscreens should ONLY be used for input. They can also be used to provide a preliminary (ie. UNOFFICIAL) count, but would print out a machine- and human-readable paper ballot, which the user can verify and then drop into a ballot box to be counted.
Eat, Drink and Be Healthy is a book from Harvard Med. that talks about all kinds of things relating to food and health. Aside from debunking the USDA food pyramid, the authors also go on to show that though red wine is good for you, it's actually the alcohol in it that provides the largest health benefit. So, wine, beer or whiskey, men should have 1-2 drinks daily, and women 0-1. Just remember that alcohol (especially beer) is high in carbs, so if you're on one of those misguided low-carb diets, you need to watch out.
The point of SPF is... to identify the source of an e-mail
This point needs to be emphasized. The whole point of SPF is to prevent spammers from falsifying return addresses. If they want to publish their own legitimate SPF records, then by all means let them. Then we can just block them by their domain names without any fear of blocking legitimate email.
If a non-dominant third party gets some small percentage of the votes, then there is pressure on both of the dominant parties to make changes in order to appeal to those voters so as to better compete against the other dominant party.
Yes. But in the case of the current American presidential election, the damage being done by the current administration to foreign relations, the environment, the economy, etc., etc., is progressing at such a pace that something must be done to stop it. I'm willing to put my Green voting habits aside (please remember that not even the Green party would sponsor Nader this time around) for 4 years if it gets Bush and his puppeteers out of office.
I expect vegatable oil could be made to work with additives
There are a number of veggie-oil mod kits for diesel engines. They either attach a heater to the engine and fuel lines to reliquify the oil (superheating oil causes it to hydrogenate, which basically turns it into crisco, a solid at room temperature), or puts a switch into the fuel line for you to run normal (bio)diesel fuel through for the first and last 5 or so minutes to heat the engine up to where it'll ignite raw oil, and then flush it out to get rid of any hydrogenated oil before it turns off.
Actually, they all go to #, which doesn't actually go anywhere. I call foul on this test -- it doesn't actually matter what the content of the email says (since I have no way to know that ebay would never suspend my account for not updating my info unless I actually go and look at the fraud stuff in their faq). A phishing message is easily (and only accurately) detected by looking at the address pointed to by the links within (which is what you will see banks, etc. telling you: "if you are unsure, just manually type our URL in, or call us"). How can this test be an accurate measure of people's ability to detect phishing emails if the links (the only worthy mark of a phishing email) they've given us don't actually link to real or fake sites?
Mod the parent up! This river is not only a major spawning ground, but supplies irrigation water to many eastern Washington and Oregon farms, and has hundreds of people living on its banks (including big cities like Portland, OR).
Hanford PR people claimed for years that it would take decades for their waste to filter into the Columbia, until some scientists pointed out that the waste had already been flowing into the Columbia for years.
if you must configure your mail like this, possibly better use an *impossible* domain
Agreed. Bandwidth is expensive, and even if you're just rejecting messages, there's still bandwidth being used. My personal favorite is dont@send.spam -- not only is it an impossible domain, but it sends a message, too (and it's short to type).
Re:Somewhere in the middle
on
Hacking Quartz
·
· Score: 1
"PC's used to ship with Basic... but now you have to learn the Win32 API + Directx"
Basic is essentially a scripting language; now we have other scripting languages like VB (not free), perl, php, python (all free) and many others. All of the free ones run in windows and linux and osx. They may not come preinstalled in windows or osx (well, OSX comes with perl), but they're pretty easy to grab and install, and make a great starting platform for new programmers. Interpreted (or pseudo-interpreted) language means no waiting for things to compile, either, so there is a good level of instant gratification.
You must have missed the part about each of those 25-30 windows having 3-10 tabs apiece.
2. If you use Windows, you should consider installing a tray minimizer
He uses Win2k, which is totally capable of taskbar grouping. Like I said, he says he prefers this clutter method. And his taskbar extends across the bottom of both 1280x1024 monitors. He just needs THAT many browser windows open (our entire purchasing/inventory/sales/customer/etc software is web-based, not to mention any other web pages he needs to access)
TaskBar Grouping . . . useless, and not terribly important.
Are you kidding? One look at my boss' screen and you'd think differently. I looked as his taskbar the other day, and it was full of 25-30 little Firefox icons (with a few others mixed in) followed by one, maybe two letters of the page name. He had no idea which window contained what (combine that with 3-10 tabs in each window to make for a worse picture). At least a taskbar grouping would have shown "firefox" and when clicked on would bring up another menu showing everything that he had open. Granted, he seems to like it like this (and yes, he was actively using/reading most of those web pages, and I'm sure all but one or two were related to something he was buying/selling/researching for the company), but personally I would have praised taskbar grouping and compressed those down to a handful of "buttons" like my (occasionally) beloved gnome taskbar does for me.
Though I'm forced to agree with you on auto-hiding. I've always thought it was a cool feature, but every time I turn it on, it gets turned off about 5 minutes later out of annoyance. Now something like OSX's bar would be cool. shrink down to tiny (but still visible/readable), and a mouseover quickly brings things up to size.
did my typical search for "1u server" (one of our company's target search phrases). Not only did it take 25 seconds to process the request. You're darn right it's unusable. Google comes back with the results faster than galeon can render the page.
Some bit of ActiveX that, when signed by Microsoft, would always be run by Microsoft MUAs?
Or better yet, an embedded <img> tag (or something similar) that is just like what the spammers use for tracking valid email addresses. There are severalcompanies that offer this technology to consumers. Problem is, it doesn't work if you use a mail client capable of blocking "remote" images (which is a feature even webmail providers are starting to offer.
Video editors and - especially - motion graphics designers use every pixel of those huge screens. And they have the bucks to buy them, too.
Don't forget coders. I'd love to fill that 30" of goodness with 9 point fixed with font. But unlike with those designers and video editors, $3k is a bit out of my budget (not to mention the $3k mac to go with it -- need linux support for that new vid card first).
Actually, putting a window behind your monitor has real benefits
If there is daylight outside your window, it is considerably brighter than any monitor (even through most blinds). Thus, the large delta that you speak of. I keep my blinds closed during the day, and they're still not enough (window beside me, not behind the monitor). In the evenings, I can happily open them up. That said, if you're lucky enough to have a window in your office (or two huge ones like I do), arrange your desk and monitor such that you minimize the contrast between the monitor, backlight and glare. Your eyes will thank you. (you can also use a light-on-dark theme to reduce eye strain)
As a coder, I'm in a constant fight against bad lighting. Many people here bash flourescent lights, but in my office at home I put in some full spectrum lights and LOVE the light quality. Another option would be to get the new high frequency lights (unfortunately no full spectrum bulbs for these yet), which do not have the same visible flicker that annoys a lot of people.
However, number one on my list of light tips is NEVER EVER put a light source in the field of vision behind a computer monitor (eg. don't face your desk and computer out a window). It will force your eyes to continuously adjust between light levels while trying to focus on the light produced from the monitor and that coming from behind it. Always put light sources behind the viewer. Use diffused lights (eg. not a window) when possible to reduce glare, too.
Plants are also a benefit in increasing the mood of a room. I don't have any at work (yet), but the shelves in my home office are covered in plants, and I can attest that when they're not there (I recently had a mealy bug infestation and had to quarantine them) the room is not as nice of a place to be. And I mean real, living plants, not the plastic kind. If you're worried about maintenance, get succulents like hoyas -- they'll stay happy even if you forget to water them for weeks, and they have really cool flowers.
If your bank is forging the envelope, then you should block them, since their software is borken.
Yeah, I messed up on the header/envelope thing. Either way, there are a LOT of websites out there that do this thing, not just ingdirect (and I make money off of referring friends, so I'm not going to just block them). The issue isn't that the servers are specifically choosing to forge the envelope FROM, but that most web apps don't care -- eg. you use php's mail() function to send mail, it picks the "From:" out of the headers and sends that info to sendmail for use as the envelope FROM. Regardless, this practice is "broken" because it breaks SPF, but not "broken" by SMTP standards -- the message WAS initiated by me (eg. I clicked the "refer a friend" button), it just doesn't originate from my server, and is "from" someone else, even if all replies should be directed to me.
Unless you need the groupware functionality of Exchange, go with postfix or courier. Then install Spamassassin and Rules du Jour to keep your spamassassin rules up to date, and a good serverside antivirus program like Clam. Also, configure some blackhole servers (I use dnsbl.sorbs.net, list.dsbl.org, dnsbl.njabl.org and relays.ordb.org).
And then be prepared to continue filtering out spam (although with my setup, of the 100+ daily messages that would get into my inbox without filtering, I now get about 10, all marked as spam, with the rest getting blocked by the rbl lists and some custom rules).
Enabling SPF is only half of the battle. It isn't until online web services start understanding that they need to use reply-to instead of just putting a user's address in the from field that SPF will really work. I've had to disable my server's SPF checking because some services I use (like my bank - ingdirect.com) like to send things like referrals "from" me, rather than "from" themselves with a reply-to to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Which might be why he says that it "must be treated like a loaded gun at all times."
People just don't care so much about copying books because it's a real pain and not really worth the effort. The one and only time I bothered to scan a book in its entirety (back in college) was for a book that was long out of print, and the 2 used copies for sale in the US were over $250 apiece (more than a college student could afford). It took me about 2 weeks of my free time to scan the 200 or so pages. Hardly a comparison when it takes 5 minutes to rip a cd.
Since when? Last time I tried to copy pages out a a book at a library, there were signs saying that there was something around a 15 page limit per-book. Fair use for copying books relates specifically for using the books as reference materials, where you wouldn't need the entire book. If you copy the whole book, it's just as much a copyright violation as if you copied a CD (incidentally, there is also a fair use of copying audio and video allowed to students and news organizations -- I think it's 45 seconds).
Until recently, there has been no easy way to do a large number of Debian installs. And now, you have to use the "unstable" version to get any of that functionality. RedHat has a lot going for it with kickstart. I can boot a machine over pxe, pick from any number of standard install images, and then let the machine set itself up (including all kinds of post-install scripts for custom images). Then again, most of our customers are getting Fedora, not RHEL, since RHEL would get a bit expensive for 100+ servers at a time.
How are we supposed to report these places if they resort to tactics like this? Next time, I'll be smarter and get the phone number (in case we're disconnected, of course) before asking for a supervisor.
For those who don't know, Arak is the Israeli (and Lebanese and Syrian) word for the anise liquor known in Greece as Uozo and in Turkey as Raki. There are variations of this drink around the world (from South America to India), and though people may argue that one is better than the other, they're all basically the same idea (I hear that Syrian Arak is the best of the bunch). And I agree, much better than vodka. Especially for the science nerd in all of us as we marvel at the totally clear liquid turning milky white as the water from melting ice mixes with the alcoholic beverage.
This comes up time and time again on /., and personally I don't care if the code is open or not. The touchscreens should ONLY be used for input. They can also be used to provide a preliminary (ie. UNOFFICIAL) count, but would print out a machine- and human-readable paper ballot, which the user can verify and then drop into a ballot box to be counted.
Eat, Drink and Be Healthy is a book from Harvard Med. that talks about all kinds of things relating to food and health. Aside from debunking the USDA food pyramid, the authors also go on to show that though red wine is good for you, it's actually the alcohol in it that provides the largest health benefit. So, wine, beer or whiskey, men should have 1-2 drinks daily, and women 0-1. Just remember that alcohol (especially beer) is high in carbs, so if you're on one of those misguided low-carb diets, you need to watch out.
This point needs to be emphasized. The whole point of SPF is to prevent spammers from falsifying return addresses. If they want to publish their own legitimate SPF records, then by all means let them. Then we can just block them by their domain names without any fear of blocking legitimate email.
Yes. But in the case of the current American presidential election, the damage being done by the current administration to foreign relations, the environment, the economy, etc., etc., is progressing at such a pace that something must be done to stop it. I'm willing to put my Green voting habits aside (please remember that not even the Green party would sponsor Nader this time around) for 4 years if it gets Bush and his puppeteers out of office.
There are a number of veggie-oil mod kits for diesel engines. They either attach a heater to the engine and fuel lines to reliquify the oil (superheating oil causes it to hydrogenate, which basically turns it into crisco, a solid at room temperature), or puts a switch into the fuel line for you to run normal (bio)diesel fuel through for the first and last 5 or so minutes to heat the engine up to where it'll ignite raw oil, and then flush it out to get rid of any hydrogenated oil before it turns off.
Actually, they all go to #, which doesn't actually go anywhere. I call foul on this test -- it doesn't actually matter what the content of the email says (since I have no way to know that ebay would never suspend my account for not updating my info unless I actually go and look at the fraud stuff in their faq). A phishing message is easily (and only accurately) detected by looking at the address pointed to by the links within (which is what you will see banks, etc. telling you: "if you are unsure, just manually type our URL in, or call us"). How can this test be an accurate measure of people's ability to detect phishing emails if the links (the only worthy mark of a phishing email) they've given us don't actually link to real or fake sites?
Hanford PR people claimed for years that it would take decades for their waste to filter into the Columbia, until some scientists pointed out that the waste had already been flowing into the Columbia for years.
Agreed. Bandwidth is expensive, and even if you're just rejecting messages, there's still bandwidth being used. My personal favorite is dont@send.spam -- not only is it an impossible domain, but it sends a message, too (and it's short to type).
Basic is essentially a scripting language; now we have other scripting languages like VB (not free), perl, php, python (all free) and many others. All of the free ones run in windows and linux and osx. They may not come preinstalled in windows or osx (well, OSX comes with perl), but they're pretty easy to grab and install, and make a great starting platform for new programmers. Interpreted (or pseudo-interpreted) language means no waiting for things to compile, either, so there is a good level of instant gratification.
You must have missed the part about each of those 25-30 windows having 3-10 tabs apiece.
2. If you use Windows, you should consider installing a tray minimizer
He uses Win2k, which is totally capable of taskbar grouping. Like I said, he says he prefers this clutter method. And his taskbar extends across the bottom of both 1280x1024 monitors. He just needs THAT many browser windows open (our entire purchasing/inventory/sales/customer/etc software is web-based, not to mention any other web pages he needs to access)
Are you kidding? One look at my boss' screen and you'd think differently. I looked as his taskbar the other day, and it was full of 25-30 little Firefox icons (with a few others mixed in) followed by one, maybe two letters of the page name. He had no idea which window contained what (combine that with 3-10 tabs in each window to make for a worse picture). At least a taskbar grouping would have shown "firefox" and when clicked on would bring up another menu showing everything that he had open. Granted, he seems to like it like this (and yes, he was actively using/reading most of those web pages, and I'm sure all but one or two were related to something he was buying/selling/researching for the company), but personally I would have praised taskbar grouping and compressed those down to a handful of "buttons" like my (occasionally) beloved gnome taskbar does for me.
Though I'm forced to agree with you on auto-hiding. I've always thought it was a cool feature, but every time I turn it on, it gets turned off about 5 minutes later out of annoyance. Now something like OSX's bar would be cool. shrink down to tiny (but still visible/readable), and a mouseover quickly brings things up to size.
did my typical search for "1u server" (one of our company's target search phrases). Not only did it take 25 seconds to process the request. You're darn right it's unusable. Google comes back with the results faster than galeon can render the page.
Or better yet, an embedded <img> tag (or something similar) that is just like what the spammers use for tracking valid email addresses. There are several companies that offer this technology to consumers. Problem is, it doesn't work if you use a mail client capable of blocking "remote" images (which is a feature even webmail providers are starting to offer.
Don't forget coders. I'd love to fill that 30" of goodness with 9 point fixed with font. But unlike with those designers and video editors, $3k is a bit out of my budget (not to mention the $3k mac to go with it -- need linux support for that new vid card first).
If there is daylight outside your window, it is considerably brighter than any monitor (even through most blinds). Thus, the large delta that you speak of. I keep my blinds closed during the day, and they're still not enough (window beside me, not behind the monitor). In the evenings, I can happily open them up. That said, if you're lucky enough to have a window in your office (or two huge ones like I do), arrange your desk and monitor such that you minimize the contrast between the monitor, backlight and glare. Your eyes will thank you. (you can also use a light-on-dark theme to reduce eye strain)
However, number one on my list of light tips is NEVER EVER put a light source in the field of vision behind a computer monitor (eg. don't face your desk and computer out a window). It will force your eyes to continuously adjust between light levels while trying to focus on the light produced from the monitor and that coming from behind it. Always put light sources behind the viewer. Use diffused lights (eg. not a window) when possible to reduce glare, too.
Plants are also a benefit in increasing the mood of a room. I don't have any at work (yet), but the shelves in my home office are covered in plants, and I can attest that when they're not there (I recently had a mealy bug infestation and had to quarantine them) the room is not as nice of a place to be. And I mean real, living plants, not the plastic kind. If you're worried about maintenance, get succulents like hoyas -- they'll stay happy even if you forget to water them for weeks, and they have really cool flowers.
Yeah, I messed up on the header/envelope thing. Either way, there are a LOT of websites out there that do this thing, not just ingdirect (and I make money off of referring friends, so I'm not going to just block them). The issue isn't that the servers are specifically choosing to forge the envelope FROM, but that most web apps don't care -- eg. you use php's mail() function to send mail, it picks the "From:" out of the headers and sends that info to sendmail for use as the envelope FROM. Regardless, this practice is "broken" because it breaks SPF, but not "broken" by SMTP standards -- the message WAS initiated by me (eg. I clicked the "refer a friend" button), it just doesn't originate from my server, and is "from" someone else, even if all replies should be directed to me.
And then be prepared to continue filtering out spam (although with my setup, of the 100+ daily messages that would get into my inbox without filtering, I now get about 10, all marked as spam, with the rest getting blocked by the rbl lists and some custom rules).
Enabling SPF is only half of the battle. It isn't until online web services start understanding that they need to use reply-to instead of just putting a user's address in the from field that SPF will really work. I've had to disable my server's SPF checking because some services I use (like my bank - ingdirect.com) like to send things like referrals "from" me, rather than "from" themselves with a reply-to to me.