Heh... it would be very _very_ ironic if Madonna or Cher or (insert famous artist) would be caught sharing some files... I say if there are any artists out there that don't condone with the way the RIAA is acting: put your own full songs online... so the RIAA would be sueing the original musicians for sharing their own material.
On a side note... this sueing will in the foreseeable future only affect US-based filesharers. I think there are enough Europeans sharing tons of mp3's (remember, it's only the music sharing that the RIAA is after), so Americans may download the songs and put them in another - not shared - folder. That way, they do have the music, but are not liable to get sued - as far as the RIAA can tell.
The big question becomes: is this all bullshit? Are software users really liable for the behavior of third parties? When you put it that way, it seems ridiculous. But software has function -- it does stuff. If your computer does something in violation of some patent, it's your agent that is doing it, at your direction, on your behalf. Is it relevant that someone else gave the instructions on how to do it? I can look up a patent in a database and quote it to you, but if you then follow those directions that I gave you, you're the one who is violating the patent, not me.
Now let's just hope some spammer uses outlook and lets M$ pay the bill for all the legal hassle... That would be fun... Ahh, imagine the headlines:
HDD manufacturers said they expect to start replacing 3.5in. disk drives with smaller 2.5in. devices in enterprise products sometime within the next year.
Why would they want to do this? Has it something to do with vibrations (or even shattering a disk) due to the extreme rpm's that these drives are running? I don't know much about this stuff, so could someone please enlighten me?
Anecdotal remarks don't mean terribly much. They do... it's what makes people buy stuff (if they can resist the marketing brainwash). If I tell someone that the TV I got had been sent back to the shop 5 times... and he tells me he never had a problem with brand X, I would be tempted to do some research (ain't internet great?) and buy one myself... Word of mouth advertising is often underestimated, but it's a huge factor for a lot of people... Furthermore, Sony is not well known for top of the line electronics... they're well known for consumer electronics. Buy it, use it, break it, buy a new one. This is in stark contrast with high end manufacturers... you buy it, use it, break it, repair it, break it, repair it, etc ad infineam. After using it for about 20 years you're going to want new equipment anyway. I don't give a sh*t about all those nice colors (silver is soooo millenium) and the huge displays (it's an amplifier for crying out loud... not a TV), and I do not want to shell out a few hundred euros for some equipment I can throw away in 4 to 5 years... I'd rather pay 100 euros more for stuff that lasts double (or even triple or quadruple) that amount of time. In the end I'm cheaper off this way. Just my 2 eurocents
uhm... that may be their testing, but my real life experience with Sony is a bit different:
2 friends of mine have a big Sony setup with all the whistles & bells... it died after about 5 years of normal use.
Another friend of mine has a full Sony setup:
video recorder, videocamera, dvd-player, TV & stereo set. The camera works great, as do the TV & videorecorder, but oh boy the stereo & dvd-player... the stereo has been back to the shop about a zillion times in the 6 years this guy has the setup... the remote control doesn't work properly, the volume button only sets the volume to MAX and his 3 month old dvd-player has al lot of erratic behavior. A bit more on topic: his dvd-player plays less burned disks than my car stereo (Rockford Fosgate). Most (Japanese) car stereos have a lousy playback on cd-r anyway, though it's been getting better lately.
I'm glad I bought a Pioneer setup (components) with some decent speakers... this setup is 14 years old, and not a single component has failed up to now. I only had to change the batteries in the cd-players remote once... I'm still using the factory-supplied batteries in the amplifier's remote, and it's being used every day (well almost)...
I tried several experiments (and I don't even have kids, I just like to do this kind of stuff and I'm either too lazy or stupid to come up with my own stuff) and it's just fun to do... For us geeks, the site includes an argumantation of why a certain device works and how with the laws of physics and all...
These techniques are certainly more graceful and less of an OS kludge than whatever Microsoft had to bolt onto Windows, and could easily be applied to other Unix-like OS's.
Microsoft uses a thin local Terminal Server that's running in the background to achieve this. Quite elegant actually. The only problem with this is that it adds another layer between user & hardware, so there's a performance hit. I was really impressed with how WinXP handled itself in a little test I devised: Start installing MS Office in 1 account, switch to user2 and start surfing the web, fetching e-mail, etc. Switch back and hey presto! office was installed. I say: sweet. that's a good implementation. I don't know anyone who would want to do that on a daily basis, but hey, it's proof of concept.
Ouch... imagine running a screenreader...
The horror, the pain... but seriously, wouldn't a screenreader read every letter out loud? I could imagine this would be an excrutiating experience. "hyphen hyphen hyphen hyphen a a a a a a a a a a a hyphen hyphen hyphen o o o o o hyphen o o o... etc"
Nope, doesn't improve usability I guess
Might it be a big coverup from some real blackhats to disguise their own traffic whilst hacking some evil (tm) company/government/whathaveyou?
The release of a new worm also comes to mind...
So Alanis is right on the spot, trying to make a song about irony, but that ironically is ironically challenged... Oh the irony!
Try to say that out loud 5 times in a row... ouch.
It is true that in Europe the vacation system is a bit tricky, but at least it assures that you get a vacation... For instance, in the Netherlands it is legally required to allow an employee a vacation of at least 14 consecutive days. I've never worked with the US approach, but I like the equality that the European system ensures.
Another thing to take into account is what this hard work gets the country. Because of...
...more expensive. True, we work hard, but our hard work reflects in the low product prices and high standard of living.
I understand that a population that's working hard reaps the benefits. This may be reflected in low product prices, but NOT in a high standard of living. You're maybe gauging everybody in the US to your own financial situation, but that's closing your eyes to reality. There are a lot of people working 2 to 3 jobs just to get by. If you compare this with Sweden for example, they have a very high standard of living, including the vacation benefits. True, life may be more expensive there, but they also have a good welfare system, so not a lot of people get left behind like in the US. Here's a nice comparison chart
...it is very likely that many if not most systems in the developing countries will be running Linux. This is bound to have an effect on developed countries also.
So in the future I can buy a preconfigured SPAM-server from Nigeria?
Even if you don't want to read the article, at least the story submission. Or at least the first sentence of it.
obligatory/. quote:
"You must be new here"
that gave all this valuable information. With all the help I got here, I decided to get him SuSe Linux, so his mom and dad can read the books that come with the packaged distro, and because SuSe also offers support, I figured (them being n00bz) that was the best I could do for them. I set his box up - this was very straightforward clicketyclick stuff and I showed him and his parents some things about how to get around the system. He's happily using the system for more than a week now, and they're really satisfied with it. I gave them a few pointers to other accessibility websites and I haven't heard from them since, so I guess it's all good.
I agree. I stopped watching after they cancelled Ren & Stimpy and Beavis & Butthead. Those were the last 2 reasons I watched it. I never liked
Daria much, I just wanted some funny cartoons that were targeted at an "older audience".
How to make your floppy drive into a WiFi Access Point. First, put in a linux floppy distro and load... oh wait, the antenna is stuck in there... Nevermind...
Why not use the landcodes from the internet? I just went to the caribbean on a holiday and instead of putting "Netherlands" on one of the postcards, I wrote ".nl". Believe it or not, this card was the first to arrive, the ones marked with "Netherlands" came in 2 days later.
So we may propose keeping the current system for national mail, and putting the internet suffix ".tw,.ru,.de,.whathaveyou" behind the ZIP-code for international mail. This will be sufficiently easy to implement for the customers (that's us), as well as for the OCR equipment that the postal services are using.
This might be cool, but I don't know how his financial situation is (he's 15 years old), so I'm looking into some low-to-no cost options. I don't even know which Braille-terminal he has (he does have one though). This makes it all a bit more difficult. Yesterday I finally got around to playing with the Knoppix 3.2 (linux-live-on-CD) version, and lo and behold: there's an option for a braille config as well. That's really good, now I can put that disk in the guys box and see if any weird things are going to happen - without messing up his box. You mentioned you have very bad vision: I stumbled accross this site, which you might find of use.
I know, but I lack experience, and I was wondering if anyone out there has some knowledge regarding this issue. I'll definately go look in the SuSe newsgroups though.
I myself was thinking of using Debian, but I never heard of Festival... I'll definately look it up though. Debian is also using Gnome as the default desktop, and as someone else pointed out, has won an award for accessibility (I read that article already, so my mind is made up for Gnome). Too bad I haven't heard any BSD users yet, I'm also interested in the features BSD has to offer - besides being dead:o)
Slashdot Mirror
On a side note... this sueing will in the foreseeable future only affect US-based filesharers. I think there are enough Europeans sharing tons of mp3's (remember, it's only the music sharing that the RIAA is after), so Americans may download the songs and put them in another - not shared - folder. That way, they do have the music, but are not liable to get sued - as far as the RIAA can tell.
Now let's just hope some spammer uses outlook and lets M$ pay the bill for all the legal hassle... That would be fun... Ahh, imagine the headlines:
Microsoft backing up spammers in court
*drool*Hmpf... why didn't I think of the seek times? I must be tired Inear end of night shift :)
HDD manufacturers said they expect to start replacing 3.5in. disk drives with smaller 2.5in. devices in enterprise products sometime within the next year.
Why would they want to do this? Has it something to do with vibrations (or even shattering a disk) due to the extreme rpm's that these drives are running?I don't know much about this stuff, so could someone please enlighten me?
flowers
apple
Seems like the pot blaiming the kettle... They do have a few "relevant" links... but mostly it has the same "problem" as Google...
Feh!Anecdotal remarks don't mean terribly much.
They do... it's what makes people buy stuff (if they can resist the marketing brainwash). If I tell someone that the TV I got had been sent back to the shop 5 times... and he tells me he never had a problem with brand X, I would be tempted to do some research (ain't internet great?) and buy one myself... Word of mouth advertising is often underestimated, but it's a huge factor for a lot of people... Furthermore, Sony is not well known for top of the line electronics... they're well known for consumer electronics. Buy it, use it, break it, buy a new one. This is in stark contrast with high end manufacturers... you buy it, use it, break it, repair it, break it, repair it, etc ad infineam. After using it for about 20 years you're going to want new equipment anyway. I don't give a sh*t about all those nice colors (silver is soooo millenium) and the huge displays (it's an amplifier for crying out loud... not a TV), and I do not want to shell out a few hundred euros for some equipment I can throw away in 4 to 5 years... I'd rather pay 100 euros more for stuff that lasts double (or even triple or quadruple) that amount of time. In the end I'm cheaper off this way.
Just my 2 eurocents
uhm... that may be their testing, but my real life experience with Sony is a bit different: 2 friends of mine have a big Sony setup with all the whistles & bells... it died after about 5 years of normal use. Another friend of mine has a full Sony setup: video recorder, videocamera, dvd-player, TV & stereo set. The camera works great, as do the TV & videorecorder, but oh boy the stereo & dvd-player... the stereo has been back to the shop about a zillion times in the 6 years this guy has the setup... the remote control doesn't work properly, the volume button only sets the volume to MAX and his 3 month old dvd-player has al lot of erratic behavior.
A bit more on topic: his dvd-player plays less burned disks than my car stereo (Rockford Fosgate). Most (Japanese) car stereos have a lousy playback on cd-r anyway, though it's been getting better lately.
I'm glad I bought a Pioneer setup (components) with some decent speakers... this setup is 14 years old, and not a single component has failed up to now. I only had to change the batteries in the cd-players remote once... I'm still using the factory-supplied batteries in the amplifier's remote, and it's being used every day (well almost)...
I tried several experiments (and I don't even have kids, I just like to do this kind of stuff and I'm either too lazy or stupid to come up with my own stuff) and it's just fun to do... For us geeks, the site includes an argumantation of why a certain device works and how with the laws of physics and all...
I was really impressed with how WinXP handled itself in a little test I devised: Start installing MS Office in 1 account, switch to user2 and start surfing the web, fetching e-mail, etc. Switch back and hey presto! office was installed. I say: sweet. that's a good implementation. I don't know anyone who would want to do that on a daily basis, but hey, it's proof of concept.
Ouch... imagine running a screenreader... The horror, the pain...
but seriously, wouldn't a screenreader read every letter out loud? I could imagine this would be an excrutiating experience. "hyphen hyphen hyphen hyphen a a a a a a a a a a a hyphen hyphen hyphen o o o o o hyphen o o o... etc"
Nope, doesn't improve usability I guess
Might it be a big coverup from some real blackhats to disguise their own traffic whilst hacking some evil (tm) company/government/whathaveyou?
The release of a new worm also comes to mind...
Oh... computer part? ehrm... nevermind
So Alanis is right on the spot, trying to make a song about irony, but that ironically is ironically challenged... Oh the irony! Try to say that out loud 5 times in a row... ouch.
I understand that a population that's working hard reaps the benefits. This may be reflected in low product prices, but NOT in a high standard of living. You're maybe gauging everybody in the US to your own financial situation, but that's closing your eyes to reality. There are a lot of people working 2 to 3 jobs just to get by. If you compare this with Sweden for example, they have a very high standard of living, including the vacation benefits. True, life may be more expensive there, but they also have a good welfare system, so not a lot of people get left behind like in the US. Here's a nice comparison chart
Even if you don't want to read the article, at least the story submission. Or at least the first sentence of it. /. quote:
"You must be new here"
obligatory
No, it's not. I did a tracert 66.200.17.45 and it had a routing loop @ the 64.8.192.33 and 64.8.192.34, which means the line is down.
that gave all this valuable information. With all the help I got here, I decided to get him SuSe Linux, so his mom and dad can read the books that come with the packaged distro, and because SuSe also offers support, I figured (them being n00bz) that was the best I could do for them. I set his box up - this was very straightforward clicketyclick stuff and I showed him and his parents some things about how to get around the system. He's happily using the system for more than a week now, and they're really satisfied with it. I gave them a few pointers to other accessibility websites and I haven't heard from them since, so I guess it's all good.
How to make your floppy drive into a WiFi Access Point. First, put in a linux floppy distro and load... oh wait, the antenna is stuck in there...
Nevermind...
I just went to the caribbean on a holiday and instead of putting "Netherlands" on one of the postcards, I wrote ".nl".
Believe it or not, this card was the first to arrive, the ones marked with "Netherlands" came in 2 days later.
So we may propose keeping the current system for national mail, and putting the internet suffix ".tw, .ru, .de, .whathaveyou" behind the ZIP-code for international mail. This will be sufficiently easy to implement for the customers (that's us), as well as for the OCR equipment that the postal services are using.
This might be cool, but I don't know how his financial situation is (he's 15 years old), so I'm looking into some low-to-no cost options. I don't even know which Braille-terminal he has (he does have one though). This makes it all a bit more difficult. Yesterday I finally got around to playing with the Knoppix 3.2 (linux-live-on-CD) version, and lo and behold: there's an option for a braille config as well. That's really good, now I can put that disk in the guys box and see if any weird things are going to happen - without messing up his box.
You mentioned you have very bad vision: I stumbled accross this site, which you might find of use.
I know, but I lack experience, and I was wondering if anyone out there has some knowledge regarding this issue. I'll definately go look in the SuSe newsgroups though.
I myself was thinking of using Debian, but I never heard of Festival... I'll definately look it up though. Debian is also using Gnome as the default desktop, and as someone else pointed out, has won an award for accessibility (I read that article already, so my mind is made up for Gnome). :o)
Too bad I haven't heard any BSD users yet, I'm also interested in the features BSD has to offer - besides being dead