I rarely delete my existing cookies, but I do generally disallow sites from setting cookies unless there is a positive reason why I'd want them to have that ability.
For example, if I read a Slashdot post that links to an article on $RANDOMSITE, which tries to set a cookie when I visit it, I simply disallow that cookie and tell Mozilla to remember my choice. For Slashdot itself, on the other hand, I do allow cookies (and persistent cookies, too, not just session cookies); I like to be able to have the site customised to my preferences and to be able to post without having to log in first.
For sites that do legitimately require cookies to function (many e-commerce sites, for example) but for which I don't want the tracking etc. that comes with persistent cookies, I typically allow session cookies only, so that new cookies are thrown away when I exit Mozilla.
In general, the decision really depends on whether I think I get any value out of the cookies myself (as opposed to simply being tracked without any benefit for myself), and on how "evil" I think the site is. The "remember my decision" functionality ensures that I don't have to click away tons of cookie setting attempts each time I use the browser.
As far as ad tracking is concerned (as opposed to tracking done by the site I visit), I usually don't even see those cookies, since AdBlock already blocks the images/iframes/objects in question.
But of course, all that's just me, and I don't think I'm a typical user. The rest of my family, who doesn't obsess about computers the same way I do, probably doesn't even know what cookies are, much less that you can even choose to not accept them.
There's also another question: how many people who downloaded FireFox actually use it? I imagine that there's a considerable number of people who do get hooked, but there'll probably also be lots who don't.
I myself am an example. I've downloaded Firefox about half a dozen times in total (different versions), but even though I have it installed (mostly as a convenience for visitors who're used to it), I still use Seamonkey myself - and, for that matter, I consider Seamonkey to be superior to Firefox.
I may not be a typical example, but the raw number of downloads is not really a good metric to assess how widespread a browser is - it's a rather meaningless number, even though it makes for nice headlines of course.
Maybe it's just me, but TFA seems to be talking about 900k posts a day, not 9 million - and that's not even something that can be explained by a simple typo.
Deliberate misinformation? Who knows, but it sure shows just why submissions *should* in fact be proofread by editors (yes, even those lazy bums on Slashdot).
There's another, even bigger problem with this whole thing that I see: although it might be (comparatively!) easy to start a greenhouse effect, how do you stop it once you get to the point where Mars has become habitable for us (temperature-wise, at least)? How do you prevent it from becoming a deadly hell like Venus?
Also, there is, of course, the fact that temperature is just one problem. For example, Mars' atmosphere is (IIRC) only about one hundredth of the pressure of Earth's. That certainly is nowhere near enough to support human habitation, and given Mars' much smaller size, it's not immediately clear to me that it would be able to permanently hold a thicker atmosphere, either.
These problems seem to be wholly unaccounted for, so AFAICT, the whole thing's little more than intellectual masturbation.
Every spammer that goes to jail for his actions is a victory. For one, it's quite well-known that most of the spam we see today originates from a relatively small group of people, so it's not exactly "one down, several more million to go"; and also, even if there were considerably more, the mere fact that they now know that they might go to jail for spamming just might be a deterrent. Spamming is pretty much a textbook example of whitecollar crime, and it's been shown that unlike with bluecollar crime (that is, more physical crimes, like assault, rape, robbery etc.), prison sentences actually do serve as a deterrent here.
Remember, spammers are cowards - and greedy cowards, for that matter. They do what they do to get rich quick, so the prospect losing their money in lawsuits and possibly going to jail afterwards will scare them quite a bit.
Would that be a good idea? If crypto is implemented in software, you can (relatively) easy fix bugs; if it's done in hardware, then every bug found means you're basically screwed.
That being said, the attacks described are *not* remotely exploitable per se, and they can easily be worked around by not using hyperthreading, anyway, so they're really a tempest in a teapot.
Being unique is not enough for something to be patentable - it also has to be novel in a non-obvious way, i.e., it has to be something that someone working in the field would not be able to come up with after two seconds.
Take medications, for example. IANAL, but my take on it would be that (for example), if I come up with, say, a new class of painkillers that are different from those we have today, then that's patentable, because it wouldn't be obvious that substances of the new class do function as painkillers, or that if you wanted a painkiller, using that class of substances would be the natural way to go.
On the other hand, if I take an established kind of painkillers and modify it slightly (for example, by replacing a hydrogen atom with a CH3 group somewhere) to get a new substance, then that's not patentable, since I didn't do anything fundamentally new and non-obvious.
The same thing seems to apply here (although it's hard to tell, as the server's currently slashdotted). Even if you take the article summary with a big grain of salt (which is advisable on Slashdot), it's hard to imagine that making numbers stand out in a document is something non-obvious - or, for that matter, something new.
Remember, the purpose of patents is not to give businesses a way of extracting money from everyone; the purpose is to further science and technology by encouraging research. The 20-year monopoly that comes with the grant of a patent is a reward for doing that research, if you will - but that also means that the contribution to science and technology should be big enough to justify this reward.
There's nothing "forced" about the GPL, and certainly no "forced reverse leeching". Keep in mind that noone's ever being *forced* to use GPL'ed code; they can just as well develop their own solution, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, the fact that a GPL'ed product exists is entirely irrelevant if you don't use it - you're no worse off than you'd be if the GPL'ed product was not available at all.
That being said, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the BSD license, either; it's just that some people prefer one and some prefer the other, and both groups have good reasons for their respective stances, too. Whether either license is "better" is a question that cannot be answered objectively.
As for the BSD license allowing more freedom, that depends on what your definition of freedom is - and, for that matter, what your definition of "users" is. The GPL and the BSD license provide different kinds of freedom.
You may think of your software as a free gift that the receivers can use in whatever way they want, but others (like me) view their software as part of a bigger deal - I'll scratch your back, and you scratch mine. I don't expect anyone who uses my software to give back by contributing to it, but *if* they want to build on it, I expect them to honour the deal as well.
In that sense, neither license is better or worse than the other, so let's stop fighting over these things.:)
If a piece of software is licensed specifically under the terms of the GPL v2 only, then of course, the license does not automatically get updated.
If a piece of software is licensed under the regular GPL (which says that you can also use the software under, "at your option, any later version"), then it does not automatically get updated, either, but others who work on GPL v3 projects can incorporate your code under the GPL v3. Similarly, you can decide to relicense your own project under the GPL v3 (with or without the "later versions" clause) without having to check with every past contributor, as the existing license already allows you to use the code under the new version of the license.
That being said, you wouldn't have to contact everyone who touched "even 1 bit of the code"; trivial contributions cannot be copyrighted. I don't know where the line is drawn (IANAL), and I'm not even sure there is a clear line, but things like trivial fixes (for example, typos etc.) are uncopyrightable.
Funny. I recall an interview with a so-called "futurologist" in a computer magazine about 20 years ago who said that in the future, computers would directly interface with our brains and who, when asked how long this would take, said the technology'd be there in about 30 years.
There seems to be something magical about "30 years"; it's short enough to whet people's appetites, but long enough so that technical feasability does not have be considered - it's long enough to claim that there simply will be new discoveries we (naturally) don't know about yet who will make the predicted stuff possible.
Seriously, you either can make a prediction that something will happen in a certain amount of time because the basic technology is there, or you can't - and if you can't, you shouldn't go around pulling numbers out of your ass. It will only make you look like a fool in retrospect (although whether anyone will remember a random Slashdot comment is another question, of course).
But there will never be compulsory "implants" that will be required for all.
While I agree with most of your post, I'd be careful with statements like that. Never say never - there's already lots of stuff going on today that people probably wouldn't have believed would ever happen some 230 years ago.
So, what about fair use then? There are several European countries where you automatically pay a fee for each and every CD/vinyl record, each and every CD-R or other blank media, and - last not least - each and every *computer* you purchase, in order to compensate the content industry for losses they suffer due to fair use.
It seems that (unfortunately, even though understandably) the content industry would like to keep these fees while at the same time outlawing fair use.
But what exactly *is* fair use, anyway? It's not at all clear, and the introduction of criminal penalties for copyright infringement (not piracy - piracy means sailing the seven seas, bringing up other ships, stealing their cargo and keelhauling the crew) is likely to scare people enough so that they won't even exercise their fair use rights for fear of going "too far" and opening them up not only to civil lawsuits, but criminal cases as well.
But of course, it may not be a problem, since despite the fees they collect, the content industry seems to be happy to include copy-prevention measures on their media that do not just inhibit copyright infringement but also fair use.
What's more, it's been ruled in the past that despite the fact that these fees are collected, users do not actually have *right* to fair use - so the industry is free to take it away through technical means. Maybe we should just pass a law that requires us to turn over all our money to the industry - that'd save us all a lot of hassle.
Huh? Why? Because they decided not to talk to CNet anymore? Tough for CNet, but there's no legal or even moral obligation for them to do so.
Whether it's justified or not is another matter, but I think you're blowing the issue a bit out of proportion if you proclaim that this is the end of them being (or trying to be) the "good" guys.
You know you've spent too much time on Slashdot (or in front of your computer in general)......if you read that line about "AP" mines and "crawlspaces" and immediately thought about Associated Press and webcrawlers, without even realizing that that may not be what the poster meant until a reply made it clear.
That's the way it should be, but is it really the way things *are*? The fascists will still be able to interpret these amendments their way - similar to how the opening phrase of the declaration of independence (which states, among other things, that "all men are created equal") was twisted by advocates of slavery, who claimed that of course it only applied to white people, and that while it didn't explicitely say so, it of course was what the founding fathers meant.
The same thing will happen here (or, maybe, is happening here already): there will be claims that even though it doesn't *explicitely* say so, it *of course* only refers to citizens of the USA, and how naive do you have to be to even question that, sonny.
Don't get me wrong, I really agree with your point of view, but I think that in reality, there'll be lots of ways around it, if it even comes up in the mainstream press.
Slashdot Mirror
748 days? Wow. Think about that - it's more than two years. Quite an accomplishment indeed.
Out of curiosity, what's the record amount of time spent in space by a US-American astronaut?
I rarely delete my existing cookies, but I do generally disallow sites from setting cookies unless there is a positive reason why I'd want them to have that ability.
For example, if I read a Slashdot post that links to an article on $RANDOMSITE, which tries to set a cookie when I visit it, I simply disallow that cookie and tell Mozilla to remember my choice. For Slashdot itself, on the other hand, I do allow cookies (and persistent cookies, too, not just session cookies); I like to be able to have the site customised to my preferences and to be able to post without having to log in first.
For sites that do legitimately require cookies to function (many e-commerce sites, for example) but for which I don't want the tracking etc. that comes with persistent cookies, I typically allow session cookies only, so that new cookies are thrown away when I exit Mozilla.
In general, the decision really depends on whether I think I get any value out of the cookies myself (as opposed to simply being tracked without any benefit for myself), and on how "evil" I think the site is. The "remember my decision" functionality ensures that I don't have to click away tons of cookie setting attempts each time I use the browser.
As far as ad tracking is concerned (as opposed to tracking done by the site I visit), I usually don't even see those cookies, since AdBlock already blocks the images/iframes/objects in question.
But of course, all that's just me, and I don't think I'm a typical user. The rest of my family, who doesn't obsess about computers the same way I do, probably doesn't even know what cookies are, much less that you can even choose to not accept them.
Yeah... and "nigger" is just another word for a black person.
There's also another question: how many people who downloaded FireFox actually use it? I imagine that there's a considerable number of people who do get hooked, but there'll probably also be lots who don't.
I myself am an example. I've downloaded Firefox about half a dozen times in total (different versions), but even though I have it installed (mostly as a convenience for visitors who're used to it), I still use Seamonkey myself - and, for that matter, I consider Seamonkey to be superior to Firefox.
I may not be a typical example, but the raw number of downloads is not really a good metric to assess how widespread a browser is - it's a rather meaningless number, even though it makes for nice headlines of course.
Maybe it's just me, but TFA seems to be talking about 900k posts a day, not 9 million - and that's not even something that can be explained by a simple typo.
Deliberate misinformation? Who knows, but it sure shows just why submissions *should* in fact be proofread by editors (yes, even those lazy bums on Slashdot).
There's another, even bigger problem with this whole thing that I see: although it might be (comparatively!) easy to start a greenhouse effect, how do you stop it once you get to the point where Mars has become habitable for us (temperature-wise, at least)? How do you prevent it from becoming a deadly hell like Venus?
Also, there is, of course, the fact that temperature is just one problem. For example, Mars' atmosphere is (IIRC) only about one hundredth of the pressure of Earth's. That certainly is nowhere near enough to support human habitation, and given Mars' much smaller size, it's not immediately clear to me that it would be able to permanently hold a thicker atmosphere, either.
These problems seem to be wholly unaccounted for, so AFAICT, the whole thing's little more than intellectual masturbation.
Not to mention here.
And it's detected by ClamAV already, too.
In Soviet Russia, Sla
Every spammer that goes to jail for his actions is a victory. For one, it's quite well-known that most of the spam we see today originates from a relatively small group of people, so it's not exactly "one down, several more million to go"; and also, even if there were considerably more, the mere fact that they now know that they might go to jail for spamming just might be a deterrent. Spamming is pretty much a textbook example of whitecollar crime, and it's been shown that unlike with bluecollar crime (that is, more physical crimes, like assault, rape, robbery etc.), prison sentences actually do serve as a deterrent here.
Remember, spammers are cowards - and greedy cowards, for that matter. They do what they do to get rich quick, so the prospect losing their money in lawsuits and possibly going to jail afterwards will scare them quite a bit.
Taco probably got paid a nice sum for posting this.
Sure makes you wonder just who that oh-so-anonymous reader is... or, for that matter, how much they paid Taco.
Yeah, just like they have to ask permission for any website they want to crawl and add to their index.
Or just like a library has to obtain permission from the publisher to add a book to its collection.
Would that be a good idea? If crypto is implemented in software, you can (relatively) easy fix bugs; if it's done in hardware, then every bug found means you're basically screwed.
That being said, the attacks described are *not* remotely exploitable per se, and they can easily be worked around by not using hyperthreading, anyway, so they're really a tempest in a teapot.
Being unique is not enough for something to be patentable - it also has to be novel in a non-obvious way, i.e., it has to be something that someone working in the field would not be able to come up with after two seconds.
Take medications, for example. IANAL, but my take on it would be that (for example), if I come up with, say, a new class of painkillers that are different from those we have today, then that's patentable, because it wouldn't be obvious that substances of the new class do function as painkillers, or that if you wanted a painkiller, using that class of substances would be the natural way to go.
On the other hand, if I take an established kind of painkillers and modify it slightly (for example, by replacing a hydrogen atom with a CH3 group somewhere) to get a new substance, then that's not patentable, since I didn't do anything fundamentally new and non-obvious.
The same thing seems to apply here (although it's hard to tell, as the server's currently slashdotted). Even if you take the article summary with a big grain of salt (which is advisable on Slashdot), it's hard to imagine that making numbers stand out in a document is something non-obvious - or, for that matter, something new.
Remember, the purpose of patents is not to give businesses a way of extracting money from everyone; the purpose is to further science and technology by encouraging research. The 20-year monopoly that comes with the grant of a patent is a reward for doing that research, if you will - but that also means that the contribution to science and technology should be big enough to justify this reward.
There's nothing "forced" about the GPL, and certainly no "forced reverse leeching". Keep in mind that noone's ever being *forced* to use GPL'ed code; they can just as well develop their own solution, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, the fact that a GPL'ed product exists is entirely irrelevant if you don't use it - you're no worse off than you'd be if the GPL'ed product was not available at all.
:)
That being said, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the BSD license, either; it's just that some people prefer one and some prefer the other, and both groups have good reasons for their respective stances, too. Whether either license is "better" is a question that cannot be answered objectively.
As for the BSD license allowing more freedom, that depends on what your definition of freedom is - and, for that matter, what your definition of "users" is. The GPL and the BSD license provide different kinds of freedom.
You may think of your software as a free gift that the receivers can use in whatever way they want, but others (like me) view their software as part of a bigger deal - I'll scratch your back, and you scratch mine. I don't expect anyone who uses my software to give back by contributing to it, but *if* they want to build on it, I expect them to honour the deal as well.
In that sense, neither license is better or worse than the other, so let's stop fighting over these things.
If a piece of software is licensed specifically under the terms of the GPL v2 only, then of course, the license does not automatically get updated.
If a piece of software is licensed under the regular GPL (which says that you can also use the software under, "at your option, any later version"), then it does not automatically get updated, either, but others who work on GPL v3 projects can incorporate your code under the GPL v3. Similarly, you can decide to relicense your own project under the GPL v3 (with or without the "later versions" clause) without having to check with every past contributor, as the existing license already allows you to use the code under the new version of the license.
That being said, you wouldn't have to contact everyone who touched "even 1 bit of the code"; trivial contributions cannot be copyrighted. I don't know where the line is drawn (IANAL), and I'm not even sure there is a clear line, but things like trivial fixes (for example, typos etc.) are uncopyrightable.
Because it's not about websearch but rather about satellite images used on http://maps.google.com./ Duh.
Funny. I recall an interview with a so-called "futurologist" in a computer magazine about 20 years ago who said that in the future, computers would directly interface with our brains and who, when asked how long this would take, said the technology'd be there in about 30 years.
There seems to be something magical about "30 years"; it's short enough to whet people's appetites, but long enough so that technical feasability does not have be considered - it's long enough to claim that there simply will be new discoveries we (naturally) don't know about yet who will make the predicted stuff possible.
Seriously, you either can make a prediction that something will happen in a certain amount of time because the basic technology is there, or you can't - and if you can't, you shouldn't go around pulling numbers out of your ass. It will only make you look like a fool in retrospect (although whether anyone will remember a random Slashdot comment is another question, of course).
While I agree with most of your post, I'd be careful with statements like that. Never say never - there's already lots of stuff going on today that people probably wouldn't have believed would ever happen some 230 years ago.
So, what about fair use then? There are several European countries where you automatically pay a fee for each and every CD/vinyl record, each and every CD-R or other blank media, and - last not least - each and every *computer* you purchase, in order to compensate the content industry for losses they suffer due to fair use.
It seems that (unfortunately, even though understandably) the content industry would like to keep these fees while at the same time outlawing fair use.
But what exactly *is* fair use, anyway? It's not at all clear, and the introduction of criminal penalties for copyright infringement (not piracy - piracy means sailing the seven seas, bringing up other ships, stealing their cargo and keelhauling the crew) is likely to scare people enough so that they won't even exercise their fair use rights for fear of going "too far" and opening them up not only to civil lawsuits, but criminal cases as well.
But of course, it may not be a problem, since despite the fees they collect, the content industry seems to be happy to include copy-prevention measures on their media that do not just inhibit copyright infringement but also fair use.
What's more, it's been ruled in the past that despite the fact that these fees are collected, users do not actually have *right* to fair use - so the industry is free to take it away through technical means. Maybe we should just pass a law that requires us to turn over all our money to the industry - that'd save us all a lot of hassle.
Huh? Why? Because they decided not to talk to CNet anymore? Tough for CNet, but there's no legal or even moral obligation for them to do so.
Whether it's justified or not is another matter, but I think you're blowing the issue a bit out of proportion if you proclaim that this is the end of them being (or trying to be) the "good" guys.
Try mutt. Yes, it's a text-mode client, and yes, it will take some getting used to, but it's quite addictive once you do get used to it.
If you're on windows, then you can probably run it in Cygwin - I haven't tried that, but I doubt there'll be much problems.
You know you've spent too much time on Slashdot (or in front of your computer in general)... ...if you read that line about "AP" mines and "crawlspaces" and immediately thought about Associated Press and webcrawlers, without even realizing that that may not be what the poster meant until a reply made it clear.
That's the way it should be, but is it really the way things *are*? The fascists will still be able to interpret these amendments their way - similar to how the opening phrase of the declaration of independence (which states, among other things, that "all men are created equal") was twisted by advocates of slavery, who claimed that of course it only applied to white people, and that while it didn't explicitely say so, it of course was what the founding fathers meant.
The same thing will happen here (or, maybe, is happening here already): there will be claims that even though it doesn't *explicitely* say so, it *of course* only refers to citizens of the USA, and how naive do you have to be to even question that, sonny.
Don't get me wrong, I really agree with your point of view, but I think that in reality, there'll be lots of ways around it, if it even comes up in the mainstream press.