A sysadmin that works at a company that PAYS for the bandwidth with the PROFITS it makes, yeah.
This guy isn't trying to make money, so cut him a break. I don't see you offering a free shell account. Why don't you give him the "fucking resources" and I'm sure he'd be glad to up his connection bandwidth. And it's not like he ASKED to be put on/.
That was great. Hell, even 7-8 years ago retarded AOL'ers were in the minority and got flamed like they deserve every time they posted their trademark "Me too!" posts. Now, they're the norm and the internet has been brought down to the intellect level of TV. Yay.
No kidding. For the non-com sites (ie, no banner ads), their argument is that the guy might update and the info will be out of date. Which is worse....
1. The info transmitted is 1 hour out of date.
Or....
2. No info is transmitted because/. went Hiroshima on his poor server and the thing is currently a puddle of molten silicon?
Seriously, which approach would be "erring on the side of caution"? If it were me, and I were doing some cool shit that seems like it might get slashdotted, I would at least reject any request if last site visited was/. Still get lots requests, but at least maybe the site stays up.
There's nothing worse than hackers DoS'ing hackers...kinda makes ya wanna puke.
The lawyer ABSOLUTELY is acting in his client's best interest in filing semi-bogus patents. Again, WHAT does the client have to lose? The cost of the patent app? He has every reason to do it. And there's no obligation for the lawyer to be anything but an advocate for his client - there's nothing unethical about what lawyers do in the status quo. Similarly, is it the defense lawyer's job to determine if his client committed a crime before defending him? No, his job is to be an advocate. This is how our legal system works - the problem is with the system, not the lawyers. To borrow from the ghetto, "Don't hate the player, hate the game."
And how would you change the system (other than the "reverse-proof" idea, see below)? Punish lawyers for bogus patents? It must not have been completely bogus if it got accepted! If the patent office can't tell the difference, should we expect the lawyer to necessarily?
What is so hard about the patent office actually hiring competent people? Really, wouldn't this be the absolute easiest solution? If all of us on/. can figure it out, why aren't these people being hired?
And there would be many problems with requiring the "prove your patent in court" idea. Imagine the harassment and abuse potential - like every hacker in the world wouldn't file a frivolous lawsuit against M$ tomorrow just because they could. That's not good. Think about it - it would be even worse your way. The courts are more ignorant about IP rights than the patent office is. Imagine all the companies with legit patents being stripped of them because of frivolous attacks. That can't happen.
Bottom line is, the patent office needs to fire the retards they currently employ and get some tech-savvy people. We need a stronger process up-front before these problems occur. Companies need to be able to count on their patents, and shouldn't have to be stifled because of bogus patents. Using the courts doesn't solve either problem.
You're not one of those freaks who still thinks that we could solve energy transport problems with Tesla coils for God's sake are you? Tesla had some interesting ideas but not many of them would work.
AC is inherently better for electricity transport over large distances compared to DC, unlike what Tesla suggested. Tesla's fans these days are mainly counterculture freaks who have never spent a day in an electromagnetism class and hence have no idea what they're talking about. Tesla failed because his stuff didn't end up working. End of story.
Lawyers are just tools (I mean that in the literal sense, but figurative works too). They aren't to blame - if I had a client who wanted to try to submit a questionable patent, I'd say go for it - chances are it will get accepted, and patent apps are relatively cheap. And if someone infringes, if you think you'll lose in court, settling still gets you some cash you otherwise didn't deserve.
It's unreasonable to expect people to do any differently - lawyers aren't supposed to be advocates for the system, just their clients. Like someone up the thread said, anyone with a BS in compsci should be able to figure this out. So why is that guy not in the govt?
For what it's worth, they at least included Europe in the blame game. This isn't pure America-bashing, this is liberal "I feel guilty that I have money and you don't" self-loathing. Hey, whatever works, but I sleep OK at night as it is.
Yeah, somebody forgot a decimal there somewhere, or possibly put a "k" in front of that "g" mistakenly. But don't wait for a journalist to catch any math errors, they don't require numeric literacy for those liberal arts degrees those journalists get.
No kidding. I've never understood why specific parents care all that much - after all, if they're doing their job, as they see it, their kids will never see such games anyway.
The games say Mature on them, mom - if your kids play them, maybe the fault lies in the mirror.
By that argument, DeCSS would be legal because a huge purpose of it is to view movies without copying them - it's not a "single purpose" algorithm for pirating. Hell, if you had the equipment, it would be possible to copy DVD's without decoding (ie, deCSSing) them.
So the real problem for the MPAA is that if DeCSS were legal, anyone could build a DVD player without paying CSS royalties to whoever, and the MPAA might just lose their worldwide stranglehold on the film industry.
DMCA is about piracy, but it is also about much more...DeCSS is a great example.
Why not? You can copright a TLA (three-letter acronym), poor wrestlers. Face it, unless a powerful ally comes along, we're all getting sold down the river.
There is no such right. There is a doctrine, and courts may interpret things however they want, but please quit making up this phantom "fair use right". There is absolutely no such thing, certainly not in the constitution.
Roe v Wade isn't in the constitution either but it's no less binding. Face it, for good or for bad, we live in an era of bench legislation. Kinkos decision is the one rendered by the highest court so far (that I know of), so it is important as a precedent.
I know there have been a few things like this before, but I really don't like the whole scenario. Basically, as an ISP, you have to either open up your network to whoever wants it OR play cop and divulge client info (even guilty-client info).
Think about it - I can't think of any "real-world" situation where this would be allowed to occur. Let's say I own an apartment building, and I value my tenants' security, so I installed a gate. Now, the RIAA decides they think one of my tenants is bootlegging CD's. So they try to bash the gate down, but they can't. Now they sue me. Or, to avoid the suit, I install cameras in every apartment so I can see what all of my tenants are doing, all the time. And, when I catch someone, I write his name attached to a list on the front gate. Yeah, it's nice to have the gate, but now my landlord is no better than the RIAA.
That's exactly what's happening here. This is barely better than unfettered RIAA access. But this is still no acceptable solution. If the RIAA proposal were to be proposed in language people understand, they would be enraged. But it isn't, so they don't care. Great.
THen I guess I have the right to go out in public and crap all over the street? Oh, I don't? You mean I don't have the right to go around spewing disgusting, unsafe pollution wherever the hell I want?
Smoking's no different. Having a right, in general, doesn't give you the right to do it wherever you want. Control your urge until you get home junkie.
Is the DMCA article offtopic? No. Is it flamebait? No. is it insightful? Depends on the beholder, really. Is it informative? In its way, yes, quite. Funny? Unintentionally. So it seems to meet all the requirments of...about a 3 mod.
What it comes down to is people who want to mod articles are the people who are already modding wrong, ie for disagreement not inherent quality.
As for the "news for nerds" = propaganda argument...not all nerds think alike. Some even think DMCA is not a threat. I think they're fools, but they're still nerds. Silence them and you become the DMCA.
Remember, moderation is not meant to be low-scale censorship.
Remember, the actual % chance of prosecution isn't the issue - threatening it is. You have huge corporations who can afford lawsuits going after, mostly, those who can't afford them.
Are you willing to risk even a 5% chance of a lawsuit that will financially ruin you and destroy your career? Most aren't, and that's the power of the DMCA.
EFF isn't exaggerating, really. They have, IMO, accurately guaged the potential danger from the law as written, which is much worse, potentially, than the lawmakers and **AA will admit to the public.
Because otherwise/. becomes a blatant position organization (as if it isn't now?). Although I tend to agree with it, are you saying the usual fare isn't equally biased in the opposite direction?
Exactly. The "essentially" is up to the current government that gave you the DMCA. "Essentially" is subject to change.
I was wondering, anyone remember the controversy over "Hit Man," that book that detailed (albeit badly) how to kill someone? They tried to ban it but the courts upheld it on 1st Amend. How is detailing security flaws any different?
I'll buy that to an extent. It would have to be a small company, probably a startup, and it would have to be a really tech-savvy company. You would have to be the sole maintainer of the box (ie, no nVidia support), and it would have to be a box that had a limited userbase, probably.
But, like you say, these companies do exist. But this movement will have to have an open-minded CIO or equivalent - the cost savings could be there, certainly.
I think, bottom line, this won't happen to any huge extent until a big player starts trying to open SGI's market with bargain prices, because it will have to be supported to get most CIO's to switch. And SGI won't much like that. I've wondered occasionally if there isn't a sort of gentleman's agreement keeping the markets separate.
Bottom line - no big company will try it. Maybe a few small ones, yes - and even then, only those that truly need extremely high-res, realtime video capture. I still think this has to be mostly entertainment industry, because only under successive video processing will such res be needed. I think most of the needs can be addressed adequately with the GeForce as it is now. But someone will do it, if as much for fun as anything.
Anyone in science who is doing any modelling has an SGI or a farm of them. Scientists aren't going to be using gaming GPU's anytime soon. Hell, the software (such as Cerius2) is, I believe, optimized for SGI's, but I could be wrong on the last point.
There are other things that tie scientists to SGI's. First, the company is stable. We could have been having this discussion 5 years ago regarding 3dfx. No researcher in his right mind is going to tie his prospects to a GPU company, as they generally don't control market for all that long. Good luck getting them to support your voodoo.
Second, no one wants to re-write the bulk of the code out there that runs really well on SGI's. Third, unless your group is huge, a researcher won't likely have his own sysadmin. So he could get a pre-configured, reasonably ready-to-go SGI, or he could hack a way to get his GeForce to do it.
Sorry, but there is no demand in the scientific community for this.
TV cards are designed to take incoming data and put it to the bus. GPU's are designed to do the opposite. So yeah, your tuner card, even on PCI, should beat the vid card for readback.
Slashdot Mirror
A sysadmin that works at a company that PAYS for the bandwidth with the PROFITS it makes, yeah.
/.
This guy isn't trying to make money, so cut him a break. I don't see you offering a free shell account. Why don't you give him the "fucking resources" and I'm sure he'd be glad to up his connection bandwidth. And it's not like he ASKED to be put on
Troll.
That was great. Hell, even 7-8 years ago retarded AOL'ers were in the minority and got flamed like they deserve every time they posted their trademark "Me too!" posts. Now, they're the norm and the internet has been brought down to the intellect level of TV. Yay.
No kidding. For the non-com sites (ie, no banner ads), their argument is that the guy might update and the info will be out of date. Which is worse....
/. went Hiroshima on his poor server and the thing is currently a puddle of molten silicon?
/. Still get lots requests, but at least maybe the site stays up.
1. The info transmitted is 1 hour out of date.
Or....
2. No info is transmitted because
Seriously, which approach would be "erring on the side of caution"? If it were me, and I were doing some cool shit that seems like it might get slashdotted, I would at least reject any request if last site visited was
There's nothing worse than hackers DoS'ing hackers...kinda makes ya wanna puke.
The lawyer ABSOLUTELY is acting in his client's best interest in filing semi-bogus patents. Again, WHAT does the client have to lose? The cost of the patent app? He has every reason to do it. And there's no obligation for the lawyer to be anything but an advocate for his client - there's nothing unethical about what lawyers do in the status quo. Similarly, is it the defense lawyer's job to determine if his client committed a crime before defending him? No, his job is to be an advocate. This is how our legal system works - the problem is with the system, not the lawyers. To borrow from the ghetto, "Don't hate the player, hate the game."
/. can figure it out, why aren't these people being hired?
And how would you change the system (other than the "reverse-proof" idea, see below)? Punish lawyers for bogus patents? It must not have been completely bogus if it got accepted! If the patent office can't tell the difference, should we expect the lawyer to necessarily?
What is so hard about the patent office actually hiring competent people? Really, wouldn't this be the absolute easiest solution? If all of us on
And there would be many problems with requiring the "prove your patent in court" idea. Imagine the harassment and abuse potential - like every hacker in the world wouldn't file a frivolous lawsuit against M$ tomorrow just because they could. That's not good. Think about it - it would be even worse your way. The courts are more ignorant about IP rights than the patent office is. Imagine all the companies with legit patents being stripped of them because of frivolous attacks. That can't happen.
Bottom line is, the patent office needs to fire the retards they currently employ and get some tech-savvy people. We need a stronger process up-front before these problems occur. Companies need to be able to count on their patents, and shouldn't have to be stifled because of bogus patents. Using the courts doesn't solve either problem.
You're not one of those freaks who still thinks that we could solve energy transport problems with Tesla coils for God's sake are you? Tesla had some interesting ideas but not many of them would work.
AC is inherently better for electricity transport over large distances compared to DC, unlike what Tesla suggested. Tesla's fans these days are mainly counterculture freaks who have never spent a day in an electromagnetism class and hence have no idea what they're talking about. Tesla failed because his stuff didn't end up working. End of story.
Lawyers are just tools (I mean that in the literal sense, but figurative works too). They aren't to blame - if I had a client who wanted to try to submit a questionable patent, I'd say go for it - chances are it will get accepted, and patent apps are relatively cheap. And if someone infringes, if you think you'll lose in court, settling still gets you some cash you otherwise didn't deserve.
It's unreasonable to expect people to do any differently - lawyers aren't supposed to be advocates for the system, just their clients. Like someone up the thread said, anyone with a BS in compsci should be able to figure this out. So why is that guy not in the govt?
For what it's worth, they at least included Europe in the blame game. This isn't pure America-bashing, this is liberal "I feel guilty that I have money and you don't" self-loathing. Hey, whatever works, but I sleep OK at night as it is.
Yeah, somebody forgot a decimal there somewhere, or possibly put a "k" in front of that "g" mistakenly. But don't wait for a journalist to catch any math errors, they don't require numeric literacy for those liberal arts degrees those journalists get.
If they were so capable why were they stealing it in the first place?
Anybody make a client for encrypting packets for VOIP so our fears of paranoia can be allayed?
No kidding. I've never understood why specific parents care all that much - after all, if they're doing their job, as they see it, their kids will never see such games anyway.
The games say Mature on them, mom - if your kids play them, maybe the fault lies in the mirror.
By that argument, DeCSS would be legal because a huge purpose of it is to view movies without copying them - it's not a "single purpose" algorithm for pirating. Hell, if you had the equipment, it would be possible to copy DVD's without decoding (ie, deCSSing) them.
So the real problem for the MPAA is that if DeCSS were legal, anyone could build a DVD player without paying CSS royalties to whoever, and the MPAA might just lose their worldwide stranglehold on the film industry.
DMCA is about piracy, but it is also about much more...DeCSS is a great example.
Why not? You can copright a TLA (three-letter acronym), poor wrestlers. Face it, unless a powerful ally comes along, we're all getting sold down the river.
There is no such right. There is a doctrine, and courts may interpret things however they want, but please quit making up this phantom "fair use right". There is absolutely no such thing, certainly not in the constitution.
Roe v Wade isn't in the constitution either but it's no less binding. Face it, for good or for bad, we live in an era of bench legislation. Kinkos decision is the one rendered by the highest court so far (that I know of), so it is important as a precedent.
I know there have been a few things like this before, but I really don't like the whole scenario. Basically, as an ISP, you have to either open up your network to whoever wants it OR play cop and divulge client info (even guilty-client info).
Think about it - I can't think of any "real-world" situation where this would be allowed to occur. Let's say I own an apartment building, and I value my tenants' security, so I installed a gate. Now, the RIAA decides they think one of my tenants is bootlegging CD's. So they try to bash the gate down, but they can't. Now they sue me. Or, to avoid the suit, I install cameras in every apartment so I can see what all of my tenants are doing, all the time. And, when I catch someone, I write his name attached to a list on the front gate. Yeah, it's nice to have the gate, but now my landlord is no better than the RIAA.
That's exactly what's happening here. This is barely better than unfettered RIAA access. But this is still no acceptable solution. If the RIAA proposal were to be proposed in language people understand, they would be enraged. But it isn't, so they don't care. Great.
THen I guess I have the right to go out in public and crap all over the street? Oh, I don't? You mean I don't have the right to go around spewing disgusting, unsafe pollution wherever the hell I want?
Smoking's no different. Having a right, in general, doesn't give you the right to do it wherever you want. Control your urge until you get home junkie.
Is the DMCA article offtopic? No. Is it flamebait? No. is it insightful? Depends on the beholder, really. Is it informative? In its way, yes, quite. Funny? Unintentionally. So it seems to meet all the requirments of...about a 3 mod.
What it comes down to is people who want to mod articles are the people who are already modding wrong, ie for disagreement not inherent quality.
As for the "news for nerds" = propaganda argument...not all nerds think alike. Some even think DMCA is not a threat. I think they're fools, but they're still nerds. Silence them and you become the DMCA.
Remember, moderation is not meant to be low-scale censorship.
Remember, the actual % chance of prosecution isn't the issue - threatening it is. You have huge corporations who can afford lawsuits going after, mostly, those who can't afford them.
Are you willing to risk even a 5% chance of a lawsuit that will financially ruin you and destroy your career? Most aren't, and that's the power of the DMCA.
EFF isn't exaggerating, really. They have, IMO, accurately guaged the potential danger from the law as written, which is much worse, potentially, than the lawmakers and **AA will admit to the public.
Because otherwise /. becomes a blatant position organization (as if it isn't now?). Although I tend to agree with it, are you saying the usual fare isn't equally biased in the opposite direction?
Do you want to wait until they do? You have to fight these things before they are established and legal precedents are set.
Come on Jack, sign your post you candyass!
Exactly. The "essentially" is up to the current government that gave you the DMCA. "Essentially" is subject to change.
I was wondering, anyone remember the controversy over "Hit Man," that book that detailed (albeit badly) how to kill someone? They tried to ban it but the courts upheld it on 1st Amend. How is detailing security flaws any different?
I'll buy that to an extent. It would have to be a small company, probably a startup, and it would have to be a really tech-savvy company. You would have to be the sole maintainer of the box (ie, no nVidia support), and it would have to be a box that had a limited userbase, probably.
But, like you say, these companies do exist. But this movement will have to have an open-minded CIO or equivalent - the cost savings could be there, certainly.
I think, bottom line, this won't happen to any huge extent until a big player starts trying to open SGI's market with bargain prices, because it will have to be supported to get most CIO's to switch. And SGI won't much like that. I've wondered occasionally if there isn't a sort of gentleman's agreement keeping the markets separate.
Bottom line - no big company will try it. Maybe a few small ones, yes - and even then, only those that truly need extremely high-res, realtime video capture. I still think this has to be mostly entertainment industry, because only under successive video processing will such res be needed. I think most of the needs can be addressed adequately with the GeForce as it is now. But someone will do it, if as much for fun as anything.
And I say this because I do this...
Anyone in science who is doing any modelling has an SGI or a farm of them. Scientists aren't going to be using gaming GPU's anytime soon. Hell, the software (such as Cerius2) is, I believe, optimized for SGI's, but I could be wrong on the last point.
There are other things that tie scientists to SGI's. First, the company is stable. We could have been having this discussion 5 years ago regarding 3dfx. No researcher in his right mind is going to tie his prospects to a GPU company, as they generally don't control market for all that long. Good luck getting them to support your voodoo.
Second, no one wants to re-write the bulk of the code out there that runs really well on SGI's. Third, unless your group is huge, a researcher won't likely have his own sysadmin. So he could get a pre-configured, reasonably ready-to-go SGI, or he could hack a way to get his GeForce to do it.
Sorry, but there is no demand in the scientific community for this.
TV cards are designed to take incoming data and put it to the bus. GPU's are designed to do the opposite. So yeah, your tuner card, even on PCI, should beat the vid card for readback.