Well, as Cecil Adams once said, regarding this very issue, "Coke, I'm sorry to say, hasn't been it for some time" or words to that effect. I remember as a kid how wonderful a tall, 16 oz. glass bottle of Coca Cola, ice cold, was on a hot summer afternoon. My Dad would put them in the freezer for a while so they'd be super cold. That was somewhere around 1965. Ah, the good old days: the Beatles, moon landings... ice cold real Coca Cola.
If you're ever in the northern suburbs of Chicago, I recommend the Walker Bros. Pancake House (there are two that I know of, one in Highland Park and another in Wilmette.) The food is just incredible, but more importantly they serve "Hawaiian Royal Kona" blend. Best coffee I have ever tasted, bar none. Now, I'm one of those guys that likes good coffee (I even have a real Bunn restaurant coffee machine in my kitchen) but I gotta say those guys do it right.
Spare me... we've taken enough heat on Slashdot regarding privacy and Constitutional issues (and yes, George Bush) that we get to nail you EU types to the cross now and then. And considering that the European Union somehow managed to rid itself of whatever governmental safeguards its various member nations had in place to keep this sort of thing from happening, you've no-one to blame but yourselves when an overarching police state suddenly springs into being. For that's what this is: monitoring of the citizenry on a multinational scale! I mean, with the stroke of a pen you've made our own domestic privacy concerns seem comparatively trivial, National Security Letters and all. I hope you enjoy the ride... but hey, you've been down this road before. Sometimes I think that the only member state that learned anything from 1939-1945 was Germany, and they were the bad guys! I mean, France trying to outlaw open source, Italy with this Internet-access tripe, England... well. What can I say about the nation that once ruled the greatest empire in history and spread British Common Law and Queen's English to the far corners of the Earth? And now the entire Union has decided to wipe out a half-century of progress in the name of "counter terrorism". Sure. It's pathological all right. I always thought you guys were lemmings, following the United States over the cliff, but no, you had to jump first.
will be subverted, in time and to varying degrees. The Internet is no exception.
Re:google must have changed their policy.
on
Webhost Sues Google
·
· Score: 1
Sounds like Google's Ad-Words operation suffers from "Paypal Syndrome". You know, the "Gee it's a nice service but God help you if anything goes wrong because nobody else will." I guess quality customer service is one of those expenses that isn't covered by the do-no-evil mantra we hear so much about. At least, that's what I'm gathering from the various Slashdot posts I'm seeing on this subject.
I did, actually, for quite a few years. I had several industrial data acquisition products that I had developed and sold, and that was how I earned my living. And no, I didn't let anyone "pirate" it, although I had some competition that would have loved to do just that.
But I never lied to my customers or threatened them or took them to court for the price of a song. True pirates (i.e., those that bulk-copy a product and sell it) are easy to deal with, if you can find them. Hell, most of them are actually the same CD/DVD pressing plants that make legitimate stuff. It's hard to get reliable numbers on such things, but certainly that kind of blatant, felonious activity costs them significant sales. It's pretty clear-cut, in that case, that you're dealing with criminals, out to rip you off for a profit. They should and do go after those types.
However, the problem with casual copying of software and other media by ordinary consumers is that the customer and the {quote-unquote} "pirate" are one and the same. If the "pirates" (i.e. P2P users and the people that burn CDs for friends) would simply never buy software or music, and if people that buy music would never illegally copy it why, none of this would be a concern since there would be two distinct groups. Those who infringe copyrights, and those who don't. But it's not that simple... people that copy and download also pay. And pay a lot. So while I understand the motivation behind DRM, the RIAA lawsuits and the BSA's bullshit arguments, they really have to understand that they are dissing their own customers to a degree that no other business on Earth would dare. Something is going to break, eventually, and it will most likely be their way of doing business.
But you can't just add up all virtual losses, and state that that is the total amount of money that will magically pop up when everybody would be paying.
Sure you can! If you work for the BSA, the MPAA, the RIAA, the SPA, Congress and/or Orrin Hatch.
Also, 127.92 million manufacturing and engineering jobs will be lost because nations with tough IP laws lose the competitive edge brought by investment (both foreign and domestic) in R&D and technological development, 143.84 million additional lawyers will need to be trained to enforce newly implemented IP laws, and 538 trillion dollars will be lost over the next thirty years as the economic output of heavily-IP-restricted onetime global heavyweights drops to next to zero.
See? Making up numbers is fun, and very educational. But I'll bet mine are just as accurate.
... and software expands to fill all available space. So I think that answers the question of whether or not Web pages are getting bigger.
The other problem is that the value of software is inversely proportional to the quantity of its output. So in that respect, while Web pages are getting bigger they are simultaneously becoming less useful.
There's a new TV series out this season, called "Surface", that describes what's going on in Ethiopia. Eventually the big green creatures will make themselves known and it will all become obvious.
Re:Morphing and going into hiding, more likely.
on
P2P Polluter Shuts Down
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I know what he meant, it's just that nothing really precludes them from using a zombie army to perform the same task. Spammers use them, and for the most part are getting away with it! It would be tons cheaper, and hey, you'd be hitting the problem at the source. Just degrade the user's uploads on-the-fly using your rootkit-based zombie MP3 zapper. Suppose Sony and their protection system suppliers had been a bit more subtle, and rather than trying to protect the CD itself (and using a rootkit, which is really what got Russinovich interested) had simply installed a packet sniffer? Oops! Britney Spears going out... Shazaam! white noise. Ha ha. The dude running the P2P program would have no idea he was transmitting crap, and if you aren't using a peer-to-peer program you'd never know.
Unless you believe that the people running Overpeer and big media companies like, oh, I don't know... Sony, have some intrinsic ethical constraint against it, this will happen, or something equally nasty. Sure, Sony got dinged pretty hard this time around, but given the billions of dollars at stake here I wouldn't expect this to be the last time they try something.
Any consumer-grade ISP that gets caught officially supporting such activity would find itself in hot water, both legally and with its own customer base. I live in a broadband-competitive area: just how long do you think I'd stick with Comcast if I thought for one second they were contributing to this? Speakeasy, here I come. Actually, I'll probably be switching to Speakeasy since I'm tired of a 30K cap on my backchannel. Besides, Comcast is making a fortune in selling broadband to people that want to use peer-to-peer, deliberately permitting their services to be used to degrade such services would impact their bottom line.
But yeah, I agree... if you keep damaged files in your upload folder you're not helping matters one bit.
To make a spoofed file "persistent," that is, omnipresent on a P2P network, requires 10,000 copies of the file, Goodman said. Additionally, since P2P networks are set up in clusters of 100,000 machines, a professional spoofer needs enough always-on servers to connect with each of a P2P network's clusters.
What the hell does that mean? I agree with the man that spoofing won't stop file sharing (it hasn't yet, anyway) but from what part of his anatomy did he pull those numbers?
Well... they probably should have used the expression "build abusive relationships with potential customers".
Re:Morphing and going into hiding, more likely.
on
P2P Polluter Shuts Down
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
They try sourcing bandwidth from my cable modem and they'll get to know the dark side of my attorney, I can tell you that.
More likely it was just a simple business decision because Overpeer just hasn't really done anything to justify the money spent on it, much less in terms of reducing P2P activity. Oh sure, providing demographic data by monitoring filesharing is one thing, but all network poisoning does is generate more bad press for the media companies. Maybe somebody upstairs realized that a. it was a stupid idea to begin with, and b. wasn't working anyway.
Windows can be very stable if you are careful what you install (and unininstall!) on it and just leave the machine turned on. I have a Win2K Advanced Server running in my basement and it has never crashed. Period. And it runs 24/7, supports multiple raid arrays and external modems. However, it only does a few things... serves files to the rest of the network, provides fax/email and caller ID support, and runs my HalfLife Dedicated Server. Oh, and I have a VNC server on there for remote administration since it doesn't even have a monitor on it anymore. In any event, it is extremely stable.
But there is no Microsoft Office installation on that server, in fact no Microsoft apps at all other than what is on the Windows install CD. My own experience is that major Microsoft apps contribute a lot towards Windows instability (particularly when you remove them.) That's a consequence of "tight OS integration" and liberal use of hidden APIs, I suppose. Personally, I like having a clear dichotomy between operating system and user space, but hey, that's just me. I don't have a monopoly to protect.
My main desktop machine is Windows XP Pro, fast system, plenty of memory. And I have Office XP on there, tons of other stuff... and it is significantly less stable. Usable? Sure. As stable as it could and should be at this point? Nope. Not even close. Weird shit happens now and then, tasks inexplicably crash... so Windows is buggy. WFP helps but is no panacea. Truth is, if Windows were a real operating system it wouldn't matter much what I install or uninstall on it: but it does. Nor would a single application fault regularly destabilize the entire system.
There is one thing you can do that will help stability on any Windows system: make a habit of never uninstalling anything unless you absolutely must. Hard disk space is cheap.
Ah yes, but many of those are so-called "sleeper" hamsters, genetically modified to live for decades (many have been around since the beginning of the Cold War.) Upon a posthypnotic command from their long forgotten Soviet masters, they are designed to turn into organic micronukes and volatilize a few city blocks in a sudden glare of actinic light. Fortunately, after the fall of the Empire no-one seems to know what that command is, but still... you should be careful what you say to them.
You, ah... you don't live anywhere near Chicago, do you? Heh heh.
They never needed absolute proof, just a probability high enough that a judge would accept it. Apparently the DoJ hasn't been able to meet even that rather lax standard. In spite of some recent bad Supreme Court decisions, it does seem like the judiciary is the only arm of government that maintains any respect for the population at large.
My father once told me, "Every time the police want a new power, you have to drag them over the coals, make them justify it to us. Otherwise they just get lazy and we all suffer for it."
Slashdot Mirror
Just get hold of a ten year old copy of the Physician's Desk Reference. If it's in there, you can take it. If it's not, don't.
Well, as Cecil Adams once said, regarding this very issue, "Coke, I'm sorry to say, hasn't been it for some time" or words to that effect. I remember as a kid how wonderful a tall, 16 oz. glass bottle of Coca Cola, ice cold, was on a hot summer afternoon. My Dad would put them in the freezer for a while so they'd be super cold. That was somewhere around 1965. Ah, the good old days: the Beatles, moon landings ... ice cold real Coca Cola.
You're assuming they ever had one to begin with, and I don't think that assumption is necessarily valid.
If you're ever in the northern suburbs of Chicago, I recommend the Walker Bros. Pancake House (there are two that I know of, one in Highland Park and another in Wilmette.) The food is just incredible, but more importantly they serve "Hawaiian Royal Kona" blend. Best coffee I have ever tasted, bar none. Now, I'm one of those guys that likes good coffee (I even have a real Bunn restaurant coffee machine in my kitchen) but I gotta say those guys do it right.
Spare me ... we've taken enough heat on Slashdot regarding privacy and Constitutional issues (and yes, George Bush) that we get to nail you EU types to the cross now and then. And considering that the European Union somehow managed to rid itself of whatever governmental safeguards its various member nations had in place to keep this sort of thing from happening, you've no-one to blame but yourselves when an overarching police state suddenly springs into being. For that's what this is: monitoring of the citizenry on a multinational scale! I mean, with the stroke of a pen you've made our own domestic privacy concerns seem comparatively trivial, National Security Letters and all. I hope you enjoy the ride ... but hey, you've been down this road before. Sometimes I think that the only member state that learned anything from 1939-1945 was Germany, and they were the bad guys! I mean, France trying to outlaw open source, Italy with this Internet-access tripe, England ... well. What can I say about the nation that once ruled the greatest empire in history and spread British Common Law and Queen's English to the far corners of the Earth? And now the entire Union has decided to wipe out a half-century of progress in the name of "counter terrorism". Sure. It's pathological all right. I always thought you guys were lemmings, following the United States over the cliff, but no, you had to jump first.
"On the evidence, peace is a purely theoretical state of affairs whose existence we deduce because there have been intervals between wars."
I believe that quote came from Jerry Pournelle's novel Falkenberg's Legion.
will be subverted, in time and to varying degrees. The Internet is no exception.
Sounds like Google's Ad-Words operation suffers from "Paypal Syndrome". You know, the "Gee it's a nice service but God help you if anything goes wrong because nobody else will." I guess quality customer service is one of those expenses that isn't covered by the do-no-evil mantra we hear so much about. At least, that's what I'm gathering from the various Slashdot posts I'm seeing on this subject.
I did, actually, for quite a few years. I had several industrial data acquisition products that I had developed and sold, and that was how I earned my living. And no, I didn't let anyone "pirate" it, although I had some competition that would have loved to do just that.
... people that copy and download also pay. And pay a lot. So while I understand the motivation behind DRM, the RIAA lawsuits and the BSA's bullshit arguments, they really have to understand that they are dissing their own customers to a degree that no other business on Earth would dare. Something is going to break, eventually, and it will most likely be their way of doing business.
But I never lied to my customers or threatened them or took them to court for the price of a song. True pirates (i.e., those that bulk-copy a product and sell it) are easy to deal with, if you can find them. Hell, most of them are actually the same CD/DVD pressing plants that make legitimate stuff. It's hard to get reliable numbers on such things, but certainly that kind of blatant, felonious activity costs them significant sales. It's pretty clear-cut, in that case, that you're dealing with criminals, out to rip you off for a profit. They should and do go after those types.
However, the problem with casual copying of software and other media by ordinary consumers is that the customer and the {quote-unquote} "pirate" are one and the same. If the "pirates" (i.e. P2P users and the people that burn CDs for friends) would simply never buy software or music, and if people that buy music would never illegally copy it why, none of this would be a concern since there would be two distinct groups. Those who infringe copyrights, and those who don't. But it's not that simple
But you can't just add up all virtual losses, and state that that is the total amount of money that will magically pop up when everybody would be paying.
Sure you can! If you work for the BSA, the MPAA, the RIAA, the SPA, Congress and/or Orrin Hatch.
That's an easy one. It's the rate at which I can copy discs in my brand new Plextor.
Also, 127.92 million manufacturing and engineering jobs will be lost because nations with tough IP laws lose the competitive edge brought by investment (both foreign and domestic) in R&D and technological development, 143.84 million additional lawyers will need to be trained to enforce newly implemented IP laws, and 538 trillion dollars will be lost over the next thirty years as the economic output of heavily-IP-restricted onetime global heavyweights drops to next to zero.
See? Making up numbers is fun, and very educational. But I'll bet mine are just as accurate.
think I'll wait 'til they work the bugs out before I go for my injections.
... and software expands to fill all available space. So I think that answers the question of whether or not Web pages are getting bigger.
The other problem is that the value of software is inversely proportional to the quantity of its output. So in that respect, while Web pages are getting bigger they are simultaneously becoming less useful.
No, they run the risk of growing hair on their pa ... well, of becoming hairy balls, I guess.
does wealth cause Google usage, or does Google usage cause wealth?
In my case, the results are indeterminate since I'm just a middle-class Google user.
There's a new TV series out this season, called "Surface", that describes what's going on in Ethiopia. Eventually the big green creatures will make themselves known and it will all become obvious.
I know what he meant, it's just that nothing really precludes them from using a zombie army to perform the same task. Spammers use them, and for the most part are getting away with it! It would be tons cheaper, and hey, you'd be hitting the problem at the source. Just degrade the user's uploads on-the-fly using your rootkit-based zombie MP3 zapper. Suppose Sony and their protection system suppliers had been a bit more subtle, and rather than trying to protect the CD itself (and using a rootkit, which is really what got Russinovich interested) had simply installed a packet sniffer? Oops! Britney Spears going out ... Shazaam! white noise. Ha ha. The dude running the P2P program would have no idea he was transmitting crap, and if you aren't using a peer-to-peer program you'd never know.
... Sony, have some intrinsic ethical constraint against it, this will happen, or something equally nasty. Sure, Sony got dinged pretty hard this time around, but given the billions of dollars at stake here I wouldn't expect this to be the last time they try something.
... if you keep damaged files in your upload folder you're not helping matters one bit.
Unless you believe that the people running Overpeer and big media companies like, oh, I don't know
Any consumer-grade ISP that gets caught officially supporting such activity would find itself in hot water, both legally and with its own customer base. I live in a broadband-competitive area: just how long do you think I'd stick with Comcast if I thought for one second they were contributing to this? Speakeasy, here I come. Actually, I'll probably be switching to Speakeasy since I'm tired of a 30K cap on my backchannel. Besides, Comcast is making a fortune in selling broadband to people that want to use peer-to-peer, deliberately permitting their services to be used to degrade such services would impact their bottom line.
But yeah, I agree
To make a spoofed file "persistent," that is, omnipresent on a P2P network, requires 10,000 copies of the file, Goodman said. Additionally, since P2P networks are set up in clusters of 100,000 machines, a professional spoofer needs enough always-on servers to connect with each of a P2P network's clusters.
What the hell does that mean? I agree with the man that spoofing won't stop file sharing (it hasn't yet, anyway) but from what part of his anatomy did he pull those numbers?
Well ... they probably should have used the expression "build abusive relationships with potential customers".
They try sourcing bandwidth from my cable modem and they'll get to know the dark side of my attorney, I can tell you that.
More likely it was just a simple business decision because Overpeer just hasn't really done anything to justify the money spent on it, much less in terms of reducing P2P activity. Oh sure, providing demographic data by monitoring filesharing is one thing, but all network poisoning does is generate more bad press for the media companies. Maybe somebody upstairs realized that a. it was a stupid idea to begin with, and b. wasn't working anyway.
Windows can be very stable if you are careful what you install (and unininstall!) on it and just leave the machine turned on. I have a Win2K Advanced Server running in my basement and it has never crashed. Period. And it runs 24/7, supports multiple raid arrays and external modems. However, it only does a few things ... serves files to the rest of the network, provides fax/email and caller ID support, and runs my HalfLife Dedicated Server. Oh, and I have a VNC server on there for remote administration since it doesn't even have a monitor on it anymore. In any event, it is extremely stable.
... and it is significantly less stable. Usable? Sure. As stable as it could and should be at this point? Nope. Not even close. Weird shit happens now and then, tasks inexplicably crash ... so Windows is buggy. WFP helps but is no panacea. Truth is, if Windows were a real operating system it wouldn't matter much what I install or uninstall on it: but it does. Nor would a single application fault regularly destabilize the entire system.
But there is no Microsoft Office installation on that server, in fact no Microsoft apps at all other than what is on the Windows install CD. My own experience is that major Microsoft apps contribute a lot towards Windows instability (particularly when you remove them.) That's a consequence of "tight OS integration" and liberal use of hidden APIs, I suppose. Personally, I like having a clear dichotomy between operating system and user space, but hey, that's just me. I don't have a monopoly to protect.
My main desktop machine is Windows XP Pro, fast system, plenty of memory. And I have Office XP on there, tons of other stuff
There is one thing you can do that will help stability on any Windows system: make a habit of never uninstalling anything unless you absolutely must. Hard disk space is cheap.
Ah yes, but many of those are so-called "sleeper" hamsters, genetically modified to live for decades (many have been around since the beginning of the Cold War.) Upon a posthypnotic command from their long forgotten Soviet masters, they are designed to turn into organic micronukes and volatilize a few city blocks in a sudden glare of actinic light. Fortunately, after the fall of the Empire no-one seems to know what that command is, but still ... you should be careful what you say to them.
... you don't live anywhere near Chicago, do you? Heh heh.
You, ah
They never needed absolute proof, just a probability high enough that a judge would accept it. Apparently the DoJ hasn't been able to meet even that rather lax standard. In spite of some recent bad Supreme Court decisions, it does seem like the judiciary is the only arm of government that maintains any respect for the population at large.
My father once told me, "Every time the police want a new power, you have to drag them over the coals, make them justify it to us. Otherwise they just get lazy and we all suffer for it."
I know i am.
That's good to know. Thanks.