"It's highly desirable that these products are accurate, that when they say they're blocking pornography, they're really blocking pornography, not people running for Congress who talk about the evils of pornography," he said Wednesday. "Yet the research to date indicates they make a lot of mistakes."
N2H2 claimed that providing such information to Edelman would compromise trade secrets, and that Edelman had no legal standing to be granted such permission because there was no imminent threat he would be sued.
So explain this one to me...how is a list of banned sites a "trade secret"? Wouldn't one WANT to make this list public knowledge? That's like saying "We expect you to abide by the speed limits, but we're not going to post them because they are a trade secret."
Once again, out justice system is bought out by Big Business. Maybe next election I'll vote democrat...it can't be any worse non-representation than this, can it?
I find it interesting that somebody is going through all this trouble to find about the license. I would have kept a print of the e-mail from the MS rep that says it was OK to use the software for non-commercial use.
The ability to share a high-speed connection with all the computers in the same household is one of the selling points of broadband, much as the ability to provide analog cable service to all the TVs in a house.
Do you see ISPs taking advantage of the new rules to force customers to purchase additional IPs to connect all the machines in the house, or will they recognize one of the selling points of broadband and permit multiple PCs on a single cable modem?
According to that, programmers are engineers. That's especially true for those programmers that do design as well (like myself).
Fair enough. Then when a particular piece of software crashes, the software engineer can be held liable for damages caused by the crash (lost time, income, etc.) When you write code, do you stand behind it? If it doesn't work or crashes, will you accept responsibility and liability? If the answer to these questions is "yes," then I applaud your willingness to stand behind your work.
Microsoft hires (and certifies) software engineers, yet will not accept liability for bad programming (read their EULA). Therefore, they are not engineers.
"If you can't walk the walk, don't talk the talk." It's amazing how personal liability can provide motivation to do the job right the first time.
I'll graduate in May with a BSEE, but I won't be a EE yet...I'll be an EE in training until I get my PE license. When I have my license, THEN I will be a full-fledged electrical engineer.
I tried to record a tape to CD once, and the only way I could make it work was to record the tape to my digital recorder, convert the Sony.DVF files to.WMF format, then burn to CD.
Reading over the TX legislation, I come away from it with the following thoughts:
(1) It is equating "stealing bandwidth" to "stealing cable"...i.e. using a service without paying for it. OK, this would mean then that I can't open my WAP to the public. Fine, I don't do that anyway, I don't feel like opening my home network to the world.
You don't run a cable from your house to your neighbor's house for cable, do you?
(2) It doesn't let you tamper with things such as cable modems provided by the ISP. Fine' it's not my property if I rent it anyway, so I shouldn't be messing with it in the first place. If I OWN it, then that's another story. If I can uncap my bandwidth in a modem that I own, then that's the fault of the ISP, not me.
(3) This is all also assuming that the ISP doesn't authorize things like WAPs, home routers, etc. ANy ISP that has any shred of business sense won't prohibit Internet sharing WITHIN THE HOUSEHOLD. A broadband connection's strongest feature is being able to share bandwidth on a home network. Now, using a WAP or long Ethernet cable to extend your connectivity next door is a different matter.
Should a ISP decide to prohibit these devices, that's their own business. I retain the right to prohibit them to provide me with Internet service.
All in all, it's not as overbearing as it may appear on the surface.
Please be aware that Office Depot is immediately requiring all products that connect to a Personal Computer and Notebook Computer must pass these Designed for Windows XP logo requirements to be considered for retail distribution through our stores. This change is being implemented due to our on-going pursuite to enhance and simplify our fanatical customer service environment at Office Depot. Products must be certified as Designed for Windows XP by May 30, 2003.
Please note that this policy refers to HARDWARE, not software. Thus, serial modems, mice, keyboards, surge supressors, cables, etc. could all fall under this category.
Does anybody seriously expect anybody to go through the motions of getting its serial cables "certified" by The Beast? Surge supressors? USB cables? All these things plug into PCs and notebooks, right?
However, it's possible that if enough people who are interested in taking out the more nonsensical parts of the DMCA - and can make cogent arguments and come across as reasonable people - apply to speak, "we" could be in the majority there. (Where "we" are those who don't like the restrictions the DMCA imposes and "they" are the likes of the RIAA/MPAA/etc.)
"We" may be in the physical majority, but who has the majority of numbers to the left of the decimal point in the bank balance?
For example, the advertiser of a kayak cover may specify an advertising plan that specifies to display the advertisement on detailed web pages within a browse category of "kayaks," that specifies to display the advertisement to users are 18-30 years old, and that specifies to display the advertisement during evening hours for a given month.
And just how do they know how old the user is?
Scanning the patent app, it looks like it is an automatic means of buying and placing ads. The ads and bids are in a central database, and whomever is willing to pay the most gets the ad space for that particular served page. When the points are used up, that ad is deleted and the next highest bidder's ad is placed.
In essence, ad space is automatically auctioned, similar to eBay. Do I read this correctly?
Not that any of this matters to me. AdSubtract (http://www.adsubtract.com) blocks ads from my sight, auctioned or not.:)
I will agree that people do need to take care of themselves more and rely less on government. It is not the government's job to raise my children--that's why they are called "parents." Likewise, it is not the government's job to protect people from themselves. If people do dumb things that affect only themselves, then fine, that's their own problem.
its not the governments job to take care of you , its YOURS.. get it straight and do it. This all has to stop.
The primary job of government is, in fact, to protect the nation's people. This is NOT the same as "taking care of you." By the same token, that also includes protecting one's privacy. It's a delicate balance, one that should err towards the protection of privacy, IMHO. And by "protection" I don't mean protect them from themselves (see above), I do mean protect people from threates out of their control. I fully expect the government to protect me from having my house robbed or my car vandalized through the police force, as these forces are largely out of my control. Sure, I can alarm my house or lock the car in the garage, but I still expect soem form of protection provided by the government.
If it were, as I understand your comment, you feel that everybody should be responsible for themselves, with no government protection from outside threats. IF that is the case, what is the purpose of government then?
It's too bad the RIAA wants to take that ability away from me.
Well, of course they want to take away this ability. How else are they going to convince you to buy the tripe that is being recorded if you already heard it and know it's tripe? Free samples in the grocery store are good--they show you what the ring baloney tastes like before you spend your money on it. Music downloads are good--they show you what the song is before you purchase it.
Would you buy a car without a test drive? How about a TV not on display at Sears? Treadmills are set up in the sporting goods dept. Even music stores let you sample certain releases. The Internet lets you sample at home; sure, some will choose to satisfy themselves with the free samples only, but as the study shows, most will purchase if they like what they hear.
From the press release: Only 16% believe that record labels are justified in shutting down file-sharing services, such as Napster and Audio Galaxy, and two-fifths (39%) agree that making copies of music to give to friends is okay.
The "record labels" didn't shut them down...the courts shut them down. Although, like the BSA, they would like you to THINK they can do that.
"It's a no-brainer. Anything which lets people pirate more music like this has to be very bad news for the music industry," says a spokesman for Britain's record industry trade association, the BPI.
"It's a no-brainer. Anything which lets people enjoy their music on-the-go on their own terms is a good thing," says the general public.
Why Sony should want to launch a recorder that might make piracy easier may seem surprising, as its Sony Music division makes and sells CDs. While Sony Music did not want to comment on its sister company's launch, Mike Tsurumi, a president of Sony Consumer Electronics in Berlin, insists that the move makes sense. "The music companies need to change their business model," he says.
As if that was really news...Mike Tsurumi needs to talk to the head of Sony Music.
I think what he meant is that Congress can't change to Constitution in spirit as easily as it appears to be doing with the copyright law. By extending the copyright to "death + 95" this is technically a limited time; the letter of the law is preserved, but the spirit of the law is suppressed.
Congress is changing the spirit of the Constitution with such ludicrous copyright extensions. I would favor reverting back to the Copyright Law of 1790, which limited copyright to 14 years, renewable for fourteen additional years once (http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html). This gives the creator time to profit financially from ones works, it enriches the public culture, and is within the spirit and letter of the Constitution.
Agreed. Plus, a small engine that can be strapped to a bike for some power-assist is nothing new. Look in the back of any Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, or any similar type of magazine, and I bet you will find ads for this amongst the ads for do-it-yourself helicopters, hovercraft, and motorized wheelbarrows.
Two other thoughts come to mind...
(1) If you're going to go the distances that might make this useful, chances are that you're not a periodic, recreational biker. Thus, are you going to really want one of these on your bike in the first place?
(2) If you ride short distances (around a college campus or in the neighborhood) do you want to have to smell the fumes and listen to the high-pitched whine constantly? These small engines generally don't have much in the way of mufflers or emissions control, so there's that to consider as well.
When I flew model planes, the fuselage was covered with unburned fuel at the end of a flight. I would presume that noise and unburned fuel have been taken into account in this design, but it's still something to consider. The designer probably went further than taking a big R/C aircraft engine and bolt it to a clutch and drivetrain.
Personally, I like the exercise and peace & quiet that comes with a nice bike ride, but as always, YMMV.
But it would also carve out a broad exemption in the law for mail sent by companies the recipient has done business with, and completely exempt Internet service providers -- including Microsoft.
Given that Microsoft products are on over 90% of all PCs worldwide, would I be correct to read that this would mean the Microsoft could legally send 90% of the world's PCs spam? After all these machines are running a Microsoft OS, thus they must have done business with the Beast.
ANd to cover the last 10% is the ISP clause. So, if you are an ISP, you can legally spam anybody, even if they aren't your customer.
Anybody can use that loophole, really. If I put up a WAP free for the taking by any Joe Schmuckatelli, does this make me an ISP? Does this mean I can spam the world, assuming that I am originating from withing the state of Washington?
All in all, a bad idea.
It has been said here many times, but bears repeating. Legislation against spam will not come to bear any useful fruit. They are like gun laws; they will keep honest people honest. The spammers will simply locate offshore or find other ways to ignore the law. It is the ISPs that need to take a stand against spam for there to be any ground gained.
I started using MailWasher this week, and a key feature that it has is the ability to filter spam that goes through open relays. If such a filter is available at the user level, why not make it an option at the ISP level? An ISP or web-based mail site can give the user the option of blocking all mail that passes through open relays. A slightly less optimal option would be for an ISP to block ALL mail that passes through open relays, but then this gets into the issue of the ISP deciding what goes and what doesn't go through its system--like the discussion regarding AOL's 1-billion-blocks day.
The essence of AOL Time Warner's Mystro TV is a technology that uses a cable system itself to provide viewers capabilities similar to computerized personal video recorders like TiVo: watching programs on their own schedules, with fast-forward and rewind. But it also lets networks set the parameters, dictating which shows users can reschedule, and it also creates ways for networks to insert commercials.
Sounds more like "Mystro TV Suicide" or "crippled TiVO" to me. This won't be anything near a TiVO Killer: It goes against what TiVO stands for: use of the product (TV content) on YOUR terms. I don't want the networks dictating to me what I can and cannot record; after all, they don't control my work schedule, so they can't possibly know when I can watch what.
Trillian is a great client--I have that on my Windows machine and Everybuddy (everybuddy.com) on a Linux laptop. Someday I'll try the Everybuddy client for Windows.
I've never used Jabber, but I think I understand your description. However, I'm not sure that was quite what I had in mind. What I am thinking of is something like that, but would convert from any protocol to any other protocol...a IM Babel Fish, if you will. The Jabber workaround requires at least one user to use the Jabber client and server (if I understood you right).
For a while, AOL IP-banned the main public Jabber server from AIM - they obviously weren't happy about the idea.
AOL isn't happy about a lot of things. There was a three or four month time span where AOL and Cerulean Studios were playing cat-and-mouse games; AOL would use some underhanded way to drop the Trillian client and Trillian gets patched to fix it. AOL then tries something else, Trillian gets patched, etc. AOL based their actions on preventing "unauthorized access" to their network. I personally think it was because AOL didn't like the fact that they couldn't push ads or their own "daily content" to a Trillian user. I think AOL just gave up on the idea, as I haven't heard any noise about it in some time.
I see this software and I find myself very afraid. It neatly packages up a military grade cryptographic communications solution and makes it freely available to the public. While the people who it is intended for will benefit greatly from it, those who intend to do harm will also have easy access to it.
Such is the price of Open Source and the desire for freedom of speech. Should a terrorist organization start using strong encryption, they could do as the Germans and send those "garbage" messages so that the level of communication traffic is relatively constant. One would have thought they would have figured this out by now, but I guess not.
I would be more concerned of such cryptography were NOT available to the public. I have just as much right to secure my data and communications as anybody, and I'm not a political activist, human rights worker, or terrorist. PGP secures data on my Windows box, and I try to encourage the use of PGP in e-mail whenever possible (besides the fact that spammers don't use it and it would make spam filtering SOOO easy, but that was the topic of another post some time ago).
Anyway, it's time like these that I come to realize it's good that Windows has such a broad, class-spawning user base. We can have class action lawsuits with millions of people because there are so many Windows out there. We have a louder voice, if you will, against any large grievous software companies out there who write backdoor holes and product activation viruses.
I'd prefer not needing the voice to file a class-action lawsuit in the first place.
As a side note: don't be sorry for not switching. I'm not religiously tied to any OS either (this is being written on a Linux laptop, sharing a home network with a Win2K machine and WinXP machine). You should use the OS that does what you want it to do, whether it's Windows, Linux, OS X, MS-DOS, etc...
"Choose the tool for the job, not the job for the tool."
The memory effect that was mentioned for satellite batteries applies to Ni-Cad batteries as well.
-In my college chemistry class, I asked the professor this very question. According to him, a Ni-Cad battery develops a memory due to the plates in the battery crystallizing if not used for a long period of time. If a battery is only half-discharged before charging, the metal that is not used in the chemical process will eventually crystalize and not react even if the user tries to discharge the battery beyond half-capacity. A battery conditioner, if I understand properly, will discharge a battery completely before recharging, ensuring that the metal doesn't have a chance to crystallize. For batteries that have the effect already, teh conditioner will deep discharge the battery, "ripping" the metal atoms from the crystal structure and gradually restoring battery capacity.
When I was in the Navy, the submarine battery would show an increase in capacity if was deep-cycled a few times (like when running casualty drills over a period of several days).
-(from http://wireless.berkeley.edu/services/battery.shtm l#NICKEL%20CADMIUM) Partial cycles will form dendrites on the plates which cause the memory effect. My speculation is that these dendrites will either (a) undergo rapid chemical process when the battery is used because they are thin relative to the plates or (b) break off and not take part in the process at all.
So the "memory effect" is no myth. I would suspect that battery manufacturers have engineers who are well-versed in such matters and probably have at least half a clue as to what they're talking about.
A couple points about the mistakes being made over and over and over ad nauseum:
Other mistakes we insist on making over and over. For example, thinking that:
*...the Web, like television, is a way to hold eyeballs still while advertisers spray them with messages.
This one in particular struck me. As has already been proven, users will find ways to block annoying advertising (Guidescope, AdSubtract, Junkbuster, etc.) rendering it useless. Free tip to the ad agencies: an ad that one finds interesting and compels us to explore further is not the same as oner that is obnoxious and gets our attention for the wrong reasons. An ad that is unseen will draw exactly -0- potential customers.
As for those who believe that users who block ads steal content: there is nothing that requires me to read the ads in my local newspaper. If I don't read those ads, am I stealing content there as well? If I pull out the remote control and change the TV channel at a commercial or get up to get a sandwich when the ads come on, am I stealing content? (Yes, I know what the "content providers" say about that, and I say "screw you" to them.)
*...the Net is something that telcos and cable companies should filter, control and otherwise "improve."
The Internet is a pipe. It is a pipe that transmits data hither and yon. That is it. The only improvements that the telcos and cable providers can do is add better and faster hardware to make the pipe bigger. Using the "Information Superhighway" as the analogy: when you have a freeway through your city and you improve it, you improve the efficiency of the flow of traffic by making it EASIER for traffic to pass through, not HARDER.
*... it's a bad thing for users to communicate between different kinds of instant messaging systems on the Net.
If AOL, Microsoft, et al won't do it, I bet some intrepid programming brains will write "switchboard" type server software that will do it for them, assuming it hasn't been done already. The IM clients and services are free, so how can AOL be afraid of losing customers of their AIM users can talk directly to MSN Messenger users? Must be that whole territory, ego, alpha-male thing.
*...the Net suffers from a lack of regulation to protect industries that feel threatened by it.
The threat facing those industries (music and multimedia content) that feel threatened by it is their own failure to embrace the INternet for what it is: a means for these companies to distribute their product practically instantly and at a extremely reduced cost. If I buy ten or twelve tracks from Liquid Audio and burn my own CD, that cost me about $12 or $14 all told. That CD is worth much more than the $16 CD that the local Camelot Music is trying to push with only two or three good tracks.
The non-threatened industries take advantage of the Internet pipe and use it for what it is: a fast and easy means of transmitting data. Cisco apparently saw this when they developed the voice-over-IP phones (which, BTW, are very cool--I had the opportunity to use them over a multi-site network linked by satellite, and they sounded just like a land line) and the telecos are threatened because now users can communicate without using their proprietary, charge-by-the-minute phone systems.
Linux's rapid maturity--for example, growing up to work on large multiprocessor servers--is evidence of the presence of Unix intellectual property, the SCO suit said. "It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach Unix performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of Unix code, methods or concepts to achieve such performance, and coordination by a larger developer, such as IBM," the suit said.
First thought that came to mind while reading the article: SCO has seriously underestimated the brain pool of tens of thousands (at least) of open source porgrammers. Unix advanced to where it did technologically because some really smart people knew what they're doing. Isn't it possible that Linux got to where it did because a helluva lot more really smart people knew what they were doing?
Intellectual property lawsuits booming Intellectual property litigation appears to be on the rise in the high-tech industry and for good reason: The settlements or verdicts are often quite lucrative.
Intergraph, which once made workstations but now specializes in software, got $450 million from Intel in two separate suits in the past year and could receive $150 million more from the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker in an appeal on one of the actions. Intergraph's income from operations in 2002 was $10 million, but net income including legal settlements came to $378 million.
Perhaps I'm not paying attention to the news enough, but didn't it seem like these business-to-business lawsuits started cropping up en masse when the economy tanked? "We can't earn an honest dollar, so let's sue somebody and take theirs."
Slashdot Mirror
"It's highly desirable that these products are accurate, that when they say they're blocking pornography, they're really blocking pornography, not people running for Congress who talk about the evils of pornography," he said Wednesday. "Yet the research to date indicates they make a lot of mistakes."
N2H2 claimed that providing such information to Edelman would compromise trade secrets, and that Edelman had no legal standing to be granted such permission because there was no imminent threat he would be sued.
So explain this one to me...how is a list of banned sites a "trade secret"? Wouldn't one WANT to make this list public knowledge? That's like saying "We expect you to abide by the speed limits, but we're not going to post them because they are a trade secret."
Once again, out justice system is bought out by Big Business. Maybe next election I'll vote democrat...it can't be any worse non-representation than this, can it?
I find it interesting that somebody is going through all this trouble to find about the license. I would have kept a print of the e-mail from the MS rep that says it was OK to use the software for non-commercial use.
The ability to share a high-speed connection with all the computers in the same household is one of the selling points of broadband, much as the ability to provide analog cable service to all the TVs in a house.
Do you see ISPs taking advantage of the new rules to force customers to purchase additional IPs to connect all the machines in the house, or will they recognize one of the selling points of broadband and permit multiple PCs on a single cable modem?
According to that, programmers are engineers. That's especially true for those programmers that do design as well (like myself).
Fair enough. Then when a particular piece of software crashes, the software engineer can be held liable for damages caused by the crash (lost time, income, etc.) When you write code, do you stand behind it? If it doesn't work or crashes, will you accept responsibility and liability? If the answer to these questions is "yes," then I applaud your willingness to stand behind your work.
Microsoft hires (and certifies) software engineers, yet will not accept liability for bad programming (read their EULA). Therefore, they are not engineers.
"If you can't walk the walk, don't talk the talk." It's amazing how personal liability can provide motivation to do the job right the first time.
I'll graduate in May with a BSEE, but I won't be a EE yet...I'll be an EE in training until I get my PE license. When I have my license, THEN I will be a full-fledged electrical engineer.
Step 5: Record. For this, you should use a program that records to disk such as Cool Edit or Sound Forge. Read the fine manual.
Thanks...this was the part I was looking for. I knew the rest, but thought I could use Media Player. I'll have to get a recorder program now.
Dumb question...
.DVF files to .WMF format, then burn to CD.
How do you record the AUX IN port?
I tried to record a tape to CD once, and the only way I could make it work was to record the tape to my digital recorder, convert the Sony
Reading over the TX legislation, I come away from it with the following thoughts:
(1) It is equating "stealing bandwidth" to "stealing cable"...i.e. using a service without paying for it. OK, this would mean then that I can't open my WAP to the public. Fine, I don't do that anyway, I don't feel like opening my home network to the world.
You don't run a cable from your house to your neighbor's house for cable, do you?
(2) It doesn't let you tamper with things such as cable modems provided by the ISP. Fine' it's not my property if I rent it anyway, so I shouldn't be messing with it in the first place. If I OWN it, then that's another story. If I can uncap my bandwidth in a modem that I own, then that's the fault of the ISP, not me.
(3) This is all also assuming that the ISP doesn't authorize things like WAPs, home routers, etc. ANy ISP that has any shred of business sense won't prohibit Internet sharing WITHIN THE HOUSEHOLD. A broadband connection's strongest feature is being able to share bandwidth on a home network. Now, using a WAP or long Ethernet cable to extend your connectivity next door is a different matter.
Should a ISP decide to prohibit these devices, that's their own business. I retain the right to prohibit them to provide me with Internet service.
All in all, it's not as overbearing as it may appear on the surface.
Please be aware that Office Depot is immediately requiring all products that connect to a Personal Computer and Notebook Computer must pass these Designed for Windows XP logo requirements to be considered for retail distribution through our stores. This change is being implemented due to our on-going pursuite to enhance and simplify our fanatical customer service environment at Office Depot. Products must be certified as Designed for Windows XP by May 30, 2003.
Please note that this policy refers to HARDWARE, not software. Thus, serial modems, mice, keyboards, surge supressors, cables, etc. could all fall under this category.
Does anybody seriously expect anybody to go through the motions of getting its serial cables "certified" by The Beast? Surge supressors? USB cables? All these things plug into PCs and notebooks, right?
However, it's possible that if enough people who are interested in taking out the more nonsensical parts of the DMCA - and can make cogent arguments and come across as reasonable people - apply to speak, "we" could be in the majority there. (Where "we" are those who don't like the restrictions the DMCA imposes and "they" are the likes of the RIAA/MPAA/etc.)
"We" may be in the physical majority, but who has the majority of numbers to the left of the decimal point in the bank balance?
People don't lobby Congress, dollars do.
For example, the advertiser of a kayak cover may specify an advertising plan that specifies to display the advertisement on detailed web pages within a browse category of "kayaks," that specifies to display the advertisement to users are 18-30 years old, and that specifies to display the advertisement during evening hours for a given month.
:)
And just how do they know how old the user is?
Scanning the patent app, it looks like it is an automatic means of buying and placing ads. The ads and bids are in a central database, and whomever is willing to pay the most gets the ad space for that particular served page. When the points are used up, that ad is deleted and the next highest bidder's ad is placed.
In essence, ad space is automatically auctioned, similar to eBay. Do I read this correctly?
Not that any of this matters to me. AdSubtract (http://www.adsubtract.com) blocks ads from my sight, auctioned or not.
Given that most cellphones now have Caller ID, ignoring a unrecognized number should be easy.
I make it personal policy not to answer an unrecognized or blocked number. If it's important, the caller will leave a message.
I will agree that people do need to take care of themselves more and rely less on government. It is not the government's job to raise my children--that's why they are called "parents." Likewise, it is not the government's job to protect people from themselves. If people do dumb things that affect only themselves, then fine, that's their own problem.
its not the governments job to take care of you , its YOURS.. get it straight and do it. This all has to stop.
The primary job of government is, in fact, to protect the nation's people. This is NOT the same as "taking care of you." By the same token, that also includes protecting one's privacy. It's a delicate balance, one that should err towards the protection of privacy, IMHO. And by "protection" I don't mean protect them from themselves (see above), I do mean protect people from threates out of their control. I fully expect the government to protect me from having my house robbed or my car vandalized through the police force, as these forces are largely out of my control. Sure, I can alarm my house or lock the car in the garage, but I still expect soem form of protection provided by the government.
If it were, as I understand your comment, you feel that everybody should be responsible for themselves, with no government protection from outside threats. IF that is the case, what is the purpose of government then?
It's too bad the RIAA wants to take that ability away from me.
Well, of course they want to take away this ability. How else are they going to convince you to buy the tripe that is being recorded if you already heard it and know it's tripe? Free samples in the grocery store are good--they show you what the ring baloney tastes like before you spend your money on it. Music downloads are good--they show you what the song is before you purchase it.
Would you buy a car without a test drive? How about a TV not on display at Sears? Treadmills are set up in the sporting goods dept. Even music stores let you sample certain releases. The Internet lets you sample at home; sure, some will choose to satisfy themselves with the free samples only, but as the study shows, most will purchase if they like what they hear.
From the press release:
Only 16% believe that record labels are justified in shutting down file-sharing services, such as Napster and Audio Galaxy, and two-fifths (39%) agree that making copies of music to give to friends is okay.
The "record labels" didn't shut them down...the courts shut them down. Although, like the BSA, they would like you to THINK they can do that.
And didn't we cover sharing in kindergarten?
My late night pair of pennies...
I would think that a virtual keyboard would do better in a dusty environment--no keys to foul up.
On a touchscreen, put down one of those peel-away screen protectors like on PDAs. It gets dirty, just peel it off and put down a new one.
"It's a no-brainer. Anything which lets people pirate more music like this has to be very bad news for the music industry," says a spokesman for Britain's record industry trade association, the BPI.
"It's a no-brainer. Anything which lets people enjoy their music on-the-go on their own terms is a good thing," says the general public.
Why Sony should want to launch a recorder that might make piracy easier may seem surprising, as its Sony Music division makes and sells CDs. While Sony Music did not want to comment on its sister company's launch, Mike Tsurumi, a president of Sony Consumer Electronics in Berlin, insists that the move makes sense. "The music companies need to change their business model," he says.
As if that was really news...Mike Tsurumi needs to talk to the head of Sony Music.
I think what he meant is that Congress can't change to Constitution in spirit as easily as it appears to be doing with the copyright law. By extending the copyright to "death + 95" this is technically a limited time; the letter of the law is preserved, but the spirit of the law is suppressed.
Congress is changing the spirit of the Constitution with such ludicrous copyright extensions. I would favor reverting back to the Copyright Law of 1790, which limited copyright to 14 years, renewable for fourteen additional years once (http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html). This gives the creator time to profit financially from ones works, it enriches the public culture, and is within the spirit and letter of the Constitution.
Agreed. Plus, a small engine that can be strapped to a bike for some power-assist is nothing new. Look in the back of any Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, or any similar type of magazine, and I bet you will find ads for this amongst the ads for do-it-yourself helicopters, hovercraft, and motorized wheelbarrows.
Two other thoughts come to mind...
(1) If you're going to go the distances that might make this useful, chances are that you're not a periodic, recreational biker. Thus, are you going to really want one of these on your bike in the first place?
(2) If you ride short distances (around a college campus or in the neighborhood) do you want to have to smell the fumes and listen to the high-pitched whine constantly? These small engines generally don't have much in the way of mufflers or emissions control, so there's that to consider as well.
When I flew model planes, the fuselage was covered with unburned fuel at the end of a flight. I would presume that noise and unburned fuel have been taken into account in this design, but it's still something to consider. The designer probably went further than taking a big R/C aircraft engine and bolt it to a clutch and drivetrain.
Personally, I like the exercise and peace & quiet that comes with a nice bike ride, but as always, YMMV.
But it would also carve out a broad exemption in the law for mail sent by companies the recipient has done business with, and completely exempt Internet service providers -- including Microsoft.
Given that Microsoft products are on over 90% of all PCs worldwide, would I be correct to read that this would mean the Microsoft could legally send 90% of the world's PCs spam? After all these machines are running a Microsoft OS, thus they must have done business with the Beast.
ANd to cover the last 10% is the ISP clause. So, if you are an ISP, you can legally spam anybody, even if they aren't your customer.
Anybody can use that loophole, really. If I put up a WAP free for the taking by any Joe Schmuckatelli, does this make me an ISP? Does this mean I can spam the world, assuming that I am originating from withing the state of Washington?
All in all, a bad idea.
It has been said here many times, but bears repeating. Legislation against spam will not come to bear any useful fruit. They are like gun laws; they will keep honest people honest. The spammers will simply locate offshore or find other ways to ignore the law. It is the ISPs that need to take a stand against spam for there to be any ground gained.
I started using MailWasher this week, and a key feature that it has is the ability to filter spam that goes through open relays. If such a filter is available at the user level, why not make it an option at the ISP level? An ISP or web-based mail site can give the user the option of blocking all mail that passes through open relays. A slightly less optimal option would be for an ISP to block ALL mail that passes through open relays, but then this gets into the issue of the ISP deciding what goes and what doesn't go through its system--like the discussion regarding AOL's 1-billion-blocks day.
My thoughts on spam for the evening.
The essence of AOL Time Warner's Mystro TV is a technology that uses a cable system itself to provide viewers capabilities similar to computerized personal video recorders like TiVo: watching programs on their own schedules, with fast-forward and rewind. But it also lets networks set the parameters, dictating which shows users can reschedule, and it also creates ways for networks to insert commercials.
Sounds more like "Mystro TV Suicide" or "crippled TiVO" to me. This won't be anything near a TiVO Killer: It goes against what TiVO stands for: use of the product (TV content) on YOUR terms. I don't want the networks dictating to me what I can and cannot record; after all, they don't control my work schedule, so they can't possibly know when I can watch what.
I don't see it going anywhere.
Trillian is a great client--I have that on my Windows machine and Everybuddy (everybuddy.com) on a Linux laptop. Someday I'll try the Everybuddy client for Windows.
I've never used Jabber, but I think I understand your description. However, I'm not sure that was quite what I had in mind. What I am thinking of is something like that, but would convert from any protocol to any other protocol...a IM Babel Fish, if you will. The Jabber workaround requires at least one user to use the Jabber client and server (if I understood you right).
For a while, AOL IP-banned the main public Jabber server from AIM - they obviously weren't happy about the idea.
AOL isn't happy about a lot of things. There was a three or four month time span where AOL and Cerulean Studios were playing cat-and-mouse games; AOL would use some underhanded way to drop the Trillian client and Trillian gets patched to fix it. AOL then tries something else, Trillian gets patched, etc. AOL based their actions on preventing "unauthorized access" to their network. I personally think it was because AOL didn't like the fact that they couldn't push ads or their own "daily content" to a Trillian user. I think AOL just gave up on the idea, as I haven't heard any noise about it in some time.
I see this software and I find myself very afraid. It neatly packages up a military grade cryptographic communications solution and makes it freely available to the public. While the people who it is intended for will benefit greatly from it, those who intend to do harm will also have easy access to it.
Such is the price of Open Source and the desire for freedom of speech. Should a terrorist organization start using strong encryption, they could do as the Germans and send those "garbage" messages so that the level of communication traffic is relatively constant. One would have thought they would have figured this out by now, but I guess not.
I would be more concerned of such cryptography were NOT available to the public. I have just as much right to secure my data and communications as anybody, and I'm not a political activist, human rights worker, or terrorist. PGP secures data on my Windows box, and I try to encourage the use of PGP in e-mail whenever possible (besides the fact that spammers don't use it and it would make spam filtering SOOO easy, but that was the topic of another post some time ago).
Anyway, it's time like these that I come to realize it's good that Windows has such a broad, class-spawning user base. We can have class action lawsuits with millions of people because there are so many Windows out there. We have a louder voice, if you will, against any large grievous software companies out there who write backdoor holes and product activation viruses.
I'd prefer not needing the voice to file a class-action lawsuit in the first place.
As a side note: don't be sorry for not switching. I'm not religiously tied to any OS either (this is being written on a Linux laptop, sharing a home network with a Win2K machine and WinXP machine). You should use the OS that does what you want it to do, whether it's Windows, Linux, OS X, MS-DOS, etc...
"Choose the tool for the job, not the job for the tool."
The memory effect that was mentioned for satellite batteries applies to Ni-Cad batteries as well.
m l#NICKEL%20CADMIUM)
w ww.batterycanada.com/Battery_Facts.htm
-In my college chemistry class, I asked the professor this very question. According to him, a Ni-Cad battery develops a memory due to the plates in the battery crystallizing if not used for a long period of time. If a battery is only half-discharged before charging, the metal that is not used in the chemical process will eventually crystalize and not react even if the user tries to discharge the battery beyond half-capacity. A battery conditioner, if I understand properly, will discharge a battery completely before recharging, ensuring that the metal doesn't have a chance to crystallize. For batteries that have the effect already, teh conditioner will deep discharge the battery, "ripping" the metal atoms from the crystal structure and gradually restoring battery capacity.
When I was in the Navy, the submarine battery would show an increase in capacity if was deep-cycled a few times (like when running casualty drills over a period of several days).
-(from http://wireless.berkeley.edu/services/battery.sht
Partial cycles will form dendrites on the plates which cause the memory effect. My speculation is that these dendrites will either (a) undergo rapid chemical process when the battery is used because they are thin relative to the plates or (b) break off and not take part in the process at all.
So the "memory effect" is no myth. I would suspect that battery manufacturers have engineers who are well-versed in such matters and probably have at least half a clue as to what they're talking about.
http://www.valence.com/chemistries.asp
http://
Makes me wish I had seen it yesterday :)
...the Web, like television, is a way to hold eyeballs still while advertisers spray them with messages.
...the Net is something that telcos and cable companies should filter, control and otherwise "improve."
... it's a bad thing for users to communicate between different kinds of instant messaging systems on the Net.
...the Net suffers from a lack of regulation to protect industries that feel threatened by it.
A couple points about the mistakes being made over and over and over ad nauseum:
Other mistakes we insist on making over and over. For example, thinking that:
*
This one in particular struck me. As has already been proven, users will find ways to block annoying advertising (Guidescope, AdSubtract, Junkbuster, etc.) rendering it useless. Free tip to the ad agencies: an ad that one finds interesting and compels us to explore further is not the same as oner that is obnoxious and gets our attention for the wrong reasons. An ad that is unseen will draw exactly -0- potential customers.
As for those who believe that users who block ads steal content: there is nothing that requires me to read the ads in my local newspaper. If I don't read those ads, am I stealing content there as well? If I pull out the remote control and change the TV channel at a commercial or get up to get a sandwich when the ads come on, am I stealing content? (Yes, I know what the "content providers" say about that, and I say "screw you" to them.)
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The Internet is a pipe. It is a pipe that transmits data hither and yon. That is it. The only improvements that the telcos and cable providers can do is add better and faster hardware to make the pipe bigger. Using the "Information Superhighway" as the analogy: when you have a freeway through your city and you improve it, you improve the efficiency of the flow of traffic by making it EASIER for traffic to pass through, not HARDER.
*
If AOL, Microsoft, et al won't do it, I bet some intrepid programming brains will write "switchboard" type server software that will do it for them, assuming it hasn't been done already. The IM clients and services are free, so how can AOL be afraid of losing customers of their AIM users can talk directly to MSN Messenger users? Must be that whole territory, ego, alpha-male thing.
*
The threat facing those industries (music and multimedia content) that feel threatened by it is their own failure to embrace the INternet for what it is: a means for these companies to distribute their product practically instantly and at a extremely reduced cost. If I buy ten or twelve tracks from Liquid Audio and burn my own CD, that cost me about $12 or $14 all told. That CD is worth much more than the $16 CD that the local Camelot Music is trying to push with only two or three good tracks.
The non-threatened industries take advantage of the Internet pipe and use it for what it is: a fast and easy means of transmitting data. Cisco apparently saw this when they developed the voice-over-IP phones (which, BTW, are very cool--I had the opportunity to use them over a multi-site network linked by satellite, and they sounded just like a land line) and the telecos are threatened because now users can communicate without using their proprietary, charge-by-the-minute phone systems.
My thoughts for the morning...
Linux's rapid maturity--for example, growing up to work on large multiprocessor servers--is evidence of the presence of Unix intellectual property, the SCO suit said. "It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach Unix performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of Unix code, methods or concepts to achieve such performance, and coordination by a larger developer, such as IBM," the suit said.
First thought that came to mind while reading the article: SCO has seriously underestimated the brain pool of tens of thousands (at least) of open source porgrammers. Unix advanced to where it did technologically because some really smart people knew what they're doing. Isn't it possible that Linux got to where it did because a helluva lot more really smart people knew what they were doing?
Intellectual property lawsuits booming
Intellectual property litigation appears to be on the rise in the high-tech industry and for good reason: The settlements or verdicts are often quite lucrative.
Intergraph, which once made workstations but now specializes in software, got $450 million from Intel in two separate suits in the past year and could receive $150 million more from the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker in an appeal on one of the actions. Intergraph's income from operations in 2002 was $10 million, but net income including legal settlements came to $378 million.
Perhaps I'm not paying attention to the news enough, but didn't it seem like these business-to-business lawsuits started cropping up en masse when the economy tanked? "We can't earn an honest dollar, so let's sue somebody and take theirs."