Of course they voted this way... why would a federal circuit court do anything that reduces the power of the federal government? These days, representative government is a lie.
Think about what you just said.
The circuit court left the decision of whether these machines should be used to the President and the Congress.
That is what representative government is all about.
Bullocks. Push people on what features they actually use. Most people really do use the roughly the same 20%. The vast majority of people I've talked with and seen what they do, Office 97 is just fine.
This line of thinking reminds me of a scene from Ratatouille:
Colette: No! You waste energy and time! You think cooking is a cute job, eh? Like Mommy in the kitchen? Well, Mommy never had to face the dinner rush while the orders come flooding in, and every dish is different and none are simple, and all different cooking time, but must arrive at the customer's table at exactly the same time, hot and perfect! Every second counts and you CANNOT be MOMMY!
Or turn off the ringer and vibration, box it up and take it to a somewhat nearby kinko's, and then fedex it back to yourself. Now it's on, and will travel around the city, while you do whatever it is you want to do. If you get nicked, use that phone location and piles of court cases where phone records were admitted as proof of location.
Congratulations.
The FedEx truck will now take your phone on a Cook's Tour of the local gas works, sewage treatment plant and the city morgue. Places you no intelligible reason to visit.
If you are planning on committing a crime remove the battery from your phone. This goes for non-smartphones as well. Use a prepay for crime planning and ditch it as frequently as possible.
This assumes you --- and those you call --- are not under suspicion or surveillance for any other reason.
It can be very difficult to keep things plausible.
Small mistakes stand out:
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes: "That was the curious incident."...
it shows your phone was at the scene, it doesn't prove YOU were.
It is one piece of the puzzle.
If you were on the phone at 10:00 and 11:00 and the crime was commited between 10:15 and 10:45, you have a problem.
Even if you cannot be fenced in quite that tightly your location can probably be fixed closely enough to interest a jury. Remeber that a jury only has to be persuaded of your guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt."
Based on the weight of the evidence when seen and considered as a whole.
Small businesses in the same fix have for several generations now formed cooperatives.
The benefits include branding and promotion.
Licensing and legal support. Technical support. Financing, and so on.
The co-op sets standards.
The co-op is market-oriented and the product it offers must be competitive. You won't get a buy if you try to sell them a rotten cabbage no matter how "green" your garden grows.
Nothing but throw-away, "garbage entertainment," is the excuse the geek reaches out for when he pirates another movie or an mp3.
When looked at closely, it is the miror-image of the "just another latte" argument being by used by Netflix --- and the middle class isn't buying in to either one of them.
Which part of "woefully inefficient" doesn't overcome "very yellow light" in your mind? Seriously. Incandescent, aside from being What You're Used To, really is NOT very good light!
The transition from gas light to electric was not all that smooth.
The color spectrum, intensity and other qualities of gaslight would have been reflected in your choice of fixtures, fabrics, textures, paint, wall coverings, windows, curtains, tableware, cosmetics and so on.
Your wife would have something choice to say about the harsh state pen glare of the bare bulbs you were stringing over her mother's dining room table.
When a fluorescent bulb breaks in your home, some of this mercury is released as mercury vapor.
These steps are precautions and reflect best practices for cleaning up a broken CFL. If you are unable to follow them fully, don't be alarmed. CFLs contain a very small amount of mercury -- less than 1/100th of the amount in a mercury thermometer. However, if you are concerned about the risk to your health from a potential exposure to mercury, consult your physician.
Before cleanup
Have people and pets leave the room. Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment. Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system, if you have one. Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb:
stiff paper or cardboard; sticky tape; damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces); and a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag.
During cleanup
Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder. Place cleanup materials in a sealable container.
After cleanup
Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly. Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors. If practical, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating/air conditioning system shut off for several hours.
Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rugs: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming
1.The next several times you vacuum the rug or carpet, shut off the H&AC system if you have one, close the doors to other rooms, and open a window or door to the outside before vacuuming. Change the vacuum bag after each use in this area.
2.After vacuuming is completed, keep the H&AC system shut off and the window or door to the outside open, as practical, for several hours.
These clean-up recommendations are more or less what you expect for any accidental toxic spill in the home.
Actions You Can Take to Prevent Broken Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Always switch off and allow a working CFL bulb to cool before handling. Always handle CFL bulbs carefully to avoid breakage. If possible, screw/unscrew the CFL by holding the plastic or ceramic base, not the glass tubing. Gently screw in the CFL until snug. Do not over-tighten. Never forcefully twist the glass tubing. Do not install CFLs in table lamps and floor lamps that can be easily knocked over, in unprotected light fixtures, or in lamps that are incompatible with the spiral or folded shape of many CFLs. Do not use CFL bulbs in locations where they can easily be broken, such as play spaces. Use CFL bulbs that have a glass or plastic cover over the spiral or folded glass tube, if available. These types of bulbs look more like incandescent bulbs and may be more durable if dropped. Consider using a drop cloth (e.g., plastic sheet or beach towel) when changing a fluorescent light bulb in case a breakage should occur. The drop cloth will help prevent mercury contamination of nearby surfaces and can be bundled with the bulb debris for disposal.
Heck, most of the extra resource requirements for Vista were due to the new DRM subsystem.
This is nonsense.
No one pokes more fun at Slashdot than Slashdot, as often its editors and readers behave as if they had fallen off the tomato truck yesterday. Tell them anything, anything at all, regardless of how improbable or insane it may be, and not only will they instantly accept it as Gospel, they'll burn up the Internet proselytizing their myths and fantasies.
It's an interesting article but honestly I don't buy the "If you don't like new stuff, you're a Luddite" mentality. History is replete with technological disasters:
Posting from Niagara Falls.
I don't know where she sees a pushback against electricity in the home -- not for the reasons she suggests, anyway.
The alternatives were candles, kerosene and gas. Petroleum products before Standard Oil were feared and for very good reasons. Gas lighting was expensive when and where you could get it.
Imagine a hose connected to a desk lamp. That is gaslight in the Sears, Roebuck catalog ca. 1910. The stove had a pilot, the gas had a scent, but that was the limit of your protection.
Electricity brought with it new risks of electric shock and fire.
You were wired into the Bell system in the late 1880s, you owned a flashlight and maybe a doorbell. That isn't going to tell you much about how to behave around the 15 amp 120 volt line serving your bathroom.
In 2006, the New York Electronic Crimes Task Force merged with the Newark Electronic Crimes Working Group to form the New York/New Jersey Electronic Crimes Task Force. This combined entity enhances cooperation between law enforcement and corporations in the greater New York and New Jersey areas to combat electronic crimes.
Investigations conducted by the U.S. Secret Service through the ECTFs include crimes such as:
Computer generated counterfeit currency Bank fraud Counterfeit checks Credit card fraud Virus and worm proliferation Access device fraud Telecommunications fraud Internet threats Computer system intrusions and cyber-attacks Phishing/spoofing Assistance with internet related child pornography and exploitation
CD/DVD piracy Terrorism/terrorist financing nexus Identity theft
We know a) He had permission.
Like hell he did.
The drives were imaged each night. He had to return to the stores each day to reinstall the software.
The only "permission" he clains to have had was from a security guard - there is nothing in writing from the management of the store.
Nothing in writing from those who were photographed.
The interior of a retail store is not part of the commons, not a public place under New York law.
Who knows more about how space movies should be made, an engineer or nonengineer? Invisible lasers, never miss guidence, no sound in space, no fire burning without oxygen.
You have 98 minutes to tell your story.
If your film is Wall-E you will have less than five minutes free for conventional dialog and exposition.
Ideally, everything your audience needs to know will be conveyed without words:
Exposition sucks rocks. It stops the story in its tracks.
The audience sees weapon fire.
It doesn't see a laser. It doesn't need to see a laser.
The geek sees a laser because he can't think of any other form of beamed weapon.
I am curious as to what their criteria are. If Scientology can be a religion, why cant anything?
I am reminded of what uthers have said about pornography:
"You know it when you see it:"
Religion is not a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card rushed into print by a newly minted storefront church whose sole reason for existence is to avoid paying the $1 rental at the neighborhood Red Box.
Geez, you can't really ask for any better PR than having your project mentioned on national news. As long as he stays out of jail (go EFF!) then he'll come out on top in the end.
He can bask in the glory of his fifteen minutes of fame.
The civil and criminal consequences of his actions will keep him otherwise occupied for the next three to five years.
A final word of advice:
The EFF is a brass band and a law professor who - twenty years out of the game - still thinks he would have made a hot-shot trial attorney.
I don't think computer crimes is the right thing to go after him for. The machines are there for you to use and they don't have any conditions of use that you agree to. Taking pictures of people for a (seemingly) commercial endeavor without their permission should be the charge.
Installation of software to secretly broadcast webcam or surveillance images to your blog is not a legitimate in-store demo. Lying to the store manager or security guard about the changes you will be making to their systems is unmistakably fraud and trespass.
Slashdot Mirror
Until they released all the News Corp. information and emails? Seems like someone might be a little worried that they are in the bribe list.
Think about how long it takes to build a case for a federal charge you think will stick ---
and how late Anonymous was to the News Corp party.
Of course they voted this way... why would a federal circuit court do anything that reduces the power of the federal government? These days, representative government is a lie.
Think about what you just said.
The circuit court left the decision of whether these machines should be used to the President and the Congress.
That is what representative government is all about.
Bullocks. Push people on what features they actually use. Most people really do use the roughly the same 20%. The vast majority of people I've talked with and seen what they do, Office 97 is just fine.
This line of thinking reminds me of a scene from Ratatouille:
Colette: What are you doing?
Linguini: Uh... vegetables. I'm cooking the... vegetables?
Colette: No! You waste energy and time! You think cooking is a cute job, eh? Like Mommy in the kitchen? Well, Mommy never had to face the dinner rush while the orders come flooding in, and every dish is different and none are simple, and all different cooking time, but must arrive at the customer's table at exactly the same time, hot and perfect! Every second counts and you CANNOT be MOMMY!
Or turn off the ringer and vibration, box it up and take it to a somewhat nearby kinko's, and then fedex it back to yourself. Now it's on, and will travel around the city, while you do whatever it is you want to do.
If you get nicked, use that phone location and piles of court cases where phone records were admitted as proof of location.
Congratulations.
The FedEx truck will now take your phone on a Cook's Tour of the local gas works, sewage treatment plant and the city morgue. Places you no intelligible reason to visit.
If you are planning on committing a crime remove the battery from your phone. This goes for non-smartphones as well. Use a prepay for crime planning and ditch it as frequently as possible.
This assumes you --- and those you call --- are not under suspicion or surveillance for any other reason.
It can be very difficult to keep things plausible.
Small mistakes stand out:
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes: "That was the curious incident." ...
it shows your phone was at the scene, it doesn't prove YOU were.
It is one piece of the puzzle.
If you were on the phone at 10:00 and 11:00 and the crime was commited between 10:15 and 10:45, you have a problem.
Even if you cannot be fenced in quite that tightly your location can probably be fixed closely enough to interest a jury. Remeber that a jury only has to be persuaded of your guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt."
Based on the weight of the evidence when seen and considered as a whole.
The small independent developer is disadvantaged.
Well, duh.
Small businesses in the same fix have for several generations now formed cooperatives.
The benefits include branding and promotion.
Licensing and legal support. Technical support. Financing, and so on.
The co-op sets standards.
The co-op is market-oriented and the product it offers must be competitive. You won't get a buy if you try to sell them a rotten cabbage no matter how "green" your garden grows.
Way to be timely and relevant, GNU.
What could be greater show of health and vigor than naming your first release "Debian Wheezy?"
How do you explain the popularity of Apache and Linux on enterprise servers, then?
The server room is managed by an IT pro.
The office suite is the domain of the 9 to 5 clerical worker, who has a very different set of skills, needs and expectations.
Oh grow up, it's just garbage entertainment.
Nothing but throw-away, "garbage entertainment," is the excuse the geek reaches out for when he pirates another movie or an mp3.
When looked at closely, it is the miror-image of the "just another latte" argument being by used by Netflix --- and the middle class isn't buying in to either one of them.
Which part of "woefully inefficient" doesn't overcome "very yellow light" in your mind? Seriously. Incandescent, aside from being What You're Used To, really is NOT very good light!
The transition from gas light to electric was not all that smooth.
The color spectrum, intensity and other qualities of gaslight would have been reflected in your choice of fixtures, fabrics, textures, paint, wall coverings, windows, curtains, tableware, cosmetics and so on.
Your wife would have something choice to say about the harsh state pen glare of the bare bulbs you were stringing over her mother's dining room table.
The EPA website's cleanup instructions were vast.
Cleaning Up a Broken CFL
When a fluorescent bulb breaks in your home, some of this mercury is released as mercury vapor.
These steps are precautions and reflect best practices for cleaning up a broken CFL. If you are unable to follow them fully, don't be alarmed. CFLs contain a very small amount of mercury -- less than 1/100th of the amount in a mercury thermometer. However, if you are concerned about the risk to your health from a potential exposure to mercury, consult your physician.
Before cleanup
Have people and pets leave the room.
Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment.
Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system, if you have one.
Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb:
stiff paper or cardboard;
sticky tape;
damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces); and
a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag.
During cleanup
Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder.
Place cleanup materials in a sealable container.
After cleanup
Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly.
Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors.
If practical, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating/air conditioning system shut off for several hours.
Cleaning Up a Broken CFL
Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rugs: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming
1.The next several times you vacuum the rug or carpet, shut off the H&AC system if you have one, close the doors to other rooms, and open a window or door to the outside before vacuuming. Change the vacuum bag after each use in this area.
2.After vacuuming is completed, keep the H&AC system shut off and the window or door to the outside open, as practical, for several hours.
Detailed Recommendations
These clean-up recommendations are more or less what you expect for any accidental toxic spill in the home.
Actions You Can Take to Prevent Broken Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Always switch off and allow a working CFL bulb to cool before handling.
Always handle CFL bulbs carefully to avoid breakage.
If possible, screw/unscrew the CFL by holding the plastic or ceramic base, not the glass tubing.
Gently screw in the CFL until snug. Do not over-tighten.
Never forcefully twist the glass tubing.
Do not install CFLs in table lamps and floor lamps that can be easily knocked over, in unprotected light fixtures, or in lamps that are incompatible with the spiral or folded shape of many CFLs.
Do not use CFL bulbs in locations where they can easily be broken, such as play spaces.
Use CFL bulbs that have a glass or plastic cover over the spiral or folded glass tube, if available. These types of bulbs look more like incandescent bulbs and may be more durable if dropped.
Consider using a drop cloth (e.g., plastic sheet or beach towel) when changing a fluorescent light bulb in case a breakage should occur. The drop cloth will help prevent mercury contamination of nearby surfaces and can be bundled with the bulb debris for disposal.
Heck, most of the extra resource requirements for Vista were due to the new DRM subsystem.
This is nonsense.
No one pokes more fun at Slashdot than Slashdot, as often its editors and readers behave as if they had fallen off the tomato truck yesterday. Tell them anything, anything at all, regardless of how improbable or insane it may be, and not only will they instantly accept it as Gospel, they'll burn up the Internet proselytizing their myths and fantasies.
Oh, the humanity: Windows 7's draconian DRM? [Posted as a comment by WaltC in 2009]
At least with the contempt of court charges, I run the chance of becoming a cause celeb for standing up for principles
You stand a far better chance of making the Guinness Book for spending more time in jail on a contempt charge than a Philadelphia lawyer.
Fourteen years. You could look it up.
sounds like the best course of action is to say you forgot your passphrase. Problem solved.
The judge is not obliged to believe you.
Twenty-five years on the bench makes for a very low tolerance of the geek's brand of bull ---
and he has a cure:
a 6x8 cell and a bunk mate named Big Mike.
As long as the only way to unlock the encryption is in your head, they can't legally force it out.
But what they can do is commit you to the county lock-up until your memory improves or hell freezes over, whichever comes first:
Lawyer Freed After Longest-Ever Term for Contempt [14 years.]
nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself
The root of the privilege lies in the desire to erect barriers against the use of torture .
It is about what you can be made to say on the stand. The confession you were forced to sign.
It is not about surrendering the keys to the freezer where you dumped the body. It is not about obstructing a lawful search of the premises.
It's an interesting article but honestly I don't buy the "If you don't like new stuff, you're a Luddite" mentality. History is replete with technological disasters:
Posting from Niagara Falls.
I don't know where she sees a pushback against electricity in the home -- not for the reasons she suggests, anyway.
The alternatives were candles, kerosene and gas. Petroleum products before Standard Oil were feared and for very good reasons. Gas lighting was expensive when and where you could get it.
Imagine a hose connected to a desk lamp. That is gaslight in the Sears, Roebuck catalog ca. 1910. The stove had a pilot, the gas had a scent, but that was the limit of your protection.
Electricity brought with it new risks of electric shock and fire.
You were wired into the Bell system in the late 1880s, you owned a flashlight and maybe a doorbell. That isn't going to tell you much about how to behave around the 15 amp 120 volt line serving your bathroom.
Juries in East Texas frequently rule in favor of patent holders.
Juries frequently rule in favor of the plaintiff.
You could say the same for any case that goes to a jury verdict.
If you can't persuade a judge that you have a factual argument worth presenting to a jury you have no business being in a trial court.
I take it the only reason the fucking Secret Service is going after him is because he isn't a corporation or the government.
Let me introduce the New York/New Jersey Electronic Crimes Task Force.
In 2006, the New York Electronic Crimes Task Force merged with the Newark Electronic Crimes Working Group to form the New York/New Jersey Electronic Crimes Task Force. This combined entity enhances cooperation between law enforcement and corporations in the greater New York and New Jersey areas to combat electronic crimes.
Investigations conducted by the U.S. Secret Service through the ECTFs include crimes such as:
Computer generated counterfeit currency
Bank fraud
Counterfeit checks
Credit card fraud
Virus and worm proliferation
Access device fraud
Telecommunications fraud
Internet threats
Computer system intrusions and cyber-attacks
Phishing/spoofing
Assistance with internet related child pornography and exploitation
CD/DVD piracy
Terrorism/terrorist financing nexus
Identity theft
We know a) He had permission.
Like hell he did.
The drives were imaged each night. He had to return to the stores each day to reinstall the software.
The only "permission" he clains to have had was from a security guard - there is nothing in writing from the management of the store.
Nothing in writing from those who were photographed.
The interior of a retail store is not part of the commons, not a public place under New York law.
Produce whatever cable you want, and call it HMDI.
The geek is all for strict adherence to standards and branding until it becomes inconvenient.
Who knows more about how space movies should be made, an engineer or nonengineer? Invisible lasers, never miss guidence, no sound in space, no fire burning without oxygen.
You have 98 minutes to tell your story.
If your film is Wall-E you will have less than five minutes free for conventional dialog and exposition.
Ideally, everything your audience needs to know will be conveyed without words:
Exposition sucks rocks. It stops the story in its tracks.
The audience sees weapon fire.
It doesn't see a laser. It doesn't need to see a laser.
The geek sees a laser because he can't think of any other form of beamed weapon.
I am curious as to what their criteria are. If Scientology can be a religion, why cant anything?
I am reminded of what uthers have said about pornography:
"You know it when you see it:"
Religion is not a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card rushed into print by a newly minted storefront church whose sole reason for existence is to avoid paying the $1 rental at the neighborhood Red Box.
Geez, you can't really ask for any better PR than having your project mentioned on national news. As long as he stays out of jail (go EFF!) then he'll come out on top in the end.
He can bask in the glory of his fifteen minutes of fame.
The civil and criminal consequences of his actions will keep him otherwise occupied for the next three to five years.
A final word of advice:
The EFF is a brass band and a law professor who - twenty years out of the game - still thinks he would have made a hot-shot trial attorney.
I don't think computer crimes is the right thing to go after him for. The machines are there for you to use and they don't have any conditions of use that you agree to. Taking pictures of people for a (seemingly) commercial endeavor without their permission should be the charge.
Installation of software to secretly broadcast webcam or surveillance images to your blog is not a legitimate in-store demo. Lying to the store manager or security guard about the changes you will be making to their systems is unmistakably fraud and trespass.