Reminds me of a great observation...
on
Make More Mistakes
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Ok, love him or hate him, I once heard Tony Robbins say the coolest thing about just this topic. Don't know if he made it up or ripped it off, but it doesn't matter:
"Success comes from good judgement.
Good judgement comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgement!"
Make lots of mistakes, but, more importantly, learn from them all.
As a TN resident, I was rather surprised to learn of a "Super DCMA" bill; this is the first I've heard of it.
Now, I just skimmed down through the bill itself (which I doubt many else here have done), and I'm wondering what specific provisions are objectionable. This bill seems to be aimed squarely at those who pirate satellite, cable, and/or telephone services and those who sell or make the equipment enabling such activities. Frankly, I don't have much of a problem with that.
The only objectionably provision I see in the bill is the one which states that to "Knowingly assist others in committing any of the acts prohibited by this section." Under the most liberal interpretation, this can be construed as a DCMA-style anti-free-speech provisions, but I doubt very seriously future case law will show it as such.
I saw nothing at all regarding copyrights, patents, and p2p. So again, I ask, what am I missing?
Something like 80% of all identity theft is caused by folks searching through PUBLIC probate records when people die. It's easy... read the obits, go to the court house, and you got everything that person had and all their personal information to boot.
So if you REALLY want to avoid identity theft then:
a) don't die
or
b) put all your assets in trust before you do
My $0.02 (and no, I don't sell trusts or estate planning).
I bought (and still have) one of their flash-based mp3 recorder/players. Despite some quirks, I like the device, but I'm not happy with how the company handled my invitation to port their MP3 manager software to linux.
Because the player is flash-based, you can only upload/download mp3s using the Windows MP3 manager software. Having done projects like this in the past, I offered to port the manager software to linux for the company, free of charge.
My offer was immediately accepted, but came with an NDA regarding any code they would send me. After I explained that if I were going to do it for free, I'd want it to be open source, I never heard another word, despite several followup emails.
The company has obviously decided against open source of any of their products, though I can't imagine why. If someone really gave a shit what the download/upload protocol was for their software, it would be fairly trivial to reverse it.
So anyway, bear this in mind if you think Pogo is the company for you. You'll be using their stuff on windows or via an emaulator.
Jeff
Ok, normally I'm all for the liberal "screw the big corporation"/. agenda, but there are several problems in this case...
1. The RBL (specifially the DUNS list) has been advocating this very thing for years now. Many administrators (yours truly included) find it to be the most useful of the spam-blocking lists. So tell me again why is it suddenly bad when AOL does the same thing as DUNS by their own accord?
2. No self-respecting ISP is *ever* going to block mail from AOL. Because they respect them? No.... because of the potention legal liability in blocking such mail without permission of each and every one of their users. E-mail has long been held to be the most protected of the Internet services in courts... screw with that at your peril.
3. It's an easy work-around. Someone has already posted the sendmail fix, here's the one for qmail.
In/var/qmail/control/smtproutes add the following line (yes, with the preceding colon)::mail.yourisp.net
4. My guess is the AOL user agreement specifically prohibits running servers of any kind on residential dialup/DSL service. Don't like it? Then either a) hide those servers better (non-standard ports) or b) find someone else to take your money.
That's all, have a nice day.
Jeff
My
Why in the world would you need tax software in Canada? Should be pretty simple up there... just hand over every dollar you make to the govt. God bless socialism!:)
Jeff
I had a drive come to me, work for about 48 hours (just long enough for me to load all my data on it) and then had a head crash.
Of course, I was able to return the drive for a replacement, but not before a buddy of mine at a speaker manufacturing plant demagnitized it for me:) Find something on that, MIT boy!
Jeff
I love the timing of this subject. I was just discussing with some buddies of mine the other day that I'd given up trying to use linux as my desktop OS. At least for the forseeable future...
Now before you say it's because I don't have the wherewithal to do it, keep in mind I've used linux since 1993, used 3 brands of distributions (currently debian), contributed mightily to several open source servers and clients, used linux, solaris, and irix exclusively for servers at my ISP, I compile KDE 2.x (among other things) from CVS from scratch for my upgrades, and I continue to use it as a firewall, SMTP server at my house... however, I admit defeat on the desktop front for the following reasons:
1. Quicken vs. Gnucash
My most recent attempt to keep linux as my permanent desktop OS was to convert my three plus years of quicken data to gnucash. And I must admit, gnucash is VERY nice, effective, and probably has a better accounting design than quicken. However, it crashed several times in the import process, did not import many records correctly (thus causing erroneous balances), and is WAY too difficult to compile.
On the upside, gnucash is more extensible (at least for reports), uses double-entry accounting by default, and should work perfectly for anyone whose data is not as extensive/complicated as mine is. But for me, converting is just going to be too time consuming, and a major PITA.
2. Office
Openoffice and star office are both "good". But I defy anyone to get a majority of complicated spreadsheets or documents to work properly on them. Note the key words is "complicated". For this, I require Word and Excel.
3. Flash-based mp3 players
I have both a Cabo flash mp3 player and, most recently, a Ripflash. The cabo uses the parallel port for up/downloading and the software for it does not work properly under wine.
The ripflash uses USB and has a specific driver, so it will likely never work under wine. I even offered to port the Ripflash MP3 manager to linux for Pogo. They were willing to let me until they found out I would only do it (for free anyway) as an open source project.
The long and short of this, however, is that few if any flash based mp3 players will be compatible with linux.
(note: hard drive mp3 players like the archos jukebox generally work fine under linux)
4. Handspring modules
My eyemodule 2 does not have a linux conduit. The eyemodule 1 does, but (AFAIK) the eyemodule 2 linux converter does not exist. Don't know if it would work in wine or not. Also, the mp3 module for handspring requires windows software, unlikely to ever work under wine.
I did get coldsync working (despite a massive lack of documentation) on my Visor, but this was a minor headache (see point 6 below).
5. Internet Explorer
Certain web sites I use for business only work with IE. Yes, I know, I hate it too. I generally use Mozilla win32, and use IE only for those sites. Additionally, I modify the trust zones in IE to minimize my risk while using it. Still feels dirty, but I doubt the institutions I'm talking about are going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars redesigning their custom web software (not just html) because me and a few other folks complain it doesn't work with Netscape/Mozilla/whathaveyou.
6. Time
I probably should have put this one first. Time is the major reason linux is not there as a desktop. Yes, you can get a number of things to work in linux that will usually make it at least usable as a desktop system. But how much time do you have to put into it, even as a geek? I know that getting my Sony USB camera required some document reading, a kernel recompile, rebook, no work, kernel patch, a new kernel compile, several reboots, and a lot of cursing to make it work. I did make it work, but it took several hours, and I'm a geek! It worked in about 5 minutes under Windows XP.
In conclusion, I've considered using VMware to make all these things right, but that's just treating the symptoms IMHO.
So instead I asked myself, what do you want in a desktop?
My answer is: "I want the stability, speed, and easy access to open source software linux provides, and access to commercial software and the ease of making things work of windows."
Thus, the answer for me is Mac OS X. I've already asked my wife for a titanium powerbook for Christmas, and I can't wait to once and for all unify my desktop needs under one OS. My $0.02,
Slashdot Mirror
"Success comes from good judgement.
Good judgement comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgement!"
Make lots of mistakes, but, more importantly, learn from them all.
Jeff
Now, I just skimmed down through the bill itself (which I doubt many else here have done), and I'm wondering what specific provisions are objectionable. This bill seems to be aimed squarely at those who pirate satellite, cable, and/or telephone services and those who sell or make the equipment enabling such activities. Frankly, I don't have much of a problem with that.
The only objectionably provision I see in the bill is the one which states that to "Knowingly assist others in committing any of the acts prohibited by this section." Under the most liberal interpretation, this can be construed as a DCMA-style anti-free-speech provisions, but I doubt very seriously future case law will show it as such.
I saw nothing at all regarding copyrights, patents, and p2p. So again, I ask, what am I missing?
Jeff
So if you REALLY want to avoid identity theft then:
a) don't die
or
b) put all your assets in trust before you do
My $0.02 (and no, I don't sell trusts or estate planning).
Jeff
Because the player is flash-based, you can only upload/download mp3s using the Windows MP3 manager software. Having done projects like this in the past, I offered to port the manager software to linux for the company, free of charge.
My offer was immediately accepted, but came with an NDA regarding any code they would send me. After I explained that if I were going to do it for free, I'd want it to be open source, I never heard another word, despite several followup emails.
The company has obviously decided against open source of any of their products, though I can't imagine why. If someone really gave a shit what the download/upload protocol was for their software, it would be fairly trivial to reverse it.
So anyway, bear this in mind if you think Pogo is the company for you. You'll be using their stuff on windows or via an emaulator. Jeff
Jeff
Ok, normally I'm all for the liberal "screw the big corporation" /. agenda, but there are several problems in this case...
1. The RBL (specifially the DUNS list) has been advocating this very thing for years now. Many administrators (yours truly included) find it to be the most useful of the spam-blocking lists. So tell me again why is it suddenly bad when AOL does the same thing as DUNS by their own accord?
2. No self-respecting ISP is *ever* going to block mail from AOL. Because they respect them? No.... because of the potention legal liability in blocking such mail without permission of each and every one of their users. E-mail has long been held to be the most protected of the Internet services in courts... screw with that at your peril.
3. It's an easy work-around. Someone has already posted the sendmail fix, here's the one for qmail.
In /var/qmail/control/smtproutes add the following line (yes, with the preceding colon): :mail.yourisp.net
4. My guess is the AOL user agreement specifically prohibits running servers of any kind on residential dialup/DSL service. Don't like it? Then either a) hide those servers better (non-standard ports) or b) find someone else to take your money.
That's all, have a nice day.
Jeff
My
Why in the world would you need tax software in Canada? Should be pretty simple up there... just hand over every dollar you make to the govt. God bless socialism! :)
Jeff
I had a drive come to me, work for about 48 hours (just long enough for me to load all my data on it) and then had a head crash. Of course, I was able to return the drive for a replacement, but not before a buddy of mine at a speaker manufacturing plant demagnitized it for me :) Find something on that, MIT boy!
Jeff
I love the timing of this subject. I was just discussing with some buddies of mine the other day that I'd given up trying to use linux as my desktop OS. At least for the forseeable future...
Now before you say it's because I don't have the wherewithal to do it, keep in mind I've used linux since 1993, used 3 brands of distributions (currently debian), contributed mightily to several open source servers and clients, used linux, solaris, and irix exclusively for servers at my ISP, I compile KDE 2.x (among other things) from CVS from scratch for my upgrades, and I continue to use it as a firewall, SMTP server at my house... however, I admit defeat on the desktop front for the following reasons:
1. Quicken vs. Gnucash
My most recent attempt to keep linux as my permanent desktop OS was to convert my three plus years of quicken data to gnucash. And I must admit, gnucash is VERY nice, effective, and probably has a better accounting design than quicken. However, it crashed several times in the import process, did not import many records correctly (thus causing erroneous balances), and is WAY too difficult to compile.
On the upside, gnucash is more extensible (at least for reports), uses double-entry accounting by default, and should work perfectly for anyone whose data is not as extensive/complicated as mine is. But for me, converting is just going to be too time consuming, and a major PITA.
2. Office
Openoffice and star office are both "good". But I defy anyone to get a majority of complicated spreadsheets or documents to work properly on them. Note the key words is "complicated". For this, I require Word and Excel.
3. Flash-based mp3 players
I have both a Cabo flash mp3 player and, most recently, a Ripflash. The cabo uses the parallel port for up/downloading and the software for it does not work properly under wine.
The ripflash uses USB and has a specific driver, so it will likely never work under wine. I even offered to port the Ripflash MP3 manager to linux for Pogo. They were willing to let me until they found out I would only do it (for free anyway) as an open source project.
The long and short of this, however, is that few if any flash based mp3 players will be compatible with linux.
(note: hard drive mp3 players like the archos jukebox generally work fine under linux)
4. Handspring modules
My eyemodule 2 does not have a linux conduit. The eyemodule 1 does, but (AFAIK) the eyemodule 2 linux converter does not exist. Don't know if it would work in wine or not. Also, the mp3 module for handspring requires windows software, unlikely to ever work under wine.
I did get coldsync working (despite a massive lack of documentation) on my Visor, but this was a minor headache (see point 6 below).
5. Internet Explorer
Certain web sites I use for business only work with IE. Yes, I know, I hate it too. I generally use Mozilla win32, and use IE only for those sites. Additionally, I modify the trust zones in IE to minimize my risk while using it. Still feels dirty, but I doubt the institutions I'm talking about are going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars redesigning their custom web software (not just html) because me and a few other folks complain it doesn't work with Netscape/Mozilla/whathaveyou.
6. Time
I probably should have put this one first. Time is the major reason linux is not there as a desktop. Yes, you can get a number of things to work in linux that will usually make it at least usable as a desktop system. But how much time do you have to put into it, even as a geek? I know that getting my Sony USB camera required some document reading, a kernel recompile, rebook, no work, kernel patch, a new kernel compile, several reboots, and a lot of cursing to make it work. I did make it work, but it took several hours, and I'm a geek! It worked in about 5 minutes under Windows XP.
In conclusion, I've considered using VMware to make all these things right, but that's just treating the symptoms IMHO.
So instead I asked myself, what do you want in a desktop?
My answer is: "I want the stability, speed, and easy access to open source software linux provides, and access to commercial software and the ease of making things work of windows."
Thus, the answer for me is Mac OS X. I've already asked my wife for a titanium powerbook for Christmas, and I can't wait to once and for all unify my desktop needs under one OS. My $0.02,
Jeff