Let them go around suing people for all I care. All of the burdon of proof is on them to prove that you were stealing thier service.
Perhaps, but go to court without a lawyer, and you will be skewered alive! The point of all this is that they chose a price that is LESS than that of hiring a lawyer to fight this. Paying them off is the cheapest way to go!
I hope that they go after the REAL pirates and sue them. But at least have some proof first!
We should all cancel our DirectTV service, if we have it. If not, then we should write them a nasty letter letting them know that we would now never use their service if it were free!
PS. Does anybody have any links to this story on American web sites? Before I write some letters, I would like confirmation that the Register story is legit from a major news organization.
Re:The troll in me asks...
on
Slackware Turns 10
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Been running it for several years now and has never upgraded his base system. No need to.
I hope that he at least applies patches. Otherwise, his machine is probably spamming the world right now.
If you view gravity as nothing more than the curvature of space-time (as opposed to a "force") caused by the presence of mass, then there's no way to obtain an "inverse curvature" at a given point in space. Hence, there can be no anti-gravity.
Yet there is a predicted "graviton" (not yet detected, but thought to exist) which is the particle that carries gravity.
If this is true, then it MAY be possible to affect/block such particles. Then again, maybe not...
How does one reconcile this particle/curvature theory. Both seem almost mutualy exclusive, unless the particles cause the curvature?!?!?
Depends. With Linux there is no license cost for the OS, with QNX there is.
Like this is a big deal??? I want a Linux PDA, but they are still too expensive... When you are talking $500 for the hardware, what is another $20 or so for the software.
<RANT> I thought that one advantage of using Linux was no "Microsoft Tax." Well, this may be true, but ther are a dozen Winblows CE devices cheaper than the cheapest current Zaurus or Yopy.
In the 80's, Wendy's asked "where's the beef?" (remember that?)
I'm afraid I won't be able to view Konqueror as a viable option until it can handle at the bare minimum my daily viewing habits without seriously b0rking the output
'Spose I were rooting for Einstein, then do I want an instantaneous gravity or one that takes time to propagate?
You would want gravity that moves at the speed of light. This is what most reasonable scientists expect, and probably what they assume.
All sorts of strange things can happen if it is instantaneous. According to Einstein, two people can disagree about what happens first if they are moving. A person at rest can see that event A happens at the same time as B. A person moving one direction will argue that A happens before B, while a person moving the opposite direction will argue that B happens before A. The strange thing is that everybody would be right!
Let's assume that gravity can travel at faster-than-light speed, and can be used for communication. Now, a person who is moving can see A happening, and call the operator at "B" and tell them to stop event "B from happening. The person moving in the opposite direction can see B happening and tell the operator at "A" to stop event A from happening. Who is right? Clearly, they both cannot be right!
It is possible that I am missing something here. Does anybody with more experience in this stuff have more insight?
Considering that IBM sells solutions powered by Linux. Am I missing something critical here? Perhaps this was not a unilateral action by the member companies, but instead an action taken by whoever is nominally "in charge" of the consortium?
As near as I can tell, the purpose is for commissioned software. I do not think that they are saying that the UK can't use Linux and Apache.
I think the point is if the UK needs a new database of yucky british foods (a huge database). If MySQL isn's up to the job, then a new custom piece of software might need to be written. I think that they are saying that GPL might not be right for the new software.
Methylene chloride is used as an industrial solvent and as a paint stripper.
YIKES! Although other sited say that: 1) All of the methyl chloride is washed out in the process. 2) Methyl chloride turns to a gas (and supposedly escapes the bean) at a temperature WAY below the temperature that beans are roasted.
these guys are professional litigious bastards Thanks for the libel, we were wondering who we were going to sue today. See you in court!
Just a comment (probably naieve and dumb), but why can't we turn the tables on SCO?
Surely there are a lot of "mom & pop" computer stored with a few distro's of linux lying around. They could take SCO to their local small-claims court and sue for their loss of revenue due to SCO's unfounded ranting and raving hurting their sales of retail packages of Red Hat, SUSE, Mandrake, etc. You could take this to small claims court, where it is usually something like $30 to start a suit.
Most places have a small claims limit of something like $500 or so, but $500 x (number of counties in US) is a whopping huge number. And it would cost more to hire a lawyers in every county than it would to pay the claims off.
The entire community could be a royal pain in the @$$ to SCO!
I'd also be happy to see the return of the Commodore 64 form factor -- just shove everything into the keyboard. Plug in your mouse and monitor and Ethernet, and go.
Sounds like a great idea for a case mod!
I know that somebody did a Commodore 64 suit-case portable case mod, but I have not seen a case based on the base C=64 unit!
BTW, I hope at the end we can access any of our individual components using IPv6...
What is you add an ethernet card to your 'puter? (some people need multiple ethernet ports on one machine)
Then you have to use IP to access the ethernet card so that you can use IP. Would this mean that the card would have to access itself??? If so, where does the processor fit into this picture? Hmmm. I am confusing myself again.
Actually, that would remind me a little of fibre-channel. Using FC, you can embed SCSI and TCP/IP onto FC. This means that one FC port can accomodate attached storage AND networking. Kinda cool, but the full FC spec is a complete headache to deal with.
In fact, I would be quite surprised if any one device was capable of using all possible FC protocols and features. It tries to do everything, with the associated baggage that goes with it.
Being that most everybody is extremely health-conscious here*, it is not surprising that they are making "natural" decaf coffee - or I should say, decaf coffee that has not gone through the decaf cycle (which to many, ruins the taste).
The most common method of removing the caffeine is to use methyl chloride. I am not sure what this stuff is (too many years since my chemistry class), but the name sounds nasty!
If the patent works out to be highly successful (i.e. it is a good patent), you can sell additional licenses without a company owning the patent preventing you from doing so.
Soooooo....
If I work for a company, using the company's equipment, paying my mortgage and groceries with the company's salary, and invent something cool, the I should be able to license my patent to my company's competition???
Assume "my company"="company A" and "competing company"="company B".
Company A is out a LOT of money for my salary, computers, test equipment, lab space, electricity, property taxes, lawyers to file the patent, health insurance, etc. Then, I license my idea to company B for a 100K -- which is a lot less than it cost to develop the patent... I make out like a bandit, and company A gets screwed.
Obviously, the best strategy is to NOT develop new IP, but to license it from the inventor whos main concern is to feed his children. If all companies followed this strategy, NOBODY would come out with new patents.
I do agree that something needs to be done about patents, but this is not it.
Please check out Don Lancaster's site about patents. He wrote a book called "The Case Against Patents". His site is here. He claims that unless you are a multi-million dollar company, a patent is useless because you do not have the money to afford lawyers to defend it!
I like to think of a patent as a battle. The patent is just your ticket into the arena, but you still have to be able to afford your armor and weapons.
It will be impossible to deflect Microsoft's arguments about this. What happens when Microsoft or any one else wants to add a new feature? There is no way to do this with a fixed file format. If the standard allows extensions, it won't be a standard for long.
The point is NOT about not being able to add new features. MS can add features-a-plenty! It is just that they have to update their file-format documentation.
I'm not going to get too deep into this whole thing but I suspect if someone were to find an ammo box concealed under leaves or stone in a public park around here it wouldn't be long before the bomb squad boys were called in.
Yeah, it sounds like fun, but after terror attacks and sniper whackos, people are kindof twitchy around here.
<sarcasm>Yup. Makes sense. The usual terrorist strategy is to concentrate on killing one or two isolated people in the middle of the woods. That will teach us yankee pigs!</sarcasm>
A box in the middle of a very public area would be a cause for concern. A box in the middle of nowhere would not bother me. Nobody would go through all of the effort to plant an explosive device in the middle of the woods just to get one random person. You get more terror for your money in a city.
I'd like to cache away my Mac Peforma 6116cd. Would this be bad? I'd wrap it in plastic and even enclude a UPS so you can test it in the field.
You might need a hammer/saw in order to get it to fit in the ammo box...
Seriously, this is not a bad idea. Just print up a nice certificate which can be exchanged for the computer! Include your e-mail and drop the certificate in a cache. Then you can exchange the computer for the certificate. This just might make somebody's day!
Why haven't drug dealers picked up on the whole geocaching craze?
Drug dealers expect to get paid. If they tried this approach, it would have to be on the "honor system". And honor is something that drug dealers AND drug users probably know very little about.
I have done some geocaching, and it was not challenging enough. In orienteering, you have only a map and compass (in a serious competition, having a GPS is grounds for disqualification), and have to run around in the woods and find 6-10 flags. Attached to the flags are punches that you use to punch a card (proof that you were there).
People who are serious about orienteering actually run. But being a typical slashdotter, I can't run that far;)
It is likely that there is an orienteering club near you. If you are in the US, check out www.us.orienteering.org and click on the "clubs" link on the left.
It is also cheap! A compass is under $10 at Wal-Mart. In central Florida, one event is only $6.00 (including a map). Don't forget a bottle of water! And from personal experience, check yourself for ticks when you are done.
Why new postal codes at all? With cheap GPS, why not just start using longitude and latitude?
It gets better!
Let's say that you wanted to narrow things down to approximately 1-mile. 1-mile is approx 1 minute (1/60 of one degree) of longitude.
360 degrees * 60 minutes = 21600 different minutes on the face of the earth.
26 letters plus 10 numbers = 36! Subtract "confusables" (I, O, S, Z) -- 32 possible characters! 32^3 = 32768! The number of character combinations is greater than the number of minutes in one direction. It is a simple math exercise to create a base-32 numbering system and to enumerate all possible minute/second combinations.
Therefore, three characters can represent your latitude to the nearest mile (give or take), and another three characters for your longitude! A new universal six-digit zip code!
And all of this in 5 minutes with a simple calculator! What is the big deal? Devising a system such as this is trivial. Getting people to use it is the hard part.
Anybody who doesn't already know that almost all fast food is fattening and unhealthy is a moron. McDonalds is high in cholesterol/fat/calories/plutonium/whatever. They do not lie about it. They just don't highly publicize it. But the information is there if you look.
Wouldn't this be a fairly decent way to track people? Most people carry money on them, and while the money wouldn't have a unique identifier, I'd imagine someone who's clever could sidestep such. But hey, it would probably be a great way to detect counterfeiting, you know, for about a month:-p Tinfoil hats encouraged while reading this post (Too late!)
No tin foil hats, but I can see a new market for tin-foil wallets and tin-foil purses.
A whole new product opportunity!
Re:new technique for displays?
on
Mastering Light
·
· Score: 1
Well, suppose that you just needed one element that could give THAT desired color with no additional mixing?
That would just give you the rainbow colors -- and no others (red, organge, yellow,green,blue,indigo,violet). If you need white, cyan, magenta, or any of the other "mixed" colors, then you are out of luck.
Each point on a screen must be specified using three numbers. These could be the usual RGB, or YIQ, or HSV. But it does take three.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps, but go to court without a lawyer, and you will be skewered alive! The point of all this is that they chose a price that is LESS than that of hiring a lawyer to fight this. Paying them off is the cheapest way to go!
I hope that they go after the REAL pirates and sue them. But at least have some proof first!
We should all cancel our DirectTV service, if we have it. If not, then we should write them a nasty letter letting them know that we would now never use their service if it were free!
PS. Does anybody have any links to this story on American web sites? Before I write some letters, I would like confirmation that the Register story is legit from a major news organization.
I hope that he at least applies patches. Otherwise, his machine is probably spamming the world right now.
Yet there is a predicted "graviton" (not yet detected, but thought to exist) which is the particle that carries gravity.
If this is true, then it MAY be possible to affect/block such particles. Then again, maybe not...
How does one reconcile this particle/curvature theory. Both seem almost mutualy exclusive, unless the particles cause the curvature?!?!?
Like this is a big deal??? I want a Linux PDA, but they are still too expensive... When you are talking $500 for the hardware, what is another $20 or so for the software.
<RANT>
I thought that one advantage of using Linux was no "Microsoft Tax." Well, this may be true, but ther are a dozen Winblows CE devices cheaper than the cheapest current Zaurus or Yopy.
In the 80's, Wendy's asked "where's the beef?" (remember that?)
In the 00's, I ask "Where's the savings?"
</RANT>
If you want a browser that WILL "b0rk" your page, try this http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2003/02/14/
You would want gravity that moves at the speed of light. This is what most reasonable scientists expect, and probably what they assume.
All sorts of strange things can happen if it is instantaneous. According to Einstein, two people can disagree about what happens first if they are moving. A person at rest can see that event A happens at the same time as B. A person moving one direction will argue that A happens before B, while a person moving the opposite direction will argue that B happens before A. The strange thing is that everybody would be right!
Let's assume that gravity can travel at faster-than-light speed, and can be used for communication. Now, a person who is moving can see A happening, and call the operator at "B" and tell them to stop event "B from happening. The person moving in the opposite direction can see B happening and tell the operator at "A" to stop event A from happening. Who is right? Clearly, they both cannot be right!
It is possible that I am missing something here. Does anybody with more experience in this stuff have more insight?
That number is valid for interstellar space. The SOHO is very close to a planet with an atmosphere
I would call this a non-issue. We will be able to replace the satellite LONG before anybody does any manned missions to the moon or mars.
As near as I can tell, the purpose is for commissioned software. I do not think that they are saying that the UK can't use Linux and Apache.
I think the point is if the UK needs a new database of yucky british foods (a huge database). If MySQL isn's up to the job, then a new custom piece of software might need to be written. I think that they are saying that GPL might not be right for the new software.
Although I could be wrong -- I have been before.
Carbon dioxide is one of the ways being used now. It is newer and "better," but apparently not everybody is using. Look at http://www.heritage-coffee.com/the_genesis_of_dec
If you look at http://www.coffee-resources.com/chapter.asp?chapt
If you go here, you see that: YIKES! Although other sited say that:
1) All of the methyl chloride is washed out in the process.
2) Methyl chloride turns to a gas (and supposedly escapes the bean) at a temperature WAY below the temperature that beans are roasted.
Just a comment (probably naieve and dumb), but why can't we turn the tables on SCO?
Surely there are a lot of "mom & pop" computer stored with a few distro's of linux lying around. They could take SCO to their local small-claims court and sue for their loss of revenue due to SCO's unfounded ranting and raving hurting their sales of retail packages of Red Hat, SUSE, Mandrake, etc. You could take this to small claims court, where it is usually something like $30 to start a suit.
Most places have a small claims limit of something like $500 or so, but $500 x (number of counties in US) is a whopping huge number. And it would cost more to hire a lawyers in every county than it would to pay the claims off.
The entire community could be a royal pain in the @$$ to SCO!
Sounds like a great idea for a case mod!
I know that somebody did a Commodore 64 suit-case portable case mod, but I have not seen a case based on the base C=64 unit!
What is you add an ethernet card to your 'puter? (some people need multiple ethernet ports on one machine)
Then you have to use IP to access the ethernet card so that you can use IP. Would this mean that the card would have to access itself??? If so, where does the processor fit into this picture? Hmmm. I am confusing myself again.
Actually, that would remind me a little of fibre-channel. Using FC, you can embed SCSI and TCP/IP onto FC. This means that one FC port can accomodate attached storage AND networking. Kinda cool, but the full FC spec is a complete headache to deal with.
In fact, I would be quite surprised if any one device was capable of using all possible FC protocols and features. It tries to do everything, with the associated baggage that goes with it.
The most common method of removing the caffeine is to use methyl chloride . I am not sure what this stuff is (too many years since my chemistry class), but the name sounds nasty!
Can anybody tell me about this chemical???
Soooooo....
If I work for a company, using the company's equipment, paying my mortgage and groceries with the company's salary, and invent something cool, the I should be able to license my patent to my company's competition???
Assume "my company"="company A" and "competing company"="company B".
Company A is out a LOT of money for my salary, computers, test equipment, lab space, electricity, property taxes, lawyers to file the patent, health insurance, etc. Then, I license my idea to company B for a 100K -- which is a lot less than it cost to develop the patent... I make out like a bandit, and company A gets screwed.
Obviously, the best strategy is to NOT develop new IP, but to license it from the inventor whos main concern is to feed his children. If all companies followed this strategy, NOBODY would come out with new patents.
I do agree that something needs to be done about patents, but this is not it.
Please check out Don Lancaster's site about patents. He wrote a book called " The Case Against Patents ". His site is here. He claims that unless you are a multi-million dollar company, a patent is useless because you do not have the money to afford lawyers to defend it!
I like to think of a patent as a battle. The patent is just your ticket into the arena, but you still have to be able to afford your armor and weapons.
The point is NOT about not being able to add new features. MS can add features-a-plenty! It is just that they have to update their file-format documentation.
<sarcasm>Yup. Makes sense. The usual terrorist strategy is to concentrate on killing one or two isolated people in the middle of the woods. That will teach us yankee pigs!</sarcasm>
A box in the middle of a very public area would be a cause for concern. A box in the middle of nowhere would not bother me. Nobody would go through all of the effort to plant an explosive device in the middle of the woods just to get one random person. You get more terror for your money in a city.
You might need a hammer/saw in order to get it to fit in the ammo box...
Seriously, this is not a bad idea. Just print up a nice certificate which can be exchanged for the computer! Include your e-mail and drop the certificate in a cache. Then you can exchange the computer for the certificate. This just might make somebody's day!
Drug dealers expect to get paid. If they tried this approach, it would have to be on the "honor system". And honor is something that drug dealers AND drug users probably know very little about.
It sounds like you might like orienteering. Check out www.orienteering.org.
;)
I have done some geocaching, and it was not challenging enough. In orienteering, you have only a map and compass (in a serious competition, having a GPS is grounds for disqualification), and have to run around in the woods and find 6-10 flags. Attached to the flags are punches that you use to punch a card (proof that you were there).
People who are serious about orienteering actually run. But being a typical slashdotter, I can't run that far
It is likely that there is an orienteering club near you. If you are in the US, check out www.us.orienteering.org and click on the "clubs" link on the left.
It is also cheap! A compass is under $10 at Wal-Mart. In central Florida, one event is only $6.00 (including a map). Don't forget a bottle of water! And from personal experience, check yourself for ticks when you are done.
It gets better!
Let's say that you wanted to narrow things down to approximately 1-mile. 1-mile is approx 1 minute (1/60 of one degree) of longitude.
360 degrees * 60 minutes = 21600 different minutes on the face of the earth.
26 letters plus 10 numbers = 36! Subtract "confusables" (I, O, S, Z) -- 32 possible characters! 32^3 = 32768! The number of character combinations is greater than the number of minutes in one direction. It is a simple math exercise to create a base-32 numbering system and to enumerate all possible minute/second combinations.
Therefore, three characters can represent your latitude to the nearest mile (give or take), and another three characters for your longitude! A new universal six-digit zip code!
And all of this in 5 minutes with a simple calculator! What is the big deal? Devising a system such as this is trivial. Getting people to use it is the hard part.
Anybody who doesn't already know that almost all fast food is fattening and unhealthy is a moron. McDonalds is high in cholesterol/fat/calories/plutonium/whatever. They do not lie about it. They just don't highly publicize it. But the information is there if you look.
No tin foil hats, but I can see a new market for tin-foil wallets and tin-foil purses.
A whole new product opportunity!
That would just give you the rainbow colors -- and no others (red, organge, yellow,green,blue,indigo,violet). If you need white, cyan, magenta, or any of the other "mixed" colors, then you are out of luck.
Each point on a screen must be specified using three numbers. These could be the usual RGB, or YIQ, or HSV. But it does take three.
Don't forget the salary of the guy with the hammer having to hit the thing 12 hours/day.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. You still have to vibrate the crystal--which takes energy.
This may just increase the efficiency a little -- or the energy required to oscillate the crystal may be more than what you get back.