I glossed over Ken Brown's response today (http://www.adti.net/samizdat/brown.reply.june.04. html), and while I have to admit that I'm not programming buff in any respect, this guy seems to be totally out to lunch, a word-twister! He's turning the whole Tannenbaum interview(s) in his favour, although it was pretty clear from Tannenbaum's own website that A.T. considers Brown and his work-ethics and research methods to be boink, at best, sketchy perhaps. The only sign of intelligence that I see is in the signature, where he quotes A.T. and says (talking about himself):
He is reportedly "not the sharpest knife in the drawer," but nevertheless is able to converse with many intelligent people, and is accepted at fine restaurants and hotels around the world.
What's a think-tank, anyway? I thought it was an independent, open-minded place with smart people working there (although seriously right-wing)?
This problem is very easy to solve: you guys, being so tech-saccy and all, should sit down for about 10 minutes (about the time it takes to write a/. post) and write a security pamphlet for the not-so-savvy!
Very few people will be bothered to figure out what WEP is, of course, just like 90% of people out there don't know what a firewall is. For the remaining 10% that DO know, but don't know how to configure WEP and WiFi, why don't you tell me how to securely configure my Linksys router? Thanks!
This is nice: remove all visible signs of status, so that the muggers won't steal it from you.
Next: "how conceal your Porsche as a Hyundai Pony" and "make your Rolex look like a Timex Indiglo". Why have status symbols at all? Who'd have thought that the Chinese were right all along?! We should all just wear a green uniform! What good is consumerism, if you cannot show off your buying power?
I actually find this kind of funny, and the man does have a point: why couldn't they have told him earlier, and saved him three years and tons of cash in lost tuition payments and lost wages? Sure, he's a bit of a dummy, but the universities are not completely innocent here, either: they're becoming serious money-grabbing machines, at least the one that I attend.
He's admitting to his transgressions, so there's no doubt the guy is "guilty". Of course, this might require further investigation: is it verbatim copying without referring to the original writer, or is it interpretations of other peoples' work? A lot of "research" straddles this fine line! However, it does seem like his university had a hidden agenda, you know, "let's squeeze this guy for as much as we can until we kick him out" type-thing. It's likely that they've been onto this guy for some time.
Exactly that: "pay no attention to this man". I can't see that Brown's book will cause any harm, unless they manage to broadside the media with their FUD.
It all seems pretty plain to me: Microsoft has funded SCO to go after Linux for them, as they obviously see it as a major threat to their (inferior) OS. Now, they've funded the obscurely named institution that's releasing a poorly research book on the topic. It seems obvious to me that their "study" should be refuted as soon as the major funder is revealed, which is will be. It's like trusting a study on the possible impact of cell phones on people's brains, funded by Nokia!
The reason music is dead is very simple. There is no innovation.
I want good music. If The Who was able to make Tommy 30 years ago and Pink Floyd The Wall 25 years ago, why hasn't the music industry progressed? The music industry has not moved forward, it has moved backwards.
Yadiyadi... you talk like my dad, the Who/Hair/Doors/Moody Blues-loving ex-hippie, whose favourite quote happens to be one from (I think) Aristotle: "Kids have never been worse (less respectful) than they are today!" (not verbatim), which I happen to find rather amusing. OK, so The Who and Pink Floyd had original tunes, perhaps even inventors of genres, but don't tell me that there isn't any innovation in music!?!? Wake up!
The music scene is diluted, yes, and big music is releasing more crap than they ever have (greed), but there's an independent music scene out there that provides concerts on a local level all over the world (at least in my town), and as far as big names are concerned, how about artists like Dave Matthews, The Pixies, Massive Attack, eclectic bands like Femi Kuti, how about whole new genres like electronic music and hip-hop that didn't seem to exist in the times that you are referring to? How about Talking Heads and R.E.M (OK, those are '70s and '80s bands), The White Stripes, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Belle and Sebastien, Jeff Buckley, Ben Harper, etc., etc. I've heard your arguments a hundred times, and frankly, I laugh at it, because I do not believe, unlike you, that 1968 was the greatest year in music history, and no, the world hasn't gone to hell, yet. And, while we're at it, I can't stand the Pink Floyd.
[...] so I think that responibility is the key to keeping email working.
No. "Responsibility" is not enough. I changed my university departmental account name in ~'98, and within 3 (!) days, I had SPAM trickling in, and I was *very* responsible with my new address. I'm guessing our server was compromised, or somebody got into our "departmental viewing only" section on our dept.'s webpage. I am still 100% "responsible" with my email address, and I now average 150 SPAMs a day (I keep track).
Adding some numbers (*sigh*) helps guard against random address guessing.
This might be a better solution, UNLESS, of course, your server or "internal" webpages are compromised (see above) and your address is released that way.
Peter Bradshaw commented in Britain's Guardian newspaper: "It was strident, passionate, sometimes outrageously manipulative and often bafflingly selective in its material, but Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was a barnstorming anti-war/anti-Bush polemic tossed like an incendiary device into the crowded Cannes festival."
Michael Moore is being criticized for not being objective, for being "manipulative" and "selective" in his choice of material... you tell me, what government agency is NOT selective, subjective and manipulative in their choice of information disclosure? Michael Moore is doing a fine job of waking up the slumbering American right-wing mind.
RIAA trying to keep dying business model alive...
on
RIAA's Nasty Easter Egg
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I'm not happy about paying $16 to Big Music (BM), but I'll gladly support the ARTISTS behind the whole thing. As far as I understand, the artists nowadays gets about 5-10% (?) of the profits of CD sales, and the rest goes where? To some fat ass in the corporate offices of Sony and EMI? No, that's not the guy I want to support: I want to support the artist! Obviously, BM isn't going to benefit the artist any time soon, as long as that artist isn't Britney or Christina. Wouldn't it be nice to have whole albums available at $2.50 per album (a quarter a song), but recorded legally, by an independent studio, on a clever website with user stats and artist promotion? I'd support that!
This is the kind of shit "research" that makes scientists look bad! This should not have been taken any further than the guy showing his grandson a "neat invention", and he should certainly not make it! What a waste of time.
This topic brings to mind a rather strong-opinioned movie/"documentary" that's been catching some people's attention: "The Corporation". I haven't personally seen it, but I understand the bottom line is that "the corporation", as an entity, is like a psychopat, the bottom-line is always the money, no matter what. The question is, I guess, whether companies CAN be held responsible for anything that they're not directly executing? There might be some important differences between a case like this where M$ sells software, NOT intended for ill-use, and a case where the responsibility is easier to assign, like the Exxon Veldez oil-spill of 1988.
In principle, this sounds loke a good idea, but considering that you won't know what textbooks you need until you meet the professor in the first class, and that it can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months before online bookstores can get your order out, online shopping isn't all that effective.
What IS the best way to go w.r.t. browsers on Linux if you want to watch movie previews from, say, i-film or apple? I'm trying to talk a zealot in the lab away from using M$, but he always gets back at me with "ease of use", etc.-blah-blah-blah. Safari on OS X seems to do everything right...
Darl McBride just said in his plea to Congress that Open Source software was un-capitalistic and took away revenue from American businesses; M$ is saying that Linux costs more, not through cost of purchase or licensing, but through service and support; now, which is it: cheaper or more expensive?
I think I feel comfortable with most claims that the open source community is making against the claims from the sco group (including security concerns, hacks, etc. that mcbride completely ignores in his letter to congress), but one thing keeps coming to mind, and i'm sure that there's an easy answer to this: why do linux and unix appear so identical and interchangable, at least to an amateur like myself? all commands in linux exist in unix, and vice versa. or at least, almost all commands... and even if it is the case that linus has written all the basic linux stuff from scratch, isn't the fact that all the commands have the same names and function some sort of copyright infringement against the "product" that was first released, which in this case would be unix?
It seems perfectly plausible to me that M$ is using SCO to launch this completely unreasonable attack on GNU/Linux; I mean, why not? BG and M$ has been using top notch dirty tricks against many software companies before this, and Windows is currently being ridiculed as an unsafe, low-security, inadequate OS, even outside of communities like Slashdot. Explain to me again why we're not discussing this option? Is it too paranoid?
I thought the same thing reading this article. The tabloid press in Norway frequently quote "The National Enquirer" in their more dubious stories. Sounds good to a Norwegian that has never heard of the Enquirer. Lies, or perhaps just plain stupidity on behalf of the journalists.
Oh, maybe it wasn't Clinton in '91... Who was it then, or is the year wrong? They had this poster in the customs office at the border declaring SI units the official set of units in the US from whatever-year-it-was.
Jerk.
with their fucking mph and gallons and ounces and all that shit. Get with the program and SI units: as a matter of fact, Clinton officially declared SI the units of choice in 1991.
Can someone explain to me how it is that corporations and government in the US are allowed to have their way with citizens the way they do, "IN THE LAND OF THE FREE"? (RIAA, "Patriot ACT", etc... ha! My ass...)
Slashdot Mirror
Very few people will be bothered to figure out what WEP is, of course, just like 90% of people out there don't know what a firewall is. For the remaining 10% that DO know, but don't know how to configure WEP and WiFi, why don't you tell me how to securely configure my Linksys router? Thanks!
Yeah, I just saw that ad; it's hilarious!
Next: "how conceal your Porsche as a Hyundai Pony" and "make your Rolex look like a Timex Indiglo". Why have status symbols at all? Who'd have thought that the Chinese were right all along?! We should all just wear a green uniform! What good is consumerism, if you cannot show off your buying power?
He's admitting to his transgressions, so there's no doubt the guy is "guilty". Of course, this might require further investigation: is it verbatim copying without referring to the original writer, or is it interpretations of other peoples' work? A lot of "research" straddles this fine line! However, it does seem like his university had a hidden agenda, you know, "let's squeeze this guy for as much as we can until we kick him out" type-thing. It's likely that they've been onto this guy for some time.
It all seems pretty plain to me: Microsoft has funded SCO to go after Linux for them, as they obviously see it as a major threat to their (inferior) OS. Now, they've funded the obscurely named institution that's releasing a poorly research book on the topic. It seems obvious to me that their "study" should be refuted as soon as the major funder is revealed, which is will be. It's like trusting a study on the possible impact of cell phones on people's brains, funded by Nokia!
The music scene is diluted, yes, and big music is releasing more crap than they ever have (greed), but there's an independent music scene out there that provides concerts on a local level all over the world (at least in my town), and as far as big names are concerned, how about artists like Dave Matthews, The Pixies, Massive Attack, eclectic bands like Femi Kuti, how about whole new genres like electronic music and hip-hop that didn't seem to exist in the times that you are referring to? How about Talking Heads and R.E.M (OK, those are '70s and '80s bands), The White Stripes, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Belle and Sebastien, Jeff Buckley, Ben Harper, etc., etc. I've heard your arguments a hundred times, and frankly, I laugh at it, because I do not believe, unlike you, that 1968 was the greatest year in music history, and no, the world hasn't gone to hell, yet. And, while we're at it, I can't stand the Pink Floyd.
No. "Responsibility" is not enough. I changed my university departmental account name in ~'98, and within 3 (!) days, I had SPAM trickling in, and I was *very* responsible with my new address. I'm guessing our server was compromised, or somebody got into our "departmental viewing only" section on our dept.'s webpage. I am still 100% "responsible" with my email address, and I now average 150 SPAMs a day (I keep track).
This might be a better solution, UNLESS, of course, your server or "internal" webpages are compromised (see above) and your address is released that way.
I'm not happy about paying $16 to Big Music (BM), but I'll gladly support the ARTISTS behind the whole thing. As far as I understand, the artists nowadays gets about 5-10% (?) of the profits of CD sales, and the rest goes where? To some fat ass in the corporate offices of Sony and EMI? No, that's not the guy I want to support: I want to support the artist! Obviously, BM isn't going to benefit the artist any time soon, as long as that artist isn't Britney or Christina. Wouldn't it be nice to have whole albums available at $2.50 per album (a quarter a song), but recorded legally, by an independent studio, on a clever website with user stats and artist promotion? I'd support that!
This is the kind of shit "research" that makes scientists look bad! This should not have been taken any further than the guy showing his grandson a "neat invention", and he should certainly not make it! What a waste of time.
This topic brings to mind a rather strong-opinioned movie/"documentary" that's been catching some people's attention: "The Corporation". I haven't personally seen it, but I understand the bottom line is that "the corporation", as an entity, is like a psychopat, the bottom-line is always the money, no matter what. The question is, I guess, whether companies CAN be held responsible for anything that they're not directly executing? There might be some important differences between a case like this where M$ sells software, NOT intended for ill-use, and a case where the responsibility is easier to assign, like the Exxon Veldez oil-spill of 1988.
In principle, this sounds loke a good idea, but considering that you won't know what textbooks you need until you meet the professor in the first class, and that it can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months before online bookstores can get your order out, online shopping isn't all that effective.
What IS the best way to go w.r.t. browsers on Linux if you want to watch movie previews from, say, i-film or apple? I'm trying to talk a zealot in the lab away from using M$, but he always gets back at me with "ease of use", etc.-blah-blah-blah. Safari on OS X seems to do everything right...
I wonder if this cost is included in the estimates when M$ claim that running Linux is 11-22% more expensive than running Windows?
Darl McBride just said in his plea to Congress that Open Source software was un-capitalistic and took away revenue from American businesses; M$ is saying that Linux costs more, not through cost of purchase or licensing, but through service and support; now, which is it: cheaper or more expensive?
I think I feel comfortable with most claims that the open source community is making against the claims from the sco group (including security concerns, hacks, etc. that mcbride completely ignores in his letter to congress), but one thing keeps coming to mind, and i'm sure that there's an easy answer to this: why do linux and unix appear so identical and interchangable, at least to an amateur like myself? all commands in linux exist in unix, and vice versa. or at least, almost all commands... and even if it is the case that linus has written all the basic linux stuff from scratch, isn't the fact that all the commands have the same names and function some sort of copyright infringement against the "product" that was first released, which in this case would be unix?
One shouldn't have to pay for anything in this time and age, if you ask me. plus, it looks ugly.
Yes, I suppose you're right... But, it would make a nasty revelation to find out that, indeed, the face behind the SCO mask is Bill Allmighty!
It seems perfectly plausible to me that M$ is using SCO to launch this completely unreasonable attack on GNU/Linux; I mean, why not? BG and M$ has been using top notch dirty tricks against many software companies before this, and Windows is currently being ridiculed as an unsafe, low-security, inadequate OS, even outside of communities like Slashdot. Explain to me again why we're not discussing this option? Is it too paranoid?
I thought the same thing reading this article. The tabloid press in Norway frequently quote "The National Enquirer" in their more dubious stories. Sounds good to a Norwegian that has never heard of the Enquirer. Lies, or perhaps just plain stupidity on behalf of the journalists.
Oh, maybe it wasn't Clinton in '91... Who was it then, or is the year wrong? They had this poster in the customs office at the border declaring SI units the official set of units in the US from whatever-year-it-was. Jerk.
with their fucking mph and gallons and ounces and all that shit. Get with the program and SI units: as a matter of fact, Clinton officially declared SI the units of choice in 1991.
Can someone explain to me how it is that corporations and government in the US are allowed to have their way with citizens the way they do, "IN THE LAND OF THE FREE"? (RIAA, "Patriot ACT", etc... ha! My ass...)