Flags are easily ignored, and if the stream is sent out in-tact it's a non issue anyway. When will they learn?
Yes, it will probably be easy to circumvent, as is true with many other copy protection schemes.
But what this AC fails to realize here is that by instituting a legitimate 'copy-protection feature' (albeit very flimsy) it serves only as a legal lightning rod for copyright violation lawsuits. Furthermore, it bolsters the media's image of attempting to protect what it has, lest someone contests the issue that it more or less 'looks' like they don't care who violates copyright for radio broadcasts. Also the latter may not be much more of a deterrent, but I'm sure the members of the RIAA have shareholders (not just customers) to think about too.
Think of it this way: how much easier would it be to circumvent being fined, or contest and reduce those fines, for speeding if the limit wasn't even posted? The RIAA is now just trying to put the signs up.
IMO, if this goes through, the FCC/RIAA will be able to say that people have 'willfully broken/violated a protection measure' rather than just saying 'they ignored copyright law'. (DMCA anyone?)
Information - MyCity4 Founded: 1900AD Population: 103,245
Your Rating is: Poor Your current treasury: $3 Your current debt: $-30,000 Citizens claim taxes are too high. Citizens are demanding more roads. Citizens are wondering why its suddenly impossible to collect things. Will Wright is demanding more stuff to uncollect.
If that doesn't sound impressive then you need to have another look at a picture of the torus!
Seriously, all sense of scale is lost in this picture until you locate the (tiny) man standing at the bottom center of the pic.
This should also help illustrate to any fusion noobs, that the kind of power consumption required to contain a plasma at a few million degrees, since the majority of bulk in these designs is dedicated to (extremely) massive electromagnets.
MullerMn: Any idea how many tesla those are kicking out?
1. Initiate sales tax on custom software: The governor estimates a business tax increase of $64 million by eliminating the distinction between canned software sold at retail (subject to sales tax), custom software (subject to service occupation tax on the value of tangible personal property transferred with the software) and software licensed or leased by the developer (currently not taxed). The Governor's proposal would either repeal the Department of Revenue regulation that distinguishes between a sale and a license of software or create an entirely new tax on revenues from software licensing.
After reviewing the tax code mentioned in the article, it seems to me that as long as you're not charging for packaged software or licenses, then you're pretty much in the clear.
Most contractors I've met, charge labor by the hour to compose, enrich or repair custom software anyway (as a work for hire), at which point you are not exchanging any "tangible property" (or "intangible property" for that matter). They charged labor for something of undetermined value, plain and simple.
However, if it ever became an issue that you absolutely had to hand your client a pre-packaged solution that needed modifications, then just go open source. Simply charge labor for installation, and enriching the product, but "sell" them the software for what its worth: $0. IMO, I think this could also has the added benefit of side-stepping the (existing) taxcode, since you're performing labor on a product of zero-value (labor performed on a product of value apparently has lots of implications in Part 140).
Actually, this AC has brought up an interesting point: what will this do for cosmetic dentistry.
If people will pay hundreds of dollars to have a good tattoo sleeve on their arm, or go through the pain and effort to expand their earlobes/nipples/whatever with gauge-zero spacers, why not custom teeth? The fact that they're actual living teeth, grown from your own stem cells, would just add value to the investment.
Also, I'm sure that if this becomes viable, the urge to improve on nature will be impossible to resist (through GM or some mechanical means as the tooth grows in a lab somewhere). How about a new set of "metric teeth" or a set with an engineered, non-stick coating?
Agreed on all counts. If only Fallout 3 could be composed by the original team.
I was really sold on the franchise when in Fallout 1, I realized that I could double-cross some NPC's who had bounties out on each other's heads. Combine plot twists like that with the "1950's-cold-war-era that never ended" art-direction, using bottlecaps for money, two-headed cows, briliant (and appropriately campy!) cinematics, and of course the Pip-Boy based character generator and you have nothing short of sheer game development genius.
Oh, and most importantly: it was fun to play too.
Playing the game as a gunslinger-fighter type was probably the most action packed way to complete the game.
Heh.. my mistake.
Slashdot may not be a wiki, but its nice to get help honing a point of view on a topic like this. I should've thought of this earlier. Thanks.
I thought the same thing... looks like a CFC to me.
Actually, 3M's FAQ (the PDF linked in the post) claims that it has "zero ozone depletion potential". But it also seems to indicate that it degrades when it gets into contact with UV radiation (ie. keep it out of direct sunlinght). This leaves open the question: is it only ozone-safe as long as it doesn't decompose?
Still the fluorine content of the chemical raises concerns beyond ozone depletion. This stuff may very well be even nastier to produce than, say, teflon. (With similar ecological and safety concerns)
Despite assertions made by Linux vendors, a Linux cluster is not a high performance computer, said Dr. Paul Terry, CTO of Cray Canada. "At best, clusters are a loose collection of unmanaged, individual, microprocessor-based computers."
Although this statement reeks of FUD, he's right about one thing: a cluster is not an HPC... that's why its called a cluster. But to say that a cluster is 'unmanaged' is one hell of a stretch IMO. All in all, he's just arguing semantics: nothing to see here, put down your flamethrowers, move along folks.
Since this is slashdot, I'll add that the rest of the article is full of choice quotes all of which point squarely at basic FUD + marketing spin for their new cluster-cost-like product.
It seems to me that Cray is just plain bitter that Linux (through all the cluster solution providers) has managed to steal Cray's thunder at a mere fraction of the cost. Cray's probably even more bitter that folks are willing to sacrifice performance (at least from Cray's perspective) just to save a buck.
Okay, this is Cray we're talking about here: people are saving millions of bucks all over the place by using clusters instead of big expensive machines.
And guess who wants 'their' slice of the pie back.
It never ceases to amaze me at how systematic Microsoft is at dismantling, buying, litigating or outright squashing its competition.
The question is: will the actions the parent posted have any effect on this rendition of OGL?
Note to moderators: this is not a Troll, nor is parent. Encoded reply via spammimic.com:
Dear Friend , Especially for you - this red-hot intelligence . If you no longer wish to receive our publications simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will immediately be removed from our mailing list . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1622 , Title 9 ; Section 308 ! This is NOT unsolicited bulk mail . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich as few as 40 weeks ! Have you ever noticed how long the line-ups are at bank machines plus nearly every commercial on television has a.com on in it . Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! We will help you SELL MORE plus decrease perceived waiting time by 120% . You can begin at absolutely no cost to you . But don't believe us . Mrs Simpson who resides in Alaska tried us and says "Now I'm rich many more things are possible" . We are a BBB member in good standing . You have no reason not to act now ! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 80% . Cheers . Dear Friend ; Especially for you - this cutting-edge information . We will comply with all removal requests ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1621 ; Title 6 , Section 306 ! This is not multi-level marketing . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich inside 14 days ! Have you ever noticed most everyone has a cellphone and most everyone has a cellphone ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU decrease perceived waiting time by 130% plus use credit cards on your website . You are guaranteed to succeed because we take all the risk . But don't believe us . Prof Ames of Florida tried us and says "I was skeptical but it worked for me" . We are a BBB member in good standing ! We BESEECH you - act now . Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 70% ! Thanks ! Dear Friend , Especially for you - this cutting-edge announcement ! This is a one time mailing there is no need to request removal if you won't want any more . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1620 , Title 9 ; Section 304 . This is different than anything else you've seen ! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich inside 97 DAYS ! Have you ever noticed people will do almost anything to avoid mailing their bills and people are much more likely to BUY with a credit card than cash ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this . We will help you SELL MORE & SELL MORE. You are guaranteed to succeed because we take all the risk ! But don't believe us ! Mr Ames who resides in Texas tried us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" . We assure you that we operate within all applicable laws ! Don't delay - order today . Sign up a friend and you get half off . God Bless .
Here is the canned quote, bereft of a single soundbite, which goes to show just how important this deal is to the company.
"This agreement will be of significant benefit to both Sun and Microsoft customers. It will stimulate new products, delivering great new choices for customers who want to combine server products from multiple vendors and achieve seamless computing in a heterogeneous computing environment. We look forward to this opportunity - it provides a framework for cooperation between Sun and Microsoft going forward."
McNealy went on saying "Microsoft is our ally. We have never been at war with Microsoft."
Does the concept of MS and Sun playing well with one another worry anyone else out there?
What a nice piece of FUD this is!
Sadly, OOo is not a drop-in replacement. The article makes reference to Open Office as such, and attempts to dissect it on that principle. Instead we should look at it for what it really is: Brand New Software, that happens to read and write MS Office documents pretty well.
Once upon a time, the height of document editing lay firmly inside the Corel/WordPerfect camp. People dropped it in favor of MS Office due to a richer feature set and ease-of-use (I'm sure there are other reasons too).
To level this example of the mid-90's switch to MS Office against the arguments put forth in the article, underscores the hyprocracy in the argument. People wouldn't have switched to Microsoft's product if cost of training, deployment and imperfect document conversion were realistic barriers for a switch.
So far the major benefit for OOo is it brings down TCO over the long-run. And for companies that are tired of riding MS's merry-go-round of upgrades, that may be enough to switch.
My $0.02.
TechTV is pretty decent, with "screensavers" possibly being the closest Slashdot will ever get to being on television. You can grab most of the highlights and show abstracts of the website and save yourself some cash.
G4 ("the gamer's network" i guess) on the other hand is tolerable in doses, and are obviously still in the progress of building the brand up. They only run during the core hours of the day (infomercials latenights and early mornings), and re-run content in short intervals (less than a week in some cases) with no remorse. To their credit, they're pioneering a tv genre, so I have hopes that it'll get better in a few years.
Merging the two seems unlikely, but combined they may wind up with enough quality programming to fill a whole day of scheduling.
Linux? Hehe.. got a G3 laptop running Debian and an OS X machine at work, with win2k filling in the gaps. I'm all over the place. Right now, I'm hooked on the crack that is Mozilla just to keep my head on straight when I hop from machine to machine.
I'm not quite ready to re-embrace Netscape (used it back in the day) but maybe this will tip the balance.
Personally, I've been leery of the whole 'keyring' concept (as in OSX for example)... after all, I'm not called 'pragma' for nothing.:)
My only concern is that even if the local data is 'encrypted', the software still needs to know how to decrypt it, which puts the data and the encryption key in the same camp. Not a very good strategy IMO. I wish I new more about the topic, and maybe someone will hit me with a clue stick here as to why this is or is not secure.
Thank you for turning me onto this netscape feature. If Mozilla adopts an ecrypted local password store for this kind of thing, I'll have to take a look at it.
Slashdot Mirror
Flags are easily ignored, and if the stream is sent out in-tact it's a non issue anyway. When will they learn?
Yes, it will probably be easy to circumvent, as is true with many other copy protection schemes.
But what this AC fails to realize here is that by instituting a legitimate 'copy-protection feature' (albeit very flimsy) it serves only as a legal lightning rod for copyright violation lawsuits. Furthermore, it bolsters the media's image of attempting to protect what it has, lest someone contests the issue that it more or less 'looks' like they don't care who violates copyright for radio broadcasts. Also the latter may not be much more of a deterrent, but I'm sure the members of the RIAA have shareholders (not just customers) to think about too.
Think of it this way: how much easier would it be to circumvent being fined, or contest and reduce those fines, for speeding if the limit wasn't even posted? The RIAA is now just trying to put the signs up.
IMO, if this goes through, the FCC/RIAA will be able to say that people have 'willfully broken/violated a protection measure' rather than just saying 'they ignored copyright law'. (DMCA anyone?)
Information - MyCity4
Founded: 1900AD
Population: 103,245
Your Rating is: Poor
Your current treasury: $3
Your current debt: $-30,000
Citizens claim taxes are too high.
Citizens are demanding more roads.
Citizens are wondering why its suddenly impossible to collect things.
Will Wright is demanding more stuff to uncollect.
If that doesn't sound impressive then you need to have another look at a picture of the torus!
Seriously, all sense of scale is lost in this picture until you locate the (tiny) man standing at the bottom center of the pic.
This should also help illustrate to any fusion noobs, that the kind of power consumption required to contain a plasma at a few million degrees, since the majority of bulk in these designs is dedicated to (extremely) massive electromagnets.
MullerMn: Any idea how many tesla those are kicking out?
Here is the aforementioned service occupation tax in Illinois:
http://www.revenue.state.il.us/LegalInformation/r
A disclaimer: IANACPA (not a CPA).
After reviewing the tax code mentioned in the article, it seems to me that as long as you're not charging for packaged software or licenses, then you're pretty much in the clear.
Most contractors I've met, charge labor by the hour to compose, enrich or repair custom software anyway (as a work for hire), at which point you are not exchanging any "tangible property" (or "intangible property" for that matter). They charged labor for something of undetermined value, plain and simple.
However, if it ever became an issue that you absolutely had to hand your client a pre-packaged solution that needed modifications, then just go open source. Simply charge labor for installation, and enriching the product, but "sell" them the software for what its worth: $0. IMO, I think this could also has the added benefit of side-stepping the (existing) taxcode, since you're performing labor on a product of zero-value (labor performed on a product of value apparently has lots of implications in Part 140).
If people will pay hundreds of dollars to have a good tattoo sleeve on their arm, or go through the pain and effort to expand their earlobes/nipples/whatever with gauge-zero spacers, why not custom teeth? The fact that they're actual living teeth, grown from your own stem cells, would just add value to the investment.
Also, I'm sure that if this becomes viable, the urge to improve on nature will be impossible to resist (through GM or some mechanical means as the tooth grows in a lab somewhere). How about a new set of "metric teeth" or a set with an engineered, non-stick coating?
1) Service Pack 1
...
2) Service Pack 2
3) Critical Security Update
4) Critical Security Update
5) IE Security Update
6) Service Pack 3
7) Misc. Windows Driver Update
21) Cygwin
22) Firefox
23) Profit!
Agreed on all counts. If only Fallout 3 could be composed by the original team.
I was really sold on the franchise when in Fallout 1, I realized that I could double-cross some NPC's who had bounties out on each other's heads. Combine plot twists like that with the "1950's-cold-war-era that never ended" art-direction, using bottlecaps for money, two-headed cows, briliant (and appropriately campy!) cinematics, and of course the Pip-Boy based character generator and you have nothing short of sheer game development genius.
Oh, and most importantly: it was fun to play too.
Playing the game as a gunslinger-fighter type was probably the most action packed way to complete the game.
Heh.. my mistake. Slashdot may not be a wiki, but its nice to get help honing a point of view on a topic like this. I should've thought of this earlier. Thanks.
However, it is really a double-edged sword.
Disc burning (in this sense) would be really great for those last minute visits from the FBI.
I thought the same thing... looks like a CFC to me.
n e.htmi a.htm
Actually, 3M's FAQ (the PDF linked in the post) claims that it has "zero ozone depletion potential". But it also seems to indicate that it degrades when it gets into contact with UV radiation (ie. keep it out of direct sunlinght). This leaves open the question: is it only ozone-safe as long as it doesn't decompose?
Still the fluorine content of the chemical raises concerns beyond ozone depletion. This stuff may very well be even nastier to produce than, say, teflon. (With similar ecological and safety concerns)
Additional info:
http://www.tldp.com/issue/202/Notes_Fluori
http://www.fluoridealert.org/fluorosis-ind
I stand corrected. :)
Despite assertions made by Linux vendors, a Linux cluster is not a high performance computer, said Dr. Paul Terry, CTO of Cray Canada. "At best, clusters are a loose collection of unmanaged, individual, microprocessor-based computers."
Although this statement reeks of FUD, he's right about one thing: a cluster is not an HPC... that's why its called a cluster. But to say that a cluster is 'unmanaged' is one hell of a stretch IMO. All in all, he's just arguing semantics: nothing to see here, put down your flamethrowers, move along folks.
Since this is slashdot, I'll add that the rest of the article is full of choice quotes all of which point squarely at basic FUD + marketing spin for their new cluster-cost-like product.
It seems to me that Cray is just plain bitter that Linux (through all the cluster solution providers) has managed to steal Cray's thunder at a mere fraction of the cost. Cray's probably even more bitter that folks are willing to sacrifice performance (at least from Cray's perspective) just to save a buck.
Okay, this is Cray we're talking about here: people are saving millions of bucks all over the place by using clusters instead of big expensive machines.
And guess who wants 'their' slice of the pie back.
Maybe just a simple popup in AIM/Jabber/ICQ/Whatever is all that is needed:
l33tH@X0r wants to save this conversation.
Will you let them keep a copy?
[Yes] [No]
I dunno, the idea of suvivor where loosing contestants don't get to come back on TV (ever), seems oddly tantilizing.
Given the rash of deplorable reality TV as of late, this may (sadly) wind up being more truth than fiction:
This season on FOX...
12 average people,
1 mission,
and only room for 3 on board.
Who will be The Cosmonaut?
Hosted by Gary Sinease with guest appearances by Tom Hanks and Sigourney Weaver.
It never ceases to amaze me at how systematic Microsoft is at dismantling, buying, litigating or outright squashing its competition. The question is: will the actions the parent posted have any effect on this rendition of OGL?
Note to moderators: this is not a Troll, nor is parent. Encoded reply via spammimic.com:
.com on in it .
Dear Friend , Especially for you - this red-hot intelligence
. If you no longer wish to receive our publications
simply reply with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will
immediately be removed from our mailing list . This
mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1622
, Title 9 ; Section 308 ! This is NOT unsolicited bulk
mail . Why work for somebody else when you can become
rich as few as 40 weeks ! Have you ever noticed how
long the line-ups are at bank machines plus nearly
every commercial on television has a
. Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this !
We will help you SELL MORE plus decrease perceived
waiting time by 120% . You can begin at absolutely
no cost to you . But don't believe us . Mrs Simpson
who resides in Alaska tried us and says "Now I'm rich
many more things are possible" . We are a BBB member
in good standing . You have no reason not to act now
! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 80%
. Cheers . Dear Friend ; Especially for you - this
cutting-edge information . We will comply with all
removal requests ! This mail is being sent in compliance
with Senate bill 1621 ; Title 6 , Section 306 ! This
is not multi-level marketing . Why work for somebody
else when you can become rich inside 14 days ! Have
you ever noticed most everyone has a cellphone and
most everyone has a cellphone ! Well, now is your chance
to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU decrease perceived
waiting time by 130% plus use credit cards on your
website . You are guaranteed to succeed because we
take all the risk . But don't believe us . Prof Ames
of Florida tried us and says "I was skeptical but it
worked for me" . We are a BBB member in good standing
! We BESEECH you - act now . Sign up a friend and you'll
get a discount of 70% ! Thanks ! Dear Friend , Especially
for you - this cutting-edge announcement ! This is
a one time mailing there is no need to request removal
if you won't want any more . This mail is being sent
in compliance with Senate bill 1620 , Title 9 ; Section
304 . This is different than anything else you've seen
! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich
inside 97 DAYS ! Have you ever noticed people will
do almost anything to avoid mailing their bills and
people are much more likely to BUY with a credit card
than cash ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize
on this . We will help you SELL MORE & SELL MORE
You are guaranteed to succeed because we take all the
risk ! But don't believe us ! Mr Ames who resides in
Texas tried us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH"
. We assure you that we operate within all applicable
laws ! Don't delay - order today . Sign up a friend
and you get half off . God Bless .
More screenshots on the developer's homepage.
One problem remains: how the hell are you supposed to read your status (ammo, hp, etc) while you're all crosseyed?!?
Here is the canned quote, bereft of a single soundbite, which goes to show just how important this deal is to the company.
"This agreement will be of significant benefit to both Sun and Microsoft customers. It will stimulate new products, delivering great new choices for customers who want to combine server products from multiple vendors and achieve seamless computing in a heterogeneous computing environment. We look forward to this opportunity - it provides a framework for cooperation between Sun and Microsoft going forward."
McNealy went on saying "Microsoft is our ally. We have never been at war with Microsoft."
Does the concept of MS and Sun playing well with one another worry anyone else out there?
Acutally, I think that's just leftover Kerosene that they package after market.
Somebody please mod the parent up.
Hey, Nintendo, are you reading this?
Give us a a cellphone cartridge, w/microphone port, for the gameboy and I'll give you a market of people ready to go buy a gameboy for the first time.
Besides, you don't want Nokia horning in on the portable gaming market, now do you?
What a nice piece of FUD this is! Sadly, OOo is not a drop-in replacement. The article makes reference to Open Office as such, and attempts to dissect it on that principle. Instead we should look at it for what it really is: Brand New Software, that happens to read and write MS Office documents pretty well. Once upon a time, the height of document editing lay firmly inside the Corel/WordPerfect camp. People dropped it in favor of MS Office due to a richer feature set and ease-of-use (I'm sure there are other reasons too). To level this example of the mid-90's switch to MS Office against the arguments put forth in the article, underscores the hyprocracy in the argument. People wouldn't have switched to Microsoft's product if cost of training, deployment and imperfect document conversion were realistic barriers for a switch. So far the major benefit for OOo is it brings down TCO over the long-run. And for companies that are tired of riding MS's merry-go-round of upgrades, that may be enough to switch.
You forgot: "Hot Chicks On Macs" and the obligatory "Welcoming our new Comcast Overlords".
Hrm.. this is starting to sound an awful lot like "Spike TV".
My $0.02. TechTV is pretty decent, with "screensavers" possibly being the closest Slashdot will ever get to being on television. You can grab most of the highlights and show abstracts of the website and save yourself some cash. G4 ("the gamer's network" i guess) on the other hand is tolerable in doses, and are obviously still in the progress of building the brand up. They only run during the core hours of the day (infomercials latenights and early mornings), and re-run content in short intervals (less than a week in some cases) with no remorse. To their credit, they're pioneering a tv genre, so I have hopes that it'll get better in a few years. Merging the two seems unlikely, but combined they may wind up with enough quality programming to fill a whole day of scheduling.
Linux? Hehe.. got a G3 laptop running Debian and an OS X machine at work, with win2k filling in the gaps. I'm all over the place. Right now, I'm hooked on the crack that is Mozilla just to keep my head on straight when I hop from machine to machine.
I'm not quite ready to re-embrace Netscape (used it back in the day) but maybe this will tip the balance.
Thanks for the advice!
Personally, I've been leery of the whole 'keyring' concept (as in OSX for example)... after all, I'm not called 'pragma' for nothing. :)
My only concern is that even if the local data is 'encrypted', the software still needs to know how to decrypt it, which puts the data and the encryption key in the same camp. Not a very good strategy IMO. I wish I new more about the topic, and maybe someone will hit me with a clue stick here as to why this is or is not secure.
Thank you for turning me onto this netscape feature. If Mozilla adopts an ecrypted local password store for this kind of thing, I'll have to take a look at it.