At the time, eight or so years ago, no one had fully imagined that regular, everyday consumers would someday own multiple PCs, and would want a way to hook them together. Nor had anyone fully imagined that a cable or DSL modem could be hooked into a residential network, and its IP address resource shared.
(The Internet, mostly a bulletin board at the time, topped out at 9600 baud back then.)
(Emphasis mine)
When I see a statement like that coming from the self-described "Premier Magazine of Broadband Technology", I have to wonder whether the writer or editor munch on lead paint chips during breaks.
I'd like to see references to this alleged incident. I find it curious that the first I've heard of this serious matter is from this anonymous Euro official. I smell bullshit.
It was in Worcester, MA. 1998 or 1999, I think. A 15-year-old kid using a wardialer found the dial-in access number for one of the control systems at the local airport. Details of his crack were pretty sketchy, but I believe he brute-forced the password and got inside. I'm sure RISKS-L has the full story.
Funny you should mention CCR: they're the canonical example of a band that was royally screwed by their label (Saul Zaentz's Fantasy Records).
Long after the band broke up, Fantasy sued John Fogarty (the lead singer and songwriter for CCR) for "infringing" the CCR copyrights that Fantasy still held ("Run Through the Jungle", 1986). It was sort of a "look 'n' feel" case.
Fogarty won, thankfully, but he had to change the lyrics of one of his later songs (originally "Zaentz Can't Dance") or risk a slander lawsuit.
CCR were teenagers when they signed the original contract. Same thing happened with Aerosmith, though by their fourth album they could afford to renegotiate their original deal and recover their copyrights from the label.
The moral of this story: don't go out into the jungle without a machete.
4. Label offers to loan the band money to record album.
It's not a loan, it's a "recoupable expense".
Band X signs with Label Y. The terms of the contract are almost always this: $XX,XXX advance plus X% of net sales ("net" meaning after deducting reserves, promo copies, returns, and the cost of goods sold).
The advance and any other monies committed for recording or tour support are recoupable; the record company gets that money back from sales before Band X sees a dime (other than mechanical and performance royalties that are independent of the contract).
If the record stiffs, which 90% of them do, there's no loan collector banging on the door. It's worse than that: the band has the "smell of death" and no other label will come near them. It's 7-11 time, kids. Thank you, come again.
From 1977 to 1984, Warner Cable and American Express ran a trial of an interactive cable television system in Columbus, Ohio. Based on a set-top box built by Atari, the system allowed two-way feedback and persistant user preferences.
Relevant to the "real time feedback of purchases" part of the patent in dispute would be Qube's pay-per-view feature.
I am in the process of preparing a personal injury lawsuit against Microsoft.
A few weeks ago, I happened to see their advertisement promising "99.999% uptime". The subsequent expulsion of my carbonated beverage through my nose injured my delicate nasal passages and frightened my cat.
When I become Emperor of the Universe, Microsoft's advertisements will have to bear a Surgeon General's Warning.
I'm so dependent on Autodesk 3DStudio R4 for MS/DOG it's not funny. I've been using it for years; I know it inside-out. Sure, I use Max, too. But Max's bloat and clutter gets in my way. 3DS (DOS) is like a well-worn hammer that feels good when you pick it up.
I knew this day would come someday. I guess there's dual boot. I guess I could just keep a Win98 (or Dos 6.22) box around forever. I did it with a Mac 512K running System 2.3 (the only thing that ran a MIDI sequencer from 1985). I can do it with DOS.
I've got $4,000 invested in this one program ($3K base price plus two upgrades). Fuck Microsoft, fuck XP, fuck NT, fuck 2K.
A post can be informative or insightful and funny at the same time. It's something I strive for because 1) it's effective for getting a point across and 2) it's best not to take anything too seriously (least of all yourself).
Certainly, there are posts modded as "Funny" that do not deserve the label, not so much that they're unfunny or juvenille, but that the moderator made a bad or wrong choice among the +1 options, or hit "page down" without restoring focus to the page body or scroll bar.
I doubt that meta-mod catches all these mistakes.
Rather than assess a -2 to "Funny", why not just do away with the option altogether?
Ironic that this "feature" (read "bug") should be considered when the second front-page article (Disney) bears the Pythonic Foot of Humor.
I used to be a musician and songwriter. I hold copyrights (dating back to the '70s), and have a fairly large collection of.mp3s of the songs I've written and recorded over the last 25 years.
How do they determine whether the.mp3 on my PC is an infringing item? Is it the filename? The ID3 tag? Or are they going to kill them all, let Hilary Rosen sort it out, like some crazed Crusader?
And does my status as a copyright holder mean I have a Get out of Jail Free card with respect to hacking? What if I suspect the RIAA of infringing on my copyrights?
Unfortunately not every state has good laws. Massachusetts will allow the purchase of alcohol only with a Massachusetts drivers license. The non-driving state ID is actaully not valid for the purchase of alcohol. The US passport or any other foreign passport is not legal for the purchase of alcohol. A New Hampshire drivers license is not valid for the purchase of alcohol.
Others have correctly pointed out that this statement is wrong (liquor stores and bars have booklets that show samples of out-of-state licenses, and I've seen foreign passports accepted as proof of age).
However, none of these venues will accept a duplicate Mass. license (one that is issued if the original license is lost or stolen) because of the fraud associated with replacement licenses.
Instead of removing power when you hit your panic button you start a series of RAM tests. Begin with multiple simple overwrites of 0, F, 5, A and then move on to walking 1's and walking 0's and pseudorandom data.
Unless the first thing the SWAT team does before kicking down the door is to cut the power to your home or office. Unless that UPS doesn't work as well as you thought it would. Unless you're not there to press the panic button.
I really didn't think data could be recovered from DRAM. But five minutes with Google disabused me of that illusion. And that's based on non-classified information. Who knows what they (there is no they) can do.
If they want it bad enough, they'll find a way to get it.
Doesn't anyone drag and drop anymore? Wasn't DnD the big advantage to using a GUI?
On both my Macs and my Windows computers, I use DnD to override default file associations. Drag the.html file on to the text editor icon: it's open for editing. Double-click and it's opened by the default browser. Want to see it in an alternate browser? Drag it over to that icon. Drag it over to the printer icon for a hard copy.
Lately, I've been using DnD to extract strings from all of the Sircam-infected Word documents that show up in my mail by dragging the attachment link embedded in the mail message on to the TextEdit icon in the OS X Dock (not that SecretPlans.doc.pif would execute anyway if I clicked on it).
Why bother with the overhead of having a GUI if you're not going to use all the features?
it take approx. 32 minutes for a Russian missle to achieve a US target. When there missle hit Apex our missle would be launched. We know and track every rocket launch from Russia.
Only if you're talking about an ICBM launched from Russian (or former Soviet) territory at the continental United States (or vice versa).
If it's a depressed-trajectory shot launched from a ballistic missile submarine parked off the East or West coast, it's all over in seven minutes.
Seven minutes. Enough time for a last cigarette.
k., proud member of the "Duck 'n' Cover Generation".
What happened to them anyway? One minute addresses from that domain seemed to be everywhere (whether you wanted to see them or not) and the next minute poof.
Collateral damage from the $cientologists' war against the Internet (circa '95 or '96).
The Co$ got Finnish authorities to subpoena anon.penet.fi's records. The operator, Julf Helsingius [sic?] closed up shop, saying he couldn't guarantee the anonymity of his users anymore.
There's probably something about it in WiReD's archives.
Close. You had to hook it up to the parallel port, though.
Nope. Serial port. I had one hooked up to a Mac (RS-422A) to make a "MIDI theremin". The Glove's resolution was too coarse for melodic use, but it was good enough for drum samples ("Drum Kit Descending a Staircase: a Musical Homage to Buddy Rich and Marcel Duchamp").
True. The Analytical Engine was never built, and so far as I know, no replica exists. An artist's impression of the AE graces the cover of the William Gibson/Bruce Sterling collaboration The Difference Engine, making it easy to conflate the two.
The link to John Walker's site, however, does contain software that emulates the AE. The colorado.edu link has a replica of a Difference Engine. So I suppose it's like showing a picture of an Intel 4004-based calculator to someone who wanted to see a picture of a computer. The raw materials (chips, PCB, keypad, display) are the same, so I guess it's a difference in degree, not kind. I guess.
Now you've got me confused.
All I can say is imagine a Beowulf ClustBZZZZT GAAAAAAHHHH!
Now, if you want to talk about mechanical computers, what I *really* would like to see, if it's even possible, is a working model of Babbage's Analytical Engine.;-) Probably not possible, since very few of his drawings survived, but it would still be fascinating to see that machine run.. bit offtopic, I'll agree, but thought I'd indulge..
True, but just about every sci-fi series has to have it, because it's simply not practical to film in zero gravity.
A weekly series, no. But some scenes in the movie Apollo 13 were filmed in NASA's "vomit comet", a jet aircraft that flies a parabolic profile that simulates zero-g for brief periods of time (~30 seconds, IIRC).
I did like how James Cromwell (Zephram Cochrane in "First Contact") had a cameo. Also, I liked how the sets were not lit as bright as the other series.
I did not like the wooden characters and paper plot, though to be fair many shows are guilty of that during their first seasons.
I got bored halfway through and ended up watching a West Wing repeat I had seen twice before. Maybe I'm getting old (I was six when TOS first aired) and I've grown out of the Trek demographic. The Vulcan was cute, but Janel Moloney (Donnatella Moss) rocks my happy world.
I'll probably give it another chance next summer when it's in reruns.
[OT] - I do not need a beer brewery or car company to tell me how to feel about 9/11/01, thankyouverymuch.
Living in Canada I have NEVER been asked to step through a checkpoint nor to have my bags searched, Hell, I have never even SEEN a grenade launcher... let alone a grenade!
Attending the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, I saw armed forces personnel and RCMP with assault rifles and submachine guns everywhere.
True, this was a response to the 1972 Munich massacre, but even Canada can't say it can't happen here.
If I'm not mistaken, one of the first terrorist incidents in North America was a kidnapping instigated by Quebecois separatists.
Slashdot Mirror
(Emphasis mine)
When I see a statement like that coming from the self-described "Premier Magazine of Broadband Technology", I have to wonder whether the writer or editor munch on lead paint chips during breaks.
Oh, wait: it's a Cahners publication.
Nevermind.
k.
It's the FBI's Magic Lantern at work. Does anyone doubt that Al Queda's terrorist cells run IIS? Honi soit qui mal e pense.
k.
It was in Worcester, MA. 1998 or 1999, I think. A 15-year-old kid using a wardialer found the dial-in access number for one of the control systems at the local airport. Details of his crack were pretty sketchy, but I believe he brute-forced the password and got inside. I'm sure RISKS-L has the full story.
k.
Funny you should mention CCR: they're the canonical example of a band that was royally screwed by their label (Saul Zaentz's Fantasy Records).
Long after the band broke up, Fantasy sued John Fogarty (the lead singer and songwriter for CCR) for "infringing" the CCR copyrights that Fantasy still held ("Run Through the Jungle", 1986). It was sort of a "look 'n' feel" case.
Fogarty won, thankfully, but he had to change the lyrics of one of his later songs (originally "Zaentz Can't Dance") or risk a slander lawsuit.
CCR were teenagers when they signed the original contract. Same thing happened with Aerosmith, though by their fourth album they could afford to renegotiate their original deal and recover their copyrights from the label.
The moral of this story: don't go out into the jungle without a machete.
k.
It's not a loan, it's a "recoupable expense".
Band X signs with Label Y. The terms of the contract are almost always this: $XX,XXX advance plus X% of net sales ("net" meaning after deducting reserves, promo copies, returns, and the cost of goods sold).
The advance and any other monies committed for recording or tour support are recoupable; the record company gets that money back from sales before Band X sees a dime (other than mechanical and performance royalties that are independent of the contract).
If the record stiffs, which 90% of them do, there's no loan collector banging on the door. It's worse than that: the band has the "smell of death" and no other label will come near them. It's 7-11 time, kids. Thank you, come again.
k.
From 1977 to 1984, Warner Cable and American Express ran a trial of an interactive cable television system in Columbus, Ohio. Based on a set-top box built by Atari, the system allowed two-way feedback and persistant user preferences.
Relevant to the "real time feedback of purchases" part of the patent in dispute would be Qube's pay-per-view feature.
k.
I am in the process of preparing a personal injury lawsuit against Microsoft.
A few weeks ago, I happened to see their advertisement promising "99.999% uptime". The subsequent expulsion of my carbonated beverage through my nose injured my delicate nasal passages and frightened my cat.
When I become Emperor of the Universe, Microsoft's advertisements will have to bear a Surgeon General's Warning.
k.
This can't be happening.
I'm so dependent on Autodesk 3DStudio R4 for MS/DOG it's not funny. I've been using it for years; I know it inside-out. Sure, I use Max, too. But Max's bloat and clutter gets in my way. 3DS (DOS) is like a well-worn hammer that feels good when you pick it up.
I knew this day would come someday. I guess there's dual boot. I guess I could just keep a Win98 (or Dos 6.22) box around forever. I did it with a Mac 512K running System 2.3 (the only thing that ran a MIDI sequencer from 1985). I can do it with DOS.
I've got $4,000 invested in this one program ($3K base price plus two upgrades). Fuck Microsoft, fuck XP, fuck NT, fuck 2K.
k.
A post can be informative or insightful and funny at the same time. It's something I strive for because 1) it's effective for getting a point across and 2) it's best not to take anything too seriously (least of all yourself).
Certainly, there are posts modded as "Funny" that do not deserve the label, not so much that they're unfunny or juvenille, but that the moderator made a bad or wrong choice among the +1 options, or hit "page down" without restoring focus to the page body or scroll bar.
I doubt that meta-mod catches all these mistakes.
Rather than assess a -2 to "Funny", why not just do away with the option altogether?
Ironic that this "feature" (read "bug") should be considered when the second front-page article (Disney) bears the Pythonic Foot of Humor.
Moderation Totals: Informative=2, Funny=3 Total=-2.
k.
"Please put me on your No Call List."
Cuts right through their spiel. They have to honor your request: it's the law.
I cut my telemarketing calls down from four daily to once every two months. It worked a hell of a lot better than "So, what are you wearing?".
k.
I used to be a musician and songwriter. I hold copyrights (dating back to the '70s), and have a fairly large collection of .mp3s of the songs I've written and recorded over the last 25 years.
.mp3 on my PC is an infringing item? Is it the filename? The ID3 tag? Or are they going to kill them all, let Hilary Rosen sort it out, like some crazed Crusader?
How do they determine whether the
And does my status as a copyright holder mean I have a Get out of Jail Free card with respect to hacking? What if I suspect the RIAA of infringing on my copyrights?
k.
Others have correctly pointed out that this statement is wrong (liquor stores and bars have booklets that show samples of out-of-state licenses, and I've seen foreign passports accepted as proof of age).
However, none of these venues will accept a duplicate Mass. license (one that is issued if the original license is lost or stolen) because of the fraud associated with replacement licenses.
k.
But not impossible.
Unless the first thing the SWAT team does before kicking down the door is to cut the power to your home or office. Unless that UPS doesn't work as well as you thought it would. Unless you're not there to press the panic button.
I really didn't think data could be recovered from DRAM. But five minutes with Google disabused me of that illusion. And that's based on non-classified information. Who knows what they (there is no they) can do.
If they want it bad enough, they'll find a way to get it.
k.
Two words: RAM remanence.
k.
Doesn't anyone drag and drop anymore? Wasn't DnD the big advantage to using a GUI?
.html file on to the text editor icon: it's open for editing. Double-click and it's opened by the default browser. Want to see it in an alternate browser? Drag it over to that icon. Drag it over to the printer icon for a hard copy.
On both my Macs and my Windows computers, I use DnD to override default file associations. Drag the
Lately, I've been using DnD to extract strings from all of the Sircam-infected Word documents that show up in my mail by dragging the attachment link embedded in the mail message on to the TextEdit icon in the OS X Dock (not that SecretPlans.doc.pif would execute anyway if I clicked on it).
Why bother with the overhead of having a GUI if you're not going to use all the features?
k.
Hacker/genius John Walker (founder of Autodesk) proposes the construction of minerats, autonomous mine-clearing robots.
k., Lego Minestorms?
Only if you're talking about an ICBM launched from Russian (or former Soviet) territory at the continental United States (or vice versa).
If it's a depressed-trajectory shot launched from a ballistic missile submarine parked off the East or West coast, it's all over in seven minutes.
Seven minutes. Enough time for a last cigarette.
k., proud member of the "Duck 'n' Cover Generation".
Collateral damage from the $cientologists' war against the Internet (circa '95 or '96).
The Co$ got Finnish authorities to subpoena anon.penet.fi's records. The operator, Julf Helsingius [sic?] closed up shop, saying he couldn't guarantee the anonymity of his users anymore.
There's probably something about it in WiReD's archives.
k.
Nope. Serial port. I had one hooked up to a Mac (RS-422A) to make a "MIDI theremin". The Glove's resolution was too coarse for melodic use, but it was good enough for drum samples ("Drum Kit Descending a Staircase: a Musical Homage to Buddy Rich and Marcel Duchamp").
k.
True. The Analytical Engine was never built, and so far as I know, no replica exists. An artist's impression of the AE graces the cover of the William Gibson/Bruce Sterling collaboration The Difference Engine, making it easy to conflate the two.
The link to John Walker's site, however, does contain software that emulates the AE. The colorado.edu link has a replica of a Difference Engine. So I suppose it's like showing a picture of an Intel 4004-based calculator to someone who wanted to see a picture of a computer. The raw materials (chips, PCB, keypad, display) are the same, so I guess it's a difference in degree, not kind. I guess.
Now you've got me confused.
All I can say is imagine a Beowulf ClustBZZZZT GAAAAAAHHHH!
k.
In hardware or software?
k.
A weekly series, no. But some scenes in the movie Apollo 13 were filmed in NASA's "vomit comet", a jet aircraft that flies a parabolic profile that simulates zero-g for brief periods of time (~30 seconds, IIRC).
k.
I did like how James Cromwell (Zephram Cochrane in "First Contact") had a cameo. Also, I liked how the sets were not lit as bright as the other series.
I did not like the wooden characters and paper plot, though to be fair many shows are guilty of that during their first seasons.
I got bored halfway through and ended up watching a West Wing repeat I had seen twice before. Maybe I'm getting old (I was six when TOS first aired) and I've grown out of the Trek demographic. The Vulcan was cute, but Janel Moloney (Donnatella Moss) rocks my happy world.
I'll probably give it another chance next summer when it's in reruns.
[OT] - I do not need a beer brewery or car company to tell me how to feel about 9/11/01, thankyouverymuch.
k.
Three hours and not a single post.
Guess they don't like to talk about it.
k.
Attending the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, I saw armed forces personnel and RCMP with assault rifles and submachine guns everywhere.
True, this was a response to the 1972 Munich massacre, but even Canada can't say it can't happen here.
If I'm not mistaken, one of the first terrorist incidents in North America was a kidnapping instigated by Quebecois separatists.
k.