Dear slashdot. The OP tries to beat around the bush talking about screenshots and annoying. But this is an absolutely horrible misfeature of Windows for all of us. Normally, when you browse porn, you un-minimize Excel or some other "serious application" and it covers whatever you've been watching. Now OP did just that, and the tits were showing through. He got caught. Any of us can get caught like that when using Vista for porn. Beware of the traitorous glass effect.
The question is more general. I don't see why ANYONE should upgrade. Sure there are those who WANT to upgrade, because of the e-penis factor, because of the hype, because they are misinformed. For now I haven't seen a single situation of someone who'd upgrade because Vista did something well, what XP did bad. Sure it's your freedom to make stupid decisions. It's my freedom to bitch about that just as well.
Go to a big, neat, shiny computer shop. A sexy blonde welcomes you and asks how she can help you. You'll get some common hardware for excessive price, you'll get dismissed ordering something more fancy and unusual, you will hear meaningless marketspeak as answers to your technical questions. The computer breaks, and you find you failed to fulfill some formality and your warranty is invalid.
When you enter a computer shop and see computer cases stacked to the roof, overhanging you, endangering you with collapsing and burying you in computer parts, when every piece of space on the shelves is covered in used computer parts, when you find your path through the mess to a tiny counter with an old, bearded guy huddled between a pile of harddrives and another pile of monitors, you ask a specific question: electronics for ST318404LC, the special 56pin SCSI edition. In three minutes he produces one exactly as requested, asks a very moderate price and you chat about computers for another five minutes. If it doesn't work, he just replaces it without questions. "Oh, and a Pentium II 400Mhz, no fan, big radiator, a side attachment slot please. I want a second one for my old dual-CPU motherboard, for a home server" - a moment of browsing in a pile of PIIs and PIIIs, and he produces three. "At least one should work. Just return the other two after you find one that's working", he charges you some puny cash for one and you DO return the other two, just because he's so nice. And all three work.
She'd set an easy to follow precedent. Copyright holders would think twice before sending out DMCA takedown notices using bots/spiders or army of drones, if they know the tactics could badly backfire and cost them big $$$.
So after this lady wins her case in court, exactly what will we be able to do differently? Post clips of NFL games to YouTube with impunity? I doubt it.
You'll be able to: 1) pick non-infringing fair-use clips of NFL, movies and whatnot. Post on Youtube. 2) Wait for takedown. 3) Post counter-claim 4) Wait for takedown. 5) Hire a low-grade lawyer and sue, using the precedent. 6) ??? 7) Profit!!!
"How about laws protecting children from molestation?" A man found guilty and sentenced to 2 years of prison for child molestation, for crime of washing his half-year-old daughter without using a rubber glove.
A vote of an ignorant or an idiot counts the same as a vote of an expert or a genius, but the former are more common than the latter. Therefore laws are made to appeal to ignorants and sound smart to idiots. They don't serve solving problems, they serve reelecting the lawmakers. Noble ideas like protection of children, freeing the oppressed and equality of sexes, religions and races change into empty slogans, facades on law duds intended to look good and bring votes. They make children suffer, they limit freedoms, they create unequality between different groups - but they assure reelection. Look at anti-corruption regulations. They are in fact pro-corruption ones. Look at child protection. They are about running an angry mob against scapegoats, not about protecting children. Look at the wonderful freedom and democracy you brought to Croatia and Afghanistan. That's your law.
You can work on changing them but I don't think we want groups of people deciding what laws they will or will not follow for any given day.
You are naive in believing laws are made in service of people. Laws are a product like any other. Laws are commissioned, built and installed by request of highest bidder. Laws are made to protect profits of those who create them. Laws are made to destroy competition. If you blindly follow laws, you're a slave. If you work on changing laws without breaking them, you'll be either of the three: ignored, destroyed, absorbed. If the change you propose is in opposition to interests of these at power, you laws will be made to prevent you from opposing current laws and current rulers, and they will use them to destroy you.
You kill 2-5 people, you destroy maybe $3000 worth of property. One would think this is hardly worth the effort and sacrifice. But 5 or so such bombings costed Egypt a few billion dollars in lost tourism profits.
RIAA doesn't do this to profit from the lawsuits, but to stop people from using P2P. Create enough fuss around it, make people afraid of using it, show that no matter who you are, 8yo girl, mother of 8 kids, old granny, a guy after stroke, you're not safe. They don't care that you hate them, just like you hate the terrorists. They just want to scare you.
This is the same as porn sites shamelessly stealing competition's photos, and stating "by clicking "Enter" you agree not to use any materials within against us." meaning they can countersue for breach of contract if you sue them for copyright infringement.
You're using materials found on your site against her? Oh, but they are for on-line viewing only! You're breaching the contract by using them outside of the website! Don't try to sue me, because I will countersue and I have you in hand.
"If you don't agree, say 'NO', otherwise we consider you agree to our contract." [short silence] "Thank you. You have agreed to our terms and conditions. We will send you the invoice in..."
(and proceed.)
Since agreement to her conditions is supposed to be implied by a visit of a second party, human or not, agreement from side of the second party, human or not, containing correct reply (or correct lack of thereof - implied consent like in case of her license) is just as valid legally.
There are many to be credited for scientific accuracy, but science is something you can learn in school as well. Stanislaw Lem doesn't necessarily indulge in precise science of the future, but outlines all kinds of social and what not problems that could arise from them. You can build a new device, or use it, but what unforseen consequences could it have? Lem teaches us to look past "technological progress" and see how each solution can open new problems.
The problem lies in people not announcing they abandon the project though. I faced it a few times - a project that has all signs of activity - user community helping each other, people submitting patches, reporting bugs, a mailing list, a CVS, all signs of life of active project - except of the founder being nowhere to be found, nobody with write access to CVS, and so on. Looks as if the bus factor kicked in - the project is dead, last update 3 years ago, requests for check-ins remain unanswered, and generally the only thing that could save it then is a branch - but even then the old, dead trunk will drain some resources.
A simple "This project is no longer maintained." would suffice.
Then, there's the other type I've encountered that says, basically, "I wrote this program for myself. You want Feature X, you code it!" All I have to say is that if the program was written for your own use and you didn't want people filing bug reports, why the hell did you release it to the world? All you're doing then is giving open source a black mark.
The final type of person, the one that bothers me perhaps the most, is the coder or contributor who simply doesn't answer bug reports or emails (whatever the appropriate method may be) at all, even after several weeks of waiting. Are you guys *trying* to turn your users away!?
I did. I wrote a program that served a simple purpose and worked in pretty limited environment. It worked for me, and I was satisfied with it. But I could only sacrifice a fixed amount of time on it. I wrote it, documented it, and released, stating clearly: I abandon this project now. If you want to take over, contact me, I'll pass you all the passwords and some extra know-how and won't disturb anymore. Don't send patches, don't send bugreports - I have no time to maintain it. If you send questions, I may not answer them. If you find this program useful, good for you. If it doesn't work for you, you're not worse off than before. Feel free to fix it or find (pay?) someone to fix it for you. Maybe even me, but I really have no time and resources to do it for free.
OTOH on 640x480 screen, having the address bar fit more than 20 characters without scrolling is a boon. You can disable the google bar and use the address bar only.
Linux PCs, No OS Preinstalled PCs, why are they more expensive than windows PCs at such retail outlets?
The answer is "Substracted value". Some computers come with "value add" software - various useful programs that serve their purpose and increase the value of the computer. Say, you get a PC with a DVD writer, and Nero preinstalled. The seller pays extra to have it bundled with the PC, the buyer pays premium for the PC. But if the program is a demo version, a promotional product, with purpose of getting the customer to buy more only, the authors pay the seller to include it preinstalled on the PC. It's crap you'll likely delete ASAP because it disturbs, distracts and takes up resources, while giving very little in return. Authors pay the seller. The seller reduces the price of the PC. With 30 or so of such preinstalled, it pays the whole price of MS Windows OEM, and some. Therefore the seller can add Windows "free" and reduce the price even more. With no OS preinstalled, or with Linux (or with clean install of Windows, for that matter) there's no "Value substract" software preinstalled, therefore you pay the full price of the hardware.
I'm under such a contract, but here the situation is more clear - it's not "don't work in a competing field", but "don't work for any company listed below [list of 30 or so names follows]. They are big and serious and can mean danger - especially if you leak company secrets to them, but my employer doesn't give a shit if you leave for a tiny start-up, start your own business or such.
If you worry about how your resume will look like after you get a new job, something's wrong about your approach. You're taking a job because of the job and prospects connected with it. You should plan on staying at that job for MANY years. Otherwise, just don't take it. You'll either build several years of constant job there, a good solid entry in your resume, with summarizing your previous employment as a single "2006-2007 various short-term jobs", or you're doing this only to jump to yet another job in a few months, and that means you are a hot-potato and you'll get what you deserve. Anyway, as long as BETTER offers keep coming, you can keep accepting them, but note BETTER doesn't only mean higher salary or promotion. About the most important condition for a long-term job is good atmosphere and that's not what you can negotiate from the employee. So one day you may notice "sure, I'm paid a lot and I'm a boss of a big team but everyone hates me and is out to get me" and you'll remember a good, friendly place you had left before. And then your resume may count.
The problem with DRM is that no matter how poor it is, DMCA makes cracking it illegal. So if they included a single-byte XOR encryption with key written on the back wall of the device, still decrypting it is illegal, and that's enough for them.
I got some coupons for free mp3 that came with chips I buy on regular basis. Big campaing, "free, legal MP3". So I decided to "cash them in". So I login to the site described on the coupon. "Sorry, but this site requires Internet Explorer 6 or higher". Then registration process, asking me for granny's dog's name and so on. Then confirmation email. Then it tells me to download their player. Then the files which are not MP3 but some of their own DRM'd format. And of course unplayable in anything but their crappy player. No way to use them in a portable mp3 player, no easy way of burning them to a CD (outside of ripping audio mixer channel) and of course no way of playing them on another computer, even with said player installed (need login). Ah, and no playback without network connection.
Slashdot Mirror
Hello astroturfer.
Even with $40/CD the artist gets less than $0.10/CD
Dear slashdot. The OP tries to beat around the bush talking about screenshots and annoying. But this is an absolutely horrible misfeature of Windows for all of us. Normally, when you browse porn, you un-minimize Excel or some other "serious application" and it covers whatever you've been watching. Now OP did just that, and the tits were showing through. He got caught. Any of us can get caught like that when using Vista for porn. Beware of the traitorous glass effect.
The question is more general.
I don't see why ANYONE should upgrade.
Sure there are those who WANT to upgrade, because of the e-penis factor, because of the hype, because they are misinformed.
For now I haven't seen a single situation of someone who'd upgrade because Vista did something well, what XP did bad.
Sure it's your freedom to make stupid decisions.
It's my freedom to bitch about that just as well.
Go to a big, neat, shiny computer shop. A sexy blonde welcomes you and asks how she can help you. You'll get some common hardware for excessive price, you'll get dismissed ordering something more fancy and unusual, you will hear meaningless marketspeak as answers to your technical questions. The computer breaks, and you find you failed to fulfill some formality and your warranty is invalid.
When you enter a computer shop and see computer cases stacked to the roof, overhanging you, endangering you with collapsing and burying you in computer parts, when every piece of space on the shelves is covered in used computer parts, when you find your path through the mess to a tiny counter with an old, bearded guy huddled between a pile of harddrives and another pile of monitors, you ask a specific question: electronics for ST318404LC, the special 56pin SCSI edition. In three minutes he produces one exactly as requested, asks a very moderate price and you chat about computers for another five minutes. If it doesn't work, he just replaces it without questions. "Oh, and a Pentium II 400Mhz, no fan, big radiator, a side attachment slot please. I want a second one for my old dual-CPU motherboard, for a home server" - a moment of browsing in a pile of PIIs and PIIIs, and he produces three. "At least one should work. Just return the other two after you find one that's working", he charges you some puny cash for one and you DO return the other two, just because he's so nice. And all three work.
She'd set an easy to follow precedent.
Copyright holders would think twice before sending out DMCA takedown notices using bots/spiders or army of drones, if they know the tactics could badly backfire and cost them big $$$.
So after this lady wins her case in court, exactly what will we be able to do differently? Post clips of NFL games to YouTube with impunity? I doubt it.
You'll be able to:
1) pick non-infringing fair-use clips of NFL, movies and whatnot. Post on Youtube.
2) Wait for takedown.
3) Post counter-claim
4) Wait for takedown.
5) Hire a low-grade lawyer and sue, using the precedent.
6) ???
7) Profit!!!
"How about laws protecting children from molestation?"
A man found guilty and sentenced to 2 years of prison for child molestation, for crime of washing his half-year-old daughter without using a rubber glove.
A vote of an ignorant or an idiot counts the same as a vote of an expert or a genius, but the former are more common than the latter. Therefore laws are made to appeal to ignorants and sound smart to idiots. They don't serve solving problems, they serve reelecting the lawmakers. Noble ideas like protection of children, freeing the oppressed and equality of sexes, religions and races change into empty slogans, facades on law duds intended to look good and bring votes. They make children suffer, they limit freedoms, they create unequality between different groups - but they assure reelection. Look at anti-corruption regulations. They are in fact pro-corruption ones. Look at child protection. They are about running an angry mob against scapegoats, not about protecting children. Look at the wonderful freedom and democracy you brought to Croatia and Afghanistan. That's your law.
You can work on changing them but I don't think we want groups of people deciding what laws they will or will not follow for any given day.
You are naive in believing laws are made in service of people.
Laws are a product like any other. Laws are commissioned, built and installed by request of highest bidder. Laws are made to protect profits of those who create them. Laws are made to destroy competition. If you blindly follow laws, you're a slave. If you work on changing laws without breaking them, you'll be either of the three: ignored, destroyed, absorbed. If the change you propose is in opposition to interests of these at power, you laws will be made to prevent you from opposing current laws and current rulers, and they will use them to destroy you.
How cost-effective are suicide bombings?
You kill 2-5 people, you destroy maybe $3000 worth of property. One would think this is hardly worth the effort and sacrifice.
But 5 or so such bombings costed Egypt a few billion dollars in lost tourism profits.
RIAA doesn't do this to profit from the lawsuits, but to stop people from using P2P. Create enough fuss around it, make people afraid of using it, show that no matter who you are, 8yo girl, mother of 8 kids, old granny, a guy after stroke, you're not safe. They don't care that you hate them, just like you hate the terrorists. They just want to scare you.
...because some of her practices may be illegal.
This is the same as porn sites shamelessly stealing competition's photos, and stating "by clicking "Enter" you agree not to use any materials within against us." meaning they can countersue for breach of contract if you sue them for copyright infringement.
You're using materials found on your site against her? Oh, but they are for on-line viewing only! You're breaching the contract by using them outside of the website! Don't try to sue me, because I will countersue and I have you in hand.
Call it, then replay a message including:
"If you don't agree, say 'NO', otherwise we consider you agree to our contract."
[short silence]
"Thank you. You have agreed to our terms and conditions. We will send you the invoice in..."
(and proceed.)
Since agreement to her conditions is supposed to be implied by a visit of a second party, human or not, agreement from side of the second party, human or not, containing correct reply (or correct lack of thereof - implied consent like in case of her license) is just as valid legally.
dsshell@ix.netcom.com
wget -r -l0 --delete-after http://www.profane-justice.org/
Oh well, I'd say it's quite obvious. If they took a rock of martian soil and put it under a microscope they'd read: //reserved for future use
There are many to be credited for scientific accuracy, but science is something you can learn in school as well.
Stanislaw Lem doesn't necessarily indulge in precise science of the future, but outlines all kinds of social and what not problems that could arise from them. You can build a new device, or use it, but what unforseen consequences could it have? Lem teaches us to look past "technological progress" and see how each solution can open new problems.
The problem lies in people not announcing they abandon the project though. I faced it a few times - a project that has all signs of activity - user community helping each other, people submitting patches, reporting bugs, a mailing list, a CVS, all signs of life of active project - except of the founder being nowhere to be found, nobody with write access to CVS, and so on. Looks as if the bus factor kicked in - the project is dead, last update 3 years ago, requests for check-ins remain unanswered, and generally the only thing that could save it then is a branch - but even then the old, dead trunk will drain some resources.
A simple "This project is no longer maintained." would suffice.
Then, there's the other type I've encountered that says, basically, "I wrote this program for myself. You want Feature X, you code it!" All I have to say is that if the program was written for your own use and you didn't want people filing bug reports, why the hell did you release it to the world? All you're doing then is giving open source a black mark.
The final type of person, the one that bothers me perhaps the most, is the coder or contributor who simply doesn't answer bug reports or emails (whatever the appropriate method may be) at all, even after several weeks of waiting. Are you guys *trying* to turn your users away!?
I did. I wrote a program that served a simple purpose and worked in pretty limited environment. It worked for me, and I was satisfied with it. But I could only sacrifice a fixed amount of time on it. I wrote it, documented it, and released, stating clearly: I abandon this project now. If you want to take over, contact me, I'll pass you all the passwords and some extra know-how and won't disturb anymore. Don't send patches, don't send bugreports - I have no time to maintain it. If you send questions, I may not answer them. If you find this program useful, good for you. If it doesn't work for you, you're not worse off than before. Feel free to fix it or find (pay?) someone to fix it for you. Maybe even me, but I really have no time and resources to do it for free.
'cause I just upgraded my mobile from 128x160px.
OTOH on 640x480 screen, having the address bar fit more than 20 characters without scrolling is a boon. You can disable the google bar and use the address bar only.
Linux PCs, No OS Preinstalled PCs, why are they more expensive than windows PCs at such retail outlets?
The answer is "Substracted value".
Some computers come with "value add" software - various useful programs that serve their purpose and increase the value of the computer. Say, you get a PC with a DVD writer, and Nero preinstalled. The seller pays extra to have it bundled with the PC, the buyer pays premium for the PC.
But if the program is a demo version, a promotional product, with purpose of getting the customer to buy more only, the authors pay the seller to include it preinstalled on the PC. It's crap you'll likely delete ASAP because it disturbs, distracts and takes up resources, while giving very little in return. Authors pay the seller. The seller reduces the price of the PC. With 30 or so of such preinstalled, it pays the whole price of MS Windows OEM, and some. Therefore the seller can add Windows "free" and reduce the price even more. With no OS preinstalled, or with Linux (or with clean install of Windows, for that matter) there's no "Value substract" software preinstalled, therefore you pay the full price of the hardware.
I'm under such a contract, but here the situation is more clear - it's not "don't work in a competing field", but "don't work for any company listed below [list of 30 or so names follows]. They are big and serious and can mean danger - especially if you leak company secrets to them, but my employer doesn't give a shit if you leave for a tiny start-up, start your own business or such.
These radiators add at least 1.4 inch to your e-penis length.
http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl
If you worry about how your resume will look like after you get a new job, something's wrong about your approach. You're taking a job because of the job and prospects connected with it. You should plan on staying at that job for MANY years. Otherwise, just don't take it. You'll either build several years of constant job there, a good solid entry in your resume, with summarizing your previous employment as a single "2006-2007 various short-term jobs", or you're doing this only to jump to yet another job in a few months, and that means you are a hot-potato and you'll get what you deserve. Anyway, as long as BETTER offers keep coming, you can keep accepting them, but note BETTER doesn't only mean higher salary or promotion. About the most important condition for a long-term job is good atmosphere and that's not what you can negotiate from the employee. So one day you may notice "sure, I'm paid a lot and I'm a boss of a big team but everyone hates me and is out to get me" and you'll remember a good, friendly place you had left before. And then your resume may count.
The problem with DRM is that no matter how poor it is, DMCA makes cracking it illegal. So if they included a single-byte XOR encryption with key written on the back wall of the device, still decrypting it is illegal, and that's enough for them.
I got some coupons for free mp3 that came with chips I buy on regular basis. Big campaing, "free, legal MP3".
So I decided to "cash them in". So I login to the site described on the coupon. "Sorry, but this site requires Internet Explorer 6 or higher".
Then registration process, asking me for granny's dog's name and so on. Then confirmation email. Then it tells me to download their player. Then the files which are not MP3 but some of their own DRM'd format. And of course unplayable in anything but their crappy player. No way to use them in a portable mp3 player, no easy way of burning them to a CD (outside of ripping audio mixer channel) and of course no way of playing them on another computer, even with said player installed (need login). Ah, and no playback without network connection.
Thanks, no "Legal MP3", even for free, please.