RTFA: The cable was not cut, it was taken offline due to power problems. Isn't that why the US of A invaded Iraq? ---> "Power Problems" Isn't that why the US of A is having such issues with Iran recently? ---> "Power Problems".
Describing a break in transmissions as being due to "power problems" is to communicate zero net new information.
Countries like the UAE show that Islam is not the culprit; idiots and assholes are. As usual. Whether we're talking about Terrorist Organizations (eg Al Quaeda) or The Countries That Hate Them (eg The US of A), it's always the idiots and asswholes (eg Dick/DubYah/Osama/etc) to blame.
The vast majority of the respective populations are not irrational, psychotic and unstable.
Microsoft did not build its monopoly on Windows. The Microsoft juggernaut built its multi-billion dollar empire not on Windows, but on MS-DOS. And you , sir, need a history lesson.
Microsoft *never* built anything.
They basically stole (er, paid an absolute pittance for something that was worth LOTS more than they paid) DOS (then it was called QDOS, by Seattle Computer Products), and LIED to IBM - claiming they had written this cool new OS which would work on PCs.
And the rest, they say, is history (er, I mean a comprehensive pattern of behaviour).
It's like saying that Americans can't speak more than two languages. Most have never tried, nor had the easy resources to do so, but they could probably learn additional languages, even if it might be harder here. Seriously people, last time I looked you (well, darn close to the vast and overwhelming majority of you) can't even speak english properly. Don't even DREAM of learning a second language.
You'll only make the rest of the world laugh even harder.
Once again, some random pundit proves an assumption by starting with fuzzy thinking and lack of detail.
THE Music Industry is a myth
And by that I mean The Myth is that the is one "music industry". Specifically, what I mean when I say "the music industry" is (clearly, obviously) NOT the same thing that THEY (RIAA, etc) of the world mean.
I would suggest that we (the sane and clear thinking intelligent people of the world) understand that there are TWO "Music Industries".
The Industry of Making Music
The Industry of Distributing Music
DRM is all about the control of the distribution of music. What we're seeing here is a failure of that control.
Failure to successfully control the distribution (and seriously, any/every playback of music is essentially, effectively, a trivial/minimalistic form of distribution - research "the analog hole" if this statement confuses you)
Failure to win the support and acceptance of the people
Failure to keep up with the march of modern technologies
So what if DRM fails? So what if Music Distribution fails? So what if The Music Distribution Industry (which, basically, in its current invocation is nothing more than a protectionist racket like the MAFIA used to run) fails?
Previously the mechanical complexities involved in the distribution of physical media meant there "was room" (in a business sense) for an entity to "make this happen smoothly" and make money in the process. Now that there's less and less physical distribution, and more electronic distribution, the previous "margin for profit" is rapidly shrinking (ie there's no room for someone to skip BILLIONS of dollars from consumers for no reason).
As living proof that any idiot can make predictions about The Music Industry.... here's my $0.02
Music Distribution will be SIGNIFICANTLY LESS about physical media and more about content
Many artists will find this is an opportunity to be more direct with their customers, and thereby collect more of the profits themselves
Other distributors will be needed, to help shuffle bits (iTunes, Last.FM, etc)
There will be multiple distribution models (sell bits, rent bits, subscription for bits)
There will be MUCH MORE of a market for "free stuff" that comes with what you bought (ie "value add")
There will be MUCH MORE of a market for premium content (ie the ultimate collectors signed-by-the-artist, gold-plated, diamond-encrusted pack)... because it's now a significant distinguisher, as more of the market is no-longer physical
....
Profit???
Basically I could ramble on for a few MEGABYTES, but the main point is this:
The Entire Industry That Revolves Around Music will be much broader, deeper, richer than ever before.
Even though "the current distribution and control models" are no longer valid, nor necessary, nor are they even WANTED anymore.
We need not, we should not, mourn their demise. Like a recently deceased aged relative, we've had some good memories, but towards the end it's just been messy and embarrassing.
Hold a funeral, bury the body, enjoy the wake, celebrate the new generation.
.... the founding fathers' intention of keeping the population armed so that the people have a "last resort" should the government cease to act in the interests of the general populace.... It never ceases to amaze me... Exactly specifically WHAT EXAMPLE OF "government ceasing to act in the interests of the general populace" are you all waiting for?
Does "the president" need to DROP NUKES on The Continental US of A before people WAKE UP and DO SOMETHING?
Or do you all think that "having a vietnam war" in the middle of the desert is in the interests of the general populace?
Card enables download of one album from a selection of 37 (another album means another visit and another card)
TFA says "MP3 format" but for all you know it's encoded as mono@32kbps with literally zero info in the ID3 tags
For all those hoops you just jumped through, not significantly cheaper than just purchasing the CD
does this work on Linux? MacOS? BeOS? AmigaOS? (before you whine about "it's just a download" you've *all* had some site you went to where it simply did not work on "your OS and browser of choice")
Or you could read the short version: MultiNational MegaCorp with a History of fair-use violating DRM enforcement and downright corporate shenanigans (rootkit, anyone?) releases DRM-free program more difficult to operate than the-clock-on-your-vcr and of actual negative value to end-customers.
Consensus seems to be that 6 months from now SonyBMG will issue an "I Told You So" press release claiming they went all out to allow DRM-free downloads and nobody wanted it.
Chalk one up for "kwark" from an Australian with a Physics Degree.
I realize this (pronunciation of scientific terms) isn't a democracy, however I (a humble innocent-bystander without a degree in physics) have always believed that
quark rhymes with "phark!"
(as spoken by a truly broad Australian accent) for the most obvious of reasons.
Actually, doesn't the term "the best" by definition sort of mean there can't be that many? The best means superior to all others, and unless you're talking about something that has an absolute and measurable limit to "perfection", then "the best" is a pretty exclusive club. Seriously!
The Best is a *very* exclusive club.
THE Best means implicitly that (as made famous in The Highlander)
There Can Be Only One People who write such phrases as
The best fliers, and there are not many write such crap/drivel/rubbish because they don't have anything useful to contribute, but they get paid "by the word" so the more syllables they sprout the more money they make. If they're just spouting off in a public forum (eg like slashdot) they obviously think that taking 20 minutes to contribute 5 seconds of information is proof that they're intelligent (or something).
rather than throwing addicts in jail for years If I were making the decisions, all Citizens registered to vote could shoot on sight any Drug Addicts, tobacco "users" included.
Of course that's nothing more than my personal opinion, but there ya go.
Solves more problems than it creates:
People with licensed HandGuns now have an outlet for that desperate urge to blow someone away
drug addicts are no longer a burden to society
less "tobacco users" means cleaner air for everyone else
So he's describing a spam-filtering system which is basically saying "if this bunch of people are all getting this email, it smells like spam".
While I'll admit I'm ludicrously overgeneralizing his technique, and I have no real knowledge of exactly how Google identifies spam, I'd say his method smells distinctly similar to essentially what Google must be doing (broadly speaking).
If I were him, I'd be seriously researching how close his work is to The Big G, and make sure there's no conflict/overlap; or he'll just be wasting his time.
Of course, it could be that his tweak may add value to the G, and they offer to buy him out, give him a luxurious position doing more of the same.
on a RocketRAID 2322 eSATA RAID card (needed Leopard-ready drives, after the release)
I use:
Aperture
Firefox
iTunes
Google Earth
Adobe Photoshop
a handful of minor non-Apple programs (Synergy, Skype, Adium, etc)
SuperDuper (which is cool, and low-level enough that it might break stuff, but it doesn't support the new cat so I will not run it until there's an update released)
So admittedly I'm not stressing my machine with "low level" programs that do weird and wonderful things (eg no odd "system drivers", magic background scripting tools, etc).
But still, my machine has been totally rock solid even after I "just upgraded" to Leopard. Ditto applying 10.5.1.... 100% absolutely no problems (once HighPoint delivered drivers for Leopard that worked, and even then the system was fine, just refused to mount the external drive. No instability, and no data was lost.
Two Different Truths, But Not In Conflict
on
Are Spammers Giving Up?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
In an article at Wired, Google, '... says that spam attempts, as a percentage of e-mail that's transmitted through its Gmail system, have waned over the last year'. and
Other experts disagree with Google, pointing out that overall spam attempts continue to rise.
Well yes, they can easily both be true.
If, for example, spammers are learning that sending spam to @gmail addresses is a pointless exercise in futility. So they further concentrate their efforts on non-gmail addresses.
Google sees a significant drop of spam arriving at gmail (though via accounts which POP3 mail from external addresses, there'll always be some spam).
Everyone else (not Google) sees their inbound spam increasing/strong.
As observed from atomic explosions (tests as well as deployment during war) HIGH radion doses are lethal.
But there's extensive researchbeing done today which seems to be indicating that low-dosage radiation is not only non-lethal but can actually be beneficial.
I saw recently a (BBC?) documentary about ongoing research into the effects of radiation exposure. Basically we have *more than enough* evidence of the effects of short-term high-dosage (the upper/right side of the curve) but damn close to zero data regarding the lower/left side of the curve.
The does seem to be evidence that in some cases ongoing exposure to (relatively) low-level radiation (but still higher than "generally accepted" levels/"normal background" levels) is actually beneficial.
There was some village (Israel/Palestine/Middle-East 'ish') where the natural background radiation was something like two-hundred (200) times "normal" levels. The people there were perfectly normal, fine and healthy. In fact, researchers found the villagers were more healthy than normal/average for some diseases/conditions.
From Memory: I think the science is currently leaning towards the theory that even with radiation (which previously we thought that *any* was bad), "a little" can be good because it basically prompts the bodies natural response to damage/injury (eg in the same conceptual way that an innoculation helps prevent disease) .
Not that I'm pushing "radiation is good", but there's more than enough evidence to show that we clearly do not fully understand all the implications of exposure to radiation, especially when it comes to ongoing low dosage exposure over long time periods.
IANANP (I Am Not A Nuclear Physicist)
YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary)
TANSTAAFL (There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)
So this system (ADS-B) is based around the concept of planes broadcasting ~1/sec their ID/location/3d-velocity.
You'd want to have amazingly fabulous encryption on that or you've just created the terrorists vision of heaven.
I trolled Wikipedia:
ADS-B messages can be used to know the location of an aircraft, and there is no means to guarantee that this information is not used inappropriately. Additionally, there are some concerns about the integrity of ADS-B transmissions. ADS-B messages can be produced, with simple low cost measures, which spoof the locations of multiple phantom aircraft to disrupt safe air travel. There is no foolproof means to guarantee integrity and it referred me to this page about security concerns for ads-b
Sounds like it's a great concept, but may have some major holes which are yet to be addressed.
After literally years telling us we can't use cellphones on airplanes because:
rf interferes with the avionics
the cellphone basically spams all cell-towers
They're now going to implement a system which enables every airplaine over the continental US of A to use rf to cell-towers for the sake of better tracking.
Someone please clearly explain how they've not just flat out admitted lying to everyone since the dawn of time.
All the same, bear in mind that there are many of us who are opposed to any and all forms of abortion who are also opposed to capital punishment, euthanasia, war... to violence and injustice in general. And here I thought I was very very very clearly referring to OurFavorite-Chimp-as-President and TheWar-In-OilySandyCountries but I guess especially on slashdot one mans "blindingly obvious" is another mans "what the hell are you talking about".
So let me be blindingly obvious about this: Your government believes in nothing other than pandering to its own convenience. It has no morals, no ethics, and no true values. As seen by their stand against abortion (killing people before they're born) and stand FOR prosecuting wars on such a humongous scale (ie, killing people after they're born). This is not about morals/ethics/values, it's ALL about securing more votes (abortion issue) and securing control or at least access to extensive Oil reserves no matter how many people you have to kill.
Your challenge is to make the government believe that "convenient for them" really means achieving YOUR goals, supporting YOUR morality and ethics.
Has nobody been paying attention to the many and various articles in recent years about "some random company" who decided to revoke their DRM product (new DRM, dropped product, company died, etc) and totally screw all their customers who had paid license fees to use this DRM functionality?
Slashdot Mirror
In The Slashdot Universe, "model checking" is all about logic analysis.
Despite the fact that the models we'd much rather be checking are all from Playboy/Hustler etc.
Surely we can get together enough of a crowd to award a prize for that?
Isn't that why the US of A is having such issues with Iran recently? ---> "Power Problems".
Describing a break in transmissions as being due to "power problems" is to communicate zero net new information.
The vast majority of the respective populations are not irrational, psychotic and unstable.
Microsoft *never* built anything.
They basically stole (er, paid an absolute pittance for something that was worth LOTS more than they paid) DOS (then it was called QDOS, by Seattle Computer Products), and LIED to IBM - claiming they had written this cool new OS which would work on PCs.
And the rest, they say, is history (er, I mean a comprehensive pattern of behaviour).
- problem with too many rats
- introduce Monitor Lizards
- MonitorLizards are daytime creatures, rats are active at night
- Monitor Lizards EAT ALL THE CHICKENS instead (Bad Lizards!)
- Introduce Cane Toads
- The Lizards eat them (and Cane Toads are extremely poisonous)
- However, so do the local CATS (BAD Cane Toads!)
Net Result of ALL THAT SCREWING WITH MOTHER NATURE? ===> Increased Rat PopulationNow where did I leave that URL for the recent SlashDOT article about some people never learn?
You'll only make the rest of the world laugh even harder.
THE Music Industry is a myth
And by that I mean The Myth is that the is one "music industry". Specifically, what I mean when I say "the music industry" is (clearly, obviously) NOT the same thing that THEY (RIAA, etc) of the world mean.
I would suggest that we (the sane and clear thinking intelligent people of the world) understand that there are TWO "Music Industries".
- The Industry of Making Music
- The Industry of Distributing Music
DRM is all about the control of the distribution of music. What we're seeing here is a failure of that control.So what if DRM fails? So what if Music Distribution fails? So what if The Music Distribution Industry (which, basically, in its current invocation is nothing more than a protectionist racket like the MAFIA used to run) fails?
Previously the mechanical complexities involved in the distribution of physical media meant there "was room" (in a business sense) for an entity to "make this happen smoothly" and make money in the process. Now that there's less and less physical distribution, and more electronic distribution, the previous "margin for profit" is rapidly shrinking (ie there's no room for someone to skip BILLIONS of dollars from consumers for no reason).
As living proof that any idiot can make predictions about The Music Industry
- Music Distribution will be SIGNIFICANTLY LESS about physical media and more about content
- Many artists will find this is an opportunity to be more direct with their customers, and thereby collect more of the profits themselves
- Other distributors will be needed, to help shuffle bits (iTunes, Last.FM, etc)
- There will be multiple distribution models (sell bits, rent bits, subscription for bits)
- There will be MUCH MORE of a market for "free stuff" that comes with what you bought (ie "value add")
- There will be MUCH MORE of a market for premium content (ie the ultimate collectors signed-by-the-artist, gold-plated, diamond-encrusted pack)
... because it's now a significant distinguisher, as more of the market is no-longer physical - ....
- Profit???
Basically I could ramble on for a few MEGABYTES, but the main point is this:- The Entire Industry That Revolves Around Music will be much broader, deeper, richer than ever before.
Even though "the current distribution and control models" are no longer valid, nor necessary, nor are they even WANTED anymore.We need not, we should not, mourn their demise. Like a recently deceased aged relative, we've had some good memories, but towards the end it's just been messy and embarrassing.
Hold a funeral, bury the body, enjoy the wake, celebrate the new generation.
.... the founding fathers' intention of keeping the population armed so that the people have a "last resort" should the government cease to act in the interests of the general populace.... It never ceases to amaze meDoes "the president" need to DROP NUKES on The Continental US of A before people WAKE UP and DO SOMETHING?
Or do you all think that "having a vietnam war" in the middle of the desert is in the interests of the general populace?
You saw it.
I saw it
But clearly "they" did not see it, else "they" would not have submitted a dupe.
- US and Canada only
- retail Brix-N-Mortar visit required
- Purchase a "Card with secret code"
- Card enables download of one album from a selection of 37 (another album means another visit and another card)
- TFA says "MP3 format" but for all you know it's encoded as mono@32kbps with literally zero info in the ID3 tags
- For all those hoops you just jumped through, not significantly cheaper than just purchasing the CD
- does this work on Linux? MacOS? BeOS? AmigaOS? (before you whine about "it's just a download" you've *all* had some site you went to where it simply did not work on "your OS and browser of choice")
Or you could read the short version: MultiNational MegaCorp with a History of fair-use violating DRM enforcement and downright corporate shenanigans (rootkit, anyone?) releases DRM-free program more difficult to operate than the-clock-on-your-vcr and of actual negative value to end-customers.Consensus seems to be that 6 months from now SonyBMG will issue an "I Told You So" press release claiming they went all out to allow DRM-free downloads and nobody wanted it.
I realize this (pronunciation of scientific terms) isn't a democracy, however I (a humble innocent-bystander without a degree in physics) have always believed that
quark rhymes with "phark!"
(as spoken by a truly broad Australian accent) for the most obvious of reasons.
The Best is a *very* exclusive club.
THE Best means implicitly that (as made famous in The Highlander) There Can Be Only One
People who write such phrases as The best fliers, and there are not many write such crap/drivel/rubbish because they don't have anything useful to contribute, but they get paid "by the word" so the more syllables they sprout the more money they make. If they're just spouting off in a public forum (eg like slashdot) they obviously think that taking 20 minutes to contribute 5 seconds of information is proof that they're intelligent (or something).
If I were making the decisions, all Citizens registered to vote could shoot on sight any Drug Addicts, tobacco "users" included.
Of course that's nothing more than my personal opinion, but there ya go.
Solves more problems than it creates:
So he's describing a spam-filtering system which is basically saying "if this bunch of people are all getting this email, it smells like spam".
While I'll admit I'm ludicrously overgeneralizing his technique, and I have no real knowledge of exactly how Google identifies spam, I'd say his method smells distinctly similar to essentially what Google must be doing (broadly speaking).
If I were him, I'd be seriously researching how close his work is to The Big G, and make sure there's no conflict/overlap; or he'll just be wasting his time.
Of course, it could be that his tweak may add value to the G, and they offer to buy him out, give him a luxurious position doing more of the same.
Ditto!
Mee Too!
- Apple MAC PRO 3.0GHz with 8GB RAM
- 2 x 300GB internal rives
- 4 x500GB drives in an External Case
- on a RocketRAID 2322 eSATA RAID card (needed Leopard-ready drives, after the release)
I use:- Aperture
- Firefox
- iTunes
- Google Earth
- Adobe Photoshop
- a handful of minor non-Apple programs (Synergy, Skype, Adium, etc)
- SuperDuper (which is cool, and low-level enough that it might break stuff, but it doesn't support the new cat so I will not run it until there's an update released)
So admittedly I'm not stressing my machine with "low level" programs that do weird and wonderful things (eg no odd "system drivers", magic background scripting tools, etc).But still, my machine has been totally rock solid even after I "just upgraded" to Leopard. Ditto applying 10.5.1
Well yes, they can easily both be true.
If, for example, spammers are learning that sending spam to @gmail addresses is a pointless exercise in futility. So they further concentrate their efforts on non-gmail addresses.
Google sees a significant drop of spam arriving at gmail (though via accounts which POP3 mail from external addresses, there'll always be some spam).
Everyone else (not Google) sees their inbound spam increasing/strong.
But there's extensive research being done today which seems to be indicating that low-dosage radiation is not only non-lethal but can actually be beneficial.
I saw recently a (BBC?) documentary about ongoing research into the effects of radiation exposure. Basically we have *more than enough* evidence of the effects of short-term high-dosage (the upper/right side of the curve) but damn close to zero data regarding the lower/left side of the curve.
The does seem to be evidence that in some cases ongoing exposure to (relatively) low-level radiation (but still higher than "generally accepted" levels/"normal background" levels) is actually beneficial.
There was some village (Israel/Palestine/Middle-East 'ish') where the natural background radiation was something like two-hundred (200) times "normal" levels. The people there were perfectly normal, fine and healthy. In fact, researchers found the villagers were more healthy than normal/average for some diseases/conditions.
From Memory: I think the science is currently leaning towards the theory that even with radiation (which previously we thought that *any* was bad), "a little" can be good because it basically prompts the bodies natural response to damage/injury (eg in the same conceptual way that an innoculation helps prevent disease) .
Not that I'm pushing "radiation is good", but there's more than enough evidence to show that we clearly do not fully understand all the implications of exposure to radiation, especially when it comes to ongoing low dosage exposure over long time periods.
You'd want to have amazingly fabulous encryption on that or you've just created the terrorists vision of heaven.
I trolled Wikipedia: ADS-B messages can be used to know the location of an aircraft, and there is no means to guarantee that this information is not used inappropriately. Additionally, there are some concerns about the integrity of ADS-B transmissions. ADS-B messages can be produced, with simple low cost measures, which spoof the locations of multiple phantom aircraft to disrupt safe air travel. There is no foolproof means to guarantee integrity and it referred me to this page about security concerns for ads-b
Sounds like it's a great concept, but may have some major holes which are yet to be addressed.
- rf interferes with the avionics
- the cellphone basically spams all cell-towers
They're now going to implement a system which enables every airplaine over the continental US of A to use rf to cell-towers for the sake of better tracking.Someone please clearly explain how they've not just flat out admitted lying to everyone since the dawn of time.
So let me be blindingly obvious about this: Your government believes in nothing other than pandering to its own convenience. It has no morals, no ethics, and no true values. As seen by their stand against abortion (killing people before they're born) and stand FOR prosecuting wars on such a humongous scale (ie, killing people after they're born). This is not about morals/ethics/values, it's ALL about securing more votes (abortion issue) and securing control or at least access to extensive Oil reserves no matter how many people you have to kill.
Your challenge is to make the government believe that "convenient for them" really means achieving YOUR goals, supporting YOUR morality and ethics.
It Has DRM
Has nobody been paying attention to the many and various articles in recent years about "some random company" who decided to revoke their DRM product (new DRM, dropped product, company died, etc) and totally screw all their customers who had paid license fees to use this DRM functionality?
VOTE WITH YOUR WALLETS people.
Spoken like the truly AC that you are. Yes, technically you are correct.
.... (please, be specific here).
And the transcendentally magical definining change between a 7.9 week old "embryo" and a 8.0 week old "fetus" is
Yes, that's right folks - until it's reached the 'fetus' stage, it's really stretching a technicality to consider "the thing" in any way "one of us".
This whole embryo/fetus dichotomy is purely so that someone somewhere can feel good about themselves performing certain classes of experiments.
There's a law against Fetal Homicide, but killing an embryo is still very much "disputed territory".