Of all the movies which should never be released on BitTorrent, StarWars III is the one that leads the pack.
This would prove once and for all to 'the powers that be' on a legal level that P2p CAN lose money for people. Especially considering the lack of tanking reviews, if this movie fails or is even disappointing for ANY reason econommically, there is 0 chance that if there is a torrent out there it will not get blamed.
From what I've seen, the pre-teen crowd might be not going to this movie, which could hurt its success. The question is whether this loss is enough. But really, if this movie fails and there's a torrent out there, there will be a witch hunt. Lucas might not even do it. In fact, I can't see him doing it, seeing as he's not that much of a luddite. But really, the WORST thing I can think of happening to Digital Copyright Stuff is this movie getting leaked.
You forgot,
"5. Ask the Pope / Vicar / President / Jerry Falwell if the shit you thought happened was right,
6. Ask for donations 'in the name of the Lord.'
7. Build a multinational economic empire out of said donations.
8. Profit!"
Lord, Save Us From Your Followers.
Here it is, 8:53 AM and I already want a drink. I didn't wake up thinking today would suck.
I've worked for a company that 'shared' their technology with us. It was an early release of their DRM tech.
To put it shortly, it sucked. They didn't help us, they used us to alpha / beta their slow, crappy product and then turned around and sold it to three other people at once. We were asking for it, but since they gave us such shitty support and implementation was such a nightmare, we didn't have any advantage over our competitors at the time. There was no real benefit to the company for doing what was offered...
They're doing this to lock people into using their software, to start companies that require their software. They're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, and if there are any companies successful enough, they will buy them. If they aren't, well, they're just spending money FOR Microsoft doing their testing and helping them smooth out the bugs.... If their software ever worked perfectly, or even well, I would be 100% behind it, but it makes a lot of sense for people to mistrust this particular kind of 'gift.'
Most of the people I've known who were even mildly suited personality-wise to this kind of stuff were not exactly the kind of people willing to accept a job 'somewhere.' Idealists, perfectionists, assholes, whatever, they were crippled socially in a way that kept them from fitting into most of the things people consider 'jobs.'
They hate sitting in the cube, and all they want for eight hours is out. So they don't do it.
Go mess with a commerce site, screw the X-Box. Unless you're a saint, what you REALLY get out of this contest is a, "Give M$ one where the sun don't shine" card and not a free X-box. Anyone interested enough in computers to do this and capable of doing it is not going to enjoy the X-Box as much as the knowledge that they stabbed Microsoft in the toe.
One Canadian reporter not being able to access articles in the U.S. does not perfect and unalterable censorship make.
The main thing that makes this possible is the 30,000 people sitting at machines editing 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' content. With unlimited power to block. This is not the Internet as we know it.
It's also not really that economically feasible in the U.S. or Canada - we'd need to have MACHINES to do this, and we don't yet. Google could build one, probably, but hasn't yet.
Keeping copper dry is a good idea, but the worries you and this reporter have are a bit inflated.
Heh. I bought a copy of Windows XP in the street in Quito, Ecuador. It cost me a grand total of 5$. Do I qualify for this program, and can I Ebay my new copy and make like 100$ a transaction?
1. Buy Pirated Software
2. Turn it in to Microsoft
3.
4. PROFIT!
The thing is, they can't really 'own' the internet until this web accelerator can stop you from accessing certain sites. While that's possible, it's not something that really fits into their charter. They're not really skirting anything here. And my guess is that their top twenty searches will become MUCH more accurate in the future as well as faster due to this.
Err.... Not exactly. One might say that the US government LOST their anti-trust case against this minor software vendor in the Northwest. One might look at it as the only company willing to stand up to the government, and the one that won most noticably.
Considering myself a member of the Slashdot Brain Trust by default (I wear clothing bought over five years ago, I troll online forums while bored at work, and I type faster than I write) I will try my best to answer your questions as best I can:
What do you do when you are hungry and more importantly, is it open source?
Good question! When I'm hungry, usually I like to eat whatever Cheetos, Dr. Pepper, Doritos, French Fries and Pizza. These are all CLOSED source, but food is nowhere NEAR as important as software. What goes into your computer is like, ten times as important as what goes into your body.
If it is not OSS, are there any copyright or patent issues that need to be dealt with?
Well, Doritos aren't OSS, but since I don't know how to cook anything but Ramen and microwave pizza, I'm pretty much SOL on that. I guess I could eat non-processed foods, but tehy don't keep as well or come in a shiny bag or have hot chicks advertising them.
Also, is Google or Apple involved in any way?
Ah, my area of expertise. Just so you know, you're right. Apple and Google really DO run the world from under the San Francisco Bay. They have a super-secret evil headquarters guarded by Steve Jobs' highly fashionable bandsaw-toothed barracudas and Larry Paige's Supah-Mastah-Search Stilleto Anemonae. Nothing gets by those little anemonae. So everything you do, eat, and think all day long is somehow related to Google and Apple.
As for degrees, the jury has said, "BUSINESS BUSINESS BUISNESS," all the way. Since you have to ask this question, you're qualified for nothing more than corporate dronehood, and should therefore embrace it with as much strength as possible.
Err... I think they've got the DNS passworded or something. I'm not that attached to any of the data I use at work, seeing as I'm a temp / contractor / whatever, so I don't give a damn what kind of spyware is on my machine... I like firefox quite a bit more, but I get a NT security style login prompt every time I try to load it up. I guess I could track down whoever needs this password and use the other browser, but wI spend so much time messing with red tape I can't imagine spending any more for software I want to use on my own.
50 grand is chump change to the customers he REALLY wants. Offshored online casinos = big business, Banks, Stock Markets, Commodities Dealers, Trading Houses = bigger business.
That's not the point - the point is, were you to ever be in a position where you were thinking about defending a network, you'd ponder DDOS a little more. In the course of pondering it, you'd look at the off-the-shelf products. (slagged in this article, probably unfairly) You'd look at a pile of solutions, and if none of them met your needs, you'd go to, "The only guy to talk to about DDoS, who happens to not have a tech degree but he's still immensely competent and happens to have 50 customers that spend somewhere inbetween 25 and 50 grand a year on his services." They're aiming at tech people looking at their solution with a soft eye... How much more do you value a solution if you've read all sorts of positive commentary about it on Slashdot?
The entire article looks like it was written by a grammatically competent and mildly technically competent twelve-year-old who wanted to push his/ her own reputation through the roof, and that's what it's apparently done.
Now, if you'd read the article, you would learn that The Golden Boy From California had recommended a few 'off the shelf' products and (unlike all those consultants who actually want customers) hoped to 'never hear from them again.' Tipping Point falls under this category. This article was stupid, and (as I've said in my other posts) more a PR company's success than actual news.
Don't bother - it summarizes Shining Hero Californian defeats Evil Russian DDOS attacker. By the time I had finished reading the article, all my 'this is all complete BS and astroturf' posts were ignored.... Sure, this is impressive. Sure, it's nice that he might have done these things. However, this is more an epic story / advertisement than actual information or news.... This looks like a bunch of unbacked and unsupportable drivel to me. Who on earth bothers hacking an ICQ account? These vicious scary uber-powerful Russians with 10,000 + computers at their fingertips that can knock out even online gambling sites... Pay this man, and he will not only make them go away, but have them arrested in their dark, shabby apartments in the middle of freezing St. Petersburg.
The whole article was BS. Read it with a critical eye, look at who the hero was. Some PR firm is cackling with glee over how well they've snowed so many Slashdotters. It's an epic story with a powerful hero and a lot of fluff.
Who on the planet is going to bother hacking an ICQ address? You can just register yourself through a free e-mail address.... Masking your IP is the hard part, and ICQ logs a lot of the IP stuff going on. This article is so far-fetched and pathetically badly written from a technical standpoint I'm surprised noone's just screamed bloody murder.
We will fight them with Good Advertising, Meaningless Propaganda, and silly overarching statements. We will fight them with astroturf and BS, and make piles of money off of people who aren't as good at watching for ad-embedded storytelling as we are.
Speaking of mentions on Slashdot, has anyone else ever seen an article wherein someone was portrayed as such a complete shining genius? Anybody else find this even slightly suspicious?
That market drives the improvements made to the rest of the video cards.... Cutting edge spenders are a very profitable business, and gives a lot of this profit to R&D.....
Lots of people ARE like the parent. That's absolutely normal to think. Look at Sharky Extreme's list of graphics cards - there's three tiers. The middle tier will be good for at least two years. The top year, three maybe. I've just built a computer for, oh, 800 bucks or so that will last me five years if there's no hardware failures. For two or three, I'll be able to replace my vid card every 18 months with a new 100-150$ toy, and play all the new games at quite high framerates, and for the few after that things will slowly go downhill until I need another new machine....
And as for the large quantity of spending cash, a lot of the people throwing new computers together every two or three months are doing it just because they enjoy the process and have cash to spare due to the rest of their life going well. If you rate hobbies in $/ time, building computers is a pretty cheap one, especially if you sell one off every two or three months on Ebay and make 95% of what you spent back.... Video games are incredibly cheap - some people in SWG say they will retire years early due to VG addiction
Heh. I liked some of his work, and some of it kinda didn't quite cut it. I had a three-book-in-one copy a friend gave to me that had The Dreaming Jewels, The Cosmic Rage, and some book about Texas... They were all good, but the one about Texas was hilarious.
Slashdot Mirror
Of all the movies which should never be released on BitTorrent, StarWars III is the one that leads the pack.
This would prove once and for all to 'the powers that be' on a legal level that P2p CAN lose money for people. Especially considering the lack of tanking reviews, if this movie fails or is even disappointing for ANY reason econommically, there is 0 chance that if there is a torrent out there it will not get blamed.
From what I've seen, the pre-teen crowd might be not going to this movie, which could hurt its success. The question is whether this loss is enough. But really, if this movie fails and there's a torrent out there, there will be a witch hunt. Lucas might not even do it. In fact, I can't see him doing it, seeing as he's not that much of a luddite. But really, the WORST thing I can think of happening to Digital Copyright Stuff is this movie getting leaked.
You forgot,
"5. Ask the Pope / Vicar / President / Jerry Falwell if the shit you thought happened was right,
6. Ask for donations 'in the name of the Lord.'
7. Build a multinational economic empire out of said donations.
8. Profit!"
Lord, Save Us From Your Followers.
Here it is, 8:53 AM and I already want a drink. I didn't wake up thinking today would suck.
I've worked for a company that 'shared' their technology with us. It was an early release of their DRM tech.
To put it shortly, it sucked. They didn't help us, they used us to alpha / beta their slow, crappy product and then turned around and sold it to three other people at once. We were asking for it, but since they gave us such shitty support and implementation was such a nightmare, we didn't have any advantage over our competitors at the time. There was no real benefit to the company for doing what was offered...
They're doing this to lock people into using their software, to start companies that require their software. They're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, and if there are any companies successful enough, they will buy them. If they aren't, well, they're just spending money FOR Microsoft doing their testing and helping them smooth out the bugs.... If their software ever worked perfectly, or even well, I would be 100% behind it, but it makes a lot of sense for people to mistrust this particular kind of 'gift.'
Most of the people I've known who were even mildly suited personality-wise to this kind of stuff were not exactly the kind of people willing to accept a job 'somewhere.' Idealists, perfectionists, assholes, whatever, they were crippled socially in a way that kept them from fitting into most of the things people consider 'jobs.'
They hate sitting in the cube, and all they want for eight hours is out. So they don't do it.
They've got other talents anyways.
Go mess with a commerce site, screw the X-Box. Unless you're a saint, what you REALLY get out of this contest is a, "Give M$ one where the sun don't shine" card and not a free X-box. Anyone interested enough in computers to do this and capable of doing it is not going to enjoy the X-Box as much as the knowledge that they stabbed Microsoft in the toe.
One Canadian reporter not being able to access articles in the U.S. does not perfect and unalterable censorship make.
The main thing that makes this possible is the 30,000 people sitting at machines editing 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' content. With unlimited power to block. This is not the Internet as we know it.
It's also not really that economically feasible in the U.S. or Canada - we'd need to have MACHINES to do this, and we don't yet. Google could build one, probably, but hasn't yet.
Keeping copper dry is a good idea, but the worries you and this reporter have are a bit inflated.
Heh. I bought a copy of Windows XP in the street in Quito, Ecuador. It cost me a grand total of 5$. Do I qualify for this program, and can I Ebay my new copy and make like 100$ a transaction?
1. Buy Pirated Software
2. Turn it in to Microsoft
3.
4. PROFIT!
The thing is, they can't really 'own' the internet until this web accelerator can stop you from accessing certain sites. While that's possible, it's not something that really fits into their charter. They're not really skirting anything here. And my guess is that their top twenty searches will become MUCH more accurate in the future as well as faster due to this.
Holy Cow! Google got slashdotted!
Err.... Not exactly. One might say that the US government LOST their anti-trust case against this minor software vendor in the Northwest. One might look at it as the only company willing to stand up to the government, and the one that won most noticably.
Considering myself a member of the Slashdot Brain Trust by default (I wear clothing bought over five years ago, I troll online forums while bored at work, and I type faster than I write) I will try my best to answer your questions as best I can:
What do you do when you are hungry and more importantly, is it open source?
Good question! When I'm hungry, usually I like to eat whatever Cheetos, Dr. Pepper, Doritos, French Fries and Pizza. These are all CLOSED source, but food is nowhere NEAR as important as software. What goes into your computer is like, ten times as important as what goes into your body.
If it is not OSS, are there any copyright or patent issues that need to be dealt with?
Well, Doritos aren't OSS, but since I don't know how to cook anything but Ramen and microwave pizza, I'm pretty much SOL on that. I guess I could eat non-processed foods, but tehy don't keep as well or come in a shiny bag or have hot chicks advertising them.
Also, is Google or Apple involved in any way?
Ah, my area of expertise. Just so you know, you're right. Apple and Google really DO run the world from under the San Francisco Bay. They have a super-secret evil headquarters guarded by Steve Jobs' highly fashionable bandsaw-toothed barracudas and Larry Paige's Supah-Mastah-Search Stilleto Anemonae. Nothing gets by those little anemonae. So everything you do, eat, and think all day long is somehow related to Google and Apple.
As for degrees, the jury has said, "BUSINESS BUSINESS BUISNESS," all the way. Since you have to ask this question, you're qualified for nothing more than corporate dronehood, and should therefore embrace it with as much strength as possible.
Have a nice day.
Two words: "Plausible Deniability."
Err... I think they've got the DNS passworded or something. I'm not that attached to any of the data I use at work, seeing as I'm a temp / contractor / whatever, so I don't give a damn what kind of spyware is on my machine... I like firefox quite a bit more, but I get a NT security style login prompt every time I try to load it up. I guess I could track down whoever needs this password and use the other browser, but wI spend so much time messing with red tape I can't imagine spending any more for software I want to use on my own.
Heh. I think he waited until he had mod points to submit - I've got a list of 5 'trolls' half of which have been modded up to insightful.
Not if you Farm Items for Big Cash liek 1337 EQ, Diablo II, and WoW Hax0rz and Farmurze do!
50 grand is chump change to the customers he REALLY wants. Offshored online casinos = big business, Banks, Stock Markets, Commodities Dealers, Trading Houses = bigger business.
That's not the point - the point is, were you to ever be in a position where you were thinking about defending a network, you'd ponder DDOS a little more. In the course of pondering it, you'd look at the off-the-shelf products. (slagged in this article, probably unfairly) You'd look at a pile of solutions, and if none of them met your needs, you'd go to, "The only guy to talk to about DDoS, who happens to not have a tech degree but he's still immensely competent and happens to have 50 customers that spend somewhere inbetween 25 and 50 grand a year on his services." They're aiming at tech people looking at their solution with a soft eye... How much more do you value a solution if you've read all sorts of positive commentary about it on Slashdot?
The entire article looks like it was written by a grammatically competent and mildly technically competent twelve-year-old who wanted to push his/ her own reputation through the roof, and that's what it's apparently done.
Now, if you'd read the article, you would learn that The Golden Boy From California had recommended a few 'off the shelf' products and (unlike all those consultants who actually want customers) hoped to 'never hear from them again.' Tipping Point falls under this category. This article was stupid, and (as I've said in my other posts) more a PR company's success than actual news.
Don't bother - it summarizes Shining Hero Californian defeats Evil Russian DDOS attacker. By the time I had finished reading the article, all my 'this is all complete BS and astroturf' posts were ignored.... Sure, this is impressive. Sure, it's nice that he might have done these things. However, this is more an epic story / advertisement than actual information or news.... This looks like a bunch of unbacked and unsupportable drivel to me. Who on earth bothers hacking an ICQ account? These vicious scary uber-powerful Russians with 10,000 + computers at their fingertips that can knock out even online gambling sites... Pay this man, and he will not only make them go away, but have them arrested in their dark, shabby apartments in the middle of freezing St. Petersburg.
The whole article was BS. Read it with a critical eye, look at who the hero was. Some PR firm is cackling with glee over how well they've snowed so many Slashdotters. It's an epic story with a powerful hero and a lot of fluff.
Who on the planet is going to bother hacking an ICQ address? You can just register yourself through a free e-mail address.... Masking your IP is the hard part, and ICQ logs a lot of the IP stuff going on. This article is so far-fetched and pathetically badly written from a technical standpoint I'm surprised noone's just screamed bloody murder.
Except me, of course. Three times now.
We will fight them with Good Advertising, Meaningless Propaganda, and silly overarching statements. We will fight them with astroturf and BS, and make piles of money off of people who aren't as good at watching for ad-embedded storytelling as we are.
Speaking of mentions on Slashdot, has anyone else ever seen an article wherein someone was portrayed as such a complete shining genius? Anybody else find this even slightly suspicious?
That market drives the improvements made to the rest of the video cards.... Cutting edge spenders are a very profitable business, and gives a lot of this profit to R&D.....
Lots of people ARE like the parent. That's absolutely normal to think. Look at Sharky Extreme's list of graphics cards - there's three tiers. The middle tier will be good for at least two years. The top year, three maybe. I've just built a computer for, oh, 800 bucks or so that will last me five years if there's no hardware failures. For two or three, I'll be able to replace my vid card every 18 months with a new 100-150$ toy, and play all the new games at quite high framerates, and for the few after that things will slowly go downhill until I need another new machine....
And as for the large quantity of spending cash, a lot of the people throwing new computers together every two or three months are doing it just because they enjoy the process and have cash to spare due to the rest of their life going well. If you rate hobbies in $/ time, building computers is a pretty cheap one, especially if you sell one off every two or three months on Ebay and make 95% of what you spent back.... Video games are incredibly cheap - some people in SWG say they will retire years early due to VG addiction
Heh. I liked some of his work, and some of it kinda didn't quite cut it. I had a three-book-in-one copy a friend gave to me that had The Dreaming Jewels, The Cosmic Rage, and some book about Texas... They were all good, but the one about Texas was hilarious.