Seems strange to me, imposing a larger levy on the eraseable media than the permanent ones. Stuff on CD-R is there for the lifetime of the media, whereas CD-RW is temporary; it gets overwritten. You might record four albums onto a CD-RW over its lifetime, but you still only get to keep the last one, and you might well erase that.
Still, there might be an opportunity to do a bit of "moonraking", so to speak. CD-Rs for ciggies, anyone?
Extradition treaties apart, whatever you did has to be illegal in both countries. This is the principle of Dual Criminality.
Sovereignty means that a country is allowed to decide for itself what is legally acceptable within its borders. There are very, very few exceptions to this principle, and they have to be enforced by international treaty -- for instance, torture is illegal under the laws of many countries even if it took place in another country which signed the same treaty. Dual Criminality was the whole deal with why Pinochet got off being extradited to Spain -- because his acts were not crimes according to British law at the time when he committed them. {They should have tried to fit him up him for shoplifting or some similar petty crime. The Met., or the West Midlands police, wouldn't have thought twice about that. Then he could have been extradited and tried in Spain.}
If you live in country A, but while visiting country B you do something which is forbidden in country A but perfectly acceptable according to the laws of country B, then there is nothing anyone in country A can do about it when you return.
If a Briton visits the Netherlands for the purposes of prostitution and narcotics {a.k.a. a poke and toke trip} then there is nothing the British authorities can do -- well, maybe deny him a Dutch visa before he went, except seeing as both Britain and The Netherlands are in the EU, then no visa is necessary for travel within the EU. If an Arab or Pakistani visits a country where drinking alcohol is legal, then there is nothing that can legally be done to them when they return home {though I'd still be sucking Polos all the way just in case. Some people have a reputation for exceeding their authority}.
Similarly, if an American visits Canada and downloads music in strict accordance with Canadian law, then returns to the USA without taking any downloaded material with them, then the US authorities are not legally allowed to take any action. It's all there in the Constitution; due process, innocent until proven guilty, no self-incrimination and so forth. Anything the RIAA tried against anyone filesharing in Canada would constitute an excess of authority. It could be construed as an attempt to undermine Canadian sovereignty. There's a word for that, and it both rhymes with, and is an anagram of, "raw".....
The difference being, that as the owner of the machine, a Linux user would be duly authorised, according to section (3) subsection (4).
It's a very good question indeed whether the Xbox is a computer or not in the eyes of the law; but my initial reaction is that it is a computer, because Xbox games are computer software in the eyes of the law -- otherwise they couldn't legally be sold subject to a restrictive licence.
The legal standing of all software licences may well be tested in a certain court case that is receiving mention on various blogs. And Xboxes and the like are aimed at young adults, but there are plenty of kids who have them..... It is a big jump, though not altogether inconceivable, that unauthorised tampering with a computer system belonging to a minor {by definition, incapable of agreeing to a contract} might be considered to be a form of child abuse..... Can you imagine the News of the World headline? BILL GATES IS A NONCE - OFFICIAL!
Now, what would copies of that paper fetch on EBay?
Physical destruction of used disk drives is not necessary and could in fact engender a false sense of security. Think about it..... a "secure disposal company" could bake a drive at curie temperature for 24 hours in an alternating magnetic field of varying frequency, strap a hand-grenade to it and drop it down a disused mineshaft, but how can you be sure it's the same drive, or that they haven't made a backup of its contents? If you wanted to get hold of stuff people wanted rid of, what would be a better front for getting it?
Overwriting the drive using software is more verifiable. You de-network the machine, boot it up from a CD, and can analyse the drive contents before starting a wipe cycle. You switch off and back on to prove there is no cheating. Then you can analyse the drive contents again and be sure they are different. The drive never left the machine, but you can be sure the data left the drive.
Whatever anyone may say, remember these "secure disposal companies" are after your money and don't mind playing on your most groundless fears to get hold of it..... there are a lot of things they thought were impossible..... what if someone finds a way..... Hell, sooner or later someone is going to come up with a scheme for disposing of the air from meeting rooms where secret conversations have been held. The simple scientific fact is that it takes only one overwrite cycle to make data unreadable. You can prove this to yourself using a disk sector editor, but it should be obvious anyway. If the drive could tell a "1 that used to be a 0" from a "1 that has always been a 1", or a "0 that has always been a 0" from a "0 that used to be a 1" with any degree of reliability, someone would already have used that as a capacity-doubling mechanism! It's possible that there might be some difference detectable with a sensitive analogue circuit, since there is a hysteresis loop and there really are the four states I described above. Two overwrites of opposite polarity will force the magnetic media into a known state. Even so, just one overwrite will give someone a massive headache trying to recover the data, because the "used-to-be" data has an inherently high error rate. It's already hard to tell "X that used to be !X" from "X that always has been X" and if the overwriting data is random enough, then it's hard to work out what was ever meant to be what.
dd if=/dev/audio of=/dev/hda might conceivably do a good job on a used drive, if you make sure the gain is turned up nice and high and there is nothing plugged into the sound card. Filtered static and power hum are the nearest you're going to get to true randomness.
My drives are invariably thrashed for as long as they work, then get the magnets removed for use in experiments {and wiped a few times across the platters for good measure}.
What MS are doing is quite probably against the law. If an XBox is considered to be a computer, then they are in clear violation of Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990, which states [emphasis mine] that:
3.-(1)A person is guilty of an offence if-
(a)he does any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer; and
(b)at the time when he does the act he has the requisite intent and the requisite knowledge.
(2)For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite intent is an intent to cause a modification of the contents of any computer and by so doing-
(a)to impair the operation of any computer;
(b)to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer; or
(c)to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data.
(3)The intent need not be directed at-
(a)any particular computer;
(b)any particular program or data or a program or data of any particular kind; or
(c)any particular modification or a modification of any particular kind.
(4)For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite knowledge is knowledge that any modification he intends to cause is unauthorised.
(5)It is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether an unauthorised modification or any intended effect of it of a kind mentioned in subsection (2) above is, or is intended to be, permanent or merely temporary.
(6)For the purposes of the [1971 c.48.] Criminal Damage Act 1971 a modification of the contents of a computer shall not be regarded as damaging any computer or computer storage medium unless its effect on that computer or computer storage medium impairs its physical condition.
(7)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable-
(a)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both; and
(b)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to a fine or to both.
So, according to section 3 subsection 4, If you did not give Microsoft explicit permission to modify your XBox, but they deliberately changed some software or data on it to stop you doing something, then they have quite probably broken the law. You may not have automatically authorised the modification merely by opening the box, see Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 for my reasoning {note that certain sections would not be valid in respect of a software licence}, but I am no lawyer.
Um, I wasn't slagging MySQL off..... IMHO there's nothing wrong with omitting features dependent on probability of usefulness. But if implementing some feature you're not going to use very often would slow down all the features you do use often, then you have to question whether it might not be better to omit that feature - then your next criterion for decision-making would be whether or not that feature can be lived without. If all you want a car for is picking up a bit of shopping, you would be better off with a Fiesta or a Corsa than a Ferrari or a Rolls-Royce. But that same little runabout might not be the best choice for winning megametre endurance races.....
Yeah, someone must be feeling reeeeeeally pleased with themself, having saved so many bytes of code in every browser by eliminating the "unnecessary" characters " & 0x5F" from at least two places in their source code, thereby reducing the world's Software Bloat by a measurable amount.
If someone genuinely believes that <li>, <lI>, <Li>, and <LI> really need to be interpreted differently, they're an asswipe.
The caller ID standard specifies a difference between numbers being deliberately withheld at the request of the caller, and being unavailable due to incompatible technology {i.e. analogue exchanges or other equipment which does not send the info}. International numbers show up as "unavailable", not "withheld". BT only block "withheld" calls. Your mileage may vary dependent on your telco.....
I have heard it rumoured that deliberate number-withholding {and that includes the deliberate connection of incompatible equipment} is to be outlawed in the UK. Certainly my place of work has now started sending an ident. Dunno about the place I used to work, but it was a useful side effect them not being able to call me at home.....
Get a Caller ID Box. Your telco probably will charge you a fee for sending the information, since as they see it, you might decide not to answer the phone based on who is calling and therefore they will not earn the connection charge on the call.
Block Withheld Numbers if you live in a jurisdiction where withholding your number is still legal. Your telco probably will charge you for this, but it's worth it. {before I had mine blocked, I used to say to Number Withheld: "Are you a paedophile? Because your number is withheld." That saw them off. On my mobile, where there is no such service available, I have to resort to doing an impression of a recorded announcement: "Anonymous calls are not welcome on this line. If your business is important you may ring back without withholding your number. Goodbye."
Don't say anything if you don't recognise the caller's number. This spins them out, because they think it could be an answering machine. A legitimate caller will ask for you by name. A sleazeball telemarketer will just hang up.
Ask them how they got your number. This distracts them from the purpose of the call and maybe gets them into an infinite loop.
If all else fails, remember that it is your line, and you are under no obligation to be polite with unwanted callers. Any obligation of politeness would fall on the originator, not the recipient.
I think the best solution would be for the do-not-call list to be in the phone directory, by placing a symbol next to the numbers of people who did not wish to receive unsolictited sales calls. I'm not so anti-social that I'd consider going ex-directory, because that would jeopardise things for people who might have a legitimate reason to call me {and because I like looking up my name in the new phone book every 18 months or so, it gives me a kick without harming anyone else}. Having the "do not call" list in the phone book itself would be almost foolproof. Everyone with a phone line gets the phone book, so there would be no shortage of witnesses to the fact that your number was on the list. The only downside is that you might have to wait till the new directory was published in order to get your name properly DNC'd. But the telemarketing companies could be made to subscribe to an update list as a condition of their operating licence.
Um, any external modem with an RS232 interface is effectively a dialling machine, surely? Here is a code fragment offered as proof of concept: {meant for use in UK hence 6-digit numbers between 200000 - 899999. 1 is used for special services, 9 is mostly not used, 0 is used for STD codes.}
for ($n=200000; $n < 900000; ++$n) {
print RS232 "ATDT$n\r"; # send no.
print "Just dialled $city $n..... [L]ater / [T]alking now / [N]o good ?";
$_ = <>;
print RS232 "ATH\r" # phone will keep line open
$query = "UPDATE `$city.responses` SET `response` = \"$_\" WHERE `number` = \"$n\"";
&send_query;
MySQL is meant to be a subset of the full SQL system, and it is optimised for speed and reliability. You send it a query and it chucks out answers, and it chucks 'em out bloody fast. Whatever it doesn't do, you probably won't miss but you can emulate it anyway through external scripting.
For example, MySQL's wildcards are dire, just _ to match/./ and % to match/.*/. Since the usual way to access MySQL is via a Perl / PHP / Python script, it's reasonable to suppose the scripting language will have proper regular expression handling abilities. Depending on the overbreadth of your MySQL query compared to the query you would have really liked to have done, you might want to select just the primary key and the field to be matched against your complex wildcard, build up an array of usable keys and proceed from there selecting one record at a time, or select * and only display matches. Therein lies the tradeoff - rather than have MySQL implement full regexp matching and potentially slow down access when not actually using it, you're expected to use a bit of discretion for yourself.
If you want the full works with SQL, try PostgreSQL. It has loads of stuff you'll probably never use..... but MySQL is fine if all you want to do is SELECT `name`,`address`,`phone` FROM `people` WHERE `sex`="F" && `skint`="N" LIMIT 1 and so forth.
Don't get me started on Dreamweaver. It produces lousy code. For a start, it has "trendy" lower case tags. Caps are there for a reason - sticks out better amongst a page of mainly lower case text than when using an editor such as pico {it's much easier to correct a minor spelling mistake this way..... just edit it right there on the server}. I don't like lower case tags for this reason. Secondly, it puts in <font> tags all over the place, often with nothing between them, rather than creating a proper style sheet. Thirdly, its indentation is trendy but again it makes for unnecessary bandwidth consumption, and it makes it awkward to link in PHP code. I guess some of that is due to my personal stubbornness over my personal indenting style, but that's the way I like it..... I like my <? hard up against the margin, and it really spoils the look when a bit of PHP has to go inside a table cell.
Dreamweaver is like an accessory that fits onto a guitar and allows you to fret and strum the strings using piano-style keys. It makes an attempt to put a particular kind of user interface on a task which is basically incompatible with that user interface. In the end, the functionality {and especially behind the scenes where only a few people will ever see it - who's ever going to complain about empty tag pairs, unless they either read HTML or are on a slow line, but they are still a problem - put enough feathers in a sack and eventually it will weigh a ton} is being dictated by the UI.
IMHO there is too much emphasis on having a point-and-click, "you don't need to worry about what goes on under the bonnet" interface. It's a cop-out for people who are afraid to learn and want to be proud of their ignorance. Writing text in English with a fountain pen is difficult and non-intuitive. But people manage to learn to do it and don't think twice about it. I think it is doing people a disservice to say that they could never learn a bit more about the internals of HTML. {Of course, learn HTML and you might not need Dreamweaver. Cultivating ignorance certainly benefits Macromedia here.} That's why I am sure that any open source replacement for Dreamweaver would be open to exactly the same criticisms. If any kind of programming was really that easy then why do they need a human to do it? Give me gFTP and kate.....
Exactly. Though, I can't help wondering how things would have panned out had the US government decided to make computer software explicitly non-copyrightable.
Yet, even if you imagine a world without Microsoft {or at least with Microsoft being very different} and without SCO trying to claim ownership of other people's code, GNU/Linux as we know it today would not exist. Both projects were independent attempts on a genuinely free operating system {GNU was supposed to have its own kernel, called The Hurd; Linux was originally going to be called Freax and was just meant to be a replacement for the Minix kernel, for experimental / educational use.}
Does anyone know if there is / was any country in the world where software is / was non-copyrightable and where there are / were some reasonable number of computer hobbyists? If so, what happened? The whole home computer "scene" of the late 70s/early 80s seemed to me to be very much a USA thing, though this no doubt was due in part to the Mainstream Media.
I like the sound of this, but I feel it may well be doomed already as it seems to rely on many parties getting their s#!t together at the same time. Call me cynical, but in my experience, the greater the number of people required to co-operate, so the greater the probability of failure.
Everyone should know that to make coffee, you have to heat the water all the way to 100 degrees. The hotter it is, the faster it cools, but a cup of freshly-brewed coffee may well be hotter than 80 degrees. 70 degrees is hot enough to do damage to skin; but it is not only the temperature that is significant: we need to consider the specific heat capacity and duration of contact.
None of this changes the simple idea that eighty-degree-plus liquids probably don't belong in a flimsy container in a vehicle which is essentially a lethal weapon. But, unfortunately, that was what the punter asked for and that was what the punter got.
Sooner or later if not already, someone will sue McDonalds because their coffee is not hot enough, and the merry-go-round will start again.
I am not a biologist, so I don't know the answer to this: is cryptosporidium a bug that you can become immune to by exposure? And how severe is it usually? i.e. just a mild digestive disturbance or likelihood of lasting damage?
Mandrake has traditionally been almost as obsessive as Debian when it comes to Keeping It Free {they do install Pico instead of Nano tho', and there are one or two other forgiveabilities in there.} And I'll certainly grant that MDK is an easy distribution for a newbie to use. You put the disk in, answer some questions, and you end up with an X desktop. Nowhere near as scary as Debian. {Of course, it installs the graphical bit first; if that mucks up, you're shafted}.
At first glance, this advertising does seem to be flying in the face of what Linux is all about.
On the other hand, this could be an excellent way for manufacturers of Linux-friendly hardware to get their products advertised to Linux users; although I have a deep-seated suspicion that Microsoft is paying hardware manufacturers not to mention that their stuff works OK with Linux. {Like my digital camera, which actually is BETTER with Linux than Windows..... On my laptop it just pretends to be a disk drive, without me installing any extra software. Same on my Athlon. On another Linux box at work, I just had to do a modprobe usb-storage before plugging it in; that was all. Getting the thing to work under Windows, however, was another matter.....}
I really feel a bit both ways about this. Is it the thin end of the wedge?
Si vous {j'aurais dit "tu" s'il y avait un voyant bleu ou vert!} voulez trouver des informations concernant la SNCF, il se fera plus facile en recherchant en Francais..... meme sans l'aide du poisson Babel..... donc, cherchez par Google les mots originaux "Le progres ne vaut que s'il est partage par tous" pour trouver des autres references {ou, visitez la France; mais assurez-vous de parler en Francais pour eviter etre cru rosbif sans savoir-vivre}.
It's a slogan I saw on some SNCF literature {timetables, promo leaflets &c.} in France in 1994; I don't know if they are still using it. The original French was that phrase in speech marks above. As soon as I spot someone else using it, I'll change it {like I did with the "licences" one that preceded it}.
We used to have a guy here in DERBY who swore he was a Viking and carried a ceremonial sword. He was always having run-ins with the law, but claimed he had a right to carry it as it was an obligation from his religion. He said he'd give up his sword when Hell thawed.....
It takes a special kind of genius to be able to tell someone to go to hell in such a way as they end up thinking you wished them a pleasant journey. Linus has done well to keep his cool while all this has been going down. I wonder what pills he's been taking?
As for Damage Studios' policy, I think it is mostly just for show. But they have got every right to refuse ex-SCO employees, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. There are things I, personally, would far rather be on the dole than do. As long as you have a head on your shoulders, a hand on each arm {and, absit omen you should ever have to use it, a hole in your arse}, there is no reason why you should be going short.
Hear, hear. We need damage limitation measures as soon as possible. RFID technology potentially enables a previously-unimaginable level of control-freakery, with the location of not just every person, but every article in the world trackable on some sort of database.
The argument that they can never usefully distill that data down holds less and less water with each day that passes, as computing power gets faster and cheaper. We in the UK are already under the microscope pretty much all the time we are outside of our homes, with CCTV cameras in the streets now losing some of their former power to displace crime to the blind spots as the thugs stop being bothered about getting caught.
Which brings up another question. If we can't stop people from finding stuff out about us, would it be possible to prevent them from making any use of the information?
The UK Wireless telegraphy act says that it is not an offence just to listen to other people's duly-licenced radio transmissions {listening to unlicenced transmissions constitutes Aiding and Abetting}, but it is an offence to act upon information received by doing so. The meaning of this in the context of radar detectors is that it's perfectly OK to use one, but you mustn't slow down when it beeps {because that would be acting upon information received}..... of course, if you don't slow down you'll get nicked anyway for speeding.
I think UK law already would make it an offence to misuse information gathered from RFID tag, since the data is transmitted back by RF carrier wave and the reader contains a transmitter {which presumably would have to be licenced}..... so there are two WTA offences already.
Thing is, it would be damn nigh impossible to prove that someone obtained the information they know about you by illegally reading RFID tags in your possession. There are a lot of ways they could have found it out..... you have to be careful not to create a guilty-until-proven-innocent situation {OK, I know we already have that in this country for some offences, but I'm not saying it's a good thing}.
If there is a legitimate application for RFID devices in retail stores, then so be it; but for the sake of everyone's privacy, the tags must be removed or, at the very least, deactivated before leaving the premises. {The idea of simply deactivating the tag may conflict with recent European waste laws which encourage reduction, reuse and recycling. And can you really be sure it's dead?} But what's to stop a shoplifter from taking an AJS318 Model 100 {tm} Universal RFID Tag Deactivator {patent pending} into a store, deactivating a bunch of RFID tags in various goods, and walking out with them?
No, it's still illegal to patent software in this country. Until Blair realises that private companies can make a profit on it, anyway.....
I mean, the system of charging for directory enquiries was "broken" because you could only get information from your own phone company, not from their competitors. So they "opened up the market to competition" -- i.e. introduced a whole series of numbers for directory enquiries, all competing for your business. These companies are spending a fortune advertising their new numbers on the wireless, telly and in the papers. And where will that money come from? The mug punters that end up paying for a service that used to be free, is where. And even if you never use the service, you've already paid by being made to listen to adverts. Why has nobody invented a device that will automatically retune a radio set if it is playing an advertisement? Something similar could also be done with VCRs; automagically fast-forwarding through them on playback probably would be safer than not recording them, though I do begrudge the advertisers the oxide.
Yes, there used to be a time, long ago, when directory enquiries used to be free. And when you got sent a utility bill in the post, there would be a reply-paid envelope for your cheque. These days the envelope just has a space marked "affix stamp here" {though, writing the words "Cheque Enclosed - Postage To Be paid By Recipient" seems to work just as well as a stamp}. Yes, people just gave stuff away. Then something went a bit rotten and now everyone is trying to make everyone pay for everything.
Blair and his kind are a disgrace to the Labour party and have done more to harm the common person in just six years than Thatcher managed in all her time. The government cares only about London, not the majority of the country, and have openly admitted they would sacrifice every worker's job in the North to put 50 pence on a house in the South; at least we'll be paid giros in pounds rather than wage cheques in euros. Not that the pound has long to last anyway; when London falls we'll end up spending either Yen or dollars, depending if or not the US still thinks we're any good for anything after being kicked out of the EU for bad behaviour.
So in China, the next-of-kin of a state-sponsored assassination victim has to pay for the bullet? Muddy Mildred, I thought the death penalty itself was as low as a society could sink.
What if you don't pay? Do they shoot you? I can see a situation where an entire fdamily get wiped out and the Government is seriously out of pocket!
I really don't see your point. A 486DX2/66 isn't ever going to be able to run much more than Windows 95, and there's no way in hell anybody's going to try to get XP on it. But you can't get Windows 95 any more; therefore, your 486DX2/66 is useless. So Bill Gates would like you to think. The capitalists would love for your old hardware to crumble into dust as soon as you bought anything new. Of course, there are alternatives to Windows, and one such alternative is GNU/Linux. We still have old distributions available. Nobody in the Open Source community is complaining about this. It's one of the differences between Us and Them.
There is a need for GNU/Linux to do useful and impressive stuff with modern hardware, and that is what the mainstream distributors are trying to fill. Keeping old hardware ticking is, and always will be, a niche market.
It's simply not feasible to hold back development just for the sake of old machines running at 1/20 or even 1/50 the clock speed of today. Such machines can't handle demanding modern applications. Now, if only we could get the source code, we could maybe cut out some of that nasty bloat by dropping a few non-essential features. But, of course, the GNU/Linux community makes such a jealously-guarded secret of its source code.....
I certainly think there is room for a "dino distro" that would do something useful with antique boxes. But it's a whole different sport and you cannot hold the mainstream distributors at fault. Nothing is stopping you from being a GNU/Linux distributor. In fact, I'll call you one. You're a distributor. Now you can lump yourself in with the others you're blaming. There - it's your fault.
GNU/Linux has grown up. You'll find it less painful if you do likewise.
Sounds like your script would be illegal in the USA anyway - wouldn't it be a DMCA violation deliberately to circumvent e-mail address obfuscation? Seems that most things are illegal there.....
I know for a fact I've never had my e-mail harvested off Slashdot. OTOH, I *do* get spam arriving at a domain I own but never told anyone about except the company I registered it with. Hmmmm..... [strokes chin]
Slashdot Mirror
Seems strange to me, imposing a larger levy on the eraseable media than the permanent ones. Stuff on CD-R is there for the lifetime of the media, whereas CD-RW is temporary; it gets overwritten. You might record four albums onto a CD-RW over its lifetime, but you still only get to keep the last one, and you might well erase that.
Still, there might be an opportunity to do a bit of "moonraking", so to speak. CD-Rs for ciggies, anyone?
Extradition treaties apart, whatever you did has to be illegal in both countries. This is the principle of Dual Criminality.
.....
Sovereignty means that a country is allowed to decide for itself what is legally acceptable within its borders. There are very, very few exceptions to this principle, and they have to be enforced by international treaty -- for instance, torture is illegal under the laws of many countries even if it took place in another country which signed the same treaty. Dual Criminality was the whole deal with why Pinochet got off being extradited to Spain -- because his acts were not crimes according to British law at the time when he committed them. {They should have tried to fit him up him for shoplifting or some similar petty crime. The Met., or the West Midlands police, wouldn't have thought twice about that. Then he could have been extradited and tried in Spain.}
If you live in country A, but while visiting country B you do something which is forbidden in country A but perfectly acceptable according to the laws of country B, then there is nothing anyone in country A can do about it when you return.
If a Briton visits the Netherlands for the purposes of prostitution and narcotics {a.k.a. a poke and toke trip} then there is nothing the British authorities can do -- well, maybe deny him a Dutch visa before he went, except seeing as both Britain and The Netherlands are in the EU, then no visa is necessary for travel within the EU. If an Arab or Pakistani visits a country where drinking alcohol is legal, then there is nothing that can legally be done to them when they return home {though I'd still be sucking Polos all the way just in case. Some people have a reputation for exceeding their authority}.
Similarly, if an American visits Canada and downloads music in strict accordance with Canadian law, then returns to the USA without taking any downloaded material with them, then the US authorities are not legally allowed to take any action. It's all there in the Constitution; due process, innocent until proven guilty, no self-incrimination and so forth. Anything the RIAA tried against anyone filesharing in Canada would constitute an excess of authority. It could be construed as an attempt to undermine Canadian sovereignty. There's a word for that, and it both rhymes with, and is an anagram of, "raw"
The difference being, that as the owner of the machine, a Linux user would be duly authorised, according to section (3) subsection (4).
..... It is a big jump, though not altogether inconceivable, that unauthorised tampering with a computer system belonging to a minor {by definition, incapable of agreeing to a contract} might be considered to be a form of child abuse ..... Can you imagine the News of the World headline? BILL GATES IS A NONCE - OFFICIAL!
It's a very good question indeed whether the Xbox is a computer or not in the eyes of the law; but my initial reaction is that it is a computer, because Xbox games are computer software in the eyes of the law -- otherwise they couldn't legally be sold subject to a restrictive licence.
The legal standing of all software licences may well be tested in a certain court case that is receiving mention on various blogs. And Xboxes and the like are aimed at young adults, but there are plenty of kids who have them
Now, what would copies of that paper fetch on EBay?
Physical destruction of used disk drives is not necessary and could in fact engender a false sense of security. Think about it ..... a "secure disposal company" could bake a drive at curie temperature for 24 hours in an alternating magnetic field of varying frequency, strap a hand-grenade to it and drop it down a disused mineshaft, but how can you be sure it's the same drive, or that they haven't made a backup of its contents? If you wanted to get hold of stuff people wanted rid of, what would be a better front for getting it?
..... there are a lot of things they thought were impossible ..... what if someone finds a way ..... Hell, sooner or later someone is going to come up with a scheme for disposing of the air from meeting rooms where secret conversations have been held. The simple scientific fact is that it takes only one overwrite cycle to make data unreadable. You can prove this to yourself using a disk sector editor, but it should be obvious anyway. If the drive could tell a "1 that used to be a 0" from a "1 that has always been a 1", or a "0 that has always been a 0" from a "0 that used to be a 1" with any degree of reliability, someone would already have used that as a capacity-doubling mechanism! It's possible that there might be some difference detectable with a sensitive analogue circuit, since there is a hysteresis loop and there really are the four states I described above. Two overwrites of opposite polarity will force the magnetic media into a known state. Even so, just one overwrite will give someone a massive headache trying to recover the data, because the "used-to-be" data has an inherently high error rate. It's already hard to tell "X that used to be !X" from "X that always has been X" and if the overwriting data is random enough, then it's hard to work out what was ever meant to be what.
Overwriting the drive using software is more verifiable. You de-network the machine, boot it up from a CD, and can analyse the drive contents before starting a wipe cycle. You switch off and back on to prove there is no cheating. Then you can analyse the drive contents again and be sure they are different. The drive never left the machine, but you can be sure the data left the drive.
Whatever anyone may say, remember these "secure disposal companies" are after your money and don't mind playing on your most groundless fears to get hold of it
dd if=/dev/audio of=/dev/hda might conceivably do a good job on a used drive, if you make sure the gain is turned up nice and high and there is nothing plugged into the sound card. Filtered static and power hum are the nearest you're going to get to true randomness.
My drives are invariably thrashed for as long as they work, then get the magnets removed for use in experiments {and wiped a few times across the platters for good measure}.
What MS are doing is quite probably against the law. If an XBox is considered to be a computer, then they are in clear violation of Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990, which states [emphasis mine] that:
3.-(1)A person is guilty of an offence if-
(a)he does any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer; and
(b)at the time when he does the act he has the requisite intent and the requisite knowledge.
(2)For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite intent is an intent to cause a modification of the contents of any computer and by so doing-
(a)to impair the operation of any computer;
(b)to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held in any computer; or
(c)to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data.
(3)The intent need not be directed at-
(a)any particular computer;
(b)any particular program or data or a program or data of any particular kind; or
(c)any particular modification or a modification of any particular kind.
(4)For the purposes of subsection (1)(b) above the requisite knowledge is knowledge that any modification he intends to cause is unauthorised.
(5)It is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether an unauthorised modification or any intended effect of it of a kind mentioned in subsection (2) above is, or is intended to be, permanent or merely temporary.
(6)For the purposes of the [1971 c.48.] Criminal Damage Act 1971 a modification of the contents of a computer shall not be regarded as damaging any computer or computer storage medium unless its effect on that computer or computer storage medium impairs its physical condition.
(7)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable-
(a)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both; and
(b)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to a fine or to both.
So, according to section 3 subsection 4, If you did not give Microsoft explicit permission to modify your XBox, but they deliberately changed some software or data on it to stop you doing something, then they have quite probably broken the law. You may not have automatically authorised the modification merely by opening the box, see Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 for my reasoning {note that certain sections would not be valid in respect of a software licence}, but I am no lawyer.
Um, I wasn't slagging MySQL off ..... IMHO there's nothing wrong with omitting features dependent on probability of usefulness. But if implementing some feature you're not going to use very often would slow down all the features you do use often, then you have to question whether it might not be better to omit that feature - then your next criterion for decision-making would be whether or not that feature can be lived without. If all you want a car for is picking up a bit of shopping, you would be better off with a Fiesta or a Corsa than a Ferrari or a Rolls-Royce. But that same little runabout might not be the best choice for winning megametre endurance races .....
Yeah, someone must be feeling reeeeeeally pleased with themself, having saved so many bytes of code in every browser by eliminating the "unnecessary" characters " & 0x5F" from at least two places in their source code, thereby reducing the world's Software Bloat by a measurable amount.
If someone genuinely believes that <li>, <lI>, <Li>, and <LI> really need to be interpreted differently, they're an asswipe.
The caller ID standard specifies a difference between numbers being deliberately withheld at the request of the caller, and being unavailable due to incompatible technology {i.e. analogue exchanges or other equipment which does not send the info}. International numbers show up as "unavailable", not "withheld". BT only block "withheld" calls. Your mileage may vary dependent on your telco .....
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I have heard it rumoured that deliberate number-withholding {and that includes the deliberate connection of incompatible equipment} is to be outlawed in the UK. Certainly my place of work has now started sending an ident. Dunno about the place I used to work, but it was a useful side effect them not being able to call me at home
- Get a Caller ID Box. Your telco probably will charge you a fee for sending the information, since as they see it, you might decide not to answer the phone based on who is calling and therefore they will not earn the connection charge on the call.
- Block Withheld Numbers if you live in a jurisdiction where withholding your number is still legal. Your telco probably will charge you for this, but it's worth it. {before I had mine blocked, I used to say to Number Withheld: "Are you a paedophile? Because your number is withheld." That saw them off. On my mobile, where there is no such service available, I have to resort to doing an impression of a recorded announcement: "Anonymous calls are not welcome on this line. If your business is important you may ring back without withholding your number. Goodbye."
- Don't say anything if you don't recognise the caller's number. This spins them out, because they think it could be an answering machine. A legitimate caller will ask for you by name. A sleazeball telemarketer will just hang up.
- Ask them how they got your number. This distracts them from the purpose of the call and maybe gets them into an infinite loop.
- If all else fails, remember that it is your line, and you are under no obligation to be polite with unwanted callers. Any obligation of politeness would fall on the originator, not the recipient.
I think the best solution would be for the do-not-call list to be in the phone directory, by placing a symbol next to the numbers of people who did not wish to receive unsolictited sales calls. I'm not so anti-social that I'd consider going ex-directory, because that would jeopardise things for people who might have a legitimate reason to call me {and because I like looking up my name in the new phone book every 18 months or so, it gives me a kick without harming anyone else}. Having the "do not call" list in the phone book itself would be almost foolproof. Everyone with a phone line gets the phone book, so there would be no shortage of witnesses to the fact that your number was on the list. The only downside is that you might have to wait till the new directory was published in order to get your name properly DNC'd. But the telemarketing companies could be made to subscribe to an update list as a condition of their operating licence.for ($n=200000; $n < 900000; ++$n) { };
MySQL is meant to be a subset of the full SQL system, and it is optimised for speed and reliability. You send it a query and it chucks out answers, and it chucks 'em out bloody fast. Whatever it doesn't do, you probably won't miss but you can emulate it anyway through external scripting.
/./ and % to match /.*/. Since the usual way to access MySQL is via a Perl / PHP / Python script, it's reasonable to suppose the scripting language will have proper regular expression handling abilities. Depending on the overbreadth of your MySQL query compared to the query you would have really liked to have done, you might want to select just the primary key and the field to be matched against your complex wildcard, build up an array of usable keys and proceed from there selecting one record at a time, or select * and only display matches. Therein lies the tradeoff - rather than have MySQL implement full regexp matching and potentially slow down access when not actually using it, you're expected to use a bit of discretion for yourself.
..... but MySQL is fine if all you want to do is SELECT `name`,`address`,`phone` FROM `people` WHERE `sex`="F" && `skint`="N" LIMIT 1 and so forth.
For example, MySQL's wildcards are dire, just _ to match
If you want the full works with SQL, try PostgreSQL. It has loads of stuff you'll probably never use
Don't get me started on Dreamweaver. It produces lousy code. For a start, it has "trendy" lower case tags. Caps are there for a reason - sticks out better amongst a page of mainly lower case text than when using an editor such as pico {it's much easier to correct a minor spelling mistake this way ..... just edit it right there on the server}. I don't like lower case tags for this reason. Secondly, it puts in <font> tags all over the place, often with nothing between them, rather than creating a proper style sheet. Thirdly, its indentation is trendy but again it makes for unnecessary bandwidth consumption, and it makes it awkward to link in PHP code. I guess some of that is due to my personal stubbornness over my personal indenting style, but that's the way I like it ..... I like my <? hard up against the margin, and it really spoils the look when a bit of PHP has to go inside a table cell.
.....
Dreamweaver is like an accessory that fits onto a guitar and allows you to fret and strum the strings using piano-style keys. It makes an attempt to put a particular kind of user interface on a task which is basically incompatible with that user interface. In the end, the functionality {and especially behind the scenes where only a few people will ever see it - who's ever going to complain about empty tag pairs, unless they either read HTML or are on a slow line, but they are still a problem - put enough feathers in a sack and eventually it will weigh a ton} is being dictated by the UI.
IMHO there is too much emphasis on having a point-and-click, "you don't need to worry about what goes on under the bonnet" interface. It's a cop-out for people who are afraid to learn and want to be proud of their ignorance. Writing text in English with a fountain pen is difficult and non-intuitive. But people manage to learn to do it and don't think twice about it. I think it is doing people a disservice to say that they could never learn a bit more about the internals of HTML. {Of course, learn HTML and you might not need Dreamweaver. Cultivating ignorance certainly benefits Macromedia here.} That's why I am sure that any open source replacement for Dreamweaver would be open to exactly the same criticisms. If any kind of programming was really that easy then why do they need a human to do it? Give me gFTP and kate
Exactly. Though, I can't help wondering how things would have panned out had the US government decided to make computer software explicitly non-copyrightable.
Yet, even if you imagine a world without Microsoft {or at least with Microsoft being very different} and without SCO trying to claim ownership of other people's code, GNU/Linux as we know it today would not exist. Both projects were independent attempts on a genuinely free operating system {GNU was supposed to have its own kernel, called The Hurd; Linux was originally going to be called Freax and was just meant to be a replacement for the Minix kernel, for experimental / educational use.}
Does anyone know if there is / was any country in the world where software is / was non-copyrightable and where there are / were some reasonable number of computer hobbyists? If so, what happened? The whole home computer "scene" of the late 70s/early 80s seemed to me to be very much a USA thing, though this no doubt was due in part to the Mainstream Media.
I like the sound of this, but I feel it may well be doomed already as it seems to rely on many parties getting their s#!t together at the same time. Call me cynical, but in my experience, the greater the number of people required to co-operate, so the greater the probability of failure.
Everyone should know that to make coffee, you have to heat the water all the way to 100 degrees. The hotter it is, the faster it cools, but a cup of freshly-brewed coffee may well be hotter than 80 degrees. 70 degrees is hot enough to do damage to skin; but it is not only the temperature that is significant: we need to consider the specific heat capacity and duration of contact.
None of this changes the simple idea that eighty-degree-plus liquids probably don't belong in a flimsy container in a vehicle which is essentially a lethal weapon. But, unfortunately, that was what the punter asked for and that was what the punter got.
Sooner or later if not already, someone will sue McDonalds because their coffee is not hot enough, and the merry-go-round will start again.
I am not a biologist, so I don't know the answer to this: is cryptosporidium a bug that you can become immune to by exposure? And how severe is it usually? i.e. just a mild digestive disturbance or likelihood of lasting damage?
Mandrake has traditionally been almost as obsessive as Debian when it comes to Keeping It Free {they do install Pico instead of Nano tho', and there are one or two other forgiveabilities in there.} And I'll certainly grant that MDK is an easy distribution for a newbie to use. You put the disk in, answer some questions, and you end up with an X desktop. Nowhere near as scary as Debian. {Of course, it installs the graphical bit first; if that mucks up, you're shafted}.
..... On my laptop it just pretends to be a disk drive, without me installing any extra software. Same on my Athlon. On another Linux box at work, I just had to do a modprobe usb-storage before plugging it in; that was all. Getting the thing to work under Windows, however, was another matter .....}
At first glance, this advertising does seem to be flying in the face of what Linux is all about.
On the other hand, this could be an excellent way for manufacturers of Linux-friendly hardware to get their products advertised to Linux users; although I have a deep-seated suspicion that Microsoft is paying hardware manufacturers not to mention that their stuff works OK with Linux. {Like my digital camera, which actually is BETTER with Linux than Windows
I really feel a bit both ways about this. Is it the thin end of the wedge?
Si vous {j'aurais dit "tu" s'il y avait un voyant bleu ou vert!} voulez trouver des informations concernant la SNCF, il se fera plus facile en recherchant en Francais ..... meme sans l'aide du poisson Babel ..... donc, cherchez par Google les mots originaux "Le progres ne vaut que s'il est partage par tous" pour trouver des autres references {ou, visitez la France; mais assurez-vous de parler en Francais pour eviter etre cru rosbif sans savoir-vivre}.
It's a slogan I saw on some SNCF literature {timetables, promo leaflets &c.} in France in 1994; I don't know if they are still using it. The original French was that phrase in speech marks above. As soon as I spot someone else using it, I'll change it {like I did with the "licences" one that preceded it}.
We used to have a guy here in DERBY who swore he was a Viking and carried a ceremonial sword. He was always having run-ins with the law, but claimed he had a right to carry it as it was an obligation from his religion. He said he'd give up his sword when Hell thawed .....
It takes a special kind of genius to be able to tell someone to go to hell in such a way as they end up thinking you wished them a pleasant journey. Linus has done well to keep his cool while all this has been going down. I wonder what pills he's been taking?
As for Damage Studios' policy, I think it is mostly just for show. But they have got every right to refuse ex-SCO employees, and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. There are things I, personally, would far rather be on the dole than do. As long as you have a head on your shoulders, a hand on each arm {and, absit omen you should ever have to use it, a hole in your arse}, there is no reason why you should be going short.
Hear, hear. We need damage limitation measures as soon as possible. RFID technology potentially enables a previously-unimaginable level of control-freakery, with the location of not just every person, but every article in the world trackable on some sort of database.
..... of course, if you don't slow down you'll get nicked anyway for speeding.
..... so there are two WTA offences already.
..... you have to be careful not to create a guilty-until-proven-innocent situation {OK, I know we already have that in this country for some offences, but I'm not saying it's a good thing}.
The argument that they can never usefully distill that data down holds less and less water with each day that passes, as computing power gets faster and cheaper. We in the UK are already under the microscope pretty much all the time we are outside of our homes, with CCTV cameras in the streets now losing some of their former power to displace crime to the blind spots as the thugs stop being bothered about getting caught.
Which brings up another question. If we can't stop people from finding stuff out about us, would it be possible to prevent them from making any use of the information?
The UK Wireless telegraphy act says that it is not an offence just to listen to other people's duly-licenced radio transmissions {listening to unlicenced transmissions constitutes Aiding and Abetting}, but it is an offence to act upon information received by doing so. The meaning of this in the context of radar detectors is that it's perfectly OK to use one, but you mustn't slow down when it beeps {because that would be acting upon information received}
I think UK law already would make it an offence to misuse information gathered from RFID tag, since the data is transmitted back by RF carrier wave and the reader contains a transmitter {which presumably would have to be licenced}
Thing is, it would be damn nigh impossible to prove that someone obtained the information they know about you by illegally reading RFID tags in your possession. There are a lot of ways they could have found it out
If there is a legitimate application for RFID devices in retail stores, then so be it; but for the sake of everyone's privacy, the tags must be removed or, at the very least, deactivated before leaving the premises. {The idea of simply deactivating the tag may conflict with recent European waste laws which encourage reduction, reuse and recycling. And can you really be sure it's dead?} But what's to stop a shoplifter from taking an AJS318 Model 100 {tm} Universal RFID Tag Deactivator {patent pending} into a store, deactivating a bunch of RFID tags in various goods, and walking out with them?
No, it's still illegal to patent software in this country. Until Blair realises that private companies can make a profit on it, anyway .....
I mean, the system of charging for directory enquiries was "broken" because you could only get information from your own phone company, not from their competitors. So they "opened up the market to competition" -- i.e. introduced a whole series of numbers for directory enquiries, all competing for your business. These companies are spending a fortune advertising their new numbers on the wireless, telly and in the papers. And where will that money come from? The mug punters that end up paying for a service that used to be free, is where. And even if you never use the service, you've already paid by being made to listen to adverts. Why has nobody invented a device that will automatically retune a radio set if it is playing an advertisement? Something similar could also be done with VCRs; automagically fast-forwarding through them on playback probably would be safer than not recording them, though I do begrudge the advertisers the oxide.
Yes, there used to be a time, long ago, when directory enquiries used to be free. And when you got sent a utility bill in the post, there would be a reply-paid envelope for your cheque. These days the envelope just has a space marked "affix stamp here" {though, writing the words "Cheque Enclosed - Postage To Be paid By Recipient" seems to work just as well as a stamp}. Yes, people just gave stuff away. Then something went a bit rotten and now everyone is trying to make everyone pay for everything.
Blair and his kind are a disgrace to the Labour party and have done more to harm the common person in just six years than Thatcher managed in all her time. The government cares only about London, not the majority of the country, and have openly admitted they would sacrifice every worker's job in the North to put 50 pence on a house in the South; at least we'll be paid giros in pounds rather than wage cheques in euros. Not that the pound has long to last anyway; when London falls we'll end up spending either Yen or dollars, depending if or not the US still thinks we're any good for anything after being kicked out of the EU for bad behaviour.
So in China, the next-of-kin of a state-sponsored assassination victim has to pay for the bullet? Muddy Mildred, I thought the death penalty itself was as low as a society could sink.
What if you don't pay? Do they shoot you? I can see a situation where an entire fdamily get wiped out and the Government is seriously out of pocket!
I really don't see your point. A 486DX2/66 isn't ever going to be able to run much more than Windows 95, and there's no way in hell anybody's going to try to get XP on it. But you can't get Windows 95 any more; therefore, your 486DX2/66 is useless. So Bill Gates would like you to think. The capitalists would love for your old hardware to crumble into dust as soon as you bought anything new. Of course, there are alternatives to Windows, and one such alternative is GNU/Linux. We still have old distributions available. Nobody in the Open Source community is complaining about this. It's one of the differences between Us and Them.
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There is a need for GNU/Linux to do useful and impressive stuff with modern hardware, and that is what the mainstream distributors are trying to fill. Keeping old hardware ticking is, and always will be, a niche market. It's simply not feasible to hold back development just for the sake of old machines running at 1/20 or even 1/50 the clock speed of today. Such machines can't handle demanding modern applications. Now, if only we could get the source code, we could maybe cut out some of that nasty bloat by dropping a few non-essential features. But, of course, the GNU/Linux community makes such a jealously-guarded secret of its source code
I certainly think there is room for a "dino distro" that would do something useful with antique boxes. But it's a whole different sport and you cannot hold the mainstream distributors at fault. Nothing is stopping you from being a GNU/Linux distributor. In fact, I'll call you one. You're a distributor. Now you can lump yourself in with the others you're blaming. There - it's your fault.
GNU/Linux has grown up. You'll find it less painful if you do likewise.
Sounds like your script would be illegal in the USA anyway - wouldn't it be a DMCA violation deliberately to circumvent e-mail address obfuscation? Seems that most things are illegal there .....
..... [strokes chin]
I know for a fact I've never had my e-mail harvested off Slashdot. OTOH, I *do* get spam arriving at a domain I own but never told anyone about except the company I registered it with. Hmmmm