Studies have shown that over a quarter of Koreans have broadband and that anyone who wants it can sign up--with some ISPs charging as little as $19 a month for DSL. I pay $30 myself, for a 1.5-megabits-per-second (mbps) connection--twice the speed of my $50-a-month service back home in the United States.
So? Qwest DSL is $29.95/mo for 256k DSL. I pay $49.95/month for 2048/256k. If I went with cable (Charter) it would be 39.95/month for 3000/384 (with no servers permitted).
I really am not impressed with $30 for 1.5. With Roadrunner and Comcast jumping to 5000+/384 why the hell would I be impressed with 1500 down?
When asked if they had ever used a dial-up connection, In Me So, a computer science major at WonKwang University said, "I remember using a 56K modem once, about eight years ago."
The last time I used dialup was 1997 when I left for college. When I got home in 1998 we upgraded to DSL (640/128). I haven't used dialup since. So what? I wasn't exactly in a well populated area in NEPA at the time either.
Honestly, I'm not impressed w/these lowspeed connections. I am more impressed what I hear about over in Europe... People with 100mbit connections being common and cheap.
Personally, I'm not even impressed with wired broadband (we have a 400mbit connection at work, I rarely see over 500kB/s unless I am connecting to some major mirror where I get over 1.5mb/s). I want to see wireless broadband that's cheap. Then I'll be impressed.
I hate the feeling of being trapped to one provider because they have something the others don't, even though they treat their customers like complete and utter shit. T-Mobile customer service leaves quite a lot to be desired.
Well, I don't know how many other cell phone providers you have dealt with (being that you are hearing disabled) but I have dealt with a couple and currently T-mobile (as crappy as they can be at times) are a whole world apart from the others I have had the unfortunate luck to deal with.
Now as far as the sidekick service goes... I was quite pleased w/the GPRS network prior to the SK2 release. Every since then email has been bouncing back to me regularly (which is what caused my CSR issues as they refuse to credit me and tell me it must be MY end), the web browser randomly stops working, or AIM won't sign on.
While I don't need it like someone w/a hearing disability does I am mildly annoyed when I intend on using it and it doesn't work.
Apparently you have never been to the Panera that I visit nearly every Sunday morning before 10am (Apple Valley, MN).
We come in, order a coffee (I might get an orange frosted scone if I'm in the mood) and sit there and read the paper. They are so fucking busy refilling the coffee and taking orders that they could not care less if you sat there for a couple hours (and being that we are rather regular I have noticed several others doing exactly what we do -- some even have their own cups!)
I don't have a very portable laptop (the battery died years ago and now requires itself to be plugged into the the socket -- sorta defeats the purpose of wireless) so I just sit there w/my Hiptop and surf the net and chat while reading the paper.
It doesn't say a whole lot (and the victim agrees) when a serial burglar who had been imprisoned for burglary before and who was out on bail for yet another attempt only gets 11 months in prison.
At 19 years old with several prior convictions and now this and they think that it will rehabilitate him to stick him in prison for another year?
Glad that this guy was able to quickly solve his case (sad that he had to pay the price once before years ago) and get this guy behind bars but I'm sure it won't stop someone else from being burglarized by this guy again.:(
There's no reason we can't plug in a USB mouse and keyboard and run X on the thing.
You haven't use a Tivo have you? While the UI is wonderfully simple and easy to understand for just about anyone, I really don't find it "snappy" or responsive by any stretch of the imagination (nevermind since their most recent update for Tivo2Go).
I certainly wouldn't want to be using X on a machine w/such speed limitations. Welcome to 1992?
Sure, its definitly very slow, however; I've just been using it to archive stuff I know I want for a while or overflow for when my tivo gets too full. I'm too lazy to upgrade my tivo's HD. Sure, it took a while to transfer the items, however; doesn't your "Save to VCR" take just as long as a show will?
Exactly my point. Why bother to let us copy the files over the network when it's basically just copying it in real-time anyway?
For the purpose of putting it on a portable media player it really doesn't make much sense to copy in real-time, covert to a non-DRMd format in 10*realtime, and the copy it back over to the device when I can record straight to it...
Look at the onscreen guide with this update... its incredibly fast now. As long as they're in business, I'm sure they'll keep enhancing their current and future products.
I don't typically use that feature as I don't watch much live TV but I have certainly noticed the HUGE delay in getting to the main menu from live TV. That only started after the update and it's actually pretty annoying. At first I thought my batteries were dead in my remote...
What if DVD releases of TV shows happened closer to when they were originally aired?
AFAIK, it's coming to that -- especially with newer shows. The O.C. is a relatively new program (Summer of 2003 it started?) Well, The O.C. season 1 is already out on DVD.
Do you mean having the DVDs available like during the mid-season breaks? They could possibly make double the money they are now... Problem is that currently popular TV shows are really pricing themselves too high. CSI is what, $70 or $80 a season? 24 season 1 was like $22 at Target before season 2 came out then suddenly was $45+ while season 2 was in the $60s.
Personally, I think they shouldn't worry so much about downloaded TV episodes. They aren't losing any ad revenue as it's apparent that the viewers missed the original commercials airing anyway and they probably will make the money on the DVD releases anyway (see Family Guy for an example -- I had all the episodes downloaded because there was no season 3 DVD). Now that there is, I own it.
I've said this before, but I am dead serious: they need more porn. It's always driven technology and made money. The cable companies are cashing in. The hotel chains are cashing in. The industry is cashing in. Now, that won't mak my family buy it, per se, but people WILL buy it if they see more hooters and camel toe.
You seem to have some sort of abnormal love for porn on your TV. I have no problems w/porn and have a sizeable collection myself but I certainly don't think that Tivo could cash in on the industry...
Download times vary widely. Most people report shows transferring a little quicker or a little slower than real time, meaning if you have a one hour show it will take about an hour to transfer. Many factors impact your throughput including file size based on recording quality and your network design. For example a show recorded in high quality will take longer to transfer than a show recorded in basic quality.
I finally got my Tivo2Go system upgrade about two weeks ago (it took quite a while to come down to my unit) and I tried it out. I was absolutely dumbfounded at how slow the video file transferred over.
I intended on copying over the entire Tivo contents and then coverting them w/Dr. Divx (quite the task on my slower 2x400 Celeron machine) and then watching them on my Archos. Well, when I saw how slow the damn thing copied in the first place I figured why not just keep using the "Save to VCR" function as I have been doing?
What I would like to see is a "Save to VCR" function that will let me queue up multiple shows and save them all in one shot rather than one at a time. I could set the Archos up and let it record for a couple hours over night. Wake up and be done.
Tivo2Go sounded wonderful until I realized it was in a format that was worthless to go straight to a portable media device, it was slow as hell to bring over from the unit, and then it was slow as hell to convert with Dr. Divx.
Blah. Just do as I asked and change the "Save to VCR" function for me:)
Now, if you fundamentally disagree with the criminal justice system or "the Man" in general, then you'll likely disagree with this just for the sake of it.
Two days in a row of trolling from you. All your posts are the same crap rehashed. You propose a trollish question (calling slashdotters "latent luddites in the normally pro-tech slashdot community") and then you give some stupid opinion under the guise of you standing back and having nothing to do w/the argument that will ensue.
In the future state and opinion or a fact. Do not state your boring and open-ended questions that are only there for the amusement you apparently receive out of watching people state their case while you get modded up over asking people to answer your questions more than once.
Why? Working for AT&T@Home and ATTBI before Comcast took over plenty of people were connecting to AOL over their broadband connections.
AOL has people thinking that they *need* their custom content. I don't see why they would fight this? They could get rid of some banks of modems and just allow people to use WiMAX to connect.
Here's why it's psychotic for them to have even considered charging for it: remember those Firestone tires that were blowing up left and right and killing people? What if Firestone had "considered" charging people to get those tires replaced? "On second thought, we figured it'd be nice to fix them for free." NO SHIT, Firestone/Microsoft.
It's kind of sick that in your mind you can justify equating possible HUMAN DEATH to spyware infections.
Tires blowing out due to design flaws can end someone's life. Spyware infecting a computer due to design flaws can cause someone to format their hard-drive.
Two entirely different worlds that are not comparable.
From the first Slashdot article blurb (emphasis mine):
rscrawford writes "CNN reports that Microsoft may charge extra for security software. So first they edge their competition out of the browser market, then they tie IE into the OS so tightly that a crash in IE can crash the computer, and then they make IE so vulnerable that just using it is hazardous to the typical computer's health, and now they want to CHARGE users to fix it?"
From today's Slashdot article blurb:
Quite a turnaround from charging extra to free.
Looks like they never said for sure that they were going to charge extra. As you can see above it said "may". Now, are we all going to whine that MSFT shouldn't be distributing software with their OS to combat spyware because it "may" edge out competition in the spyware removal market or are we just going to complain that they considered charging people to use it when they aren't now?
Because MSFT software (browser, OS, and extras like ActiveX) should have been programmed correctly in the first place I would expect MSFT to distribute this software for free. People should be able to clear their computers out of what shouldn't have been there from the get go.
Personally, I don't care. I will likely continue to use what I have been using all along (although I have been trying to use the Mac for most surfing) as recent testing has shown MSFT's solution to not be quite as good as third party offerings.
I don't know about this particular solider but I have had no problems contacting three friends that were/are deployed in Iraq via the Internet. One was on AIM for 45+ minutes a day and another is on AIM for several hours a day. The third isn't quite as Internet saavy but routinely sent emails and pictures at least weekly. Granted they aren't on 24/7 like we are here but I had no problems contacting them via the Internet.
I would like to know if I was experiencing something that is unusual for military personnel deployed overseas? I mean this guy makes it seem as if he's hanging on to a rope thrown to him by the locals. From what I understand from the one guy I know that just returned from Iraq the locals over there want absolutely NOTHING to do w/the military personnel stationed in the desert.
I also know that phone calls were routinely made to his family and to another buddy that is stationed in the States. Why would they need VoIP and why would they need to do it via satellite connection?
As this guy said, sat-based Internet SUCK HARD for VoIP being that it is so latent. That wouldn't exactly make for real-time conversations regardless of how clear the voice might be... I have run the testers that other slashdotters have linked to before (sorry don't have it on-hand right now) and my 256k upstream seems to rate just fine. I haven't actually used VoIP though so I really couldn't tell you and I certainly couldn't recommend something to handle 15-20 people simulatanously (if that's what you mean).
GPS is very good at determing velocity (and acceleration).
It can be if you are on an open road and free from antenna obstruction but what happens quite often is that you can go from moving to stopped to moving again in an urban setting (ie tunnel, under a bridge, between large skyscrapers) and it causes errors in speed and distance calculation. The GPS estimates your direction of travel during the stopped time so that when the receiver begins to work again you can be in a completely different area causing the GPS to report that you traveled several miles more and at a higher rate of speed than you did.
I have seen pictures (ie this one) where the GPS is reporting 1500+ mph. Are they just going to ignore that speed/distance calculation or will the tax you on it anyway?
I am instituting use of the Slashdot search feature to accurately track Slashdot duplicates and tax appropriately:
November 17, 2004 was your first offense. A warning was sent via email prior to the story posting on February 15th, 2005 at 2:39pm CST but daddypants ignored our notification.
Please note that future violations will result in a hefty fine!;-)
Actually, I see a LOT of piracy amongst the casual DVD crowd. A girl here at work passed me a list the other day.. $5 each for all the "latest" DVD releases, plus a bunch of stuff I recognized as poor-rips (telesyncs?) from the theaters (and music CD's, too.. She said he'd borrow from the library and rip those).
At a laundromat I went to regularly, the attendent had a laptop setup with a firewire DVD-R and would burn movies for his "customers" while they did laundry for $5 each. And so on and so on.
The people that you listed are not "casual". They are blatant theives. They are not only ripping and burning DVDs they are distributing and selling them. Just because they aren't what YOU consider to be "geeks" that were at the heart of the DVD ripping scene in years passed doesn't mean that they are "casual users".
Please don't confuse these people with Joe Blow with the family or me and my personal DVD collection at home.
It would be a lot more humorous if they put "Nothing for you to see here, please move along" when you tried to rip it...
On to the serious stuff:
"If it takes a long time and the frustration level gets too high, you're not going to prevent 100% of it, but you can stop the casual user," Kaye said. "Why not try?"
The "casual user" doesn't give a shit. They rent their mainstream crap movies on DVDs at the local monopolistic rental store and they bring it back three days late. They aren't ripping movies to share, save, etc.
The technique confounds ripping programs without damaging computers, preventing the discs from playing or reducing picture quality, he said.
Would it damage the drive if a computer DVD player tried to play the disc and was constantly hitting the false errors it was creating? If it isn't going to disable the players how will it stop the rippers? So what, it takes real-time to rip the DVD? Oh no!
Consumer advocates said Hollywood had the right to put out unrippable discs. But such a move would ignore public demand for the ability to back up DVDs and take their movie collections on the road.
Public demand? Public RIGHTS. We have the right to make backups of our owned discs and put them into a format that is portable. The media continues to fall for the tricks being implemented by the MPAA's PR machine. I suggest that they refrain from spreading the misinformation created by the corporations PR machine as it does nothing but continue to erode the freedoms we are entitled to.
If they decide that we should not be able to make a backup of our media that is an identical copy then I should be reimbursed when the disc is no longer usable. Even if that means 25+ years from now. Don't like that and don't think it's realistic? Tough, it is realistic because I can ensure that right now by making backups.
Discs that do not allow me to fast forward through FBI warnings, commercials, etc, get ripped and burned in a format that is immediately watchable from the time I stick it in the player. I don't care about animated menus, extras, features, commentary, bonus scenes. I want the movie to play w/o interruption the second I close that tray. If I paid for something I don't see what I shouldn't be able to do with it as I wish as long as it stays in my possession.
If Macrovision and the MPAA want to end piracy they best do it in a way that doesn't affect my personal freedoms when I purchase a piece of media.
If it's ok for individuals to personally ignore laws, no matter on what grounds, then certainly it is ok for others to make a determination to operate within the bounds of the law? (Unless, of course, you think that anything that is generally pro-corporation is automatically "wrong" and should be ignored.)
I think it should be proven that it was created through the direct corruption of government officials by corporations for the benefit of the corporations.
A lowly journalist who is trying to do his job should have protections from high above through the Constitution. The corporations should not be permitted to dictate the terms of free-speech rights because they have nearly limitless financial backing.
One problem - the journalist, at the same time, is knowingly accepting information they know to be protected by an NDA, and that makes the actual act illegal.
The fact that this has become a legal issue should be illegal. The lawmakers created this law to protect corporations because they were paid to do so through quasi-legal channels.
You should know better than to support corruption.
I cannot believe you were modded up twice over a repeat question. Redundant.
The Act you keep referring to is nothing more than proof that corporations own the government and that the people are no longer protected from anything. Because of this, it's irrelevant and needs to be ignored by anyone and everyone, including those who were coerced by donations to create it.
This is much larger than you are apparnetly trying to make it be. If any sort of journalist isn't guaranteed protections under the law in regards to releasing their sources over corporate cardplaying then what's going to happen when something serious happens?
The lost of trust is not worth the bad precedent that Apple is trying to whine its way into.
If you can't trust someone on the little secrets, how can you trust them on the big secrets? How do you find out who is trustworthy if you can't even find out who is breaking your trust?
That's not the journalists' problem. That's Apple's problem and has NOTHING to do with the rights that journalists have regarding protection of sources.
Although, there is getting to be a mighty thin line between what some of these journalists are doing and "industrial espionage".
It's not the journalists that are doing any episonage. It's those that are leaking the information. Honestly, "industrial espionage" would be leaking information privately to another corporation for profit of those leaks... IOW, if the original source had not gone to the media and instead sold their information to another corporation, then it would be espionage. There's quite a difference there.
Regardless of whether or not Apple "should" or "shouldn't" be doing this, whether it's good PR or not, etc., if you can't see that it's wrong, legally and ethically, for these people to be leaking this information, then, well, we have nothing further to discuss. Is it journalism and free speech when you violate laws to obtain information? Ignorance of the law is no excuse...
I don't see what this has to do with attempting to force the journalists into releasing their sources.
The sources are the ones that are breaking the confidentiality agreements and leaking the information to the media. The journalists are then doing their job and reporting the information to the world.
If Apple wants to stop the leaks then they need to crack down internally and stop the people from breaking the confidentiality agreements. Whether that means paying the people more money, hiring more trustworthy individuals, or doing some sort of INTERNAL investigations, I don't know. What I do know is that they should NOT be attempting to coerce (through legal means) journalists into handing them the culprits on a silver platter.
Journalists need the protections so that they can be trusted by sources to release information w/o revealing the persons behind that release. If Apple is able to deny this right of protection over something as silly as a new product design how are sources supposed to trust journalists over something important?
In theory, we have the power - whether as consumers or as voters. But in reality, I think we don't really have much choice.
People don't care about choice... If they did we wouldn't stand for monopolies in telephone, radio, TV, computers, etc.
People just want "life to be easy". If that means having one company make their descisions for them while they let the cable TV wash over them after work, so be it.
Slashdot Mirror
Studies have shown that over a quarter of Koreans have broadband and that anyone who wants it can sign up--with some ISPs charging as little as $19 a month for DSL. I pay $30 myself, for a 1.5-megabits-per-second (mbps) connection--twice the speed of my $50-a-month service back home in the United States.
So? Qwest DSL is $29.95/mo for 256k DSL. I pay $49.95/month for 2048/256k. If I went with cable (Charter) it would be 39.95/month for 3000/384 (with no servers permitted).
I really am not impressed with $30 for 1.5. With Roadrunner and Comcast jumping to 5000+/384 why the hell would I be impressed with 1500 down?
When asked if they had ever used a dial-up connection, In Me So, a computer science major at WonKwang University said, "I remember using a 56K modem once, about eight years ago."
The last time I used dialup was 1997 when I left for college. When I got home in 1998 we upgraded to DSL (640/128). I haven't used dialup since. So what? I wasn't exactly in a well populated area in NEPA at the time either.
Honestly, I'm not impressed w/these lowspeed connections. I am more impressed what I hear about over in Europe... People with 100mbit connections being common and cheap.
Personally, I'm not even impressed with wired broadband (we have a 400mbit connection at work, I rarely see over 500kB/s unless I am connecting to some major mirror where I get over 1.5mb/s). I want to see wireless broadband that's cheap. Then I'll be impressed.
I hate the feeling of being trapped to one provider because they have something the others don't, even though they treat their customers like complete and utter shit. T-Mobile customer service leaves quite a lot to be desired.
Well, I don't know how many other cell phone providers you have dealt with (being that you are hearing disabled) but I have dealt with a couple and currently T-mobile (as crappy as they can be at times) are a whole world apart from the others I have had the unfortunate luck to deal with.
Now as far as the sidekick service goes... I was quite pleased w/the GPRS network prior to the SK2 release. Every since then email has been bouncing back to me regularly (which is what caused my CSR issues as they refuse to credit me and tell me it must be MY end), the web browser randomly stops working, or AIM won't sign on.
While I don't need it like someone w/a hearing disability does I am mildly annoyed when I intend on using it and it doesn't work.
It's still better than AT&T.
Apparently you have never been to the Panera that I visit nearly every Sunday morning before 10am (Apple Valley, MN).
We come in, order a coffee (I might get an orange frosted scone if I'm in the mood) and sit there and read the paper. They are so fucking busy refilling the coffee and taking orders that they could not care less if you sat there for a couple hours (and being that we are rather regular I have noticed several others doing exactly what we do -- some even have their own cups!)
I don't have a very portable laptop (the battery died years ago and now requires itself to be plugged into the the socket -- sorta defeats the purpose of wireless) so I just sit there w/my Hiptop and surf the net and chat while reading the paper.
See here.
Looks good to me.
It doesn't say a whole lot (and the victim agrees) when a serial burglar who had been imprisoned for burglary before and who was out on bail for yet another attempt only gets 11 months in prison.
:(
At 19 years old with several prior convictions and now this and they think that it will rehabilitate him to stick him in prison for another year?
Glad that this guy was able to quickly solve his case (sad that he had to pay the price once before years ago) and get this guy behind bars but I'm sure it won't stop someone else from being burglarized by this guy again.
There's no reason we can't plug in a USB mouse and keyboard and run X on the thing.
You haven't use a Tivo have you? While the UI is wonderfully simple and easy to understand for just about anyone, I really don't find it "snappy" or responsive by any stretch of the imagination (nevermind since their most recent update for Tivo2Go).
I certainly wouldn't want to be using X on a machine w/such speed limitations. Welcome to 1992?
Sure, its definitly very slow, however; I've just been using it to archive stuff I know I want for a while or overflow for when my tivo gets too full. I'm too lazy to upgrade my tivo's HD. Sure, it took a while to transfer the items, however; doesn't your "Save to VCR" take just as long as a show will?
Exactly my point. Why bother to let us copy the files over the network when it's basically just copying it in real-time anyway?
For the purpose of putting it on a portable media player it really doesn't make much sense to copy in real-time, covert to a non-DRMd format in 10*realtime, and the copy it back over to the device when I can record straight to it...
Look at the onscreen guide with this update... its incredibly fast now. As long as they're in business, I'm sure they'll keep enhancing their current and future products.
I don't typically use that feature as I don't watch much live TV but I have certainly noticed the HUGE delay in getting to the main menu from live TV. That only started after the update and it's actually pretty annoying. At first I thought my batteries were dead in my remote...
Nope, just Tivo being slow.
What if DVD releases of TV shows happened closer to when they were originally aired?
AFAIK, it's coming to that -- especially with newer shows. The O.C. is a relatively new program (Summer of 2003 it started?) Well, The O.C. season 1 is already out on DVD.
Do you mean having the DVDs available like during the mid-season breaks? They could possibly make double the money they are now... Problem is that currently popular TV shows are really pricing themselves too high. CSI is what, $70 or $80 a season? 24 season 1 was like $22 at Target before season 2 came out then suddenly was $45+ while season 2 was in the $60s.
Personally, I think they shouldn't worry so much about downloaded TV episodes. They aren't losing any ad revenue as it's apparent that the viewers missed the original commercials airing anyway and they probably will make the money on the DVD releases anyway (see Family Guy for an example -- I had all the episodes downloaded because there was no season 3 DVD). Now that there is, I own it.
I've said this before, but I am dead serious: they need more porn. It's always driven technology and made money. The cable companies are cashing in. The hotel chains are cashing in. The industry is cashing in. Now, that won't mak my family buy it, per se, but people WILL buy it if they see more hooters and camel toe.
Yet your signature is: Great Porn DVDs
You seem to have some sort of abnormal love for porn on your TV. I have no problems w/porn and have a sizeable collection myself but I certainly don't think that Tivo could cash in on the industry...
Download times vary widely. Most people report shows transferring a little quicker or a little slower than real time, meaning if you have a one hour show it will take about an hour to transfer. Many factors impact your throughput including file size based on recording quality and your network design. For example a show recorded in high quality will take longer to transfer than a show recorded in basic quality.
:)
I finally got my Tivo2Go system upgrade about two weeks ago (it took quite a while to come down to my unit) and I tried it out. I was absolutely dumbfounded at how slow the video file transferred over.
I intended on copying over the entire Tivo contents and then coverting them w/Dr. Divx (quite the task on my slower 2x400 Celeron machine) and then watching them on my Archos. Well, when I saw how slow the damn thing copied in the first place I figured why not just keep using the "Save to VCR" function as I have been doing?
What I would like to see is a "Save to VCR" function that will let me queue up multiple shows and save them all in one shot rather than one at a time. I could set the Archos up and let it record for a couple hours over night. Wake up and be done.
Tivo2Go sounded wonderful until I realized it was in a format that was worthless to go straight to a portable media device, it was slow as hell to bring over from the unit, and then it was slow as hell to convert with Dr. Divx.
Blah. Just do as I asked and change the "Save to VCR" function for me
Now, if you fundamentally disagree with the criminal justice system or "the Man" in general, then you'll likely disagree with this just for the sake of it.
Two days in a row of trolling from you. All your posts are the same crap rehashed. You propose a trollish question (calling slashdotters "latent luddites in the normally pro-tech slashdot community") and then you give some stupid opinion under the guise of you standing back and having nothing to do w/the argument that will ensue.
In the future state and opinion or a fact. Do not state your boring and open-ended questions that are only there for the amusement you apparently receive out of watching people state their case while you get modded up over asking people to answer your questions more than once.
AOL and MSN would fight this tooth and nail.
Why? Working for AT&T@Home and ATTBI before Comcast took over plenty of people were connecting to AOL over their broadband connections.
AOL has people thinking that they *need* their custom content. I don't see why they would fight this? They could get rid of some banks of modems and just allow people to use WiMAX to connect.
Here's why it's psychotic for them to have even considered charging for it: remember those Firestone tires that were blowing up left and right and killing people? What if Firestone had "considered" charging people to get those tires replaced? "On second thought, we figured it'd be nice to fix them for free." NO SHIT, Firestone/Microsoft.
It's kind of sick that in your mind you can justify equating possible HUMAN DEATH to spyware infections.
Tires blowing out due to design flaws can end someone's life. Spyware infecting a computer due to design flaws can cause someone to format their hard-drive.
Two entirely different worlds that are not comparable.
From the first Slashdot article blurb (emphasis mine):
rscrawford writes "CNN reports that Microsoft may charge extra for security software. So first they edge their competition out of the browser market, then they tie IE into the OS so tightly that a crash in IE can crash the computer, and then they make IE so vulnerable that just using it is hazardous to the typical computer's health, and now they want to CHARGE users to fix it?"
From today's Slashdot article blurb:
Quite a turnaround from charging extra to free.
Looks like they never said for sure that they were going to charge extra. As you can see above it said "may". Now, are we all going to whine that MSFT shouldn't be distributing software with their OS to combat spyware because it "may" edge out competition in the spyware removal market or are we just going to complain that they considered charging people to use it when they aren't now?
Because MSFT software (browser, OS, and extras like ActiveX) should have been programmed correctly in the first place I would expect MSFT to distribute this software for free. People should be able to clear their computers out of what shouldn't have been there from the get go.
Personally, I don't care. I will likely continue to use what I have been using all along (although I have been trying to use the Mac for most surfing) as recent testing has shown MSFT's solution to not be quite as good as third party offerings.
I don't know about this particular solider but I have had no problems contacting three friends that were/are deployed in Iraq via the Internet. One was on AIM for 45+ minutes a day and another is on AIM for several hours a day. The third isn't quite as Internet saavy but routinely sent emails and pictures at least weekly. Granted they aren't on 24/7 like we are here but I had no problems contacting them via the Internet.
I would like to know if I was experiencing something that is unusual for military personnel deployed overseas? I mean this guy makes it seem as if he's hanging on to a rope thrown to him by the locals. From what I understand from the one guy I know that just returned from Iraq the locals over there want absolutely NOTHING to do w/the military personnel stationed in the desert.
I also know that phone calls were routinely made to his family and to another buddy that is stationed in the States. Why would they need VoIP and why would they need to do it via satellite connection?
As this guy said, sat-based Internet SUCK HARD for VoIP being that it is so latent. That wouldn't exactly make for real-time conversations regardless of how clear the voice might be... I have run the testers that other slashdotters have linked to before (sorry don't have it on-hand right now) and my 256k upstream seems to rate just fine. I haven't actually used VoIP though so I really couldn't tell you and I certainly couldn't recommend something to handle 15-20 people simulatanously (if that's what you mean).
GPS is very good at determing velocity (and acceleration).
It can be if you are on an open road and free from antenna obstruction but what happens quite often is that you can go from moving to stopped to moving again in an urban setting (ie tunnel, under a bridge, between large skyscrapers) and it causes errors in speed and distance calculation. The GPS estimates your direction of travel during the stopped time so that when the receiver begins to work again you can be in a completely different area causing the GPS to report that you traveled several miles more and at a higher rate of speed than you did.
I have seen pictures (ie this one) where the GPS is reporting 1500+ mph. Are they just going to ignore that speed/distance calculation or will the tax you on it anyway?
I am instituting use of the Slashdot search feature to accurately track Slashdot duplicates and tax appropriately:
;-)
November 17, 2004 was your first offense. A warning was sent via email prior to the story posting on February 15th, 2005 at 2:39pm CST but daddypants ignored our notification.
Please note that future violations will result in a hefty fine!
Actually, I see a LOT of piracy amongst the casual DVD crowd. A girl here at work passed me a list the other day.. $5 each for all the "latest" DVD releases, plus a bunch of stuff I recognized as poor-rips (telesyncs?) from the theaters (and music CD's, too.. She said he'd borrow from the library and rip those).
At a laundromat I went to regularly, the attendent had a laptop setup with a firewire DVD-R and would burn movies for his "customers" while they did laundry for $5 each. And so on and so on.
The people that you listed are not "casual". They are blatant theives. They are not only ripping and burning DVDs they are distributing and selling them. Just because they aren't what YOU consider to be "geeks" that were at the heart of the DVD ripping scene in years passed doesn't mean that they are "casual users".
Please don't confuse these people with Joe Blow with the family or me and my personal DVD collection at home.
It would be a lot more humorous if they put "Nothing for you to see here, please move along" when you tried to rip it...
On to the serious stuff:
"If it takes a long time and the frustration level gets too high, you're not going to prevent 100% of it, but you can stop the casual user," Kaye said. "Why not try?"
The "casual user" doesn't give a shit. They rent their mainstream crap movies on DVDs at the local monopolistic rental store and they bring it back three days late. They aren't ripping movies to share, save, etc.
The technique confounds ripping programs without damaging computers, preventing the discs from playing or reducing picture quality, he said.
Would it damage the drive if a computer DVD player tried to play the disc and was constantly hitting the false errors it was creating? If it isn't going to disable the players how will it stop the rippers? So what, it takes real-time to rip the DVD? Oh no!
Consumer advocates said Hollywood had the right to put out unrippable discs. But such a move would ignore public demand for the ability to back up DVDs and take their movie collections on the road.
Public demand? Public RIGHTS. We have the right to make backups of our owned discs and put them into a format that is portable. The media continues to fall for the tricks being implemented by the MPAA's PR machine. I suggest that they refrain from spreading the misinformation created by the corporations PR machine as it does nothing but continue to erode the freedoms we are entitled to.
If they decide that we should not be able to make a backup of our media that is an identical copy then I should be reimbursed when the disc is no longer usable. Even if that means 25+ years from now. Don't like that and don't think it's realistic? Tough, it is realistic because I can ensure that right now by making backups.
Discs that do not allow me to fast forward through FBI warnings, commercials, etc, get ripped and burned in a format that is immediately watchable from the time I stick it in the player. I don't care about animated menus, extras, features, commentary, bonus scenes. I want the movie to play w/o interruption the second I close that tray. If I paid for something I don't see what I shouldn't be able to do with it as I wish as long as it stays in my possession.
If Macrovision and the MPAA want to end piracy they best do it in a way that doesn't affect my personal freedoms when I purchase a piece of media.
If it's ok for individuals to personally ignore laws, no matter on what grounds, then certainly it is ok for others to make a determination to operate within the bounds of the law? (Unless, of course, you think that anything that is generally pro-corporation is automatically "wrong" and should be ignored.)
I think it should be proven that it was created through the direct corruption of government officials by corporations for the benefit of the corporations.
A lowly journalist who is trying to do his job should have protections from high above through the Constitution. The corporations should not be permitted to dictate the terms of free-speech rights because they have nearly limitless financial backing.
One problem - the journalist, at the same time, is knowingly accepting information they know to be protected by an NDA, and that makes the actual act illegal.
The fact that this has become a legal issue should be illegal. The lawmakers created this law to protect corporations because they were paid to do so through quasi-legal channels.
You should know better than to support corruption.
I cannot believe you were modded up twice over a repeat question. Redundant.
The Act you keep referring to is nothing more than proof that corporations own the government and that the people are no longer protected from anything. Because of this, it's irrelevant and needs to be ignored by anyone and everyone, including those who were coerced by donations to create it.
This is much larger than you are apparnetly trying to make it be. If any sort of journalist isn't guaranteed protections under the law in regards to releasing their sources over corporate cardplaying then what's going to happen when something serious happens?
The lost of trust is not worth the bad precedent that Apple is trying to whine its way into.
If you can't trust someone on the little secrets, how can you trust them on the big secrets? How do you find out who is trustworthy if you can't even find out who is breaking your trust?
That's not the journalists' problem. That's Apple's problem and has NOTHING to do with the rights that journalists have regarding protection of sources.
Although, there is getting to be a mighty thin line between what some of these journalists are doing and "industrial espionage".
It's not the journalists that are doing any episonage. It's those that are leaking the information. Honestly, "industrial espionage" would be leaking information privately to another corporation for profit of those leaks... IOW, if the original source had not gone to the media and instead sold their information to another corporation, then it would be espionage. There's quite a difference there.
Regardless of whether or not Apple "should" or "shouldn't" be doing this, whether it's good PR or not, etc., if you can't see that it's wrong, legally and ethically, for these people to be leaking this information, then, well, we have nothing further to discuss. Is it journalism and free speech when you violate laws to obtain information? Ignorance of the law is no excuse...
I don't see what this has to do with attempting to force the journalists into releasing their sources.
The sources are the ones that are breaking the confidentiality agreements and leaking the information to the media. The journalists are then doing their job and reporting the information to the world.
If Apple wants to stop the leaks then they need to crack down internally and stop the people from breaking the confidentiality agreements. Whether that means paying the people more money, hiring more trustworthy individuals, or doing some sort of INTERNAL investigations, I don't know. What I do know is that they should NOT be attempting to coerce (through legal means) journalists into handing them the culprits on a silver platter.
Journalists need the protections so that they can be trusted by sources to release information w/o revealing the persons behind that release. If Apple is able to deny this right of protection over something as silly as a new product design how are sources supposed to trust journalists over something important?
In theory, we have the power - whether as consumers or as voters. But in reality, I think we don't really have much choice.
People don't care about choice... If they did we wouldn't stand for monopolies in telephone, radio, TV, computers, etc.
People just want "life to be easy". If that means having one company make their descisions for them while they let the cable TV wash over them after work, so be it.