Yes, because after all, IDG is just a bunch of clowns in a dorm room running a P133 sitting in a pizza box left over from last month's dinner, and has already exploded into a ball of fire from the slashdotting. Or not:-)
Thank iTunes for the skips etc.
on
AAC Put To The Test
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· Score: 2, Informative
I have heard stories of people downloading songs to find a skip or two in the middle
You can probably thank iTunes for that- I had numerous problems with encoding my CDs. Songs has skips, and more commonly, ended early- often by more than 15-20 seconds. It was extremely irritating.
Curiously, I never had such problems with Xing's AudioCatalyst, an awesome encoder for the Mac(it was, and I think still is, the only encoder for the Mac that can do live encoding from line-in). AudioCatalyst was also exceedingly fast on my powerbook- 4x encoding speed, and the rip of the CD was very, very fast.
If you want perfect rips of the audio to encode from, you don't need masters- you need a CD ripper that doesn't suck, like CDparanoia(although CDparanoia is very slow.)
I use uncompressed wav or 256khz mp3 myself
Assuming you mean 256kbit, that's an absurd waste of disk space- anything over 160 is. In fact, if you look at encodes done by "groups", the most they ever do is 192kbit, and usually only if the material is worth it- ie, it has really good production quality, the music is very nice, etc.
Personally, I wish people would take the disk space to do 160kbit- from most encoders, 128kbit files sound pretty bad on anything better than a $25 set of computer speakers.
Did you count the # of fans? Two on each side, FOUR on top. EIGHT FANS total!
So much for the "silent" part. It's a shame he couldn't have just gone for one large 120MM fan- they can move a lot of air, and in terms of dB per CFM, they do so more quietly than 80+90MM fans.
A friend and I were walking through walmart to get some engine coolant(minor emergency, no choice), and I expressed my distaste for walmart. She asked, "Why? Where else could you get all these wonderful things?"(points to grocery section, hardware, etc.)
My answer was rather simple. "Well, before Walmart, the center of my town- the local town hardware store, the local grocery store, and so on. But thanks to Home Depot and Walmart running all the local businesses out, now you can't get anything without driving 20+ minutes". So now, for the $2 in savings, I've got to burn $2 in gas just to get there. I've got to spend 5 minutes finding a parking space, 5 walking from the lot into the store, another 5 trying to find the section and get there, another 5-10 waiting in line...so on etc. That's 'better'?
All because the only thing consumers value these days is the pricetag- not all the other benefits that come from giving your business to a small, locally owned business...or the hidden costs(your time, travel expenses, etc). Lost your reciept? Walmart tells you to go fuck yourself,m you shoplifting scum! Joe at Joe's Hardware remembers selling you that door hinge a few days ago- so the answer is "hey, no problem, here's your money." Not to mention, Joe knows what he's talking about when you ask him a question about doors, instead of some PFY who blankly stares at you because you asked something other than "what aisle is ___ in?"
You know what? It's not the only thing that bugs me about Walmart- their people are downright sleazy. It's stuff like the stories about Walmart managers taking donated items out of charity dropboxes in the stores that were not in walmart bags, and restocking them onto the shelves. Why? Walmart claimed it was to prevent shoplifting(or, in this case, 'shopdonating'), and items not in Walmart bags must not have been legitimate purchases. The donation box was AFTER the registers, not before. Further- ever been in a Walmart? There's more security cameras than you can count- yet a)items were supposedly shoplifted, yet not caught on tape and b)supposedly walmart didn't have any security cameras covering the area where the donation box was. Uh huh. Oh, and don't get me started on Walmart's union-busting...
It's so frustrating to see these giant box stores pop up. A big part of the local economy shifts over to that one store- all the mom+pops die off, and everyone that worked for mom+pop end up working for Walmart, they get nice clean blue uniforms, and all is(mostly) good. What happens when Walmart goes the way of K-mart, Caldoors, Bradlees, etc...or decides that store isn't quite profitable enough? Oops. Smallville's unemployment just went to %50.
"But it was also nice to see Cingular was on the FCC's side of the case."
That's because they're the underdogs. No kidding they're thrilled- now all those Verizon, AT&T, etc customers have the capability to switch to them. It's already pretty easy to switch off Cingular- they don't lock you into a contract. I would imagine that Nextel stands to loose quite a bit here too, with a large # of business customers(my thought being that business people are less likely to switch #'s) and rather high pricing(though more reasonable recently.)
Frankly, I just wish Cingular would pick a name. They've switched names more than I've switched carriers- Omnipoint->Voicestream->Cingular...arrg.
"[...]entries can be made in 13 categories, including 'Best Mod,' 'Best Character,' 'Best Use of 3D Sound,' 'Best Real-Time Non-Interactive Movie[...]" etc, etc.
Translation: "Well, dangit...we're just all out of ideas on this whole first-person shooter thing, and we've fired a bunch of creative help... Let's collect materi...ah...throw a contest!"
Honestly, how about a mod for that female character in the single-player release, so she doesn't look like she was beaten with an Ugly Stick? And seriously, leather is SO first version.
The author has the right idea; it would certainly make building compatible third-party implementations of data-processing software (by that I mean nearly all software) much easier than if the file formats were closed, as they are now.
Except the author thinks that software companies are just going to lovingly hand over specifications on their file formats. Throughout computing history, software companies have used file formats to lock people into their product, force them to buy upgrades, and use them as leverage for strategic partnerships. Ie- it's a huge cash cow to have proprietary formats.
The author, in the very first paragraph, dismisses "open source laws", saying they "won't work". Huh? Says who? Then he says his WILL work. You can't just make enormous blanket statements like that without backing them up!
In his second point, he says "Many open source laws seem designed to force a government to replace Windows/IIS/Office with Linux/Apache/*Office". Where is he getting this crap from? He goes on to dismiss the security benefits of open-source software, the cost savings...he pretty much dismisses every single argument for considering open-source software, with nothing to back up his reasoning. He 'thinks', therefore it is.
My impression of "open source laws" was that they instruct government agencies to -CONSIDER- open source solutions- it does not FORCE them to use them- yet he makes it out like there's a cop sitting there with a gun to a government IT manager's head, saying "Go ahead punk. Make my day. Install Office. Are you feelin' lucky, punk?" Maybe I misread it, but his idea seems to be to -FORCE- companies to release file formats if their software is used by the government.
One requires you consider open-source software, leaving commercial software companies plenty of oppertunity to compete if they've got a better solution(remember, open-source is not $0, you still have labor involved, possibly a migration, maybe staff training and hiring, maybe different equipment.) Open source doesn't automatically, if ever, "win" outright simply because it's open-source, yet the author seems to think open-source always will, and hence open-source laws will be bad because there will be a huge inconvenience to the government or the software companies. Again, consider- not force! If the manager thinks commercial software will overall be better, he/she will make that call.
The other forces software companies to do something that threatens, in a BIG way, how they compete against other companies.
It has to do with more than just WASTE. He stated that the company controls what he does and that coding is a form of free expression to him. He basically doesn't want the company to control his free expression.
Gasp! An employer controls how employees do their jobs? The injustice!
This would be like a full-time reporter for a newpaper who thinks he can write about whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants, etc...and then when the editor says, "No, I don't want you working on the blond-bimbos-in-Florida story, I want you working on the old-men-ice-fishing-in-Michigan story", turning around and screaming "1st amendment! Free speech!" You don't want to have someone telling you what to do? Freelance. If the contract he signed forces him to turn over ALL his work to AOL, that's his fault for signing it without reading it or consulting a lawyer. If the contract doesn't force him to turn over all his work to AOL, then he should work on whatever he wants to, outside of his job with AOL.
Contrary to popular belief, you don't have the constitutional right to do whatever the hell you want to at work. If AOL says "don't make p2p network programs", amazingly, as an employee of AOL, you've got to follow that, or you can expect to be disciplined for not following instructions.
Sorry, in this job market I have ZERO sympathy for a crybaby who finally got a reality check. By the way, what exactly makes him such a god, worthy of front-page slashdot news? Winamp is JUST an mp3 player- and a pretty basic one at that. WASTE didn't look particularly clever, either- just a small-scale P2P network, whoop de do.
Kinda unfortunate that they[SETI 'scientists] are thought of that way[as crackpots].
Let's say tomorrow we get some green alien saying "Hello, anyone out there?". We reply, and a thousand years from now, his 500th generation hears "Yes!" Maybe they figure it out. Now what? It's like two single people meeting at a party. "Hi." "Hello." "Um, so...uh...send radio signals often?"
Why shouldn't they be considered crackpots? The SETI people ignore all the basic facts- namely that any signal we could "see" today will have been sent from at least thousands of years ago, given we know there are no planets with intelligent life within at least a couple hundred light years. That presents some practical problems- a reply would never reach "them" for another zillion years, by which time, it could be that neither of us is around.
Then, who says they have developed technology to the point they can use radio? Who says they're looking, and looking in the right direction? Then, who says they even recognize it as something? Then, who says they figure out what it means? That they decide to send a reply?(nevermind the whole lets-send-an-invasion-force so popular in Hollywood). That there is anyone here still looking for an answer?
Nevermind that it took "us" this long to get where we are- who says any other planets beat us to the punch? Anything's possible, but it just adds to the unlikelyness of the whole thing. Mysterious aliens aren't going to be faxing us plans for travel gates, people...
I'm on Ken's side, but his lawyer should probably check his facts a little more closely. He said:
"Nobody climbed onto her property, nobody's showing her topless sunbathing - in fact, you don't see any people at all"
Looking at the full-size image(someone posted a link in their comment), you can see two surfers and a group of people near a golf cart, all in the lower right hand corner.
However, about the only thing you can tell is that there's a golfcart and the two surfers(maybe 50 feet out in the water) are wearing wetsuits. There's next to nothing as far as detail is concerned- you'd probably have a tought time even counting the # of people near the cart. Still, the lawyer's statement is false.
Patients who have implants containing any kind of metal cannot be MRI scanned as the powerful electromagnetic radio waves can induce currents large enough to heat the metal in implants to over 70 C and damage surrounding tissue.
That's not the only problem- there's the whole magnetic force issue. Remember the last Bond movie, where he's in the MRI room? It's not an exaggeration- anything ferrous within a 20+ foot radius will, in fact, get picked up and pulled toward the center of the machine. That's why, unlike the Bond movies, nothing ferrous is ever supposed to be allowed into the same room.
A child at Westchester Medical Center was killed a year or two back when an oxygen cylinder against a wall was launched into the center of the MRI machine(it literally flew through the air into the center), crushing his skull.
Another "famous" incident involved a prison inmate who was not killed or injured, but the policeman guarding him lost his gun- I can't remember if it was holstered or in his hands, but it ended up hitting the MRI machine, AND discharging- not to mention I think it also partially damaged the dewar vessel surrounding the magnet. In both cases, the nurses and doctors hadn't managed to think through the most basic safety issue- NOTHING metal goes in an MRI room, PERIOD(Westchester never did publicly "figure out" how the oxygen cylinder, which never should have been in there in the first place, got there- much less why the nurses didn't remove it.)
Now, imagine if the metal object was inside your knee...forget "damaged tissue", you could end up with a face-knee transplant.
But the use I find most gratifying are the Chinese students and residents who have written me about how they use Nmap to locate open proxies. These proxies allow for surfing the uncensored Internet, including the news, educational, pornographic, religious, open source software, government, political, search engine, and human rights sites that are blocked by the Great Firewall of China.
What you call "students and residents finding open proxies to surf the web"(inspiring warm and fuzzy feelings), I call network abuse and inappropriate use of resources. It's like spam- you're hitting hundreds of thousands of systems in the hopes of hitting one proxy.
Further, the only open proxies these days are ones that were mistakenly misconfigured- like Squid servers set up as reverse caches(for website acceleration), not set up properly, and hence answering any old request. The owners didn't intend them to have access- this is like walking down the street trying doorknobs to see who forgot to lock theirs, and when you find an unlocked door, walking in and making a couple telephone calls because someone's tapped your phone line at home. You're tresspassing and costing other people money, doing things without their permission.
Sorry, this is not the "coolest" use of nmap- it's probably, aside from scanning for vulnerable services, the most unethical use of nmap I can think of.
Why is it that all the really cool places to work are on the left coast? (Pixar, Google, etc.) All we've got out here are the CIA and the Pentagon, and those sort of lose their luster after a bit....
Because you're a couple hundred miles too far south, that's why. Come to Boston- the 495/128 corridor are chock full of technology companies, thanks to a fresh supply of smart college students- MIT, Harvard, BC, BU, Umass...MA has more colleges than any other state in the US. They pop out of college, have a bright idea, and make a company around it.
I look at all the things New England has to offer(besides work-related stuff- ie, things to do outside of work), and I shake my head when I see techies move out to CA; it's an expensive, overcrowded, overdeveloped, dangerous, polluted place to live. Sure there's San Fran with the bridge and the trollies...but I don't think SF has anything to offer that Boston and surrounding areas can't provide.
Why are they moving? Because MA is experiencing a massive job slump- unemployment is much higher than the national average. Right now, actually, your region(MD) is the place to be, especially if you have security clearance already. Lots and lots and lots and LOTS of defense crap going on- it's like the internet wave all over, to the letter.
the fabled Linux based YOPY handheld has been put on the market after all!
I heard a nasty rumor it comes with Duke Nukem Forever preinstalled.
claimed "iPod killer" features, no proof
on
Neuros Review
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I noticed that at least twice they claim the thing has features to beat the iPod:
"...the Neuros offers features not only unavailable in the iPod..."
"The Neuros has features that could make it an iPod killer..."
It turns out that the only "killer" feature I could come across was "HiSi"(records 30 seconds of radio, then tries to fingerprint it and match the fingerprint to a central database), and the reviewers found it thought random noise was "Benditos Malditos". It thought a rap song was Van Halen. It only managed to recognize two popular songs- and what's the point? Everyone knows the titles of popular songs on the radio. That's a "killer feature"? Nevermind that you're handing them all sorts of listening habit data.
Oh, what's that you say? "It has a radio, that's a killer feature!" Um, if you've got 30GB of MP3s, and you can get the very latest songs off iTunes music service for a buck apiece, why would you want to listen to the radio? Maybe for news or something while riding the commuter train, but you can get practically microscopic FM receivers and just plug the headphones into that if you wanna listen to the radio. It's not about what you think is "cool", it's about what the consumer wants- and my guess is that Apple found most people didn't care about an FM receiver. Can't argue with them, the iPod's STILL the fastest selling player.
What's that you say? "Ogg Vorbis is a killer feature!" Most of the world doesn't even KNOW what Ogg-Vorbis is. The rest don't want to bother reencoding all their CDs, and you can't buy Ogg Vorbis songs ANYWAY. Ogg Vorbis, for now, is moot...and with AAC, do you seriously think Ogg Vorbis will ever be anything more than a plaything of the Super Nerds?
Sorry, this thing is a non-contender for the iPod. It's enormous, heavy, has a completely unoriginal design, and various issues in implementation, like the song title display problem they mention. The iPod is elegant, small, lightweight, and has a simple, good UI(not to mention, read-only address book/calendar stuff). Ogg Vorbis and a radio aren't going to make up for that.
lot of interest?
on
Neuros Review
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· Score: 3, Insightful
we all know that Ogg Vorbis support is promised in the near future, so the unit is drawing a lot of interest
"drawing a lot of interest"? From who? Most of the world hasn't even heard of Ogg Vorbis, people. Most who have heard of Ogg Vorbis realize it may sound better at lower bitrates, but nobody wants to re-encode all their CDs and stuff. So let's can the editorializing, okay?
Oh, and to all the people who are rabidly trying to convince Apple via silly little petitions(I bet half a week's iPod sales are bigger than the # of people who have signed any such petition)- give it up. They've got AAC, they could give a crap about Ogg, and they've said as much. Stop trying to force your stuff on the world- if there's a genuine market for Ogg, companies will recognize the need to support it.
Anyone else sick of hearing about music this, music that?
Who honestly cares? I throw out the Entertainment section, and I switch channels when the dumb blond "entertainment" "reporter" comes on to tell us about who wined+dined her the best in the last few weeks(ie, which movies she feels like mentioning). I cringe when the regular reporters start talking about revenue figures of movies or albums, or announce it as mainstream news that some movie/album is due out soon...even worse, when they start promoting upcoming programming smack in the middle of their news program. "Thanks Judy. And in other news, join us Thursday night at 9pm for a special on actor's nosehairs!"
I frankly don't give a crap. Music and movie figures seem to always be clamoring for attention, desperate for it- further, they seem to be the only people really fascinated by their industry. I listen to music occasionally. I go to the movies or rent a movie even less- in both cases, because I have many other things to do and neither is producing material I'm even remotely interested in. Music seems, at least to me, to be a small part of most people's lives, its presence VASTLY overhyped by(surprise) the media.
Insightful? INSIGHTFUL? Dammit! I was shooting for Score: 2- 50% Bitter, 25% Democractic-Whining, 25% Get-Over-The-Florida-Elections-Already. At the very least, gimme Flamebait. That mod point up is just insult to injury- I mean, hell, I'm not even gonna loose any karma on this one!
The Bush administration is going to create a new Cybersecurity Chief position in the Homeland Security Department.
Cool- a new variant on the old election trick of forcing out figureheads as the election comes up; that way you can blame problems on someone who's long gone, and bring in someone new nobody can judge yet. Environmental policy sucks? Make your EPA head resign. People finally pissed off with reporters not being able to get anything out of the White House? Make your press secretary resign!
Can't keep your "Cybersecurity chief" chair filled, because the dudes keep resigning faster than you can appoint them? Why, shift the position into a branch of the government where nbody knows what the hell is going on. Yeah, baby! Keep 'em guessing...
By the way, wanna know why Ridge is head of Homeland Insecurity? Cause the poo baby lost his election for a congressional seat. But, no worries! The GOP sticks up for its people! Loose your election, get a post you're not remotely qualified for in a few months! But that's okay, it's probably a position that doesn't mean anything anyway.
Proper diving procedures recommend using two different computers, and always relying on the more conservative unit for your decompression limits.
Actually, for recreational, non-decompression diving(which represents the vast majority of recreational diving- technical diving is a whole other beast), PADI tells you to use the tables they give you on a waterproof card. You're supposed to plan your dive AHEAD OF TIME using the tables, and stick to the plan. You're not supposed to just grab a dive computer and jump in the water, for EXACTLY this reason- the computer could malfunction. Further, I'm pretty sure my PADI manual specifically said you should never use a dive computer to push the limits of no-decompression diving to get maximum bottom time, although it has been a LONG time since I went on a dive(and hence did a refresher course or studied my manual, both of which you should do after being inactive for a while).
Interstingly, I just found a google cache of a this page about a recall(or lack thereof) for the PADI dive table cards, while trying to find PADI's DAN(Diver Alert Network) site.
Ah- found it. There's another article here about it, including which tables(for concerned divers, seems to be tables printed in 2002-Jan 2003, check the site).
"under circumstances where either no non-disclosure agreement was required or whatever non-disclosure agreement you had was not enforced."
Problem #1: Just because it wasn't enforced at one time, doesn't mean the NDA is null and void- in fact, many/most NDAs specifically say "lack of enforcement does not nullify this agreement".
I'm looking for ways to prove that Unix trade secrets have been legally nullified
Problem #2: Disproving "trade secret" status is pointless(not to mention, unlikely to happen). It's still copyright SOMEONE ELSE, and YOU CAN'T USE IT unless they let you!
Problem #3: It's been said time+time again, there is no proprietary code that belongs to SCO in the Linux kernel. This project, therefore, is entirely moot, at least in regards to the SCO lawsuit...and it can only, in fact, cause damage, because you're implying there IS code that belongs to SCO that "we" need to find a way to justify its presence in the kernel...when in fact no such code exists.
By the way, why are people wasting time "helping" IBM? They don't need it, nor do they deserve it- they're "into" Linux because it makes them money, not because they wanna be friends, or they think it's "cool"...and with legal "help" like this, who needs SCO? Dispute the claims intelligently, boycott SCO, whatever- just leave the legal arguments to the lawyers, or you just might end up helping SCO...and IBM won't be the only loser if that happens.
I can hear the SCO execs and lawyers now: "See? They DID steal our code, now they're trying to find a loophole!"
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, because after all, IDG is just a bunch of clowns in a dorm room running a P133 sitting in a pizza box left over from last month's dinner, and has already exploded into a ball of fire from the slashdotting. Or not :-)
You can probably thank iTunes for that- I had numerous problems with encoding my CDs. Songs has skips, and more commonly, ended early- often by more than 15-20 seconds. It was extremely irritating.
Curiously, I never had such problems with Xing's AudioCatalyst, an awesome encoder for the Mac(it was, and I think still is, the only encoder for the Mac that can do live encoding from line-in). AudioCatalyst was also exceedingly fast on my powerbook- 4x encoding speed, and the rip of the CD was very, very fast.
If you want perfect rips of the audio to encode from, you don't need masters- you need a CD ripper that doesn't suck, like CDparanoia(although CDparanoia is very slow.)
I use uncompressed wav or 256khz mp3 myself
Assuming you mean 256kbit, that's an absurd waste of disk space- anything over 160 is. In fact, if you look at encodes done by "groups", the most they ever do is 192kbit, and usually only if the material is worth it- ie, it has really good production quality, the music is very nice, etc.
Personally, I wish people would take the disk space to do 160kbit- from most encoders, 128kbit files sound pretty bad on anything better than a $25 set of computer speakers.
Did you count the # of fans? Two on each side, FOUR on top. EIGHT FANS total!
So much for the "silent" part. It's a shame he couldn't have just gone for one large 120MM fan- they can move a lot of air, and in terms of dB per CFM, they do so more quietly than 80+90MM fans.
A friend and I were walking through walmart to get some engine coolant(minor emergency, no choice), and I expressed my distaste for walmart. She asked, "Why? Where else could you get all these wonderful things?"(points to grocery section, hardware, etc.)
My answer was rather simple. "Well, before Walmart, the center of my town- the local town hardware store, the local grocery store, and so on. But thanks to Home Depot and Walmart running all the local businesses out, now you can't get anything without driving 20+ minutes". So now, for the $2 in savings, I've got to burn $2 in gas just to get there. I've got to spend 5 minutes finding a parking space, 5 walking from the lot into the store, another 5 trying to find the section and get there, another 5-10 waiting in line...so on etc. That's 'better'?
All because the only thing consumers value these days is the pricetag- not all the other benefits that come from giving your business to a small, locally owned business...or the hidden costs(your time, travel expenses, etc). Lost your reciept? Walmart tells you to go fuck yourself,m you shoplifting scum! Joe at Joe's Hardware remembers selling you that door hinge a few days ago- so the answer is "hey, no problem, here's your money." Not to mention, Joe knows what he's talking about when you ask him a question about doors, instead of some PFY who blankly stares at you because you asked something other than "what aisle is ___ in?"
You know what? It's not the only thing that bugs me about Walmart- their people are downright sleazy. It's stuff like the stories about Walmart managers taking donated items out of charity dropboxes in the stores that were not in walmart bags, and restocking them onto the shelves. Why? Walmart claimed it was to prevent shoplifting(or, in this case, 'shopdonating'), and items not in Walmart bags must not have been legitimate purchases. The donation box was AFTER the registers, not before. Further- ever been in a Walmart? There's more security cameras than you can count- yet a)items were supposedly shoplifted, yet not caught on tape and b)supposedly walmart didn't have any security cameras covering the area where the donation box was. Uh huh. Oh, and don't get me started on Walmart's union-busting...
It's so frustrating to see these giant box stores pop up. A big part of the local economy shifts over to that one store- all the mom+pops die off, and everyone that worked for mom+pop end up working for Walmart, they get nice clean blue uniforms, and all is(mostly) good. What happens when Walmart goes the way of K-mart, Caldoors, Bradlees, etc...or decides that store isn't quite profitable enough? Oops. Smallville's unemployment just went to %50.
That's because they're the underdogs. No kidding they're thrilled- now all those Verizon, AT&T, etc customers have the capability to switch to them. It's already pretty easy to switch off Cingular- they don't lock you into a contract. I would imagine that Nextel stands to loose quite a bit here too, with a large # of business customers(my thought being that business people are less likely to switch #'s) and rather high pricing(though more reasonable recently.)
Frankly, I just wish Cingular would pick a name. They've switched names more than I've switched carriers- Omnipoint->Voicestream->Cingular...arrg.
Translation: "Well, dangit...we're just all out of ideas on this whole first-person shooter thing, and we've fired a bunch of creative help... Let's collect materi...ah...throw a contest!"
Honestly, how about a mod for that female character in the single-player release, so she doesn't look like she was beaten with an Ugly Stick? And seriously, leather is SO first version.
Except the author thinks that software companies are just going to lovingly hand over specifications on their file formats. Throughout computing history, software companies have used file formats to lock people into their product, force them to buy upgrades, and use them as leverage for strategic partnerships. Ie- it's a huge cash cow to have proprietary formats.
The author, in the very first paragraph, dismisses "open source laws", saying they "won't work". Huh? Says who? Then he says his WILL work. You can't just make enormous blanket statements like that without backing them up!
In his second point, he says "Many open source laws seem designed to force a government to replace Windows/IIS/Office with Linux/Apache/*Office". Where is he getting this crap from? He goes on to dismiss the security benefits of open-source software, the cost savings...he pretty much dismisses every single argument for considering open-source software, with nothing to back up his reasoning. He 'thinks', therefore it is.
My impression of "open source laws" was that they instruct government agencies to -CONSIDER- open source solutions- it does not FORCE them to use them- yet he makes it out like there's a cop sitting there with a gun to a government IT manager's head, saying "Go ahead punk. Make my day. Install Office. Are you feelin' lucky, punk?" Maybe I misread it, but his idea seems to be to -FORCE- companies to release file formats if their software is used by the government.
One requires you consider open-source software, leaving commercial software companies plenty of oppertunity to compete if they've got a better solution(remember, open-source is not $0, you still have labor involved, possibly a migration, maybe staff training and hiring, maybe different equipment.) Open source doesn't automatically, if ever, "win" outright simply because it's open-source, yet the author seems to think open-source always will, and hence open-source laws will be bad because there will be a huge inconvenience to the government or the software companies. Again, consider- not force! If the manager thinks commercial software will overall be better, he/she will make that call.
The other forces software companies to do something that threatens, in a BIG way, how they compete against other companies.
Now, which has more of a chance of failing?
Gasp! An employer controls how employees do their jobs? The injustice!
This would be like a full-time reporter for a newpaper who thinks he can write about whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants, etc...and then when the editor says, "No, I don't want you working on the blond-bimbos-in-Florida story, I want you working on the old-men-ice-fishing-in-Michigan story", turning around and screaming "1st amendment! Free speech!" You don't want to have someone telling you what to do? Freelance. If the contract he signed forces him to turn over ALL his work to AOL, that's his fault for signing it without reading it or consulting a lawyer. If the contract doesn't force him to turn over all his work to AOL, then he should work on whatever he wants to, outside of his job with AOL.
Contrary to popular belief, you don't have the constitutional right to do whatever the hell you want to at work. If AOL says "don't make p2p network programs", amazingly, as an employee of AOL, you've got to follow that, or you can expect to be disciplined for not following instructions.
Sorry, in this job market I have ZERO sympathy for a crybaby who finally got a reality check. By the way, what exactly makes him such a god, worthy of front-page slashdot news? Winamp is JUST an mp3 player- and a pretty basic one at that. WASTE didn't look particularly clever, either- just a small-scale P2P network, whoop de do.
Let's say tomorrow we get some green alien saying "Hello, anyone out there?". We reply, and a thousand years from now, his 500th generation hears "Yes!" Maybe they figure it out. Now what? It's like two single people meeting at a party. "Hi." "Hello." "Um, so...uh...send radio signals often?"
Why shouldn't they be considered crackpots? The SETI people ignore all the basic facts- namely that any signal we could "see" today will have been sent from at least thousands of years ago, given we know there are no planets with intelligent life within at least a couple hundred light years. That presents some practical problems- a reply would never reach "them" for another zillion years, by which time, it could be that neither of us is around.
Then, who says they have developed technology to the point they can use radio? Who says they're looking, and looking in the right direction? Then, who says they even recognize it as something? Then, who says they figure out what it means? That they decide to send a reply?(nevermind the whole lets-send-an-invasion-force so popular in Hollywood). That there is anyone here still looking for an answer?
Nevermind that it took "us" this long to get where we are- who says any other planets beat us to the punch? Anything's possible, but it just adds to the unlikelyness of the whole thing. Mysterious aliens aren't going to be faxing us plans for travel gates, people...
"Nobody climbed onto her property, nobody's showing her topless sunbathing - in fact, you don't see any people at all"
Looking at the full-size image(someone posted a link in their comment), you can see two surfers and a group of people near a golf cart, all in the lower right hand corner.
However, about the only thing you can tell is that there's a golfcart and the two surfers(maybe 50 feet out in the water) are wearing wetsuits. There's next to nothing as far as detail is concerned- you'd probably have a tought time even counting the # of people near the cart. Still, the lawyer's statement is false.
That's not the only problem- there's the whole magnetic force issue. Remember the last Bond movie, where he's in the MRI room? It's not an exaggeration- anything ferrous within a 20+ foot radius will, in fact, get picked up and pulled toward the center of the machine. That's why, unlike the Bond movies, nothing ferrous is ever supposed to be allowed into the same room.
A child at Westchester Medical Center was killed a year or two back when an oxygen cylinder against a wall was launched into the center of the MRI machine(it literally flew through the air into the center), crushing his skull.
Another "famous" incident involved a prison inmate who was not killed or injured, but the policeman guarding him lost his gun- I can't remember if it was holstered or in his hands, but it ended up hitting the MRI machine, AND discharging- not to mention I think it also partially damaged the dewar vessel surrounding the magnet. In both cases, the nurses and doctors hadn't managed to think through the most basic safety issue- NOTHING metal goes in an MRI room, PERIOD(Westchester never did publicly "figure out" how the oxygen cylinder, which never should have been in there in the first place, got there- much less why the nurses didn't remove it.)
Now, imagine if the metal object was inside your knee...forget "damaged tissue", you could end up with a face-knee transplant.
Three words.
On
Site
Service.
But the use I find most gratifying are the Chinese students and residents who have written me about how they use Nmap to locate open proxies. These proxies allow for surfing the uncensored Internet, including the news, educational, pornographic, religious, open source software, government, political, search engine, and human rights sites that are blocked by the Great Firewall of China.
What you call "students and residents finding open proxies to surf the web"(inspiring warm and fuzzy feelings), I call network abuse and inappropriate use of resources. It's like spam- you're hitting hundreds of thousands of systems in the hopes of hitting one proxy.
Further, the only open proxies these days are ones that were mistakenly misconfigured- like Squid servers set up as reverse caches(for website acceleration), not set up properly, and hence answering any old request. The owners didn't intend them to have access- this is like walking down the street trying doorknobs to see who forgot to lock theirs, and when you find an unlocked door, walking in and making a couple telephone calls because someone's tapped your phone line at home. You're tresspassing and costing other people money, doing things without their permission.
Sorry, this is not the "coolest" use of nmap- it's probably, aside from scanning for vulnerable services, the most unethical use of nmap I can think of.
Because you're a couple hundred miles too far south, that's why. Come to Boston- the 495/128 corridor are chock full of technology companies, thanks to a fresh supply of smart college students- MIT, Harvard, BC, BU, Umass...MA has more colleges than any other state in the US. They pop out of college, have a bright idea, and make a company around it.
I look at all the things New England has to offer(besides work-related stuff- ie, things to do outside of work), and I shake my head when I see techies move out to CA; it's an expensive, overcrowded, overdeveloped, dangerous, polluted place to live. Sure there's San Fran with the bridge and the trollies...but I don't think SF has anything to offer that Boston and surrounding areas can't provide.
Why are they moving? Because MA is experiencing a massive job slump- unemployment is much higher than the national average. Right now, actually, your region(MD) is the place to be, especially if you have security clearance already. Lots and lots and lots and LOTS of defense crap going on- it's like the internet wave all over, to the letter.
I heard a nasty rumor it comes with Duke Nukem Forever preinstalled.
"...the Neuros offers features not only unavailable in the iPod..."
"The Neuros has features that could make it an iPod killer..."
It turns out that the only "killer" feature I could come across was "HiSi"(records 30 seconds of radio, then tries to fingerprint it and match the fingerprint to a central database), and the reviewers found it thought random noise was "Benditos Malditos". It thought a rap song was Van Halen. It only managed to recognize two popular songs- and what's the point? Everyone knows the titles of popular songs on the radio. That's a "killer feature"? Nevermind that you're handing them all sorts of listening habit data.
Oh, what's that you say? "It has a radio, that's a killer feature!" Um, if you've got 30GB of MP3s, and you can get the very latest songs off iTunes music service for a buck apiece, why would you want to listen to the radio? Maybe for news or something while riding the commuter train, but you can get practically microscopic FM receivers and just plug the headphones into that if you wanna listen to the radio. It's not about what you think is "cool", it's about what the consumer wants- and my guess is that Apple found most people didn't care about an FM receiver. Can't argue with them, the iPod's STILL the fastest selling player.
What's that you say? "Ogg Vorbis is a killer feature!" Most of the world doesn't even KNOW what Ogg-Vorbis is. The rest don't want to bother reencoding all their CDs, and you can't buy Ogg Vorbis songs ANYWAY. Ogg Vorbis, for now, is moot...and with AAC, do you seriously think Ogg Vorbis will ever be anything more than a plaything of the Super Nerds?
Sorry, this thing is a non-contender for the iPod. It's enormous, heavy, has a completely unoriginal design, and various issues in implementation, like the song title display problem they mention. The iPod is elegant, small, lightweight, and has a simple, good UI(not to mention, read-only address book/calendar stuff). Ogg Vorbis and a radio aren't going to make up for that.
"drawing a lot of interest"? From who? Most of the world hasn't even heard of Ogg Vorbis, people. Most who have heard of Ogg Vorbis realize it may sound better at lower bitrates, but nobody wants to re-encode all their CDs and stuff. So let's can the editorializing, okay?
Oh, and to all the people who are rabidly trying to convince Apple via silly little petitions(I bet half a week's iPod sales are bigger than the # of people who have signed any such petition)- give it up. They've got AAC, they could give a crap about Ogg, and they've said as much. Stop trying to force your stuff on the world- if there's a genuine market for Ogg, companies will recognize the need to support it.
Please explain to me how assigning ROUTEABLE addresses to people inside your private network is going to work?
If there's a 1.2.3.4 in the real world, and you give Joe Shmoe on your private network 1.2.3.4, the router's gotta pick one or the other, bub.
How this got modded up to 4 is beyond me. It's obvious the poster has ZERO understanding of IP routing...
Yeah, 'cause on a linux or MacOS X box, those Windows dialog boxes look SO realistic! I know I always had to think twice. Not.
It's a shame they're going to stop using (snicker) "FUI". I thought it was fantastic- Internet Darwinism!
Anyone else sick of hearing about music this, music that?
Who honestly cares? I throw out the Entertainment section, and I switch channels when the dumb blond "entertainment" "reporter" comes on to tell us about who wined+dined her the best in the last few weeks(ie, which movies she feels like mentioning). I cringe when the regular reporters start talking about revenue figures of movies or albums, or announce it as mainstream news that some movie/album is due out soon...even worse, when they start promoting upcoming programming smack in the middle of their news program. "Thanks Judy. And in other news, join us Thursday night at 9pm for a special on actor's nosehairs!"
I frankly don't give a crap. Music and movie figures seem to always be clamoring for attention, desperate for it- further, they seem to be the only people really fascinated by their industry. I listen to music occasionally. I go to the movies or rent a movie even less- in both cases, because I have many other things to do and neither is producing material I'm even remotely interested in. Music seems, at least to me, to be a small part of most people's lives, its presence VASTLY overhyped by(surprise) the media.
"I'm not dead!"
"Oh, yes you are."
"I think I'll release another version..."
"Come on now, you're not fooling anyone"
"I feel...happy..."
Score:3, Insightful
Insightful? INSIGHTFUL? Dammit! I was shooting for Score: 2- 50% Bitter, 25% Democractic-Whining, 25% Get-Over-The-Florida-Elections-Already. At the very least, gimme Flamebait. That mod point up is just insult to injury- I mean, hell, I'm not even gonna loose any karma on this one!
AAAAARRRRGGG!
Cool- a new variant on the old election trick of forcing out figureheads as the election comes up; that way you can blame problems on someone who's long gone, and bring in someone new nobody can judge yet. Environmental policy sucks? Make your EPA head resign. People finally pissed off with reporters not being able to get anything out of the White House? Make your press secretary resign!
Can't keep your "Cybersecurity chief" chair filled, because the dudes keep resigning faster than you can appoint them? Why, shift the position into a branch of the government where nbody knows what the hell is going on. Yeah, baby! Keep 'em guessing...
By the way, wanna know why Ridge is head of Homeland Insecurity? Cause the poo baby lost his election for a congressional seat. But, no worries! The GOP sticks up for its people! Loose your election, get a post you're not remotely qualified for in a few months! But that's okay, it's probably a position that doesn't mean anything anyway.
Actually, for recreational, non-decompression diving(which represents the vast majority of recreational diving- technical diving is a whole other beast), PADI tells you to use the tables they give you on a waterproof card. You're supposed to plan your dive AHEAD OF TIME using the tables, and stick to the plan. You're not supposed to just grab a dive computer and jump in the water, for EXACTLY this reason- the computer could malfunction. Further, I'm pretty sure my PADI manual specifically said you should never use a dive computer to push the limits of no-decompression diving to get maximum bottom time, although it has been a LONG time since I went on a dive(and hence did a refresher course or studied my manual, both of which you should do after being inactive for a while).
Interstingly, I just found a google cache of a this page about a recall(or lack thereof) for the PADI dive table cards, while trying to find PADI's DAN(Diver Alert Network) site.
Ah- found it. There's another article here about it, including which tables(for concerned divers, seems to be tables printed in 2002-Jan 2003, check the site).
There are three problems here.
"under circumstances where either no non-disclosure agreement was required or whatever non-disclosure agreement you had was not enforced."
Problem #1: Just because it wasn't enforced at one time, doesn't mean the NDA is null and void- in fact, many/most NDAs specifically say "lack of enforcement does not nullify this agreement".
I'm looking for ways to prove that Unix trade secrets have been legally nullified
Problem #2: Disproving "trade secret" status is pointless(not to mention, unlikely to happen). It's still copyright SOMEONE ELSE, and YOU CAN'T USE IT unless they let you!
Problem #3: It's been said time+time again, there is no proprietary code that belongs to SCO in the Linux kernel. This project, therefore, is entirely moot, at least in regards to the SCO lawsuit...and it can only, in fact, cause damage, because you're implying there IS code that belongs to SCO that "we" need to find a way to justify its presence in the kernel...when in fact no such code exists.
By the way, why are people wasting time "helping" IBM? They don't need it, nor do they deserve it- they're "into" Linux because it makes them money, not because they wanna be friends, or they think it's "cool"...and with legal "help" like this, who needs SCO? Dispute the claims intelligently, boycott SCO, whatever- just leave the legal arguments to the lawyers, or you just might end up helping SCO...and IBM won't be the only loser if that happens.
I can hear the SCO execs and lawyers now: "See? They DID steal our code, now they're trying to find a loophole!"