Their intended response is "narrowly-defined federal legislation aimed at so-called "king-pin" spammers" who send the bulk of the mails. "
Wait, lemme guess- that "narrowly-defined" definition of "spammer" will not include internet service providers advertising their services, nor companies the ISPs have paid to spam their subscribers?
My grandmother got porno spam within 2-3 days of her MSN "internet appliance" getting set up, and it had a very unusual account name(with numbers in it, too)- no dictionary atttack hit this one. She hadn't even figured out how to surf the web yet. Wanna guess who sold out her email address? First 3 guesses don't count.
Solid state has to be the way to go - no more waiting for your computer to "boot up", just turn it on and it's running your desktop, right where you left it last.
Years ago I added a whole 32 or 64MB of ram(I can't remember which) to my 660AV, and it was enough to do a couple of interesting things(ie, have enough left over to run applications 'n stuff:) One was load the ROM into RAM, which sped up things dramatically, since so much of MacOS was ROM-call based(remember the Toolbox?). Back in the day, that was a big deal; now's pretty common-place. The second thing was I could start up(and run) the system off a ramdisk, if I got the system folder small enough(that became easier as memory prices dropped etc.)
I booted my 660AV that way- timed it at 6 seconds flat, from when the bootloader started to when the system stopped loading the finder etc. That's faster than the time from when Lilo starts decompressing the kernel to when init gets launched on my 1.4ghz athlon.
How come these BIG MEGACORPS never just offer a non-exclusive license to the LITTLE GUYS to use names like "NothingToDoWithSemiconductors Inside". They could charge a token amount like $50. Didn't netscape do this for free with its logo onc, to a guy who wrote a program?
This seems like a good idea- it may at least partially address the "gotta pound every nail" argument toted by so many lawyers to justify themselves(I do honestly believe that many execs don't LIKE following the legal advice given to them, but do so only because they're not given any other options save "ignore it") Better yet, the lawyers still get to justify themselves by drawing up the contract etc.
Shouldn't be $50 though- if the company that owns the trademark wants to make a fuss to the Little Guy, the burden should be on the trademark holder as much as possible- make it $1(a typical symbolic amount), and for everyone's trouble, buy the Little Guys lunch, give them a little money for a trust, donate a work of art, etc...you get the idea.
Why not celebrate clever usage of your company's name(hey, it's publicity after all, right?) that has no clear danger to you, while still covering your ass? Gotta be a way to do both.
I just wanted to comment here on my submission, since I try to keep 'em
as short/to the point as possible(by the way, apologies for the earlier goofs in my story submissions, doh! Hopefully got this one right!)
As I said in the submission, this isn't the first time Intel has gone
after people, though some of the cited examples are better than others;
for example, there's the "FACE" guy, who was basically harassing 27,000
Intel employees via email...but on the other hand, there's cases like
Intel going after a Yoga group. There were a few cases I didn't list,
like the case against a company making "Yoda Inside" stickers. That's a
clear spoof, but a better case than a bunch of artists with a little art
gallery.
IANAL, but I could swear one of the key issues in trademark cases is
whether a)there will be damage to the trademark holder from b)confusion
with the trademark holder. Ie, someone thinks I'm Intel and I sell
computers, and Intel looses money off that(or it's reasonably forseeable
that they will.)
The FACE site in particular burns me- for example, they harp on Intel
employee suicides; FACE sees conspiracies everywhere, it
seems, and they take a perfectly acceptable letter from management to
employees(listing places employees can get help, and encouraging
employees to think about each other) and talk nothing but trash about it.
About the only thing that's truly interesting(and relevant to my
submission) on their site is their compiled list of all the trademarks
Intel has registered...which, unfortunately, I can't find now for the life
of me. It had some amusing stuff, like trademark registrations in the
cooking/household appliance sector, leather goods, etc...really weird
stuff.
Still, I think it all boils down to the all-too-prevalent attitude
among corporate legal departments- mainly, if you let one little thing
through, it sets you up for getting whammed by a bigger fish who points to
the little case, and says "Why didn't you fight THEM? Hmm?"
My
motivation for submitting this story was that I wanted to get this as
much publicity as possible- and maybe, if the negative PR
outweighs the perceived benefit of "smacking down every case for the sake of precidence", Intel will back down and leave 'em alone.
Let's make some fuss, spread the word...
True, but that's still an improvement because then all the pollution control machinery can be made very large and very efficient.
Or, if the status quo is any indication of what things would be like in the future, there simply won't be pollution control...because, according to the companies owning the plants- gosh darn it, it's expensive, and it'll only raise prices for consumers and hurt the economy!
The one thing hydrogen does is get the "nasty stuff" out of sight of the end-user, and as we all know, out of sight- out of mind.
The major problem with hydrogen is just as the original poster said- it's -very- energy intensive to produce. Cracking water into hydrogen and oxygen requires enormous amounts of power. To make the problem worse, alternative energy sources like solar power are incredibly inefficient themselves(solar panels top out at I think 20% efficiency, tops?)
There's also the almost-completely-unfounded public fear of hydrogen, despite it being safer(it is lighter than air and disperses almost instantly unlike gasoline, which sinks/pools...requires higher concentrations than gasoline to ignite...is completely non-toxic whereas gasoline is carcinogenic...)
Everything else in Japan and especially in Tokyo is expensive. But Internet is as cheap as you can imagine.
Two words- population density. Remember, Japan is a fraction of the size of the US; US providers have to deal with the expense of all the areas where population density is much, much less(except in very concentrated areas); the guys in the city may be cheap to wire up, but the guys out in the burbs cost a small fortune(and there's fewer of 'em.) You can't, for the most part, charge drastically different rates- the city people subsidize the suburbs.
Besides, a large percentage of the US is perfectly happy with dialup...
I think this could turn out to be a very interesting project. Think of the people who can now share their story -- Chinese dissidents, drug dealers, hitmen, etc. Society will definitely gain from this.
Not really, because we won't be able to tell what's actually true and what isn't, so you pretty much have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because you can't tell the difference; it might as well all have a giant "FICTION" stamp on it. Even the non-anonymous weblogs can be complete BS, this is worse.
There are practical matters here- think about it. How's a "Chinese dissident" going to prove he's really a Chinese dissident, without exposing his identity in the process? Hell, half the time people are caught because they reveal information or details only they(or a select group) knew.
So what was the deal with those Amazon Press Releases for the Harry Potter Magical Candy Contest For Children Ages 6 to 13, Toy Quest Toy Design Contest For Kids 12 And Under, and the Be a Poet Contest For All Kids 12 and Under?
They're for PARENTS. The only people who can use Amazon are people with CREDIT CARDS, and that rules out most anybody even close to being protected by COPPA.
I found out about this from a friend(Hi Scott!) after I submitted the article. He put it best:
"It is classic... misspellings, copy + paste problems...He named rediculous people as defendents, including the brother of one anti spammer, who apparently lives in Italy and doesn't care about spam at all."
My folks' volvo has a turning radius of slightly larger than 30 feet- and it's a full size wagon. Volvos are famous for wide steering angle. It also has exceptional visibility, due to enormous windows all around.
I can parallel-park it in about 6 seconds flat, in ONE move(no forward/backwards business), to within two inches of the curb, provided I've got 12 inches of room.
Some people just don't "get" "how" cars "go" backwards, despite how simple it really is. Of course, I had spent most of my childhood summers driving a outboard motorboat, so I had driving backwards etc down pat(boats are far trickier, since you often have to VERY quickly apply force to stop moving in a particular direction; try parallel parking a boat); trailers are still a little tricky because they have a lot of "conditions" to their movement when going backwards. In all cases, you've got to think about how the car is going to move, and more importantly, where the non-steering end of the car is going to end up based on your actions, because that's most of the game(-especially- with trailers).
You're assuming Napster was doing something illegal, which they weren't. No violation of the law was made further than any other system that indexes files and provides their locations.
Wrong. Your techie-blinders make you think Napster was "just indexing files and providing their locations." The legal world saw a business that:
had complete knowledge that they were facilitating a crime(ie, copyright violation, intellectual theft, etc.)
doing nothing to stop said crime
ENCOURAGING said crime by promoting their business as(surprise!) a music-swapping service.
...had all been told as much by their lawyers and charged ahead regardless
Again, if you want to wear your techie blinders and thumb your nose at authority/the RIAA/the MPAA, fine...but the fact remains that people were violating the law using Napster, Napster knew/did nothing/encouraged it, and their investors supported them and henceforth were accessories.
I find it fascinating that most young people(plenty of whom are over the voting age) get furious when someone challenges their (non-existant, except for Fair Use)"right" to rip off music/movies, but don't blink an eyelid when things like the Patriot Act are passed, a FAR more serious violation of ACTUAL rights. I want to scream into their ears "who gives a SHIT about your music? Look at what they're doing to our FREEDOM!"
I'd like to put something witty here, but I'm just speechless.
As part of the due-diligence, the major investors have publicly stated that they went to their lawyers, and the lawyers advised them to steer clear, because Napster was knowingly letting/encouraging people swap copyrighted material(this knowing/encouraging bit is important.)
They went ahead anyway, because they were greedy- the same reason people threw traditional rules-of-business out the window for countless dot-coms that(surprise) turned into dot-bombs.
Surprise surprise, people come knocking when they hear you funded a company which YOU KNEW(AND HAD BEEN ADVISED BY A LAWYER TO THE SAME EFFECT), WAS ENGAGING IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITY. It's called aiding and abetting, and in this case, the investors knew full well what was going on; it's not like someone was cooking the books and the investors honestly didn't know. EVERYONE at Napster knew they were doing something illegal.
If you want to be all "RIAA/MPAA sucks!", fine- but don't mix up centuries-old legitimate law. If you fund a business you know is a front for a drug operation, are you gonna be "speechless" when the DEA comes and arrests you? Actually, being speechless in such a case might be an excellent idea, particularly given your understanding of legal matters;-)
I still think Mozilla should take a clue from the automotive world, and call it what everyone else calls the Pontiac Firebird(the Screaming/Flaming Chicken- remember the giant decal on the hood?), only with the typical Mozilla twist.
"Introducing Screaming Dinosaur 7.0! Now features a Mullet theme(complete with AC/DC soundtrack) and optional CinderBlock technology, which completely disables the browser(but leaves it on your desktop, along with dozens of useless old documents and applications.)"
I dont get it. Its perfectly legit for my server smtp.example.com to ehlo/helo to you as smtp.example.com and say mail from: me@example.net In fact most ISP's would not be able to send any mail anywhere unless they had a seperate system for each senders domain.
In practice, the tests aren't as simple as I put it out to be- the MX records are checked, basically. If an ISP isn't in the MX records for your domain, they don't have any business sending mail as you. All this stuff about certificates is a bunch of bullshit- DNS is a perfectly acceptable means of authentication, provided people set it up properly so that it can be relied upon to be correct.
While off-topic, I feel the need to point out something about this comment- it's aburdly ignorant. Believe it or not, a LOT of people feel that no car company makes what THEY want, or they want the experience of going through the design process at any of a number of levels, from "simple" modifications to an existing shell, to really wild stuff or completely custom, hand-formed cars. You see this in particular with motorcycles, because they're easier to make from scratch, and of course, motorcycle enthusiasts are famous for wanting something -unique-; plenty of motorcycle guys would cut their throats before stepping into a Honda Civic(or a Honda bike, for that matter.)
There are lots of kit cars available, including my personal favorite, the Caterham R500. It's based off the famous Lotus Super Seven, weighs half a ton, and has 250 HP(hence a 500hp/ton ratio, and hence the name). It -is- a race car(again, it's basically a Lotus Super Seven), you can get it for $40k, and embarass silly almost every production roadcar made on the planet; it hits 60mph in a little over 3 seconds(it is limited top-speed-wise though, it has the high-speed aerodynamics of a brick), and being so light, it'll easily out-corner -every- production car available today; motorcycles are probably the only thing capable of beating it. The fact that you BUILT your car, versus the "poser" in the 911 twin turbo who "just" bought his car, is icing on the I-just-spanked-your-3x-as-expensive-little-toy cake.
In the slightly-less-extreme category, there are those of us who buy old cars and keep them running. I own a 10+ year old Audi that with a few hundred dollars in modifications has 280hp, all wheel drive, 5-speed(these are getting rarer and rarer-dammit, I don't WANT an automatic!) an ENORMOUS amount of interior space and trunk space, gets about 22-24mpg highway, weighs 3600lb(that's VERY light compared to cars its size today- full-size luxury cars nowadays tip the scale at well over 4,000lb- often much more!) It looks like "some old Audi"(nobody will ever steal it.) I get to blow the doors off most everything save the cream of the crop of sports cars. If I ever get bored and have the money, 330hp is about $2-3k around the corner. Almost everything on the car is easy to understand, and occasionally specialized tools are required, but I can repair almost anything myself with enough determination; I also have plenty of parts sources so I can get almost anything quickly and far below what a mechanic/dealer would charge me.
Please. The problem with spammers isn't because SMTP is so weak. The primary cause of the modern deluge of spam is unsecured email servers around the world, allowing senders to spoof their identity and auto-email anyone they happen to have an address for.
Huge amounts of email can be blocked at the server by simply requiring basic checks like seeing if the server hostname resolves to the IP the connection it coming from. Another check is to make sure the hostname in the HELO(after it's been verified to resolve to the right IP) matches the domain in the MAIL FROM command. Ie, you aren't going to be sending me mail as joe@aol.com if you're coming from nowhere.net.cn. Postfix has all of these checks, and more, if you want them, although they start racking up the false rejects pretty quick.
No fancy filters needed or nothin'. The only problem is the huge number of idiotic ISPs and companies which don't have proper DNS set up for their servers. We tried this on our listserve, and it cut spam to the list addresses(and list-admin addresses) down to nothing(and I mean NOTHING. No spam. Nada, zip, zilch), but about 3x a week a subscriber's ISP would have a mail server in their cluster that either didn't have a reverse DNS entry, or even worse, didn't have a REGULAR DNS entry(!) It was pathetic. Some big ISPs were involved, too- and they were usually the ones who gave us the most crap("It's a problem on your end". "Read what I just said. YOU DON'T HAVE ANY DNS SET UP FOR YOUR MAIL SERVER AT IP _____." "It's a problem on your end." etc.- the clueless phone-monkeys always thought we were subscribers trying to send other people, with no DNS, email.) The small and mid-size ISPs were usually very good about this("Oops, wow, thanks for telling us, we just fixed it!") We got tired of dealing with the headaches, even though I suppose we should have kept at it, informing the clueless, one mail server at a time. A better error message would have helped too, as the "your server doesn't have any DNS" made people think that OUR server didn't have any DNS....)
If everyone was better about setting up DNS for their mail servers, and started requiring more stringent checking, spam would grind to a halt because the headers are so obviously fake to a mail server with half a brain about them. It's a real simple rule- you wanna send email? You need a hostname. PERIOD.
The idea is awesome, but I'd want to hear some 'torture-test' stories (like, you know, using it while walking...) from some I-Pod owners before I shell out another $300 USD for something that's about as durable as a lightbulb.
A friend bought an iPod and used it for months during his almost-daily training for the Boston Marathon. Then he ran the marathon with it. It simply went into his pocket- no waist pack or nothin', so it sure got bounced around a lot.
500 WATTS!??! Even if a third of that power actually goes to lasing, thats a really powerful laser!
Calm down....electrical input and lased light output have NOTHING to do with each other.
Most cutting/welding lasers are usually no more than 100W lased light output(and we're talking BIG units here, for cutting thick, strong metals, and doing so quickly). In fact, if you look at the parent company's website for this "junior" unit, you can see they offer modules from 20W to about 60W. I'm guessing the "junior" unit has a 20W supply.
Still, 20W is a lot; around 5mW you're getting power levels capable of doing damage to the eye(this is calculated based on the time it takes for the brain to think "BRIGHT LIGHT!" and for the eyelid to respond; past a certain power level, damage occurs before the brain+eyelid can react).
I wonder how they get around the licensing restrictions on high-power laser systems(yes, believe it or not, over a certain power level, they're 'controlled' devices, given the trouble they can cause.)
However, photography accessories include infrared filters, which may cut down
on quality (hey, what quality???), but enable the bootlegger to continue his
job.
Actually, hot-mirror filters don't really distort image quality at all. A lot of digital camcorders already have 'em, actually; they're just not 100% effective. Anyway, they're regularly used in photography...they don't distort image quality to the extent you'd even begin to notice on, say, a broadcast-quality digital beta camera.
Also, to my knowledge there is no study about the medical effects of
beaming high wattage infrared light right into the eyes of cinema visitors
(including children).
Sure there is- look on the case of and CD drive, and especially on fiber networking gear; nice little warning stickers. IR is just as damaging as visible light. It is -effectively- more dangerous, because your brain doesn't trigger the eyelid to protect the eyeball(this is how lasers are classed- how much damage they do before the brain reacts and the eyelid closes) and/or you can't tell if you're staring right at it.
The only thing you'd notice, if it were dangerous, most likely, would be a pain in your eye, and by then it'd be too late.
"I4U reports about Sharp introducing AQUOS a new line of cordless LCD TV Sets. Sony introduced beginning of April the cordless Sony Vega TV series. Now Sharp introduces their line of cordless TV Sets. The Sharp AQUOS LC-15L1 is a 15" LCD TV set that has no wires."
Ahhh, Slashdot, always pioneering new technology. Slashdot has introduced the just announced, new, previously unknown DupeInStoryText technology! It has duplicates in the story text. You'll note each story text will now contain text similar to the text that preceeded it. If you get a sense of deja-vu, it's because repetitive text is, indeed, in many stories.
They used to pass them out at my grade school actually. Maybe thats where I got my techy-DIY mentallity.
Nah, but I bet it explains your midnight sleepwalking trips to the dump to scavenge for casette tape players, accoustic couplers...and, of course, Tandy Pocket Pagers.
On a serious note- it's pretty sad that Tandy blatantly took advantage of the anti-drug "war" going on to basically brainwash kids...and that teachers and parents didn't see right through it and protest up a storm.
Amusing, but on a more serious note, didn't anyone find the following just the least bit suspicious?
"Benson said the company's motor design is thought to be the largest of its type in the world. It uses clean and inexpensive propellants, namely Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas) and HTPB (tire rubber)."
Burning rubber is -incredibly- toxic. Note the pictures of the rocket firing? Lots of yellow flame(meaning low-temperature, incomplete combustion- watch the shuttle some time, you -can't- really see the flame out of the liquid fuel motors, it's so damn hot) and TONS of thick, thick black smoke?
I tried googling around, and found out that HTPB stands for "hydroxy terminated polybutadiene"- it's commonly used as a binder in normal solid rocket motors, and...oddly enough, it seems Saddam liked HTPB too. Okay, so I'm getting the sense that Space.com grossly oversimplified HTPB as "tire rubber."
The only thing I could find on the "how clean is it?" question was a page detailing various solid rocket fuels. Interesting to note that HTPB is NOT listed under the section titled "fuels that meet clean air requirements", but then again, the whole nitrous bit isn't mentioned either. I'm no rocket scientist:-), so maybe the nitrous oxide gets things goin' enough that everything burns cleanly; it is, afterall, a pretty sweet oxidizer.
I'd personally like to know more about this, as I think the space shuttle needs to be put through some emissions testing. Lots of states require on-dyno testing; imagine dyno-testing that puppy. Maybe NASA can just slip the guy two twenties(it is the space shuttle after all, one twenty probably wouldn't be enough) and get the sticker...
Many people in my office will proudly announce what their password is. Infact sometimes they like to have a good laugh about who has the most simple password. A lot of times they'll spit out their password in a room full of clients.
I turned on strong password authentication when I was promoted.
Now they just leave the passwords on a post-it-note on their monitor and still share it with everyone else.
Don't solve human problems with technical measures. Solve them with human measures. Would you expect the HR department to set up the company network? Then you shouldn't try to control employees. Quick solution to your problem is to:
Approach senior exec, inform him/her of the problem and the risks. Take your time to put your thoughts together and even better down on paper. Point out that a weak password is equivalent to leaving the front door unlocked. Don't get hysterical, don't present unrealistic scenarios about swarms of hackers flooding the company, death/destruction...they can smell BS a mile away.
When asked "what can we do?", request/suggest the HR department create new rule(s) regarding passwords. Include the rules you want about what passwords should/should not be; make sure you're reasonable and don't make stupid rules that only marginally increase security in specific cases.
Make the "what a password should/should not be" policy effective in one week to give people plenty of time to change them. Make effective -immediately- a policy that passwords are not to be written down nor discussed with ANYONE, except IT personnel who have identified themselves in person, and NEVER over the phone or via email.
Make sure it is backed up with a clear consequences and strict punishments(but, say, one 'grace' exception, so nobody looses their job over one slip). Forced leave of absence, followed by termination if repeated...whatever's legal. The HR department will be the best people to decide how to go about this one, since there are often legal issues involved, and keeping employees in line is a problem they deal with every day. All you need to do is say "company secrets" "proprietary information", "potential large-scale data loss", and HR should immediately get the picture.
follow it up with password security audits using password cracker tools...make sure accounts aren't shared by checking logs, and conduct surprise office/cubicle "look around only"(ie, don't touch their stuff, please) inspections, looking for said postit notes. If an employee flunks, a letter goes to their manager and HR immediately. It will not take long for word to get around that you're serious about security.
Problem solved. There is one caveat- you MUST make it easy for them to change their passwords. CLEARLY document how to do it, and even go so far as to set up a time when people can drop by your office/cube and get help changing their password, and you MUST give them proper time for
More like "I-should-stick-to-being-in-every-poll-so-I-dont-p ost-dupes dept."
I am getting VERY tired of the dupes. Seriously- I WANT an answer to this question from one of the Slashdot editors: how hard is it for you people to actually READ(gasp! What a concept!) the site you approve stories for? HUH? How about a new rule: "If you don't read the site, you DON'T APPROVE STORIES."
For a long time you guys have given the impression that you just don't give a shit anymore. One clear message was when you guys spun off that "meetup.com" thing, encouraged us all to participate in "slashdot day", and then you guys fuckin' didn't even SHOW UP because you had "other plans". What gives? It was, in fact, one of the first things we talked about at our local slashdot meeting.
If you don't care, here's a clue: find someone who DOES, and hand the site over to them, or just pick some new editors. If you do care, tell us what you're going to do to fix the problem- I'm sure, being the incredibly bright and talented people, that you can think of SOMETHING.
Oh, and while you're at it, add a "Mitnick" category, so all of us, who DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT MITNICK, can filter out the stories.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait, lemme guess- that "narrowly-defined" definition of "spammer" will not include internet service providers advertising their services, nor companies the ISPs have paid to spam their subscribers?
My grandmother got porno spam within 2-3 days of her MSN "internet appliance" getting set up, and it had a very unusual account name(with numbers in it, too)- no dictionary atttack hit this one. She hadn't even figured out how to surf the web yet. Wanna guess who sold out her email address? First 3 guesses don't count.
Years ago I added a whole 32 or 64MB of ram(I can't remember which) to my 660AV, and it was enough to do a couple of interesting things(ie, have enough left over to run applications 'n stuff :) One was load the ROM into RAM, which sped up things dramatically, since so much of MacOS was ROM-call based(remember the Toolbox?). Back in the day, that was a big deal; now's pretty common-place. The second thing was I could start up(and run) the system off a ramdisk, if I got the system folder small enough(that became easier as memory prices dropped etc.)
I booted my 660AV that way- timed it at 6 seconds flat, from when the bootloader started to when the system stopped loading the finder etc. That's faster than the time from when Lilo starts decompressing the kernel to when init gets launched on my 1.4ghz athlon.
This seems like a good idea- it may at least partially address the "gotta pound every nail" argument toted by so many lawyers to justify themselves(I do honestly believe that many execs don't LIKE following the legal advice given to them, but do so only because they're not given any other options save "ignore it") Better yet, the lawyers still get to justify themselves by drawing up the contract etc.
Shouldn't be $50 though- if the company that owns the trademark wants to make a fuss to the Little Guy, the burden should be on the trademark holder as much as possible- make it $1(a typical symbolic amount), and for everyone's trouble, buy the Little Guys lunch, give them a little money for a trust, donate a work of art, etc...you get the idea.
Why not celebrate clever usage of your company's name(hey, it's publicity after all, right?) that has no clear danger to you, while still covering your ass? Gotta be a way to do both.
I just wanted to comment here on my submission, since I try to keep 'em as short/to the point as possible(by the way, apologies for the earlier goofs in my story submissions, doh! Hopefully got this one right!)
As I said in the submission, this isn't the first time Intel has gone after people, though some of the cited examples are better than others; for example, there's the "FACE" guy, who was basically harassing 27,000 Intel employees via email...but on the other hand, there's cases like Intel going after a Yoga group. There were a few cases I didn't list, like the case against a company making "Yoda Inside" stickers. That's a clear spoof, but a better case than a bunch of artists with a little art gallery.
IANAL, but I could swear one of the key issues in trademark cases is whether a)there will be damage to the trademark holder from b)confusion with the trademark holder. Ie, someone thinks I'm Intel and I sell computers, and Intel looses money off that(or it's reasonably forseeable that they will.)
The FACE site in particular burns me- for example, they harp on Intel employee suicides; FACE sees conspiracies everywhere, it seems, and they take a perfectly acceptable letter from management to employees(listing places employees can get help, and encouraging employees to think about each other) and talk nothing but trash about it. About the only thing that's truly interesting(and relevant to my submission) on their site is their compiled list of all the trademarks Intel has registered...which, unfortunately, I can't find now for the life of me. It had some amusing stuff, like trademark registrations in the cooking/household appliance sector, leather goods, etc...really weird stuff.
Still, I think it all boils down to the all-too-prevalent attitude among corporate legal departments- mainly, if you let one little thing through, it sets you up for getting whammed by a bigger fish who points to the little case, and says "Why didn't you fight THEM? Hmm?"
My motivation for submitting this story was that I wanted to get this as much publicity as possible- and maybe, if the negative PR outweighs the perceived benefit of "smacking down every case for the sake of precidence", Intel will back down and leave 'em alone. Let's make some fuss, spread the word...
No, but I've got a patent on posting humorous content about Jeff Bezos on an online forum, so I'll be seein' you in court, bub!
Or, if the status quo is any indication of what things would be like in the future, there simply won't be pollution control...because, according to the companies owning the plants- gosh darn it, it's expensive, and it'll only raise prices for consumers and hurt the economy!
The one thing hydrogen does is get the "nasty stuff" out of sight of the end-user, and as we all know, out of sight- out of mind.
The major problem with hydrogen is just as the original poster said- it's -very- energy intensive to produce. Cracking water into hydrogen and oxygen requires enormous amounts of power. To make the problem worse, alternative energy sources like solar power are incredibly inefficient themselves(solar panels top out at I think 20% efficiency, tops?)
There's also the almost-completely-unfounded public fear of hydrogen, despite it being safer(it is lighter than air and disperses almost instantly unlike gasoline, which sinks/pools...requires higher concentrations than gasoline to ignite...is completely non-toxic whereas gasoline is carcinogenic...)
Two words- population density. Remember, Japan is a fraction of the size of the US; US providers have to deal with the expense of all the areas where population density is much, much less(except in very concentrated areas); the guys in the city may be cheap to wire up, but the guys out in the burbs cost a small fortune(and there's fewer of 'em.) You can't, for the most part, charge drastically different rates- the city people subsidize the suburbs.
Besides, a large percentage of the US is perfectly happy with dialup...
Not really, because we won't be able to tell what's actually true and what isn't, so you pretty much have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because you can't tell the difference; it might as well all have a giant "FICTION" stamp on it. Even the non-anonymous weblogs can be complete BS, this is worse.
There are practical matters here- think about it. How's a "Chinese dissident" going to prove he's really a Chinese dissident, without exposing his identity in the process? Hell, half the time people are caught because they reveal information or details only they(or a select group) knew.
They're for PARENTS. The only people who can use Amazon are people with CREDIT CARDS, and that rules out most anybody even close to being protected by COPPA.
I found out about this from a friend(Hi Scott!) after I submitted the article. He put it best:
"It is classic... misspellings, copy + paste problems...He named rediculous people as defendents, including the brother of one anti spammer, who apparently lives in Italy and doesn't care about spam at all."
http://chickenboner.com/felstein/slapp.pdf
My folks' volvo has a turning radius of slightly larger than 30 feet- and it's a full size wagon. Volvos are famous for wide steering angle. It also has exceptional visibility, due to enormous windows all around.
I can parallel-park it in about 6 seconds flat, in ONE move(no forward/backwards business), to within two inches of the curb, provided I've got 12 inches of room.
Some people just don't "get" "how" cars "go" backwards, despite how simple it really is. Of course, I had spent most of my childhood summers driving a outboard motorboat, so I had driving backwards etc down pat(boats are far trickier, since you often have to VERY quickly apply force to stop moving in a particular direction; try parallel parking a boat); trailers are still a little tricky because they have a lot of "conditions" to their movement when going backwards. In all cases, you've got to think about how the car is going to move, and more importantly, where the non-steering end of the car is going to end up based on your actions, because that's most of the game(-especially- with trailers).
Wrong. Your techie-blinders make you think Napster was "just indexing files and providing their locations." The legal world saw a business that:
Again, if you want to wear your techie blinders and thumb your nose at authority/the RIAA/the MPAA, fine...but the fact remains that people were violating the law using Napster, Napster knew/did nothing/encouraged it, and their investors supported them and henceforth were accessories.
I find it fascinating that most young people(plenty of whom are over the voting age) get furious when someone challenges their (non-existant, except for Fair Use)"right" to rip off music/movies, but don't blink an eyelid when things like the Patriot Act are passed, a FAR more serious violation of ACTUAL rights. I want to scream into their ears "who gives a SHIT about your music? Look at what they're doing to our FREEDOM!"
As part of the due-diligence, the major investors have publicly stated that they went to their lawyers, and the lawyers advised them to steer clear, because Napster was knowingly letting/encouraging people swap copyrighted material(this knowing/encouraging bit is important.)
They went ahead anyway, because they were greedy- the same reason people threw traditional rules-of-business out the window for countless dot-coms that(surprise) turned into dot-bombs.
Surprise surprise, people come knocking when they hear you funded a company which YOU KNEW(AND HAD BEEN ADVISED BY A LAWYER TO THE SAME EFFECT), WAS ENGAGING IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITY. It's called aiding and abetting, and in this case, the investors knew full well what was going on; it's not like someone was cooking the books and the investors honestly didn't know. EVERYONE at Napster knew they were doing something illegal.
If you want to be all "RIAA/MPAA sucks!", fine- but don't mix up centuries-old legitimate law. If you fund a business you know is a front for a drug operation, are you gonna be "speechless" when the DEA comes and arrests you? Actually, being speechless in such a case might be an excellent idea, particularly given your understanding of legal matters ;-)
I still think Mozilla should take a clue from the automotive world, and call it what everyone else calls the Pontiac Firebird(the Screaming/Flaming Chicken- remember the giant decal on the hood?), only with the typical Mozilla twist.
"Introducing Screaming Dinosaur 7.0! Now features a Mullet theme(complete with AC/DC soundtrack) and optional CinderBlock technology, which completely disables the browser(but leaves it on your desktop, along with dozens of useless old documents and applications.)"
In practice, the tests aren't as simple as I put it out to be- the MX records are checked, basically. If an ISP isn't in the MX records for your domain, they don't have any business sending mail as you. All this stuff about certificates is a bunch of bullshit- DNS is a perfectly acceptable means of authentication, provided people set it up properly so that it can be relied upon to be correct.
While off-topic, I feel the need to point out something about this comment- it's aburdly ignorant. Believe it or not, a LOT of people feel that no car company makes what THEY want, or they want the experience of going through the design process at any of a number of levels, from "simple" modifications to an existing shell, to really wild stuff or completely custom, hand-formed cars. You see this in particular with motorcycles, because they're easier to make from scratch, and of course, motorcycle enthusiasts are famous for wanting something -unique-; plenty of motorcycle guys would cut their throats before stepping into a Honda Civic(or a Honda bike, for that matter.)
There are lots of kit cars available, including my personal favorite, the Caterham R500. It's based off the famous Lotus Super Seven, weighs half a ton, and has 250 HP(hence a 500hp/ton ratio, and hence the name). It -is- a race car(again, it's basically a Lotus Super Seven), you can get it for $40k, and embarass silly almost every production roadcar made on the planet; it hits 60mph in a little over 3 seconds(it is limited top-speed-wise though, it has the high-speed aerodynamics of a brick), and being so light, it'll easily out-corner -every- production car available today; motorcycles are probably the only thing capable of beating it. The fact that you BUILT your car, versus the "poser" in the 911 twin turbo who "just" bought his car, is icing on the I-just-spanked-your-3x-as-expensive-little-toy cake.
In the slightly-less-extreme category, there are those of us who buy old cars and keep them running. I own a 10+ year old Audi that with a few hundred dollars in modifications has 280hp, all wheel drive, 5-speed(these are getting rarer and rarer-dammit, I don't WANT an automatic!) an ENORMOUS amount of interior space and trunk space, gets about 22-24mpg highway, weighs 3600lb(that's VERY light compared to cars its size today- full-size luxury cars nowadays tip the scale at well over 4,000lb- often much more!) It looks like "some old Audi"(nobody will ever steal it.) I get to blow the doors off most everything save the cream of the crop of sports cars. If I ever get bored and have the money, 330hp is about $2-3k around the corner. Almost everything on the car is easy to understand, and occasionally specialized tools are required, but I can repair almost anything myself with enough determination; I also have plenty of parts sources so I can get almost anything quickly and far below what a mechanic/dealer would charge me.
Huge amounts of email can be blocked at the server by simply requiring basic checks like seeing if the server hostname resolves to the IP the connection it coming from. Another check is to make sure the hostname in the HELO(after it's been verified to resolve to the right IP) matches the domain in the MAIL FROM command. Ie, you aren't going to be sending me mail as joe@aol.com if you're coming from nowhere.net.cn. Postfix has all of these checks, and more, if you want them, although they start racking up the false rejects pretty quick.
No fancy filters needed or nothin'. The only problem is the huge number of idiotic ISPs and companies which don't have proper DNS set up for their servers. We tried this on our listserve, and it cut spam to the list addresses(and list-admin addresses) down to nothing(and I mean NOTHING. No spam. Nada, zip, zilch), but about 3x a week a subscriber's ISP would have a mail server in their cluster that either didn't have a reverse DNS entry, or even worse, didn't have a REGULAR DNS entry(!) It was pathetic. Some big ISPs were involved, too- and they were usually the ones who gave us the most crap("It's a problem on your end". "Read what I just said. YOU DON'T HAVE ANY DNS SET UP FOR YOUR MAIL SERVER AT IP _____." "It's a problem on your end." etc.- the clueless phone-monkeys always thought we were subscribers trying to send other people, with no DNS, email.) The small and mid-size ISPs were usually very good about this("Oops, wow, thanks for telling us, we just fixed it!") We got tired of dealing with the headaches, even though I suppose we should have kept at it, informing the clueless, one mail server at a time. A better error message would have helped too, as the "your server doesn't have any DNS" made people think that OUR server didn't have any DNS....)
If everyone was better about setting up DNS for their mail servers, and started requiring more stringent checking, spam would grind to a halt because the headers are so obviously fake to a mail server with half a brain about them. It's a real simple rule- you wanna send email? You need a hostname. PERIOD.
A friend bought an iPod and used it for months during his almost-daily training for the Boston Marathon. Then he ran the marathon with it. It simply went into his pocket- no waist pack or nothin', so it sure got bounced around a lot.
That good enough? :-)
Calm down....electrical input and lased light output have NOTHING to do with each other.
Most cutting/welding lasers are usually no more than 100W lased light output(and we're talking BIG units here, for cutting thick, strong metals, and doing so quickly). In fact, if you look at the parent company's website for this "junior" unit, you can see they offer modules from 20W to about 60W. I'm guessing the "junior" unit has a 20W supply.
Still, 20W is a lot; around 5mW you're getting power levels capable of doing damage to the eye(this is calculated based on the time it takes for the brain to think "BRIGHT LIGHT!" and for the eyelid to respond; past a certain power level, damage occurs before the brain+eyelid can react).
I wonder how they get around the licensing restrictions on high-power laser systems(yes, believe it or not, over a certain power level, they're 'controlled' devices, given the trouble they can cause.)
Actually, hot-mirror filters don't really distort image quality at all. A lot of digital camcorders already have 'em, actually; they're just not 100% effective. Anyway, they're regularly used in photography...they don't distort image quality to the extent you'd even begin to notice on, say, a broadcast-quality digital beta camera.
Also, to my knowledge there is no study about the medical effects of beaming high wattage infrared light right into the eyes of cinema visitors (including children).
Sure there is- look on the case of and CD drive, and especially on fiber networking gear; nice little warning stickers. IR is just as damaging as visible light. It is -effectively- more dangerous, because your brain doesn't trigger the eyelid to protect the eyeball(this is how lasers are classed- how much damage they do before the brain reacts and the eyelid closes) and/or you can't tell if you're staring right at it.
The only thing you'd notice, if it were dangerous, most likely, would be a pain in your eye, and by then it'd be too late.
Ahhh, Slashdot, always pioneering new technology. Slashdot has introduced the just announced, new, previously unknown DupeInStoryText technology! It has duplicates in the story text. You'll note each story text will now contain text similar to the text that preceeded it. If you get a sense of deja-vu, it's because repetitive text is, indeed, in many stories.
Nah, but I bet it explains your midnight sleepwalking trips to the dump to scavenge for casette tape players, accoustic couplers...and, of course, Tandy Pocket Pagers.
On a serious note- it's pretty sad that Tandy blatantly took advantage of the anti-drug "war" going on to basically brainwash kids...and that teachers and parents didn't see right through it and protest up a storm.
Amusing, but on a more serious note, didn't anyone find the following just the least bit suspicious?
"Benson said the company's motor design is thought to be the largest of its type in the world. It uses clean and inexpensive propellants, namely Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas) and HTPB (tire rubber)."
Burning rubber is -incredibly- toxic. Note the pictures of the rocket firing? Lots of yellow flame(meaning low-temperature, incomplete combustion- watch the shuttle some time, you -can't- really see the flame out of the liquid fuel motors, it's so damn hot) and TONS of thick, thick black smoke?
I tried googling around, and found out that HTPB stands for "hydroxy terminated polybutadiene"- it's commonly used as a binder in normal solid rocket motors, and...oddly enough, it seems Saddam liked HTPB too. Okay, so I'm getting the sense that Space.com grossly oversimplified HTPB as "tire rubber."
The only thing I could find on the "how clean is it?" question was a page detailing various solid rocket fuels. Interesting to note that HTPB is NOT listed under the section titled "fuels that meet clean air requirements", but then again, the whole nitrous bit isn't mentioned either. I'm no rocket scientist :-), so maybe the nitrous oxide gets things goin' enough that everything burns cleanly; it is, afterall, a pretty sweet oxidizer.
I'd personally like to know more about this, as I think the space shuttle needs to be put through some emissions testing. Lots of states require on-dyno testing; imagine dyno-testing that puppy. Maybe NASA can just slip the guy two twenties(it is the space shuttle after all, one twenty probably wouldn't be enough) and get the sticker...
I turned on strong password authentication when I was promoted.
Now they just leave the passwords on a post-it-note on their monitor and still share it with everyone else.
Don't solve human problems with technical measures. Solve them with human measures. Would you expect the HR department to set up the company network? Then you shouldn't try to control employees. Quick solution to your problem is to:
Problem solved. There is one caveat- you MUST make it easy for them to change their passwords. CLEARLY document how to do it, and even go so far as to set up a time when people can drop by your office/cube and get help changing their password, and you MUST give them proper time for
More like "I-should-stick-to-being-in-every-poll-so-I-dont-p ost-dupes dept."
I am getting VERY tired of the dupes. Seriously- I WANT an answer to this question from one of the Slashdot editors: how hard is it for you people to actually READ(gasp! What a concept!) the site you approve stories for? HUH? How about a new rule: "If you don't read the site, you DON'T APPROVE STORIES."
For a long time you guys have given the impression that you just don't give a shit anymore. One clear message was when you guys spun off that "meetup.com" thing, encouraged us all to participate in "slashdot day", and then you guys fuckin' didn't even SHOW UP because you had "other plans". What gives? It was, in fact, one of the first things we talked about at our local slashdot meeting.
If you don't care, here's a clue: find someone who DOES, and hand the site over to them, or just pick some new editors. If you do care, tell us what you're going to do to fix the problem- I'm sure, being the incredibly bright and talented people, that you can think of SOMETHING.
Oh, and while you're at it, add a "Mitnick" category, so all of us, who DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT MITNICK, can filter out the stories.