I think this whole Simputer deal was all about deceptive marketing by a company to get their name out. They touted a cheap computer for the poor and got a lot of media attention. They came up with an expensive PDA and their name got quite well publicized in the bargain
I never said anyone would have an easier time patching Linux. In fact, I think an average person would be even more vulnerable with Linux if they unknowingly do a super-mega-server install and keep all ports open. I just picked XP because that's what a majority of novice users use. The OS makers need to start being a little more aware of the fact that most of their users aren't experts at downloading and applying patches, setting up firewalls, etc.
This guy needs a reality check. A majority of computer users are dumb. When they get OSes like XP, they have absolutely no idea how to secure it. The problem lies in the OS and not in the user.
My point was there would be no diversity of opinion if all the news is from one source. And, that is what would happen if there are no controls on media takeovers and one company takes over everything.
This is great news. I was dreading Fox News spewing their bile everywhere. If Rupert Murdoch is legally allowed to take over all the media, he WILL. It would have been an Orwellian disaster (it's close to it already) if this wasn't voted down.
Fixing Compulsory Licensing In a previous post I dashed the world's hopes for a viable compulsory licensing system, no matter how attractive one might seem. Luckily for the world, I'm back to explain how to make a compulsory licensing system that doesn't run into any of those problems using... cryptography!
(To review, the idea for our compulsory licensing system is this: we tax Internet connections and CD/DVD burners a small amount and send the money to the artists. In exchange, they let us download their songs and movies off the Internet. The problem is how to decide which artists should get the money without losing privacy, accuracy, or security.)
Here's the key to my proposal: when you pay the tax you get a vote.
So when you buy a CD or DVD burner, it comes with a short string (a random-looking series of letters and numbers) to type into your computer. (The strings are given to the manufacturers by the government when they pay the tax.) When you pay the bill for your Internet connection, you're emailed another such string. (The string from your email can be handled automatically, and the one in the CD burner box could be made relatively easy to type in.)
The string is a digital gift certificate, worth however much the tax you paid was, but only spendable on donations to artists. Once your computer has the string, it looks at all the songs you've listened to and decides what songs to spend your gift certificate money on. (It knows what you listen to because it's built in to your MP3 player.) If you've listened to one Britney Spears song day and night for the past month and nothing else, it will give all your money to Britney. If you listen to a variety of independent bands, it will split your money among them. (Advanced users can of course customize how their money will be spent, but it's simpler to have the computer choose automatically by default.)
The result is sent anonymously to the government using the string. (The strings will be unique enough that it will be nearly impossible to guess a correct one.) The government checks this against the list of strings they gave out and the list of strings that have already been used to make sure that it's legitimate, and then credits the appropriate accounts.
Does this solve all the problems? Yes, it's private. The strings are received and sent anonymously. ("But wait," you say, "the Internet providers know who gets what string." OK, if you're really paranoid a solution to this is explained below.) The government can't connect you with your vote.
Yes, it's accurate. The money goes to the artists that the people like and want to support, as chosen by the people themselves. There are a few edge cases. For example, if everyone listens to but hates Jerry Falwell, they might choose not to give him any money, even though they've taken advantage of his work. I think this is an acceptable problem -- the majority of people won't bother to change the defaults and even if they do, hey, it's their money.
Yes, it's secure. The amount of money you have control over is equal to the amount of money you paid in taxes, so the worst-case scenario is that you get your tax money back. There is a chance that everyone will give all their money to themselves, but this can be prevented by only paying out to accounts that meet some higher threshold of cash.
Q: Won't artists will offer to buy people's gift certificates for cash? The artist can spend the gift certificate on themselves and recover their money. (Seth Schoen)
A: The government could make such behavior against the terms of service for having an artist account. To be successful, any such operation would have to be publicized. The government could keep an eye out for such things, send the operator a known gift certificate, see whose account it went into, and shut down the account
Q: Can't operators use this to shut down the account of someone they don't like?
A: The government gift certificate would be indistinguishable from a normal one, s
Hope every Linux vendor in the world sues SCO.. Linux users should start suing SCO too. When lawyers from IBM, Redhat, 100s of Linux users, etc start overwhelming SCO with lawsuits, maybe they'll run out of money and cease to exist. They will not be missed
P2P is not used just for piracy. P2P is used to download the latest Linux kernel, the Matrix preview when the official site was slashdotted, etc. It might stop having millions of users downloading copyrighted stuff, but it will always exist, and will be extremely useful to a lot of people involved in legal activities.
If I were an IT manager, this is exactly what I would do. It is a cheaper option and more secure IF the administrator knows what he is doing.
I would still keep Windows clients for the marketing and sales people so that they can create powerpoint presentations and smear bullshit everywhere to sell stuff
It's called capitalism. It works. Get used to it. If offshoring makes sense, companies will do it. If it does not make sense, they will not do it. That's how it works. Engineers don't know anything about finance. That's why most successful companies don't have engineers talking about finance. I'm just posting this pre-emptively before a bunch of engineers start talking about the finances of offshoring. And, yes I'm an engineer too.
Hybrid vehicles seem to be getting a lot better. Initially, they looked boxy and shitty. But now, there are a lot more options.. For example, the hybrid Honda Civic seems to be pretty good.
The only purpose to this article is so that a bunch of Whiners can rant, rave and get cardiac arrests over Indians. The law in most places is that you have to give preference to citizens over foreign nationals with equivalent skills. If the US has a bunch of lawyers who can convince the government that certain foreign nationals have unique skills, it's not the fault of some other country.
get broadband. This will definitely help places that still don't have broadband. But, if broadband is available, it's a no-brainer. I'd rather spend a few bucks more and get broadband, rather than be stuck with some kind of software that may or may not speed up the access depending on what it is.
I think the question here is not about whether there is common code between SCO and Linux. There is no doubt that there will be common code because of the common origins. The issue here is that SCO does not own that code.
The relationship between the government and the people seems to be more like the relationship between a shareholder and a company. You technically have a say if you are a shareholder, but if you own only 1 share, no one gives a shit.
In the case of government, it's money instead of shares.
er.. they have plenty about China and many other countries if you followed the links and read a little:
http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/phr2003/countries/china.htm
More nonsense from the media to generate hyped headlines so that retards buy their newspaper. They're not suing the 12 yr old.. they're suing the person responsible for the internet connection. The headline is entirely misleading.
While solar, wind and tidal power look very attractive, they suffer from the problem of being at the mercy of nature. That is not the case with nuclear power. All you have to do is replace fuel rods once in a while and you get emission-free, clean power. There is the issue of disposing nuclear waste, but I'm confident that issue will also be dealt with as technology advances.
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The Moon is just a drawing. It was drawn by God on the sky (which is just a dome shaped thingie) when the earth was created 6000 years ago.
I think this whole Simputer deal was all about deceptive marketing by a company to get their name out. They touted a cheap computer for the poor and got a lot of media attention. They came up with an expensive PDA and their name got quite well publicized in the bargain
I never said anyone would have an easier time patching Linux. In fact, I think an average person would be even more vulnerable with Linux if they unknowingly do a super-mega-server install and keep all ports open. I just picked XP because that's what a majority of novice users use. The OS makers need to start being a little more aware of the fact that most of their users aren't experts at downloading and applying patches, setting up firewalls, etc.
This guy needs a reality check. A majority of computer users are dumb. When they get OSes like XP, they have absolutely no idea how to secure it. The problem lies in the OS and not in the user.
My point was there would be no diversity of opinion if all the news is from one source. And, that is what would happen if there are no controls on media takeovers and one company takes over everything.
This is great news. I was dreading Fox News spewing their bile everywhere. If Rupert Murdoch is legally allowed to take over all the media, he WILL. It would have been an Orwellian disaster (it's close to it already) if this wasn't voted down.
Fixing Compulsory Licensing
In a previous post I dashed the world's hopes for a viable compulsory licensing system, no matter how attractive one might seem. Luckily for the world, I'm back to explain how to make a compulsory licensing system that doesn't run into any of those problems using... cryptography!
(To review, the idea for our compulsory licensing system is this: we tax Internet connections and CD/DVD burners a small amount and send the money to the artists. In exchange, they let us download their songs and movies off the Internet. The problem is how to decide which artists should get the money without losing privacy, accuracy, or security.)
Here's the key to my proposal: when you pay the tax you get a vote.
So when you buy a CD or DVD burner, it comes with a short string (a random-looking series of letters and numbers) to type into your computer. (The strings are given to the manufacturers by the government when they pay the tax.) When you pay the bill for your Internet connection, you're emailed another such string. (The string from your email can be handled automatically, and the one in the CD burner box could be made relatively easy to type in.)
The string is a digital gift certificate, worth however much the tax you paid was, but only spendable on donations to artists. Once your computer has the string, it looks at all the songs you've listened to and decides what songs to spend your gift certificate money on. (It knows what you listen to because it's built in to your MP3 player.) If you've listened to one Britney Spears song day and night for the past month and nothing else, it will give all your money to Britney. If you listen to a variety of independent bands, it will split your money among them. (Advanced users can of course customize how their money will be spent, but it's simpler to have the computer choose automatically by default.)
The result is sent anonymously to the government using the string. (The strings will be unique enough that it will be nearly impossible to guess a correct one.) The government checks this against the list of strings they gave out and the list of strings that have already been used to make sure that it's legitimate, and then credits the appropriate accounts.
Does this solve all the problems?
Yes, it's private. The strings are received and sent anonymously. ("But wait," you say, "the Internet providers know who gets what string." OK, if you're really paranoid a solution to this is explained below.) The government can't connect you with your vote.
Yes, it's accurate. The money goes to the artists that the people like and want to support, as chosen by the people themselves. There are a few edge cases. For example, if everyone listens to but hates Jerry Falwell, they might choose not to give him any money, even though they've taken advantage of his work. I think this is an acceptable problem -- the majority of people won't bother to change the defaults and even if they do, hey, it's their money.
Yes, it's secure. The amount of money you have control over is equal to the amount of money you paid in taxes, so the worst-case scenario is that you get your tax money back. There is a chance that everyone will give all their money to themselves, but this can be prevented by only paying out to accounts that meet some higher threshold of cash.
Q: Won't artists will offer to buy people's gift certificates for cash? The artist can spend the gift certificate on themselves and recover their money. (Seth Schoen)
A: The government could make such behavior against the terms of service for having an artist account. To be successful, any such operation would have to be publicized. The government could keep an eye out for such things, send the operator a known gift certificate, see whose account it went into, and shut down the account
Q: Can't operators use this to shut down the account of someone they don't like?
A: The government gift certificate would be indistinguishable from a normal one, s
Hope this develops ultimately into a holodeck. Playing quake in a holodeck will be a lot more fun
Hope every Linux vendor in the world sues SCO.. Linux users should start suing SCO too. When lawyers from IBM, Redhat, 100s of Linux users, etc start overwhelming SCO with lawsuits, maybe they'll run out of money and cease to exist. They will not be missed
Get a real computer! Seriously.. X-Box is a game machine and you accepted an agreement to update the software in it by just using it.
P2P is not used just for piracy. P2P is used to download the latest Linux kernel, the Matrix preview when the official site was slashdotted, etc. It might stop having millions of users downloading copyrighted stuff, but it will always exist, and will be extremely useful to a lot of people involved in legal activities.
oops.. I apologise for saying marketing and sales people
If I were an IT manager, this is exactly what I would do. It is a cheaper option and more secure IF the administrator knows what he is doing. I would still keep Windows clients for the marketing and sales people so that they can create powerpoint presentations and smear bullshit everywhere to sell stuff
Seems more like a problem with the management than a problem with the farming out.
It's called capitalism. It works. Get used to it. If offshoring makes sense, companies will do it. If it does not make sense, they will not do it. That's how it works. Engineers don't know anything about finance. That's why most successful companies don't have engineers talking about finance. I'm just posting this pre-emptively before a bunch of engineers start talking about the finances of offshoring. And, yes I'm an engineer too.
A taskforce to survive power outages.... Lets show the world that we are stronger than ice-cream.
Hybrid vehicles seem to be getting a lot better. Initially, they looked boxy and shitty. But now, there are a lot more options.. For example, the hybrid Honda Civic seems to be pretty good.
The only purpose to this article is so that a bunch of Whiners can rant, rave and get cardiac arrests over Indians. The law in most places is that you have to give preference to citizens over foreign nationals with equivalent skills. If the US has a bunch of lawyers who can convince the government that certain foreign nationals have unique skills, it's not the fault of some other country.
get broadband. This will definitely help places that still don't have broadband. But, if broadband is available, it's a no-brainer. I'd rather spend a few bucks more and get broadband, rather than be stuck with some kind of software that may or may not speed up the access depending on what it is.
I think the question here is not about whether there is common code between SCO and Linux. There is no doubt that there will be common code because of the common origins. The issue here is that SCO does not own that code.
E-books aren't popular because they are inconvenient. Have you ever tried reading in a bathtub or on your toilet seat with an e-book?
The relationship between the government and the people seems to be more like the relationship between a shareholder and a company. You technically have a say if you are a shareholder, but if you own only 1 share, no one gives a shit. In the case of government, it's money instead of shares.
er.. they have plenty about China and many other countries if you followed the links and read a little: http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/phr2003 /countries/china.htm
More nonsense from the media to generate hyped headlines so that retards buy their newspaper. They're not suing the 12 yr old.. they're suing the person responsible for the internet connection. The headline is entirely misleading.
While solar, wind and tidal power look very attractive, they suffer from the problem of being at the mercy of nature. That is not the case with nuclear power. All you have to do is replace fuel rods once in a while and you get emission-free, clean power. There is the issue of disposing nuclear waste, but I'm confident that issue will also be dealt with as technology advances.