One believes this kind of fake files will only add burden to the internet, as users will just download one fake file after another until they got a hit.
The other believes that such annoyance will put most people off, because the total time/cost it takes to acquire something is now higher than the actual product.
What will hurt P2P is how hard finding a good network is. Kaaza is filled with spyware, and half the stuff on there is not good. There are lawsuits all over the place, it is not worth it. Bit Torrent, which was nice, is also under attack by the RIAA. You get better files with Bit Torrent, less of the fakes, people sharing seem to check their files. But torrent websites are going down, at least the well known ones.
What I think will be the next wave will be private P2P, by invitation only. It will be a group of friends sharing their music and files. It will be closed to outsiders, so the only people aware are friends.
But even if there is a private P2P, with only a group of friends who know each other, will the RIAA be able to scan the internet, looking for their files? Will they go after friends sharing music the same way they would go after strangers sharing music?
I wonder why people who use P2P don't help each other out a little more. For example, you have someone with 200 files shared. They are downloading and sharing at the same time. Sometimes they download a bad file, and share it. It would make more sense to have a "unchecked" folder for downloads, then more it to the "checked" folder to share.
What is neat, or not so neat depending on your point of view, are music files which deteriorate after a while. I don't know how they are made, but I have listened to music that sounds pretty good, but after the 10th playing it starts skipping. Or it could be those skips are not very noticable when first played, but once identified, they become annoying.
"How secret is it, not even you elected Senators can gain access."
Civilians are normally denied access to secure military areas. I'm sure your Senator wouldn't be allowed to wander around the Pentagon either, but I can't regard this as evidence of a big secret conspiracy.
God forbid if Senators knew the truth, if they could look around. What good is the Senators vote if they can't get access?
We have the new Patriot Act which gives the executive branch, the FBI and other agencies great new powers. They can listen in to any citizen, anywhere, without a warrent, for any reason. But our own Senators can't look around the Pentagon, they can't go to Area 51?
So, if YOU were ELECTED to the United States Senate, and were entrusted with the power of your office, to protect your constituents, and you requested to see Area 51 and were denied, you would be okay with that? Don't you have an ABSOLUTE right to know the truth, to see it with your own eyes? For god sake, you were ELECTED, and not some dopey office like mayor, but a person who can vote for war.
Then again, the whole Congress, both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate were lied to about Iraq, about wepons of mass destruction. Not one peep out of the senior membership. Obviously, they are under the control of someone, some agency. I wish I knew which agency, and how, but I am sure the truth is out there.
There is a reason why chemistry and physics professors weed out 70% of their students in first year classes. They want parrots, people who don't think. They want the ones who can memorize, and the science program sucks up their 20's.
Science professors don't want the guy with the used copy of Jack Kerouac "On The Road" showing up in their classes, asking questions like "explain to me again how you know there is a nuon and gluon in there?". I was in physics 100 and asked the professor the most simple question when we were talking about classical mechanics versus modern ideas. I asked "What is gravity, what is pulling me down". The teacher, who was a gifted artist, drew a picture on the blackboard of Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff and said "he never should have chased road runner.
Look people, for the HISTORY of mankind, those in power lied to everyone else. Gallileo was put in jail because of what he knew. Countless others were executed.
Today the system is different. Only the "right" kind of people are allowed to study physics. Once they get their PhD, they are admitted to the club, told it was all bullshit, and given a stipend to keep quiet. That is the system!!
We have never left this planet. We have never been in space. All those shuttle launches just flew out of sight. It is all a hoax.
I have proof. In the 2002 playboy, NFL running back Marshall Faulk dispells all the myths about landing on the moon. We were in an arms race, and the US government turned to hollywood insiders to produce films that made it appear we were more advanced than the USSR, in a hopes the USSR economy would implode. Think about it, this is a football player poking holes in the NASA propoganda.
According to Faulk, there is no wind on the moon. But if you look at the picture of the two astronots with the flag, there is a breeze shown in the picture.
If you look at many of the pictures taken while on the moon, you will notice no stars. That is because all these pictures were taken indoors, in a studio in hollywood.
There is also a picture of a rock on the moon with the letter "C" on it. Obviously, every rock in the studio was lettered and was meticulously put in place.
Now the truth is, we are not alone in the universe. Aliens have visited earth, and we even have one of their spaceships. It is kept in Area 51, in the Nevada desert at a top secret Air Force base. How secret is it, not even you elected Senators can gain access. Before his death, US Senator Paul Simon asked for all information about area 51, his request was denied. He traveled to the gates of the compound with another senator, a US Army General, and 3 memebers of congress, and they were all turned away at gunpoint. Furthermore, the people who work there are not regular Air Force enlisted and officers. They all come from a seperate agency, on the public does not know about.
I'll leave one more bone to chew on. If NASA could make a space ship, fly it to the moon, develop suits for astronots to be protected from extremem heat and cold, along with radiation, how come the camera's they took with them are all so shitty? The video is horrible. It is like someone made it that way on purpose, like someone who counterfits money and then rubs dirt on it and tries to make it look used.
Seidenberg said it's not Verizon's responsibility to correct the misconception by giving out statistics on how often Verizon's service works inside homes or by distributing more detailed coverage maps
Are you kidding me? Why would a person buy a cell phone unless they are lead to believe it works in the area they live in??
Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered all phone companies to give customers 30 days to test a service without slapping them with hundreds of dollars in early cancellation fees. But after the PUC suspended the rule a month ago, Verizon shortened its trial period to 15 days to match its 15-day return policy in other states.
"We think there is a deal," he said. "We invest in the business and have the best service. But when you sign up with us, we'd like you stay with us."
Is this interview a joke? It has to be a joke.
This is what a monopoly is. When some CEO gets so arrogant they can act like that. In this case, it is a bunch of companies acting in collusion.
I might not have went to jail, but I did go to an American middle school. The experiances are not that different.
I've read some stupid things on slashdot (and I've been doing it since the beginning) but that statement ranks in my "top 5 all-time stupid statements. Congratulations.
Obviously, you never had Mike Smith take you out back, behind the gym, behind the dumpsters, and make you pay for every IQ point god gave you. And he never gave you the lollypop he promised.
Seriously, I was not joking with the original statement. Schools in ghettos suck. Between the drug dealers selling, gangs trying to offer you "protection" and bigger kids wanting to beat you up to impress the skank of the week, it ain't that different than prision. And the food sucked too.
How can you surf porn on the internet with your roomate 2 feet behind you? What would suck even worse is if he squirted you before you were done.
Inmate 00343: "Can you turn around, HUH?"
Inmate 87632: "It ain't my fault the room is 8 feet by 6 feet"
Inmate 00343: "Just look at the wall, will ya"
Inmate 87632: "Okay"
Inmate 00343: *whispers* "Oh yeah, that's what I was looking for, nice big tits"
Inmate 87632: *peaks over his shoulder at the laptop screen*
Inmate 00343: "HEY, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT WET STUFF ON THE BACK OF MY NECK???"
Inmate 87632: *shrugs shoulders* "I think a bird crapped on you"
Seriously, what do inmates need computers for. You know they are just going to make knives with the RAM DIMMS.
Inmate 00343: *boots the laptop*
Inmate 87632: "You looking for porn again?"
Inmate 00343: "No, just going to read sla... HEY, the BIOS test only shows 128 megs, we had 256 megs"
Inmate 87632: *starts sweating* "What do you mean, it was always 128, you know how slow the laptop is"
Why shouldn't they be allowed ot have their websites maintained in some fasion? They should be allowed to vote as citizens of a free country, so why can't they let their freedom of speech ring on the Internet, given the assumption that this would not comprimise safety or order?
As soon as someone is convicted of a felony, they lose the right to vote, the freedom of speech, the freedom of association, all of them are gone. Jails only have 3 obligations by law. #1, they must feed you. #2, they must house you. #3, they must try and protect you from other inmates.
Sometimes jails have a hard time with #3.
Honestly, do you think an inmate should vote? Hell, they might elect the green party candidate. They have all day to read the papers. They might form an opinion.
Three hots and a cot. What else does a prisioner get? I say take away the hots, and give em cold meals during times of war. Nothing better than our servicemen get.
I don't want my tax dollars giving them high speed internet service.
"I try to understand how alarming it would be for a victims' family to see the smiling face of an inmate who has caused some great harm to a family on the World Wide Web looking for women to write to him"
HUHUHUHUH???? These bastards are in jail wooing women? FUCK NO!!
What is next? Having a laptop in every cell?
I say lets bake the fuckers. Lets set up tents in the hot Arizona sun, lets put up tents, lets make the inmates wear pink uniforms, and lets feed them hotdogs made with green dye. Lets stick black gang members with white supremasists in the same tent. Wait, I think some sheriff beat me to that one. I KNOW!! We'll put it on pay per view, it will be the modern day RUNNING MAN!!
What is it with people running out and buying digital camera's, you will NEVER get the quality of film.
I remember when digital camera's came, and the top of the line $900 digi was a 3 megapixel camera. I remember what the salesperson said to me, how much better digital is. But it was all a sales pitch. I ended up with a $400 2 megapixel camera. And you know what? I CAN NEVER GET THOSE PHOTOS BACK AT A REAL SIZE. Try printing out a full page picture. You can't.
Fast forward a couple years. Now those top-of-the-line 3 megapixel camera's are the bottom of the barrel. You buy them as toys for your kids. The new top of the line is what? 7 megapixel? 8? Does it matter? A friend has a 4 megapixel, and when printed large enough, you see so many imperfections. Try taking a picture of a lake on a clear blue sky day. Where the horizon is, you will see imperfections.
The advantages that a person gets with a digital camera, that you only print what you want, discard the rest, is not a good reason to buy. Because those photo's you have, the ones you want to print, you might one day want to blow them up to a full page. I have pictures with members of my family that are no longer here. It sucks the best I have is 2 megapixel pictures.
I know someone else. A real photography nut. He has a darkroom in his house. He showed me, he took negatives of pictures he took in the 1980's, and was able to develop a good picture. A full page size picture.
Lets bring back real photography. Lets bring back film!
I'd like to make a donation to support this fine artist / geek. I run a brothel on the side and I'm wondering how I can donate a girlfriend to this guy, cause it's obvious to me he isn't getting one on his own.
At my high school, for every "A" you got, you would get one free coupon for the local video store... "rent one, get one free. No "R" rated movies". Now if only they gave out a hooker. I would have been a perfect 4.0!!
High schools should model their motivation programs after the University of Colorado football program. I hear they sent school busses to bring the strippers on campus.
Fans of his work can also donate to support his music
If he is as good as people say, he'll make a bundle of money, much more than the avarage joe. If you want to give money, try finding an underfunded public school music program. Get some friends together, and maybe raise enough to help support a music teacher.
If this guy sucks, he is not worthy of your financial support, and will probably end up as a side-show in bars all across America playing the theme song to Bards Tale.
Any third party product that is not functionally necessary for the application a user believes they are installing should be legally required to be a separable item in the installation process that you must opt-in, not opt-out, from.
I like this! And while we are at it, have every peice of software have some easy way of unistalling it and every component. Most of the worst spyware is hidden, and difficult to remove. I had a friend with a registry setting to reset his browser to go to www.imakemoney.com or something like that. You find the program, delete it, but forget there is a setting in the registry which brings it back.
A friend installed AOL on their computer. While AOL was installing, so did Real Player. I thought WTF is this, where did it come from. So I uninstalled it. The next time I went to his house, there it was again, Real Player. So I uninstalled it again, and watched as he logged back in. As soon as he was done, and disconnected from AOL, he got "Please wait... we are installing an important upgrade".
Maybe they will start by making all spyware illegal. Then they will notice most of it will come from servers outside the USA. So the next step might be to make software inside the USA incompatible with software outside the USA. Maybe a region lock on all computers, so it can only play software from your country code.
If you want to get a machine which playes region 2 software, do so at your own risk. But I will be safe with my Congress approved region 1 computer.;) Maybe Congress will even force computers to have a chip on the motherboard, like the Play Station. 90% of people with a play station didn't modify their machine at the hardware level. It is too much work. Congress can make it more difficult to do any activity, and they can increase the penalty. At some point the risk gets too high and the reward is not high enough.
Seriously, there is an easy way to enforce this law. It is with treaties. The USA can force smaller countries to agree not to import into the USA software with spyware. I dunno about the rest of you, but I would HATE to get caught doing ANYTHING wrong in Hong Kong or some country where they will whip me. Remember, the FBI did find that kid in the philippines who wrote the virus a few years ago. He used a public computer to release it, but they tracked him somehow. And now he is in a third world prision.
there are disagreements on how to define the term "spyware". A wrong decision could end up in two opposite directions: Either a law too restrictive for legitimate companies, or a "safe harbor" for some malicious spyware distributors
Congress should define spyware as any code that runs on your machine that you did not agree to instal (So if I instal FreeGamePack, I expect to get FreeGamePack and not HiddenBackdoorTorjan. I agreed to instal one but not the other). I remember installing debian once, and it had a list of over 1000 packages, each with a description. I would like to see Windows do that, give me choice. Do you want the Internet Explorer pack? Do you want the Netscape pack? Do you want the Mozilla pack?
The second part of the definition is the software is not allowed to communicate to any other machines unless the owner of his machine allows it. That would kill RealPlayer and their crappy hidden settings.
I thought it was going to be an interface consisting of three psychic kids in tanks making all your decisions before you. That would be much more useful.
They would do a better job than Bush. Hell, three not-so-psychic kids would do a better job than Bush.
This appears to be wasteful spending. I wonder what congressional district the defense company is located in?
The system under development at Raytheon lets users don a pair of reflective gloves and manipulate images projected on a panoramic screen. A mounted camera keeps track of hand movements and a computer interprets gestures
"Hand gestures, unlike a mouse or pointer, work really well when data is represented on wall-sized displays, for example."
And where in the field will this be used?
Am I the only one who gets scared when I imagine what a room in the pentagon might look like, with Generals wearing special glasses, and moving projected data off walls?
First, cool name. I take it you are a U of I alumnus?
Maybe because they're sick of being 40 years behind the rest of the world?
What defines "behind" or "ahead" of the world? Just asking here.
Everything is relative. What we consider moving forward many nations consider barbaric.
I see the USA moving to a pro-working, anti-union nation. Bush is set to repeal overtime laws, so people who work over 40 hours a week will not get paid time and a half. Many labor unions are being broken. Jobs are being exported.
Meanwhile China is the largest growing economy. They are doing something right.
Slashdot Mirror
The other believes that such annoyance will put most people off, because the total time/cost it takes to acquire something is now higher than the actual product.
What will hurt P2P is how hard finding a good network is. Kaaza is filled with spyware, and half the stuff on there is not good. There are lawsuits all over the place, it is not worth it. Bit Torrent, which was nice, is also under attack by the RIAA. You get better files with Bit Torrent, less of the fakes, people sharing seem to check their files. But torrent websites are going down, at least the well known ones.
What I think will be the next wave will be private P2P, by invitation only. It will be a group of friends sharing their music and files. It will be closed to outsiders, so the only people aware are friends.
But even if there is a private P2P, with only a group of friends who know each other, will the RIAA be able to scan the internet, looking for their files? Will they go after friends sharing music the same way they would go after strangers sharing music?
What is neat, or not so neat depending on your point of view, are music files which deteriorate after a while. I don't know how they are made, but I have listened to music that sounds pretty good, but after the 10th playing it starts skipping. Or it could be those skips are not very noticable when first played, but once identified, they become annoying.
Motherfucker!!!
Civilians are normally denied access to secure military areas. I'm sure your Senator wouldn't be allowed to wander around the Pentagon either, but I can't regard this as evidence of a big secret conspiracy.
God forbid if Senators knew the truth, if they could look around. What good is the Senators vote if they can't get access?
We have the new Patriot Act which gives the executive branch, the FBI and other agencies great new powers. They can listen in to any citizen, anywhere, without a warrent, for any reason. But our own Senators can't look around the Pentagon, they can't go to Area 51?
So, if YOU were ELECTED to the United States Senate, and were entrusted with the power of your office, to protect your constituents, and you requested to see Area 51 and were denied, you would be okay with that? Don't you have an ABSOLUTE right to know the truth, to see it with your own eyes? For god sake, you were ELECTED, and not some dopey office like mayor, but a person who can vote for war.
Then again, the whole Congress, both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate were lied to about Iraq, about wepons of mass destruction. Not one peep out of the senior membership. Obviously, they are under the control of someone, some agency. I wish I knew which agency, and how, but I am sure the truth is out there.
There is a reason why chemistry and physics professors weed out 70% of their students in first year classes. They want parrots, people who don't think. They want the ones who can memorize, and the science program sucks up their 20's.
Science professors don't want the guy with the used copy of Jack Kerouac "On The Road" showing up in their classes, asking questions like "explain to me again how you know there is a nuon and gluon in there?". I was in physics 100 and asked the professor the most simple question when we were talking about classical mechanics versus modern ideas. I asked "What is gravity, what is pulling me down". The teacher, who was a gifted artist, drew a picture on the blackboard of Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff and said "he never should have chased road runner.
Look people, for the HISTORY of mankind, those in power lied to everyone else. Gallileo was put in jail because of what he knew. Countless others were executed.
Today the system is different. Only the "right" kind of people are allowed to study physics. Once they get their PhD, they are admitted to the club, told it was all bullshit, and given a stipend to keep quiet. That is the system!!
I have proof. In the 2002 playboy, NFL running back Marshall Faulk dispells all the myths about landing on the moon. We were in an arms race, and the US government turned to hollywood insiders to produce films that made it appear we were more advanced than the USSR, in a hopes the USSR economy would implode. Think about it, this is a football player poking holes in the NASA propoganda.
According to Faulk, there is no wind on the moon. But if you look at the picture of the two astronots with the flag, there is a breeze shown in the picture.
If you look at many of the pictures taken while on the moon, you will notice no stars. That is because all these pictures were taken indoors, in a studio in hollywood.
There is also a picture of a rock on the moon with the letter "C" on it. Obviously, every rock in the studio was lettered and was meticulously put in place.
Now the truth is, we are not alone in the universe. Aliens have visited earth, and we even have one of their spaceships. It is kept in Area 51, in the Nevada desert at a top secret Air Force base. How secret is it, not even you elected Senators can gain access. Before his death, US Senator Paul Simon asked for all information about area 51, his request was denied. He traveled to the gates of the compound with another senator, a US Army General, and 3 memebers of congress, and they were all turned away at gunpoint. Furthermore, the people who work there are not regular Air Force enlisted and officers. They all come from a seperate agency, on the public does not know about.
I'll leave one more bone to chew on. If NASA could make a space ship, fly it to the moon, develop suits for astronots to be protected from extremem heat and cold, along with radiation, how come the camera's they took with them are all so shitty? The video is horrible. It is like someone made it that way on purpose, like someone who counterfits money and then rubs dirt on it and tries to make it look used.
Are you kidding me? Why would a person buy a cell phone unless they are lead to believe it works in the area they live in??
Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered all phone companies to give customers 30 days to test a service without slapping them with hundreds of dollars in early cancellation fees. But after the PUC suspended the rule a month ago, Verizon shortened its trial period to 15 days to match its 15-day return policy in other states. "We think there is a deal," he said. "We invest in the business and have the best service. But when you sign up with us, we'd like you stay with us."
Is this interview a joke? It has to be a joke.
This is what a monopoly is. When some CEO gets so arrogant they can act like that. In this case, it is a bunch of companies acting in collusion.
I knew I was expecting too much from my cell phone company.
And what does this have to do with Wi-Fi?
I've read some stupid things on slashdot (and I've been doing it since the beginning) but that statement ranks in my "top 5 all-time stupid statements. Congratulations.
Obviously, you never had Mike Smith take you out back, behind the gym, behind the dumpsters, and make you pay for every IQ point god gave you. And he never gave you the lollypop he promised.
Seriously, I was not joking with the original statement. Schools in ghettos suck. Between the drug dealers selling, gangs trying to offer you "protection" and bigger kids wanting to beat you up to impress the skank of the week, it ain't that different than prision. And the food sucked too.
Inmate 00343: "Can you turn around, HUH?"
Inmate 87632: "It ain't my fault the room is 8 feet by 6 feet"
Inmate 00343: "Just look at the wall, will ya"
Inmate 87632: "Okay"
Inmate 00343: *whispers* "Oh yeah, that's what I was looking for, nice big tits"
Inmate 87632: *peaks over his shoulder at the laptop screen*
Inmate 00343: "HEY, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT WET STUFF ON THE BACK OF MY NECK???"
Inmate 87632: *shrugs shoulders* "I think a bird crapped on you"
Seriously, what do inmates need computers for. You know they are just going to make knives with the RAM DIMMS.
Inmate 00343: *boots the laptop*
Inmate 87632: "You looking for porn again?"
Inmate 00343: "No, just going to read sla... HEY, the BIOS test only shows 128 megs, we had 256 megs"
Inmate 87632: *starts sweating* "What do you mean, it was always 128, you know how slow the laptop is"
Man, I love the adventures of Inmate 00343!!
I might not have went to jail, but I did go to an American middle school. The experiances are not that different.
No, what is CRUEL is when an inmate beats you up. What is UNUSUAL is when, after the beating, he kisses you and says "I'm gonna take care of my baby".
Man, that makes me want to puke. A beating then a fucking. YUK!
As soon as someone is convicted of a felony, they lose the right to vote, the freedom of speech, the freedom of association, all of them are gone. Jails only have 3 obligations by law. #1, they must feed you. #2, they must house you. #3, they must try and protect you from other inmates.
Sometimes jails have a hard time with #3.
Honestly, do you think an inmate should vote? Hell, they might elect the green party candidate. They have all day to read the papers. They might form an opinion.
I don't want my tax dollars giving them high speed internet service.
"I try to understand how alarming it would be for a victims' family to see the smiling face of an inmate who has caused some great harm to a family on the World Wide Web looking for women to write to him"
HUHUHUHUH???? These bastards are in jail wooing women? FUCK NO!!
What is next? Having a laptop in every cell?
I say lets bake the fuckers. Lets set up tents in the hot Arizona sun, lets put up tents, lets make the inmates wear pink uniforms, and lets feed them hotdogs made with green dye. Lets stick black gang members with white supremasists in the same tent. Wait, I think some sheriff beat me to that one. I KNOW!! We'll put it on pay per view, it will be the modern day RUNNING MAN!!
I remember when digital camera's came, and the top of the line $900 digi was a 3 megapixel camera. I remember what the salesperson said to me, how much better digital is. But it was all a sales pitch. I ended up with a $400 2 megapixel camera. And you know what? I CAN NEVER GET THOSE PHOTOS BACK AT A REAL SIZE. Try printing out a full page picture. You can't.
Fast forward a couple years. Now those top-of-the-line 3 megapixel camera's are the bottom of the barrel. You buy them as toys for your kids. The new top of the line is what? 7 megapixel? 8? Does it matter? A friend has a 4 megapixel, and when printed large enough, you see so many imperfections. Try taking a picture of a lake on a clear blue sky day. Where the horizon is, you will see imperfections.
The advantages that a person gets with a digital camera, that you only print what you want, discard the rest, is not a good reason to buy. Because those photo's you have, the ones you want to print, you might one day want to blow them up to a full page. I have pictures with members of my family that are no longer here. It sucks the best I have is 2 megapixel pictures.
I know someone else. A real photography nut. He has a darkroom in his house. He showed me, he took negatives of pictures he took in the 1980's, and was able to develop a good picture. A full page size picture.
Lets bring back real photography. Lets bring back film!
At my high school, for every "A" you got, you would get one free coupon for the local video store... "rent one, get one free. No "R" rated movies". Now if only they gave out a hooker. I would have been a perfect 4.0!!
High schools should model their motivation programs after the University of Colorado football program. I hear they sent school busses to bring the strippers on campus.
If he is as good as people say, he'll make a bundle of money, much more than the avarage joe. If you want to give money, try finding an underfunded public school music program. Get some friends together, and maybe raise enough to help support a music teacher.
If this guy sucks, he is not worthy of your financial support, and will probably end up as a side-show in bars all across America playing the theme song to Bards Tale.
And did you read through, and understand, each and every one of those 1000 descriptions?
Yes. And it was fun. It was like looking for treasure. It is where I found PUMP. As for the packages I did not understand, I did not instal them.
I like this! And while we are at it, have every peice of software have some easy way of unistalling it and every component. Most of the worst spyware is hidden, and difficult to remove. I had a friend with a registry setting to reset his browser to go to www.imakemoney.com or something like that. You find the program, delete it, but forget there is a setting in the registry which brings it back.
A friend installed AOL on their computer. While AOL was installing, so did Real Player. I thought WTF is this, where did it come from. So I uninstalled it. The next time I went to his house, there it was again, Real Player. So I uninstalled it again, and watched as he logged back in. As soon as he was done, and disconnected from AOL, he got "Please wait... we are installing an important upgrade".
Maybe they will start by making all spyware illegal. Then they will notice most of it will come from servers outside the USA. So the next step might be to make software inside the USA incompatible with software outside the USA. Maybe a region lock on all computers, so it can only play software from your country code.
If you want to get a machine which playes region 2 software, do so at your own risk. But I will be safe with my Congress approved region 1 computer. ;) Maybe Congress will even force computers to have a chip on the motherboard, like the Play Station. 90% of people with a play station didn't modify their machine at the hardware level. It is too much work. Congress can make it more difficult to do any activity, and they can increase the penalty. At some point the risk gets too high and the reward is not high enough.
Seriously, there is an easy way to enforce this law. It is with treaties. The USA can force smaller countries to agree not to import into the USA software with spyware. I dunno about the rest of you, but I would HATE to get caught doing ANYTHING wrong in Hong Kong or some country where they will whip me. Remember, the FBI did find that kid in the philippines who wrote the virus a few years ago. He used a public computer to release it, but they tracked him somehow. And now he is in a third world prision.
Congress should define spyware as any code that runs on your machine that you did not agree to instal (So if I instal FreeGamePack, I expect to get FreeGamePack and not HiddenBackdoorTorjan. I agreed to instal one but not the other). I remember installing debian once, and it had a list of over 1000 packages, each with a description. I would like to see Windows do that, give me choice. Do you want the Internet Explorer pack? Do you want the Netscape pack? Do you want the Mozilla pack?
The second part of the definition is the software is not allowed to communicate to any other machines unless the owner of his machine allows it. That would kill RealPlayer and their crappy hidden settings.
You would not view porn. It would become more interactive. You would hump a wall.
I just hope sex does not turn into "Demolition Man".
Lenina: "Would you like to have sex?"
John Spartan: "Oh yes!"
Lenina: "Put this on"
John Spartan: "What's that? And where does it go?"
BTW, anyone ever figure out how the three shells work?
They would do a better job than Bush. Hell, three not-so-psychic kids would do a better job than Bush.
The system under development at Raytheon lets users don a pair of reflective gloves and manipulate images projected on a panoramic screen. A mounted camera keeps track of hand movements and a computer interprets gestures
"Hand gestures, unlike a mouse or pointer, work really well when data is represented on wall-sized displays, for example."
And where in the field will this be used?
Am I the only one who gets scared when I imagine what a room in the pentagon might look like, with Generals wearing special glasses, and moving projected data off walls?
Maybe because they're sick of being 40 years behind the rest of the world?
What defines "behind" or "ahead" of the world? Just asking here.
Everything is relative. What we consider moving forward many nations consider barbaric.
I see the USA moving to a pro-working, anti-union nation. Bush is set to repeal overtime laws, so people who work over 40 hours a week will not get paid time and a half. Many labor unions are being broken. Jobs are being exported.
Meanwhile China is the largest growing economy. They are doing something right.