Well the thing is, the RIAA is abusing the probably unconsutionaly high stautory damages allowd for copyright infringement. Here we again have something that causes little harm, a UNC study showed no stasticaly significant effect of file sharing on music sales, we should have a reasonable fine. I'm fine with 2x the price of a CD in fine. You have 50 CDs you didn't pay for, you get nailed to the tune of $700-$1,000. Seems fair and reasonable, and also a workable deterrant. However because of the high statutury damages allowed (up to $150,000 per song) people are faced with getting sued for millions or even billions of dollars.
It would be interesting to see a class action suit filed against the RIAA claiming that their actions are willfully abusive and the laws they are using are unconstitutional. I highly suspect they'd have a heart attack as they don't want even the possibility of a case getting to the Supreme Court calling those laws into question. If they get thrown out as unconstitutional there goes their battle plan, not to mention it might open them up to more lawsuits from every person who has ever been found guilty under those laws wanting the unreasonable amount of their fines back.
That would be an utter disaster for the RIAA, they would be unlikely to survive the financial downfall from it.
Even if some of the sheep wise up and stop buying, there are more people growing up to take their place, which is probably as good an explanation as any for why the music industry targets youth.
Except those youth are growing up in an environment where they've probably downloaded the music they listen to more than bought it. They're not likely to suddenly change and go to buying only. In fact they're more likely to stop buying music at all. Lawsuits aren't likely to faze the younger generation, especially teenagers who already think they're invincible physically.
So now that's not going to work, the number of people willing to share/download music, even in the face of lawsuits, is only likely to increase, not decrease. Surely someone at the RIAA has enough brain cells to realize this.
You don't go after the phone company to stop bomb threats. You *do* go after those calling in the bomb threat. How is this any different?
Because there aren't over 6 billion people calling in bomb threats at any given moment. The sheer number shows the public believes the existing laws are horribly flawed and won't follow them.
Don't want to get sued? DON'T BREAK THE LAW!!!
Unfortunately if no one broke the law or risked being sued when unfair, unconstitional or otherwise improper laws were passed they'd never be overthrown. We'd still be living in prohibition for instance, and even more telling we'd still be a British colony. Our founding fathers were traitors to Britain you know, we certainly don't feel they should have been sued over that do we?
Face it, while downloading copyrighted matierial is a civil crime, it's a crime the public doesn't believe in any longer. Over 6 billion people at any moment are practicing what would be considered civil disobedience in most other contexts. The RIAA and Congress can't seem to realize this. If Congress was really listening to the people it would be looking into ways to change the law to reflect what the public wants instead of what the RIAA wants. Frankly compulsary licensing is probably the only way everyone will end up happy, and it will make sure artists are paid. (If not the RIAA member companies, but the artists are the ones really get screwed now, by the RIAA member companies not piracy.)
I have never been billed for a $7.00 doctor visit. Never. Your basing your entire calculations off of a ficticious situation. Lets base it off of what a doctor actualy charges shall we? Use real numbers, post the calculations again, and then maybe someone will cry for you.
Do you read the EOBs (Explanation Of Benefits) you get from your insurance company? What the doctor bills and what the doctor gets are vastly different amounts. Doctors that take insurance have to agree to accept the amounts the insurer deems fair for whatever service they provide. Medicare is an extreme example in some respects, but it's not far off. I believe my doctor gets around $15 from my insurer (Blue Cross) for a 15 minute office visit. From what I understand Blue Cross pays better than many insurance plans, and it's also a PPO, not an HMO and I know it pays more than HMO plans do. Adjust his figures to an average of about $10 for a fifteen minute visit and the financial picture doesn't get much rosier.
If you don't have insurance I apologize, but doctors depend mainly on patients with insurance to pay the bills. (Most people without insurance can't afford to visit a doctor even as much as they need to, insured people generally can due to lower costs to them up front.) Doctors rarely get paid what they bill for an office visit so you cannot base your financial assumptions on the billed rate. I should also note that many pay more to get a better insurance plan that will pay for more options. Those plans also often pay the doctors more. In my case insurance is a fully-paid benefit so I pay no more for the PPO plan over the HMO ones beyond a higher deductible and out-of-pocket. For me it costs less than having a copay for office visits, but for many the copay is more affordable so they stick with HMOs.
I'm guessing, but I believe the grandparent's wife is a pediatrician (he mentioned only the amount paid for a child's visit). Insurance may very well pay less on average for a child's visit than an adult's. I do believe that doctors get more than $7 to see an adult on Medicare, but I'm not certain of the numbers. (I'm an IT person but my Mother has worked at doctor's offices for years as office personnel so I hear about a lot of the costs. I also always check my EOBs so I'm aware of what my own insurance pays my doctors.)
Malpractice insurance is a result of the greedy Americans who file for damages. There are those who have legitimate cases, and they ought to be rewarded, but there are a ton of frivolous malpractice suits as well. Health costs come down to the greedy American looking for a big payoff with minimum work.
This may not be as true as we think. Another assumption is that malpractice insurance companies' willingness to settle has led to the rates going up astronomically but studies haven't found correlations between the number of settled cases and guilty verdicts (with awards) in a state and the cost of the insurance. In some cases states with low payouts have much higher rates than states with much higher payouts.
I'd say it's a combination of factors and that greed from the insurance companies is a big part of it too. Probably the only people in the healthcare fields really making money are the insurers (malpractice at least) and the pharmecutical companies.
The other reason why expenses are so high is the barrier to entry into the market. Many patents on pharmaceuticals run out by the time the company has met federal requirements. This seriously reduces the amount of profit that the company can gain off of their work before knock-off pharm companies start producing the same medicine.
That would seem to be an easy fix, and one the FDA shouldn't object to. Just adjust the patent process so that the expiration date of the patent is based on when it is approved as long as the drug is being actively developed/tested. That would keep a company from patenting a drug and not acting on it for 20 years then suddenly deciding to act to extend the patent time. It would also give companies that actively research new drugs more time to profit from their research and more incentive to research new drugs.
However, I don't think this is the real issue with drug costs. The pharmaceutical companies make huge profits, even factoring in their expenditures on R&D, so something's out of kilter. Again it's probably a variety of factors, but greed is probably a big player in them as well.
If the FDA eased off on the drug regulations, and maybe let the patent law for medicines change, then medical costs would be reduced. Things always get more expensive when the 800 pound gorilla of American government decides to get involved.
If that's all the FDA did we would like just see new medicines cost too much for longer periods until generics are finally allowed. I cannot foresee the pharmaceutical companies lowering their prices any time soon. The explanation will likely be "well sure it'll help in the long run, but all the stuff in the works now cost more under the old process so prices can't go down yet." Then they'll just forget about lowering the prices to match costs on drugs developed under the new rules.
To give an example that's computer related, do you think Microsoft would lower the price on Windows Longhorn if the government lowered the cost to obtain patents and extended their duration? I sure don't.
Personally I wonder if a compulsary license type of plan would work to lower drug costs and reward companies who research new drugs. Just extend the patent time, but generics can be made before the patent expires. (Setting the time when other companies can produce the drug as a generic to the current patent expiration date should work.) Then the drug companies get let's say.005 cents for every generic pill made of their drugs until the new patent term expires. This would introduce a huge revenue stream essentially for free to the companies researching and developing drugs. It shouldn't effect the price of generics much, as it would only add one cent to every 200 pills.
Ohh, no? They just had to stop running the software? Horror of horror.
Fact. If you illegally share copyrighted materials online you are in the wrong.
I never contended that what they did was legal, only that the lawsuits have NOT stopped the downloading. Of the two examples I gave one was a 12yo girl who reportedly had only a few songs, she'd downloaded the theme song from her favorite show. In any other context everyone would be claiming she was too young to know better, but now you feel she not only should have known better it was justifiable for the RIAA to not only sue her but refuse to drop the case when the facts surfaced? What if it'd been your kid, I'm quite sure your reaction would be different.
Of the other example the grandfather was not aware his computer was sharing songs. His grandkids had installed the software when visiting without his permission or knowledge. They downloaded some music, and left it running, set to start on startup. So the real violaters were his grandkids, he was an innocent bystander. Yet again your reaction is he got what he deserved.
I am just seething with anger at your tone and accusation.
Funny that there was no accusation in my post. Wow, I point out that the lawsuits aren't working and that if folks aren't willing to stop downloading music when facing the prospect of financial ruin a law isn't going to help and you're angry about that? I suggest taking Yoga, it's supposed to do wonders for anger management. Whether you like it or not the facts support my post. There are already laws against downloading and sharing music, there are already lawsuits being tossed about galore, there are already numerous victims (yes victims, victims of an industry unwilling to change) financially ruined yet the public overwhelmingly continues to download and share music online. No law is going to stop that, it's a cultural phenomenon now. You might find it distasteful, but you know what? The sheet music printers found piano rolls to be very distasteful and illegal (which they were at the time) yet they didn't succeed in stopping them.
You are acting like such a child. People knowingly break the law and do so without regard for the victims of their actions deserve serious consequences. You make it seem like Congress is deciding that anyone who gets a drink during commericals is going to jail.
What fucking victims? The artists are victims, but not of the downloaders, they got ripped off when they signed their contracts with the record companies. Those who recorded/produced/pressed/distributed the CDs are going to be your next group right? Sorry but while CD sales are down there is no proof it's being caused solely by downloading online. How soon we forget the studies that have shown that active downloaders buy more music. The music industry can claim it's because of downloading all day, and I, and many others, can claim it's because of shitty content, overpriced CDs and a bloated, immoral, antiquated industry. I suspect that it's a bit of both. But a "serious crime"? Oh come on, are you serious? We're not talking rape, murder or assault here. We're talking copyright infringment. On the list of serious crimes it's pretty damned low. I'm far more concerned about things like that being prevented that Congress wasting time and money to pass yet more laws to go after music downloaders. The way they're expanding things is frankly disturbing too. Knowingly instead of willingly? Well what's knowingly? If someone trojans your machine and starts sharing files off of it, then you find out 3 weeks later and spend 2 weeks trying to get it stopped weren't you "knowingly" sharing for those 2 weeks, even though you were trying to stop it? Yes you were, and you too could wind up in jail thanks to this law.
And frankly your smart-ass example isn't far fromt he truth. If everyone's getting a drink during commercials and it'
Because we all know that passing laws to make, say, speeding in cars, murder, fraud etc. illegal has put an end to all those activities.
And regular lawsuits against multiple people trading files online, including 12yo girls and grandparents who didn't even know that their grandkids had installed the software have worked too. But yep, a law will do the trick, heaven knows people won't break a law but are happy to risk financial ruin.
What do we expect though? It seems that one business or another owns every member of Congress, "We the people" is now "We the corporations" as far as representation in Congress goes. *sigh*
What stops them from making the media content require a DRM compliant receiver?
So if you have one of the 'magic DRM-less' receivers, you don't have to worry about the DRM bit, but nor do you have to worry about having anything to watch either..
That still won't stop it from being beaten, all you'd need is a box that reports to the media that it indeed is DRM compliant but shuts down the DRM stuff as soon as the media is fooled. Same concept some region-free DVD players use to trick the DVDs that check if the player will accept region 0 then refuse to play if it does.
Failing a receiver that does it, a box could be inserted in the stream that tells the media on one end that it's DRM compliant, then strips the broadcast flag before spitting the stream out the other side. That'd be the same as the Macrovision strippers that you can find to allow copying of VHS tapes (and DVDs in fact) that have Macrovision on them.
Yep... and once the EEYORE (Electronic Enforcement Yardstick Of Rights Exemption) Act is signed into law, those pesky entrapment problems will be a thing of the past.
Actually what they do now is not entrapment, at least if done properly, the vigilantes probably do entrap people, but the legit law enforcement folks pretending to be kids online to catch pedophiles aren't. Basically unless the officer's actions causes the suspect to commit a crime that it was obvious they were not willing to commit then it's entrapment. Pretending to be a little girl and chatting back with some old guy who messages you isn't. They do have to be careful though, for instance the officer should avoid suggesting the suspect visit them, etc. so that it's clear in court that it was completely willful on the suspect's part. As I understand it, it takes special training to cover these issues to make sure entrapment can't overturn an arrest. That's probably why we hear of so few arrests made from online contacts.
The vigilantes are the worrisome thing though, since they're not law enforcement entrapment doesn't apply to them, so if they con someone into doing something/sending something that they then turn over to the police the person has no recourse in the criminal case, even IF the vigilante had indeed caused them to do a crime they were not willing to commit prior to the vigilante encouraging it. They may be able to sue them in civil court but with all the "think of the children" hysteria I doubt any jury would listen to the facts long enough to find in their favor.
Just check the online ID before persuing the child??
That's gonna cut into the FBI's stake-outs, isn't it?
Doubt it, they'll most likely be able to get fake tokens to use online. The main problem may be that they'll need multiple tokens as they can't be the same "child" constantly as their cover might be blown from time to time (after busts for instance).
Other than that it probably won't matter, if you read the details of the busts the police do make from online contacts the guys were total morons to start with. They didn't arrest some horrid child predator, they arrest some moron who likes kids but isn't bright enough to be successful at it. I'm quite sure the real dangers are far sneakier, after all they know the feds are watching the chat rooms too. Additionally the statistics show that most kids are sexually abused by someone they know, generally family, so online predation isn't what the cops really need to worry about, it's just a way to make it appear they're doing something about the problem.
Not at the same time of course, but I'd bet at least 50%. I work for a school system and just yesterday we had about 8 kids get on the wrong buses and another 5 or so who were new bus riders and didn't know where they lived exactly. If they can't remember things as important as which bus they ride and house they live in we certainly can't expect them to keep track of a small USB token.
Not to mention the possibility of the breaching of the privacy of minors.
That's the first thing I thought of myself. I work with the bus routing software and when I need to send copies of my databases to the company who makes it to debug a problem I have to make a copy and go through and change all the names to John Doe. I also can't send the whole file since the addresses can't be masked for debugging purposes. How sending an entire list of your kids with names, age and gender to Verisign can be legal is beyond me. AFAIK that would require signed consent from every single parent/guardian for every kid.
On paper this sounds like a good way to protect children, but somehow I think the execution of the idea is not going to be as easy as Verisign and Co. think it might be.
Well there's the beauty of it from Verisign's standpoint. They don't have to worry about the execution, they just provide the tokens and authorization servers. The school systems get to sort out the mess from lost/stolen keys and what not. It'll just end up overwhelming the poor staff with more paperwork and problems than they already have to deal with.
This is about making sure you're a kid, not that you're an adult. The theory is that it'll keep the pedophiles, who won't have the "I'm a kid" token, out of the elementary school "chat rooms."
Of course there's not much to stop a smart pedophile (or pedophiles) from finding a way to create their own tokens (what age do you want to be today?) or just stealing them. The article makes it sound like the tokens may contain the kid's names, age and gender, not just age. I'm sure the pedophiles who are on the chat rooms will appreciate knowing that it's really a kid instead of a police officer on the other end.
Another thought: if they do uniquely identify each kid losing one could open up realms of bullying that are scary. Imagine being able to "prove" you're another kid. Then you go online and tell off all their friends, make lots of enemies, etc. until the lost token's reported and a new one isssued. Poor kid gets back online and faces all his/her online friends refusing to talk to him and complete strangers cussing them out for something they didn't do. Brilliant system.
Besides the "problem" of pedophiles in "chat rooms" being completely overblown, this is probably just the precursor of some sort of infrastructure to eliminate anonymous browsing. And who wouldn't like a piece of selling a token for $20/year to anyone who wants to get any information from the Internet in 10 years?
Either that or it's an FBI dream that they'll be able to tell who's really kids online (and of course be able to obtain fake tokens to use when trolling the chat rooms for pedophiles). Personally I agree with you on it being overblown, I suspect the majority of "kids" online talking to "pedophiles" are law enforcement and vigilantes trying to set each other up, neither realizing the other party's not who they think they are.
I can sort of see Microsoft's point on this; I mean, if somebody hasn't upgraded from (say) Windows 98 in late 2004, the odds that they are applying security fixes is extremely low. Why even bother releasing them?
Eventually something will force the issue and they'll have to take the computer to the shop or get a techy friend to fix it. It's then that this becomes important, especially if they're having to pay to get it fixed, they're not going to want to pay an extra $99 (or more if they can't find their install discs) to get XP on their machine. Not to mention it might not be capable of running XP, or not at a useable speed. There's a lot of folks out there using old computers that can't afford to buy new ones so they have to stick with what they have.
It's pretty bad for those folks to get their computer fixed with a nice fresh install and all security patches and it gets infected a few weeks later because Microsoft refuses to retrofit the extra security in IE to their version of windows. Frankly Microsoft is responsible for the hideous security in IE on older systems, it should be fixing the mess, or at least attempting to help keep it from getting worse.
I agree that not providing them for Windows 2000 is a real shocker, it's even on the NT codebase like XP is instead of the Win32 one. I suspect a LOT of businesses are going to be furious about this one.
"Microsoft is not using security issues or any security situation to try to drive upgrades," said a company representative. "But it only makes sense that the latest products are the most secure."
Well yes that's true but it's also true that a large portion of the zombie PCs out there spewing spam, viruses, worms and DDoS attacks are NOT running the latest product from Microsoft. Effectivly Microsoft's saying "well we'll concentrate on security only in a future sense." Bet that once Longhorn finally arrives XP will stop getting security patches shortly thereafter.
Frankly we can only hope that there's enough big business clients that have "legacy" Windows OSs that will raise holy hell with Microsoft on this. Otherwise we can expect the situation with compromised machines to not get any better. It seems most of the people with badly compromised PCs don't even try to get them fixed until they finally grind to a halt, they're not likely to be upgrading to XP anytime soon.
I like a good practical joke as much as the next person. Can we just track down one of these people, drag him/her outside chop them up with bolo knives hunt down their families, rape mutiliate and murder them set fire to their houses, kill their dogs and piss all over the corpses already?
I figure 10, 20 thousand of these losers tops and the problem will go away.
While I appreciate the sentiment (personally I'm thinking boiling oil would be appropriate for spammers) I doubt it'd help. Even with the death penalty in the US we still have far far too many murders/rapes/etc. so it doesn't seem to work as a deterrent. All we'd end up with is lots of dead spammers (good) but plenty more rushing to take their places (bad). Just look at the meth problem, last night on the news we heard that the county sheriff in one of the nearby counties ended up busting his wife's cousin for cooking meth. People just get greedy and completely overlook the possible consequences. We're not going to be able to stop these problems with laws or conventional punishments.
That said we need to find a way to make spam stop paying. If there's no money in it, or it gets to where it's a near certainty you'll lose all you made (and then some) from hefty fines people will move on to something else to try to make a quick buck.
It's not like spammers are a class of people to be trusted.
I submitted the article and I can honestly say it isn't a surprise. It's newsworthy though because it shows a new vulnerability and one that's far easier to trick your average Windows luser into following. I really liked how The Reg really slammed the politicians and in one lovely sentence made utter fools out of them and their whole approach to spam. I suspect that we'll be hearing their take, or something very similar next time Congress decides to act on the spam problem again.
What's really great is this little exploit and the way it's done really is going to take the wind out of the sails of the Direct Marketing Association. It's going to be hard to defend the practice of sending mails unless explicitely opted-in from now thanks to a spammer/virus writer. It should also make it clear to everyone the huge difference between junk mail (postal) and spam. Junk mail doesn't come with bombs that go off and destroy your mailbox when it arrives.
I have seen the BSOD on XP several times, and yes - it does reboot almost instantly. I've even run into the problem on boot, so I couldn't even change the option if I wanted to because I couldn't read the error code to look it up and fix the machine. Ended up having to run the repair tool on the CD and it fixed whatever it was that was wrong (not preferred way of fixing things).
We had a power outage last Friday thanks to Ivan blowing through the state and it lasted long enough that my UPS ran out of juice and the XP box went down. Later in the day I turned it on and left the room to do something while it booted, I didn't get back to it for a while, no biggie it runs 24x7 normally anyway. Well when I got back I found it in an infinite boot, BSOD, reboot cycle. The BSOD wasn't even given time to fully draw on the screen before the reboot kicked in. I was able to get into the box using "last known good configuration" (which ironically should have been the same, as nothing had been added/modified since the last boot) but it kept wanting to do the BSOD on reboots. I finally got it fixed by re-applying SP2, somehow that made a difference to XP.
So yes, XP may not crash as much as Win9x, but it's by no means immune, and the reasons for it are near impossible to determine sometimes.
Is that they need to fix the loose nut behind the wheel in most cars.
until they tighten restriction on getting nad maintaining a drivers license things will get worse.
it's a privilige people, not a right, and you most certianly do not have the right to endanger others because you get your jollies from driving recklessly.
I realize you're being slightly funny with the first part but you're dead right on this. Want to make cars of the future much safer? Remove the drivers. Right now it seems maybe half the people out there can drive even moderately safely without any distractions. I take a few backroads to work and it never ceases to amaze me the number of people I see driving in the middle of the damn thing. It's wide enough that you can easily stay on your side of the road without much effort, even if you decide to be a bit agressive on the few curves it has. Yet people will drive right in the middle, straddling that double yellow line while going UP a blind hill. When I'm behind them I slow down to make sure if they meet flaming death I can stop to survey the damage and not participate in it. If I encounter them coming my way I pray. (There's no room for error, ditches on both sides.)
Add in cell phones (built-in hands-free or not), Navigation systems, DVD players, etc. and I think conservatively we're getting to about 80% of the population who's not having accidents out of sheer dumb luck.
I suspect at some point in the future we're going to end up with a terribly horrible accident that kills hundreds and hundreds of people caused by a few people who didn't know how they hell to drive to start with distracted by stuff. Then there'll be a backlash and we'll see a clamp-down on who can drive. That's about the only thing that'll truly make the roads safer. After all you can try making cars idiot proof but the idiots are out there breeding and a better (well ok, dumber) idiot will be at hand to undo whatever you engineer in.
Note: I'm not going to claim I'm a perfect driver but I do know how to keep my car on my side of the road at least. That alone makes me safer than at least 50% of the population around here.
When you lower a cable, it is relatively easy to anchor it to a floating platform in the middle of the ocean. Therefore, there is no worry about equatorial real estate, local population, eminent domain, or other government-dominated nonsense.
What about natural phenomenon, such as a hurricane or two blasting the platform each year?
If you haven't yet tried the clickwheel on an iPod yet, do it. The article is handy if you're curious about implementation, but actually using the device to navigate a huge music library will literally make you grin.
Just a bit of testimony on this, up until last week the only encounters I'd had with iPods were store demo models and I couldn't figure the bloody wheel out. I do have to say it's not immediately intuitive, having the clickable buttons threw me off, I thought you used the back and forward ones to navigate the menu. Last week I got an iPod all of my own, a 4th gen one with the clickwheel. After a bit of frustration trying to figure out how to use the clickwheel I finally noticed it moved up and down as my finger moved along it. Bingo, easy to use after that.
Based on past experiences I'd not been a fan of the design, but after learning HOW it works and using it I have to say it's exceptionally well designed. It's easy to scroll through the lists and volume control is a breeze. I can even reach down and adjust the volume on it while driving and not have to look at it. I even have to look at the radio to make sure I get the right knob so that's saying something! (Note that I do not listen to it with headphones while driving in the car, I know that's dangers and illegal in most states.)
Oh, and speaking of iPods, please click the link in my signature...:-)
Take him up on it or even use mine. Find a conga line to help you get your referrals. That's where my iPod came from, amazing to get a free nearly $300 device.:)
The scroll wheel is just a round touchpad and is based on the same technology Synapsis has patents on. It even feels the same as the touchpad on my PowerBook.
I have a 4th gen iPod with the click wheel and after I finally figured out you just moved your finger to scroll (it wasn't immediately obvious and I've not had the opportunity to use previous versions) I've found it to be far more responsive than the touchpads I've encountered on notebooks. I have a Sony Vaio at work and I hate the touchpad on it, it's very difficult to control and way too sensitive registering double clicks even when my finger doesn't leave the surface. (Apparently pausing with your finger on the touchpad counts, I can't find a way to adjust the settings to fix it.)
So I'd have to say that with the current generation clickwheels the touchpad on the iPod is far better. It's just sensitive enough without being too sensitive and it requires no adjustment to work that way. That alone is an achievement since there are so many different finger sizes out there and different people are going to push with different pressures.
Touchpads are the best thing that ever happened to this company. They're getting licensing fees and royalties on almost every notebook sold, or they make money directly as the component vendor for the touch pads.
And deservedly so, they obviously can make some top notch ones (iPod clickwheel) so they're really earned those fees and royalties. At least they're not an IP company making money via lawsuit.:)
It's still profit motivated but judging by all the news of late, not to mention the number of spams coming from open (generally zombified PC) relays I'd say the number one motivator for attack is to gain new machines to use to shove spam through.
It's not just attacks though, seems nearly every security threat (worms, viruses, hacking attempts, etc.) are all converging on one overriding purpose -- SPAM!!! Someone hacked your server? They've probably installed a trojan that makes it a zombie spam relay. User clicked on the blatantly obvious virus in their E-mail and infected their system? It's now a zombie spam relay. Worm managed to get into an unpatched system? Yay, another zombie spam relay!
Even a few years back I felt a lot of hacking and virii/worms were caused by script kiddies playing with hackers tools they found online. Nowadays it's starting to look incredibly organized and methodical. It makes you wonder who's really behind the whole thing. It's getting to be far too orderly (from a spam relay acquiral front particularly) to just be lots of independant greedy folks with no morals trying to make a quick buck. Not to sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil cap but I'd say it's a fair bet that organized crime has moved into the arena and taken charge behind the scenes.
Like I said, I don't know a hell of alot about it but your 76 hour timeline makes me suspicious. Does it kill the virus or not?
I don't know how it works, I just know it's classified as an anti-viral drug and works on the virus that causes Shingles. I also have no idea why that 76 hour deadline is important. There's a huge amount of info here on the drug including the clinical pharmacology. I can't say as I understand it all well enough to try and summarize it.
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Well the thing is, the RIAA is abusing the probably unconsutionaly high stautory damages allowd for copyright infringement. Here we again have something that causes little harm, a UNC study showed no stasticaly significant effect of file sharing on music sales, we should have a reasonable fine. I'm fine with 2x the price of a CD in fine. You have 50 CDs you didn't pay for, you get nailed to the tune of $700-$1,000. Seems fair and reasonable, and also a workable deterrant. However because of the high statutury damages allowed (up to $150,000 per song) people are faced with getting sued for millions or even billions of dollars.
It would be interesting to see a class action suit filed against the RIAA claiming that their actions are willfully abusive and the laws they are using are unconstitutional. I highly suspect they'd have a heart attack as they don't want even the possibility of a case getting to the Supreme Court calling those laws into question. If they get thrown out as unconstitutional there goes their battle plan, not to mention it might open them up to more lawsuits from every person who has ever been found guilty under those laws wanting the unreasonable amount of their fines back.That would be an utter disaster for the RIAA, they would be unlikely to survive the financial downfall from it.
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Even if some of the sheep wise up and stop buying, there are more people growing up to take their place, which is probably as good an explanation as any for why the music industry targets youth.
Except those youth are growing up in an environment where they've probably downloaded the music they listen to more than bought it. They're not likely to suddenly change and go to buying only. In fact they're more likely to stop buying music at all. Lawsuits aren't likely to faze the younger generation, especially teenagers who already think they're invincible physically.So now that's not going to work, the number of people willing to share/download music, even in the face of lawsuits, is only likely to increase, not decrease. Surely someone at the RIAA has enough brain cells to realize this.
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You don't go after the phone company to stop bomb threats. You *do* go after those calling in the bomb threat. How is this any different?
Because there aren't over 6 billion people calling in bomb threats at any given moment. The sheer number shows the public believes the existing laws are horribly flawed and won't follow them.-
Don't want to get sued? DON'T BREAK THE LAW!!!
Unfortunately if no one broke the law or risked being sued when unfair, unconstitional or otherwise improper laws were passed they'd never be overthrown. We'd still be living in prohibition for instance, and even more telling we'd still be a British colony. Our founding fathers were traitors to Britain you know, we certainly don't feel they should have been sued over that do we?Face it, while downloading copyrighted matierial is a civil crime, it's a crime the public doesn't believe in any longer. Over 6 billion people at any moment are practicing what would be considered civil disobedience in most other contexts. The RIAA and Congress can't seem to realize this. If Congress was really listening to the people it would be looking into ways to change the law to reflect what the public wants instead of what the RIAA wants. Frankly compulsary licensing is probably the only way everyone will end up happy, and it will make sure artists are paid. (If not the RIAA member companies, but the artists are the ones really get screwed now, by the RIAA member companies not piracy.)
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I have never been billed for a $7.00 doctor visit. Never. Your basing your entire calculations off of a ficticious situation. Lets base it off of what a doctor actualy charges shall we? Use real numbers, post the calculations again, and then maybe someone will cry for you.
Do you read the EOBs (Explanation Of Benefits) you get from your insurance company? What the doctor bills and what the doctor gets are vastly different amounts. Doctors that take insurance have to agree to accept the amounts the insurer deems fair for whatever service they provide. Medicare is an extreme example in some respects, but it's not far off. I believe my doctor gets around $15 from my insurer (Blue Cross) for a 15 minute office visit. From what I understand Blue Cross pays better than many insurance plans, and it's also a PPO, not an HMO and I know it pays more than HMO plans do. Adjust his figures to an average of about $10 for a fifteen minute visit and the financial picture doesn't get much rosier.If you don't have insurance I apologize, but doctors depend mainly on patients with insurance to pay the bills. (Most people without insurance can't afford to visit a doctor even as much as they need to, insured people generally can due to lower costs to them up front.) Doctors rarely get paid what they bill for an office visit so you cannot base your financial assumptions on the billed rate. I should also note that many pay more to get a better insurance plan that will pay for more options. Those plans also often pay the doctors more. In my case insurance is a fully-paid benefit so I pay no more for the PPO plan over the HMO ones beyond a higher deductible and out-of-pocket. For me it costs less than having a copay for office visits, but for many the copay is more affordable so they stick with HMOs.
I'm guessing, but I believe the grandparent's wife is a pediatrician (he mentioned only the amount paid for a child's visit). Insurance may very well pay less on average for a child's visit than an adult's. I do believe that doctors get more than $7 to see an adult on Medicare, but I'm not certain of the numbers. (I'm an IT person but my Mother has worked at doctor's offices for years as office personnel so I hear about a lot of the costs. I also always check my EOBs so I'm aware of what my own insurance pays my doctors.)
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Malpractice insurance is a result of the greedy Americans who file for damages. There are those who have legitimate cases, and they ought to be rewarded, but there are a ton of frivolous malpractice suits as well. Health costs come down to the greedy American looking for a big payoff with minimum work.
This may not be as true as we think. Another assumption is that malpractice insurance companies' willingness to settle has led to the rates going up astronomically but studies haven't found correlations between the number of settled cases and guilty verdicts (with awards) in a state and the cost of the insurance. In some cases states with low payouts have much higher rates than states with much higher payouts.I'd say it's a combination of factors and that greed from the insurance companies is a big part of it too. Probably the only people in the healthcare fields really making money are the insurers (malpractice at least) and the pharmecutical companies.
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The other reason why expenses are so high is the barrier to entry into the market. Many patents on pharmaceuticals run out by the time the company has met federal requirements. This seriously reduces the amount of profit that the company can gain off of their work before knock-off pharm companies start producing the same medicine.
That would seem to be an easy fix, and one the FDA shouldn't object to. Just adjust the patent process so that the expiration date of the patent is based on when it is approved as long as the drug is being actively developed/tested. That would keep a company from patenting a drug and not acting on it for 20 years then suddenly deciding to act to extend the patent time. It would also give companies that actively research new drugs more time to profit from their research and more incentive to research new drugs.However, I don't think this is the real issue with drug costs. The pharmaceutical companies make huge profits, even factoring in their expenditures on R&D, so something's out of kilter. Again it's probably a variety of factors, but greed is probably a big player in them as well.
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If the FDA eased off on the drug regulations, and maybe let the patent law for medicines change, then medical costs would be reduced. Things always get more expensive when the 800 pound gorilla of American government decides to get involved.
If that's all the FDA did we would like just see new medicines cost too much for longer periods until generics are finally allowed. I cannot foresee the pharmaceutical companies lowering their prices any time soon. The explanation will likely be "well sure it'll help in the long run, but all the stuff in the works now cost more under the old process so prices can't go down yet." Then they'll just forget about lowering the prices to match costs on drugs developed under the new rules.To give an example that's computer related, do you think Microsoft would lower the price on Windows Longhorn if the government lowered the cost to obtain patents and extended their duration? I sure don't.
Personally I wonder if a compulsary license type of plan would work to lower drug costs and reward companies who research new drugs. Just extend the patent time, but generics can be made before the patent expires. (Setting the time when other companies can produce the drug as a generic to the current patent expiration date should work.) Then the drug companies get let's say .005 cents for every generic pill made of their drugs until the new patent term expires. This would introduce a huge revenue stream essentially for free to the companies researching and developing drugs. It shouldn't effect the price of generics much, as it would only add one cent to every 200 pills.
Fact. If you illegally share copyrighted materials online you are in the wrong.
I never contended that what they did was legal, only that the lawsuits have NOT stopped the downloading. Of the two examples I gave one was a 12yo girl who reportedly had only a few songs, she'd downloaded the theme song from her favorite show. In any other context everyone would be claiming she was too young to know better, but now you feel she not only should have known better it was justifiable for the RIAA to not only sue her but refuse to drop the case when the facts surfaced? What if it'd been your kid, I'm quite sure your reaction would be different.
Of the other example the grandfather was not aware his computer was sharing songs. His grandkids had installed the software when visiting without his permission or knowledge. They downloaded some music, and left it running, set to start on startup. So the real violaters were his grandkids, he was an innocent bystander. Yet again your reaction is he got what he deserved.
Funny that there was no accusation in my post. Wow, I point out that the lawsuits aren't working and that if folks aren't willing to stop downloading music when facing the prospect of financial ruin a law isn't going to help and you're angry about that? I suggest taking Yoga, it's supposed to do wonders for anger management. Whether you like it or not the facts support my post. There are already laws against downloading and sharing music, there are already lawsuits being tossed about galore, there are already numerous victims (yes victims, victims of an industry unwilling to change) financially ruined yet the public overwhelmingly continues to download and share music online. No law is going to stop that, it's a cultural phenomenon now. You might find it distasteful, but you know what? The sheet music printers found piano rolls to be very distasteful and illegal (which they were at the time) yet they didn't succeed in stopping them.
What fucking victims? The artists are victims, but not of the downloaders, they got ripped off when they signed their contracts with the record companies. Those who recorded/produced/pressed/distributed the CDs are going to be your next group right? Sorry but while CD sales are down there is no proof it's being caused solely by downloading online. How soon we forget the studies that have shown that active downloaders buy more music. The music industry can claim it's because of downloading all day, and I, and many others, can claim it's because of shitty content, overpriced CDs and a bloated, immoral, antiquated industry. I suspect that it's a bit of both. But a "serious crime"? Oh come on, are you serious? We're not talking rape, murder or assault here. We're talking copyright infringment. On the list of serious crimes it's pretty damned low. I'm far more concerned about things like that being prevented that Congress wasting time and money to pass yet more laws to go after music downloaders. The way they're expanding things is frankly disturbing too. Knowingly instead of willingly? Well what's knowingly? If someone trojans your machine and starts sharing files off of it, then you find out 3 weeks later and spend 2 weeks trying to get it stopped weren't you "knowingly" sharing for those 2 weeks, even though you were trying to stop it? Yes you were, and you too could wind up in jail thanks to this law.
And frankly your smart-ass example isn't far fromt he truth. If everyone's getting a drink during commercials and it'
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Because we all know that passing laws to make, say, speeding in cars, murder, fraud etc. illegal has put an end to all those activities.
And regular lawsuits against multiple people trading files online, including 12yo girls and grandparents who didn't even know that their grandkids had installed the software have worked too. But yep, a law will do the trick, heaven knows people won't break a law but are happy to risk financial ruin.What do we expect though? It seems that one business or another owns every member of Congress, "We the people" is now "We the corporations" as far as representation in Congress goes. *sigh*
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What stops them from making the media content require a DRM compliant receiver?
That still won't stop it from being beaten, all you'd need is a box that reports to the media that it indeed is DRM compliant but shuts down the DRM stuff as soon as the media is fooled. Same concept some region-free DVD players use to trick the DVDs that check if the player will accept region 0 then refuse to play if it does.So if you have one of the 'magic DRM-less' receivers, you don't have to worry about the DRM bit, but nor do you have to worry about having anything to watch either..
Failing a receiver that does it, a box could be inserted in the stream that tells the media on one end that it's DRM compliant, then strips the broadcast flag before spitting the stream out the other side. That'd be the same as the Macrovision strippers that you can find to allow copying of VHS tapes (and DVDs in fact) that have Macrovision on them.
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Yep... and once the EEYORE (Electronic Enforcement Yardstick Of Rights Exemption) Act is signed into law, those pesky entrapment problems will be a thing of the past.
Actually what they do now is not entrapment, at least if done properly, the vigilantes probably do entrap people, but the legit law enforcement folks pretending to be kids online to catch pedophiles aren't. Basically unless the officer's actions causes the suspect to commit a crime that it was obvious they were not willing to commit then it's entrapment. Pretending to be a little girl and chatting back with some old guy who messages you isn't. They do have to be careful though, for instance the officer should avoid suggesting the suspect visit them, etc. so that it's clear in court that it was completely willful on the suspect's part. As I understand it, it takes special training to cover these issues to make sure entrapment can't overturn an arrest. That's probably why we hear of so few arrests made from online contacts.The vigilantes are the worrisome thing though, since they're not law enforcement entrapment doesn't apply to them, so if they con someone into doing something/sending something that they then turn over to the police the person has no recourse in the criminal case, even IF the vigilante had indeed caused them to do a crime they were not willing to commit prior to the vigilante encouraging it. They may be able to sue them in civil court but with all the "think of the children" hysteria I doubt any jury would listen to the facts long enough to find in their favor.
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Just check the online ID before persuing the child??
Doubt it, they'll most likely be able to get fake tokens to use online. The main problem may be that they'll need multiple tokens as they can't be the same "child" constantly as their cover might be blown from time to time (after busts for instance).That's gonna cut into the FBI's stake-outs, isn't it?
Other than that it probably won't matter, if you read the details of the busts the police do make from online contacts the guys were total morons to start with. They didn't arrest some horrid child predator, they arrest some moron who likes kids but isn't bright enough to be successful at it. I'm quite sure the real dangers are far sneakier, after all they know the feds are watching the chat rooms too. Additionally the statistics show that most kids are sexually abused by someone they know, generally family, so online predation isn't what the cops really need to worry about, it's just a way to make it appear they're doing something about the problem.
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Better yet, how many kids will lose their tokens?
Not at the same time of course, but I'd bet at least 50%. I work for a school system and just yesterday we had about 8 kids get on the wrong buses and another 5 or so who were new bus riders and didn't know where they lived exactly. If they can't remember things as important as which bus they ride and house they live in we certainly can't expect them to keep track of a small USB token.-
Not to mention the possibility of the breaching of the privacy of minors.
That's the first thing I thought of myself. I work with the bus routing software and when I need to send copies of my databases to the company who makes it to debug a problem I have to make a copy and go through and change all the names to John Doe. I also can't send the whole file since the addresses can't be masked for debugging purposes. How sending an entire list of your kids with names, age and gender to Verisign can be legal is beyond me. AFAIK that would require signed consent from every single parent/guardian for every kid.-
On paper this sounds like a good way to protect children, but somehow I think the execution of the idea is not going to be as easy as Verisign and Co. think it might be.
Well there's the beauty of it from Verisign's standpoint. They don't have to worry about the execution, they just provide the tokens and authorization servers. The school systems get to sort out the mess from lost/stolen keys and what not. It'll just end up overwhelming the poor staff with more paperwork and problems than they already have to deal with.-
This is about making sure you're a kid, not that you're an adult. The theory is that it'll keep the pedophiles, who won't have the "I'm a kid" token, out of the elementary school "chat rooms."
Of course there's not much to stop a smart pedophile (or pedophiles) from finding a way to create their own tokens (what age do you want to be today?) or just stealing them. The article makes it sound like the tokens may contain the kid's names, age and gender, not just age. I'm sure the pedophiles who are on the chat rooms will appreciate knowing that it's really a kid instead of a police officer on the other end.Another thought: if they do uniquely identify each kid losing one could open up realms of bullying that are scary. Imagine being able to "prove" you're another kid. Then you go online and tell off all their friends, make lots of enemies, etc. until the lost token's reported and a new one isssued. Poor kid gets back online and faces all his/her online friends refusing to talk to him and complete strangers cussing them out for something they didn't do. Brilliant system.
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Besides the "problem" of pedophiles in "chat rooms" being completely overblown, this is probably just the precursor of some sort of infrastructure to eliminate anonymous browsing. And who wouldn't like a piece of selling a token for $20/year to anyone who wants to get any information from the Internet in 10 years?
Either that or it's an FBI dream that they'll be able to tell who's really kids online (and of course be able to obtain fake tokens to use when trolling the chat rooms for pedophiles). Personally I agree with you on it being overblown, I suspect the majority of "kids" online talking to "pedophiles" are law enforcement and vigilantes trying to set each other up, neither realizing the other party's not who they think they are.-
I can sort of see Microsoft's point on this; I mean, if somebody hasn't upgraded from (say) Windows 98 in late 2004, the odds that they are applying security fixes is extremely low. Why even bother releasing them?
Eventually something will force the issue and they'll have to take the computer to the shop or get a techy friend to fix it. It's then that this becomes important, especially if they're having to pay to get it fixed, they're not going to want to pay an extra $99 (or more if they can't find their install discs) to get XP on their machine. Not to mention it might not be capable of running XP, or not at a useable speed. There's a lot of folks out there using old computers that can't afford to buy new ones so they have to stick with what they have.It's pretty bad for those folks to get their computer fixed with a nice fresh install and all security patches and it gets infected a few weeks later because Microsoft refuses to retrofit the extra security in IE to their version of windows. Frankly Microsoft is responsible for the hideous security in IE on older systems, it should be fixing the mess, or at least attempting to help keep it from getting worse.
I agree that not providing them for Windows 2000 is a real shocker, it's even on the NT codebase like XP is instead of the Win32 one. I suspect a LOT of businesses are going to be furious about this one.
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"Microsoft is not using security issues or any security situation to try to drive upgrades," said a company representative. "But it only makes sense that the latest products are the most secure."
Well yes that's true but it's also true that a large portion of the zombie PCs out there spewing spam, viruses, worms and DDoS attacks are NOT running the latest product from Microsoft. Effectivly Microsoft's saying "well we'll concentrate on security only in a future sense." Bet that once Longhorn finally arrives XP will stop getting security patches shortly thereafter.Frankly we can only hope that there's enough big business clients that have "legacy" Windows OSs that will raise holy hell with Microsoft on this. Otherwise we can expect the situation with compromised machines to not get any better. It seems most of the people with badly compromised PCs don't even try to get them fixed until they finally grind to a halt, they're not likely to be upgrading to XP anytime soon.
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I like a good practical joke as much as the next person. Can we just track down one of these people, drag him/her outside chop them up with bolo knives hunt down their families, rape mutiliate and murder them set fire to their houses, kill their dogs and piss all over the corpses already?
While I appreciate the sentiment (personally I'm thinking boiling oil would be appropriate for spammers) I doubt it'd help. Even with the death penalty in the US we still have far far too many murders/rapes/etc. so it doesn't seem to work as a deterrent. All we'd end up with is lots of dead spammers (good) but plenty more rushing to take their places (bad). Just look at the meth problem, last night on the news we heard that the county sheriff in one of the nearby counties ended up busting his wife's cousin for cooking meth. People just get greedy and completely overlook the possible consequences. We're not going to be able to stop these problems with laws or conventional punishments.I figure 10, 20 thousand of these losers tops and the problem will go away.
That said we need to find a way to make spam stop paying. If there's no money in it, or it gets to where it's a near certainty you'll lose all you made (and then some) from hefty fines people will move on to something else to try to make a quick buck.
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Seriously.
I submitted the article and I can honestly say it isn't a surprise. It's newsworthy though because it shows a new vulnerability and one that's far easier to trick your average Windows luser into following. I really liked how The Reg really slammed the politicians and in one lovely sentence made utter fools out of them and their whole approach to spam. I suspect that we'll be hearing their take, or something very similar next time Congress decides to act on the spam problem again.It's not like spammers are a class of people to be trusted.
What's really great is this little exploit and the way it's done really is going to take the wind out of the sails of the Direct Marketing Association. It's going to be hard to defend the practice of sending mails unless explicitely opted-in from now thanks to a spammer/virus writer. It should also make it clear to everyone the huge difference between junk mail (postal) and spam. Junk mail doesn't come with bombs that go off and destroy your mailbox when it arrives.
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I just sent a link to that to the MCSE slags at work. How long till they figure out they just got owned.
I predict about 5 minutes before they call security and 10 minutes before you get to clean out your desk and go home early.-
I have seen the BSOD on XP several times, and yes - it does reboot almost instantly. I've even run into the problem on boot, so I couldn't even change the option if I wanted to because I couldn't read the error code to look it up and fix the machine. Ended up having to run the repair tool on the CD and it fixed whatever it was that was wrong (not preferred way of fixing things).
We had a power outage last Friday thanks to Ivan blowing through the state and it lasted long enough that my UPS ran out of juice and the XP box went down. Later in the day I turned it on and left the room to do something while it booted, I didn't get back to it for a while, no biggie it runs 24x7 normally anyway. Well when I got back I found it in an infinite boot, BSOD, reboot cycle. The BSOD wasn't even given time to fully draw on the screen before the reboot kicked in. I was able to get into the box using "last known good configuration" (which ironically should have been the same, as nothing had been added/modified since the last boot) but it kept wanting to do the BSOD on reboots. I finally got it fixed by re-applying SP2, somehow that made a difference to XP.So yes, XP may not crash as much as Win9x, but it's by no means immune, and the reasons for it are near impossible to determine sometimes.
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Is that they need to fix the loose nut behind the wheel in most cars.
I realize you're being slightly funny with the first part but you're dead right on this. Want to make cars of the future much safer? Remove the drivers. Right now it seems maybe half the people out there can drive even moderately safely without any distractions. I take a few backroads to work and it never ceases to amaze me the number of people I see driving in the middle of the damn thing. It's wide enough that you can easily stay on your side of the road without much effort, even if you decide to be a bit agressive on the few curves it has. Yet people will drive right in the middle, straddling that double yellow line while going UP a blind hill. When I'm behind them I slow down to make sure if they meet flaming death I can stop to survey the damage and not participate in it. If I encounter them coming my way I pray. (There's no room for error, ditches on both sides.)until they tighten restriction on getting nad maintaining a drivers license things will get worse.
it's a privilige people, not a right, and you most certianly do not have the right to endanger others because you get your jollies from driving recklessly.
Add in cell phones (built-in hands-free or not), Navigation systems, DVD players, etc. and I think conservatively we're getting to about 80% of the population who's not having accidents out of sheer dumb luck.
I suspect at some point in the future we're going to end up with a terribly horrible accident that kills hundreds and hundreds of people caused by a few people who didn't know how they hell to drive to start with distracted by stuff. Then there'll be a backlash and we'll see a clamp-down on who can drive. That's about the only thing that'll truly make the roads safer. After all you can try making cars idiot proof but the idiots are out there breeding and a better (well ok, dumber) idiot will be at hand to undo whatever you engineer in.
Note: I'm not going to claim I'm a perfect driver but I do know how to keep my car on my side of the road at least. That alone makes me safer than at least 50% of the population around here.
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When you lower a cable, it is relatively easy to anchor it to a floating platform in the middle of the ocean. Therefore, there is no worry about equatorial real estate, local population, eminent domain, or other government-dominated nonsense.
What about natural phenomenon, such as a hurricane or two blasting the platform each year?-
and its making marvin depressed.
And this is a surprise? I think you can fill in just about anything in front of that and and it'll be a perfectly valid sentence.Gotta love a depressed android, especially (in the books at least) one older than the universe.
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If you haven't yet tried the clickwheel on an iPod yet, do it. The article is handy if you're curious about implementation, but actually using the device to navigate a huge music library will literally make you grin.
Just a bit of testimony on this, up until last week the only encounters I'd had with iPods were store demo models and I couldn't figure the bloody wheel out. I do have to say it's not immediately intuitive, having the clickable buttons threw me off, I thought you used the back and forward ones to navigate the menu. Last week I got an iPod all of my own, a 4th gen one with the clickwheel. After a bit of frustration trying to figure out how to use the clickwheel I finally noticed it moved up and down as my finger moved along it. Bingo, easy to use after that.Based on past experiences I'd not been a fan of the design, but after learning HOW it works and using it I have to say it's exceptionally well designed. It's easy to scroll through the lists and volume control is a breeze. I can even reach down and adjust the volume on it while driving and not have to look at it. I even have to look at the radio to make sure I get the right knob so that's saying something! (Note that I do not listen to it with headphones while driving in the car, I know that's dangers and illegal in most states.)
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Oh, and speaking of iPods, please click the link in my signature
... :-)
Take him up on it or even use mine. Find a conga line to help you get your referrals. That's where my iPod came from, amazing to get a free nearly $300 device.-
The scroll wheel is just a round touchpad and is based on the same technology Synapsis has patents on. It even feels the same as the touchpad on my PowerBook.
I have a 4th gen iPod with the click wheel and after I finally figured out you just moved your finger to scroll (it wasn't immediately obvious and I've not had the opportunity to use previous versions) I've found it to be far more responsive than the touchpads I've encountered on notebooks. I have a Sony Vaio at work and I hate the touchpad on it, it's very difficult to control and way too sensitive registering double clicks even when my finger doesn't leave the surface. (Apparently pausing with your finger on the touchpad counts, I can't find a way to adjust the settings to fix it.)So I'd have to say that with the current generation clickwheels the touchpad on the iPod is far better. It's just sensitive enough without being too sensitive and it requires no adjustment to work that way. That alone is an achievement since there are so many different finger sizes out there and different people are going to push with different pressures.
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Touchpads are the best thing that ever happened to this company. They're getting licensing fees and royalties on almost every notebook sold, or they make money directly as the component vendor for the touch pads.
And deservedly so, they obviously can make some top notch ones (iPod clickwheel) so they're really earned those fees and royalties. At least they're not an IP company making money via lawsuit.It's not just attacks though, seems nearly every security threat (worms, viruses, hacking attempts, etc.) are all converging on one overriding purpose -- SPAM!!! Someone hacked your server? They've probably installed a trojan that makes it a zombie spam relay. User clicked on the blatantly obvious virus in their E-mail and infected their system? It's now a zombie spam relay. Worm managed to get into an unpatched system? Yay, another zombie spam relay!
Even a few years back I felt a lot of hacking and virii/worms were caused by script kiddies playing with hackers tools they found online. Nowadays it's starting to look incredibly organized and methodical. It makes you wonder who's really behind the whole thing. It's getting to be far too orderly (from a spam relay acquiral front particularly) to just be lots of independant greedy folks with no morals trying to make a quick buck. Not to sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil cap but I'd say it's a fair bet that organized crime has moved into the arena and taken charge behind the scenes.
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Like I said, I don't know a hell of alot about it but your 76 hour timeline makes me suspicious. Does it kill the virus or not?
I don't know how it works, I just know it's classified as an anti-viral drug and works on the virus that causes Shingles. I also have no idea why that 76 hour deadline is important. There's a huge amount of info here on the drug including the clinical pharmacology. I can't say as I understand it all well enough to try and summarize it.