> Isn't it strange to hear quotes from people at the RIAA that don't sound stupid?
I wouldnt say strange. They tried to make P2P programs illegal, tried to demonize anyone who copies a CD for the car, tried and is currently trying to sue everyone into oblivian, etc.
When it would have made a whole lot of more sense to realize that they should have jumped on the digital sales bandwagon a long time ago. Heck, in fact they are barely on this bandwagon and consider iTunes to be an experiment of sorts. Apple wants more songs, artists, etc but the RIAA is holding back. At best iTunes is a token gesture until a real catalog develops, the prices go lower, and more indie artists are represented.
As far as the unholy marriage of the RIAA and ClearChannel, well they're hoping that still pays out, and it does. The question is will these digital downloads hurt their payola, concert ticket, etc schemes too badly.
Before I get flamed for "blocking ads," first off its my PC and I'll do as I please. Don't like it? Switch to a subscriber model. When Salon.com went pay I sure as heck forked over the money. I can't imagine doing that for msn.com or the other sites mentioned. If their content isn't worth it chances are they're going to subsidize their lack of worth with gimmicks like these.
Secondly, text ads are far superior, convey real information, and the google method puts them in the context of the website itself, so you don't get car ads on a site about bicycles.
That's the real problem with outbound filtering, you're relying on the end user to say yes/no. Ideally the firewall should contact its vendors (or a public) database and tell the user if the program is malicious or not. You could automate this and never bother the user with those outbound requests.
> If there had to be a compelling economic argument for everything we do we'd still be living in caves!
Well, there are only x amount of natural caves and building your own shelter solves that problem. If there was cave-rent then that would certainly be a economic argument, but it was more a survival argument as 'cave-rent' was how well you could defend it.
>Okay, I challenge you to wear a BSD t-shirt and walk around several south-US states
And I challenge you to walk around the south while being black or gay. Just because people take exception to something doesn't mean its wrong or should be changed.
This is ridiculous. The trickster archtype is as old as humanity and serves an important function as the rebel, the defender of the non-conventional, etc. I always loved this little character because he more or less represented the non-mainstream, something that couldnt be "MS-ified." Come on, this isn't exactly a Church of Satan horned muscle-bound monstrosity with a huge schlong hanging between its legs.
He's also drawn in a very cute anime-like way which pretty much puts the kibosh on the whole "its the devil" nonsense. Last I checked the US wasn't a theocracy.
Well, here's to another bit of creativity killed by "comittee thinking." I await the eventual swirl design that corporate america seems to love.
As a side note: did you know that it was recently discovered that penguins can projectile defecate? It helps keep their nests clean. Linux's mascot is pretty much a bird that can shoot its shit. Quickly someone pick a new mascot! That's how the BSD people seem to be acting.
Or they can download Mandrake (or SuSE, Debian, etc) and not worry about the redhat EOL and get free updates without worrying about or paying out to a third-party.
I don't understand the redhat cheerleading, they ditched the home and small business people, no need to go back begging for scraps. There are other and better distros out there.
> Wow. MS has really been listening to users recently..
Maybe, maybe not. Homeland security is now in charge of taking care of the net. Perhaps BillG got a phone call from Tom Ridge saying, "You will patch those systems." For good or bad. Leaving Win98 root exploits alone would be problematic to say the least. Its either this or the *shudder* the mandatory federal firewall.
The above is all conjecture, but what else could make MS change its mind so quickly?
Mechs vulnerable to air attack/RPG
on
Your Own Mecha
·
· Score: 1
I think every geek has wondered why we don't use mechs in the military. The technology is here, but the mech itself is a big sitting duck. I guess you could say the same for an aircraft carrier but ACs don't float around alone, they're surrounded by support and defense ships and planes. And most importantly, they serve a unique function - they're floating airports. What can a mech offer?
So a mech would be this slow, lumbering weapons platform that's not as quick or stable as a tank. It would require all sorts of support and defensive equipment and soldiers. It would eat gasoline like nobodies business, and for what? To use arms and hands? A military bulldozer can knock over a building or move junk much better than a hydrolic arm.
I can't see a situation where one would need a mech. On the other hand I can deifinately see mech-like exoskeletons enhancing the abilities of infantry and special ops kind of like the equipment in The Forever War or Starship Troopers. Or something in the middle like a bipedal lightly armored 'tank' that can walk and run with stability over very uneven terrain like a freshly bombed city or battlefield for scouting purposes and helping light infantry.
What good is the internet and the information age if everything *should* be like the network tv news?
A few minutes of street crime, a few minutes on a local thing, a few minutes on international stuff, some chit-chat, then sports and weather. No thanks.
There's nothing wrong with a 'news for nerds' site and playing the morality card is unconvincing and someone can *always* find a more desperate and dire news item to make you seem like the frivolous type.
I dont think thats what the grandparent meant. My interpretation is that Robertson is 'the enemy' and 'good groups' like the EFF should never support him. Bullshit.
> If this guy EVER gets support from the EFF, you all should be PISSED.
Why? Suddenly Robertson doesn't have any rights? Yeah, he's on that thin-edge of harassing MS, which is a lot less than they deserve.
His company has contributed quite a bit to a few OSS projects, for that alone he deserves some kind of respect.
Personally, I don't get into all this drama. If Robertson wants to play the role of 'thorn in MS's side' that's just fine with me. Having some slashdotter tell me how I should feel if the EFF defended him isn't fine with me.
A fourth rate military decimated by sanctions and weekly bombings for over ten years? Bulgaria could have "conquered iraq." I hate to break it to you but the war is still going on, the war was justified by lies, there's no government or security to speak of, and people are still dying.
> He created a new federal agency.
A lumbering giant that has yet to prove its effectiveness, especially for what it cost us.
> Do I need go on?
No, but you shouldn't oversimplify things to praise Bush.
The FBI doesn't bother with warrants anymore. They just write themselves national security letters. On top of that the criteria for getting warrants has fallen dramatically.
Its not 2000 anymore. Thanks to both Patriot acts (didnt you know the second one was passed in a spending bill?) judicial oversight is mostly a thing of the past. The constitutional protections we took for granted are gone. I don't know why John Ashcroft has such a problem with judicial oversight, but he does and Congress and the Executive branch not SCOTUS (as far as I can tell) don't seem to care much.
This is a very different America than just a couple years ago and we've already seen abuses with the Patriot act being used in non-terror cases like drug trafficking. This just opens up the door to more COINTELPRO and other FBI abuses.
Encryption is more important now than ever. Maybe when the post-911 hysteria and power grabs are over we can have faith in an iota in due process but right now "trusting your government" is the worst thing you can do. Worse, all justifications for recording communication can apply to all communication. If you agree with this, why not put little mics on every person in the country?
Not to mention, last I checked PGPfone is a free download and easy to use. If criminals wanted to speak freely they could use that with impunity.
6? Even 4 would take up a lot of space, add noise, and drain lots of power. I'd settle for two drives doing RAID-1 in case of the worst with an option to shut down one of the drives when the battery gets low.
Sadly, the money wasted in Iraq could have funded these missions, stopped cutting needed services, and helped pave the way to some form of universal heathcare. Also note, Bush is reaching to immigrants this week with other sky-in-the-pie promises. Methinks people aren't so easily fooled anymore by Karl Rove's playbook.
Farnsworth: Oh I should think so. Although last time aliens invaded all they did was force the most intelligent of us to pair off and mate continuously. Oh yes!
>Open access (maybe a bit of WEP, but AirSnort will take care of that)
Its 802.11G using WPA. You can't crack it like WEP. Maybe you'll get lucky and your neighbor will use a passphrase like "password" or some other dictionary word.
54mbs in contention, in the air, and at 2.4ghz may (or probably) cause frame skipping and other problems when Johnny fires up the microwave, your other neighbor's b network starts doing massive file transers, Joan from upstairs talks on her cordless phone, etc. The press release mentions that you can use ordinary cat-5 cable instead of the wireless. Something tells me many people are going to go that route if they live in a 2.4ghz heavy trafficked area.
Look at it this way, you're getting around 20-15Mbps (probably closer to 15) of real world usable bandwidth with 802.11g. DVD quality movies use around 6-9 Mbps depending. Unless conditions are very good, you won't get DVD quality stuff without some problems.
I do wonder if the DVD drive will read data CDRs with divx files on them and play them. Can't see why it couldn't do this and if it does I'm totally buying this thing when it comes out.
Are there photoshop-like skins for it? I'm sure that would go a long way to mass-adoption as we're all too lazy to learn new things. Afterall, KDE/Gnome have no problem looking like Windows.
These TI's are so overpriced and schools have no problem making them mandatory for so many classes, even for non-math majors who will re-sell them to the bookstore for 20% of their worth, if they're lucky.
Its the same way with textbooks. I have a laptop, why don't they sell me my books in searchable PDF format and cut out the middle man, save me money, and let me be able to do context-sensitive searches? Iron out some stupid copy protection and save my back from carrying 20lbs of books everywhere.
Its even worse for little kids who can damage their backs and ruin their posture carrying around big, heavy books in their backpacks. A kid-friendly e-book could solve all these problems.
In the meantime there's easycalc for Palm-based PDAs for the math student without $100 burning a hole in his pocket and perhaps some fed up students will start scanning textbooks, upload them to P2P networks and force the digital age upon textbook publishers like we did to the RIAA. There are how many online music sellers right now?
Come to think of it, the TI-8x line of calcs are the same price they were over ten+ years ago. TI is enjoying their vendor lock-in a little too much. I can't see why such a weak device should cost over $20 bucks. Or why they aren't selling economy models for that mandatory Calculus class.
The Handmaid's Tale is probably one of the best books I've read. Essentially its 1984 except remove Stalinism and replace it with the American Religious Right. The characters are done extremely well, the story is a page-turner, and it contains some very thoughtful analysis of social issues.
Its more an "elseworld" story like The Man in the High Castle than it is sci-fi so I can understand why people used to space operas, techno-thrillers, and cyberpunk might not like a book that is a tad more sophisticated the same way TMITHC is some of PKDs most sophisticated work.
Slashdot Mirror
> Isn't it strange to hear quotes from people at the RIAA that don't sound stupid?
I wouldnt say strange. They tried to make P2P programs illegal, tried to demonize anyone who copies a CD for the car, tried and is currently trying to sue everyone into oblivian, etc.
When it would have made a whole lot of more sense to realize that they should have jumped on the digital sales bandwagon a long time ago. Heck, in fact they are barely on this bandwagon and consider iTunes to be an experiment of sorts. Apple wants more songs, artists, etc but the RIAA is holding back. At best iTunes is a token gesture until a real catalog develops, the prices go lower, and more indie artists are represented.
As far as the unholy marriage of the RIAA and ClearChannel, well they're hoping that still pays out, and it does. The question is will these digital downloads hurt their payola, concert ticket, etc schemes too badly.
I've been updating this list for a few years now and it works fairly well with very little to no blocking of legitimate content. Enjoy.
Before I get flamed for "blocking ads," first off its my PC and I'll do as I please. Don't like it? Switch to a subscriber model. When Salon.com went pay I sure as heck forked over the money. I can't imagine doing that for msn.com or the other sites mentioned. If their content isn't worth it chances are they're going to subsidize their lack of worth with gimmicks like these.
Secondly, text ads are far superior, convey real information, and the google method puts them in the context of the website itself, so you don't get car ads on a site about bicycles.
That's the real problem with outbound filtering, you're relying on the end user to say yes/no. Ideally the firewall should contact its vendors (or a public) database and tell the user if the program is malicious or not. You could automate this and never bother the user with those outbound requests.
> If there had to be a compelling economic argument for everything we do we'd still be living in caves!
Well, there are only x amount of natural caves and building your own shelter solves that problem. If there was cave-rent then that would certainly be a economic argument, but it was more a survival argument as 'cave-rent' was how well you could defend it.
Survival and economics go hand in hand.
>Okay, I challenge you to wear a BSD t-shirt and walk around several south-US states
And I challenge you to walk around the south while being black or gay. Just because people take exception to something doesn't mean its wrong or should be changed.
This is ridiculous. The trickster archtype is as old as humanity and serves an important function as the rebel, the defender of the non-conventional, etc. I always loved this little character because he more or less represented the non-mainstream, something that couldnt be "MS-ified." Come on, this isn't exactly a Church of Satan horned muscle-bound monstrosity with a huge schlong hanging between its legs.
He's also drawn in a very cute anime-like way which pretty much puts the kibosh on the whole "its the devil" nonsense. Last I checked the US wasn't a theocracy.
Well, here's to another bit of creativity killed by "comittee thinking." I await the eventual swirl design that corporate america seems to love.
As a side note: did you know that it was recently discovered that penguins can projectile defecate? It helps keep their nests clean. Linux's mascot is pretty much a bird that can shoot its shit. Quickly someone pick a new mascot! That's how the BSD people seem to be acting.
Thanks, I just choked on some spring water I was drinking after I read that.
>So healthy persons are not the Segway's target market.
Close, but the Segway is a yuppie toy, not a next-gen wheelchair. The next generation Segway will be the device that made Baron Harkonen float around.
Or they can download Mandrake (or SuSE, Debian, etc) and not worry about the redhat EOL and get free updates without worrying about or paying out to a third-party.
I don't understand the redhat cheerleading, they ditched the home and small business people, no need to go back begging for scraps. There are other and better distros out there.
> Wow. MS has really been listening to users recently..
Maybe, maybe not. Homeland security is now in charge of taking care of the net. Perhaps BillG got a phone call from Tom Ridge saying, "You will patch those systems." For good or bad. Leaving Win98 root exploits alone would be problematic to say the least. Its either this or the *shudder* the mandatory federal firewall.
The above is all conjecture, but what else could make MS change its mind so quickly?
I think every geek has wondered why we don't use mechs in the military. The technology is here, but the mech itself is a big sitting duck. I guess you could say the same for an aircraft carrier but ACs don't float around alone, they're surrounded by support and defense ships and planes. And most importantly, they serve a unique function - they're floating airports. What can a mech offer?
So a mech would be this slow, lumbering weapons platform that's not as quick or stable as a tank. It would require all sorts of support and defensive equipment and soldiers. It would eat gasoline like nobodies business, and for what? To use arms and hands? A military bulldozer can knock over a building or move junk much better than a hydrolic arm.
I can't see a situation where one would need a mech. On the other hand I can deifinately see mech-like exoskeletons enhancing the abilities of infantry and special ops kind of like the equipment in The Forever War or Starship Troopers. Or something in the middle like a bipedal lightly armored 'tank' that can walk and run with stability over very uneven terrain like a freshly bombed city or battlefield for scouting purposes and helping light infantry.
What good is the internet and the information age if everything *should* be like the network tv news?
A few minutes of street crime, a few minutes on a local thing, a few minutes on international stuff, some chit-chat, then sports and weather. No thanks.
There's nothing wrong with a 'news for nerds' site and playing the morality card is unconvincing and someone can *always* find a more desperate and dire news item to make you seem like the frivolous type.
I dont think thats what the grandparent meant. My interpretation is that Robertson is 'the enemy' and 'good groups' like the EFF should never support him. Bullshit.
> If this guy EVER gets support from the EFF, you all should be PISSED.
Why? Suddenly Robertson doesn't have any rights? Yeah, he's on that thin-edge of harassing MS, which is a lot less than they deserve.
His company has contributed quite a bit to a few OSS projects, for that alone he deserves some kind of respect.
Personally, I don't get into all this drama. If Robertson wants to play the role of 'thorn in MS's side' that's just fine with me. Having some slashdotter tell me how I should feel if the EFF defended him isn't fine with me.
> He broke the Taliban
The taliban is not only still together and performing occasional attacks, they're working with local warlords. Essentially, Karzais government doesnt extend too far from Kabul. Lets just admit it, Bush left Afghanistan in the cold because his administration wanted Iraq so much more.
> He conquered Iraq.
A fourth rate military decimated by sanctions and weekly bombings for over ten years? Bulgaria could have "conquered iraq." I hate to break it to you but the war is still going on, the war was justified by lies, there's no government or security to speak of, and people are still dying.
> He created a new federal agency.
A lumbering giant that has yet to prove its effectiveness, especially for what it cost us.
> Do I need go on?
No, but you shouldn't oversimplify things to praise Bush.
The FBI doesn't bother with warrants anymore. They just write themselves national security letters. On top of that the criteria for getting warrants has fallen dramatically.
>as in, got a judge to OK it
Its not 2000 anymore. Thanks to both Patriot acts (didnt you know the second one was passed in a spending bill?) judicial oversight is mostly a thing of the past. The constitutional protections we took for granted are gone. I don't know why John Ashcroft has such a problem with judicial oversight, but he does and Congress and the Executive branch not SCOTUS (as far as I can tell) don't seem to care much.
This is a very different America than just a couple years ago and we've already seen abuses with the Patriot act being used in non-terror cases like drug trafficking. This just opens up the door to more COINTELPRO and other FBI abuses.
Encryption is more important now than ever. Maybe when the post-911 hysteria and power grabs are over we can have faith in an iota in due process but right now "trusting your government" is the worst thing you can do. Worse, all justifications for recording communication can apply to all communication. If you agree with this, why not put little mics on every person in the country?
Not to mention, last I checked PGPfone is a free download and easy to use. If criminals wanted to speak freely they could use that with impunity.
> 6 of these into a notebook in a RAID5
6? Even 4 would take up a lot of space, add noise, and drain lots of power. I'd settle for two drives doing RAID-1 in case of the worst with an option to shut down one of the drives when the battery gets low.
With a deficit approaching 500 BILLION dollars and a downed spacefleet I think the administration is jumping the gun to get the 'tech' vote. Let's not fall for this.
Sadly, the money wasted in Iraq could have funded these missions, stopped cutting needed services, and helped pave the way to some form of universal heathcare. Also note, Bush is reaching to immigrants this week with other sky-in-the-pie promises. Methinks people aren't so easily fooled anymore by Karl Rove's playbook.
Fry: We're all gonna die aren't we?
Farnsworth: Oh I should think so. Although last time aliens invaded all they did was force the most intelligent of us to pair off and mate continuously. Oh yes!
>Open access (maybe a bit of WEP, but AirSnort will take care of that)
Its 802.11G using WPA. You can't crack it like WEP. Maybe you'll get lucky and your neighbor will use a passphrase like "password" or some other dictionary word.
54mbs in contention, in the air, and at 2.4ghz may (or probably) cause frame skipping and other problems when Johnny fires up the microwave, your other neighbor's b network starts doing massive file transers, Joan from upstairs talks on her cordless phone, etc. The press release mentions that you can use ordinary cat-5 cable instead of the wireless. Something tells me many people are going to go that route if they live in a 2.4ghz heavy trafficked area.
Look at it this way, you're getting around 20-15Mbps (probably closer to 15) of real world usable bandwidth with 802.11g. DVD quality movies use around 6-9 Mbps depending. Unless conditions are very good, you won't get DVD quality stuff without some problems.
I do wonder if the DVD drive will read data CDRs with divx files on them and play them. Can't see why it couldn't do this and if it does I'm totally buying this thing when it comes out.
> Arnold Schwarzenegger had to do a little governing today
Sure did! College costs 10% more and grad school costs %40 more in Cali now.
No car tax means you can afford to drive to your permanent McJob now!
Are there photoshop-like skins for it? I'm sure that would go a long way to mass-adoption as we're all too lazy to learn new things. Afterall, KDE/Gnome have no problem looking like Windows.
These TI's are so overpriced and schools have no problem making them mandatory for so many classes, even for non-math majors who will re-sell them to the bookstore for 20% of their worth, if they're lucky.
Its the same way with textbooks. I have a laptop, why don't they sell me my books in searchable PDF format and cut out the middle man, save me money, and let me be able to do context-sensitive searches? Iron out some stupid copy protection and save my back from carrying 20lbs of books everywhere.
Its even worse for little kids who can damage their backs and ruin their posture carrying around big, heavy books in their backpacks. A kid-friendly e-book could solve all these problems.
In the meantime there's easycalc for Palm-based PDAs for the math student without $100 burning a hole in his pocket and perhaps some fed up students will start scanning textbooks, upload them to P2P networks and force the digital age upon textbook publishers like we did to the RIAA.
There are how many online music sellers right now?
Come to think of it, the TI-8x line of calcs are the same price they were over ten+ years ago. TI is enjoying their vendor lock-in a little too much. I can't see why such a weak device should cost over $20 bucks. Or why they aren't selling economy models for that mandatory Calculus class.
The Handmaid's Tale is probably one of the best books I've read. Essentially its 1984 except remove Stalinism and replace it with the American Religious Right. The characters are done extremely well, the story is a page-turner, and it contains some very thoughtful analysis of social issues.
Its more an "elseworld" story like The Man in the High Castle than it is sci-fi so I can understand why people used to space operas, techno-thrillers, and cyberpunk might not like a book that is a tad more sophisticated the same way TMITHC is some of PKDs most sophisticated work.