But don't programs like SpyBot S&D install "fake" cookies and such, and then lock them down to prevent the real cookies from being installed?
If that's the case, how many of these cookies (or actual programs) are variations on that theme? Would Earthlinks audit utility see a Spybot S&D cookie and count it as spyware, when it's really not?
If that's the case, then if you've Immunized your computer with S&D, you have every known spyware cookie on your computer according to the audit. This would inflate those numbers dramatically.
Unique? No... but legal questions?
on
Dual User Windows PC
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
It's not unique. This has been around for more than a decade. I remember an add on card for sale in CompUSA that allowed this exact thing.
I never bought one, because I never had a need. But this is no unique, in so far as allowing to people to use the same box via a mouse and keyboard. It's kinda nice to see this functionality updated, but it's certianly not unique.
However, it leads to some legal question for software licenses.
Most EULA's say you can run "One instance of the software on ONE machine at a time" - how does this apply to this machine? If you run two instances of a software package on the same machine, are you in violation of the EULA? My gut reation is yes... but will they really care?
Depends. If it's not popular, this obviously won't be inforced, but if this is something that becomes more popular, will we start to see software that won't let you run multiple instances of it at once?
The article says you can play head to head VGA games against each other... but how does that work if you're only running one instance, or are you running two instances?
This just doesn't seem all that practical for game playing. For productivity apps, though, this could be killer for cube rats. IT could deploy one machine for two cubes, cutting your hardware budget, and support in half!
Lots of questions, both technical and legal need to be worked out before this could really take off. Couple that with the fact that previous attempts at this didn't seem to fly, for whatever reason, it makes me wonder if this isn't already a dead technology.
The music has been so crappy lately, I haven't even DOWNLOADED a pirated MP3 in about 6 months. There's literally been NOTHING out there that I've wanted to even bother with downloading, much less going to purchase for a ridiculous price.
Boy, what a sad state of affairs for music if there's nothing out there even worth getting for free. It sure is a bit sobering, now that I think about it. I use to download MP3's all the time; I'd hear a song on the radio that I liked and go snag it off of a P2P network, but now I can't even recall the last time I fired up my P2P software to search for something. It was at LEAST 6 months ago, though.
So gee, I don't think the CD sales being down is in any way due to piracy, because even piracy is down. That would indicate a product no one wants, not a product that's being stolen.
I think it's about time some of these worms start being ultimately destructive, and destroying the host systems after they've spread themselves.
Does it suck for those infected? Yes, it surely does. But if you stop and think about it for the moment... if you have an unpatched machine, and you typically don't care about what happens to others because of your infection, which most Windows users do... either through ignorance or through apathy. Destroying the host machine will force the people to come to grips with their apathy or ignorance in the most obvious way possible.
After this happens once, twice, three times, the aforementioned person is going to sit up and take notice, and be proactive in keeping their system up to date, lest they lose everything again and again.
More destructive worms = less apathetic/ignorant users out there, as they lose their work and systems over and over. Either they'll be kept off the net for good, or they'll keep their systems updated and patched. One way or another, the world would be a better place in a lot of aspects.
Well... I RTFA and that article didn't go anywhere.
He says there's a spam problem (no kidding?) and that the economics of it are viable (Well, no kidding? Is that why we continue to receive spam?) and there's no way to stop it without incuring an overhead in transmission (either through permission based, authentication or challenge and response) - well... we already knew that through 100's of/. postings and personal experiences.
So what was the point of the article? To just rehash the same old situation?
We need a solution, not a restatement of the problem. The solution is going to involve more overhead, because the fundamental problem with SMTP is the touted low overhead itself. There's no real authentication and anyone can send anything to anyone else. THAT is the problem, so of COURSE we are going to have to have more overhead in a "new" SMTP protocol of some sort if we want to affect a change. This is just a given.
The focus needs to be on coming up with a system to track the responsible parties (for good or ill) - and that will cost overhead. We'll have to suck it up, but it's the way it's going to have to be, unless we want to continue on the road we are on now.
And they say the missing link has never been found...
She just looks mean and petty. No surprise she'd give a quote like that. Wish I was attending the conference, I'd like to join in booing her off stage.
1) Someone taking the W2K source and making an Out of the Country host of a tweaked (and improved?) W2K source? Would this be illegal to use? I realize it would be illegal to distribute in the US, but would it be illegal to *use*. Especially if you owned a valid copy of W2K?
2) If you own a valid copy of W2K, could you legally look at/use the leaked W2K source?
3) If there were any derivative works off the W2K source, I'd think the W2K license would allow you to use any subsequent O/S created with that source by independent developers. I realize the EULA may forbid this, but I seriously doubt that would hold up in court. You probably couldn't do this from a commercial standpoint, but as a private citizen, I can't see there being any legal recourse MS could take against using what would effectively be an OSS version of W2K.
I've been playing Battlefield 1942 with the Desert Combat mod a lot lately.
I've not played FPS's since Doom 2 (no joke), because they are all pretty much the same old, same old. Couple that with the rampant cheating, and I was just totally turned off by the genre until last month.
My brother came to visit and convinced me to play, and I was pretty much hooked after awhile. You can pick up BF1942 for $30 or less and the DC mod is free... and it's a killer mod. It's worth the $30 to give it a shot and see if you like it.
Like any online game and FPS, though, there's an adjustment period where you feel like a dumb ass. I was very frustrated and felt like a total noob the first week or two I played, but now I'm getting pretty decent, and make it into the top ten fairly often. I still get pwned by a lot of the better peeps, and I think there are still a few cheats out there, even with PB supposedly protecting a server, but it's not terrible, and maybe some of those cheats really are god-like players *shrug*.
It's worth the $30 if you want to try out an online game, IMHO.
Rightly or wrongly, what I typically do with these is "forget" to sign them. I even go so far as to not include that sheet when I return my new hire packet to HR. I've never been asked to sign it, and no one has ever asked about the missing sheet.
This has worked with the last 4 companies I've worked at over the past decade. Maybe it's just luck, or what not.
I'm not sure of the ramifications of this method though. Maybe someone with some legal background can tell me why this would be bad or worse than changing the standard contract to something more beneficial. It seems to me, that without any signature on that portion of the employment contract, there's nothing stopping me from even developing stuff on the company dime (not that I do that.. and in fact, my current company has great incentives to patent stuff in their name, which I have done.)
I don't have any fundamental problem of assigning rights away to stuff I develop with company resources (even non-loss resources that don't affect the company measurably). However, if I develop something outside (say at home) with my own resources, it's mine, plain and simple. My not signing the contract, could that come back and bite me in the ass if I develop the next big thing, or am I pretty much covered if I make a million bucks and my company says they want a piece of the pie... and I tell 'em to stuff it and show me a contract where it says I have to give it to them (and they can't produce it obviously)?
I seriously doubt this will damage Linux and/or OS in the long run. In fact, this is the kind of boost that may tip things in our favor.
The old addage that "There's no such thing as bad publicity" really is true, especially when dealing with people who don't know exactly what's going on. The big thing is to get the name out there, anything after that won't be retained by 99% of the population.
When the dust finally settles, and assuming it settles in Linux favor (how can it not?) - everyone will see a big brouhaha that happened, and think "If there was such a big stink about this, and Linux won, it must be "really cool!"
So we'll have a big boost in mindshare from this no matter what, and that pretty much translates into a good thing once all is said and done.
Re:I despise IPv6 and I think it's horrid...
on
The State of IPv6
·
· Score: 1
I'm going to take your word for it, that you can easily and quickly do that. However, my training comes in the form of a SUN network... and with SUN, it's based on the MAC; thus you have no control over the actual address assigned.
I'm sure there *will be* ways to get Solaris to change the IPv6 address, according to the SUN provided training material and instructors, that's the "way it is"(tm).
I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying it's set in stone, but according to SUN, that's the way it's done... and I think it's hideous. I really do hope you are right, and I can asssign consecutive address space to various machines, and my biggest beef with IPv6 will go out the window.
Yes, my experience with IPv6 is limited, but from everything I've experienced so far, it's a horrible, horrible experience.
SPEWS is just for the lazy admin who can't be bothered with setting up his or her network properly.
Admins that use SPEWS should be fired, plain and simple. If you can't be bothered to use a reputable and logical spam RBL, or at least use SPEWS as part of a weighting scheme, then you have no business admining a network. The retarded monkies running SPEWS are welcome to do so, but it's the admins that use them that need to be taken out an beaten.
SPEWS is a joke, yes... but it shouldn't be shut down. I'm sure it has it's place with the zealots who have no concept of how the real world works; I mean, seriously, if you only have access to one ISP where you live, how, exactly, do you go about switching? You can't... and using draconian measures to punish people who have nothing to do with, aside from the fact that they happen to live in some backwater with only one option, is utterly childish and sad.
I've never been hit by the SPEWS stupidity, thank god... and even if I was, at least I have have the technical expertise to get around it fairly easily and quickly... but the poor schmucks who can barely turn their computer on would be screwed. I have sympathy for them. I don't condone DDoS's, but the DDoS's on SPEWS awhile back is about the best use I can think of to put DDoS's to use, if they are going to be used anyway.
SpamAssasin w Bayes + Exiscan for life!
I despise IPv6 and I think it's horrid...
on
The State of IPv6
·
· Score: 1, Troll
Yes, that's right... I think IPv6 is a stupid, stupid move.
While the expanded address space is good, that is the only advantage I can see to IPv6. As a system admin, and one of the people responsible for moving my company to IPv6, I've taken a couple training courses on it, and I have found it wanting... alot.
From an end user standpoint, IPv6 is no big deal. I'm not worried about that. But from a sysadmin standpoint, IPv6 is going to be an utter troubleshooting nightmare. The biggest problem that immediately jumps out at you with IPv6 is the fact that individual addresses in a subnet have absolutely no relation to each other. So John in the cube next to me will have an entirely different address than I do, and it will have no relation to me. From a troubleshooting standpoint, it's just plain illogical.
I dread the day we have to officially switch over to IPv6, because keeping the lists of ip's in use on the network, then finding that list (have to *always* use search and find, as opposed to scrolling to the appropriate place on the list).. and if you mistype an hextet (since it's not an octet!), trying to track that down is going to be a nightmare.
I'm sure there's a lot I don't know about IPv6, but everything I've read on it, and everything I've experienced with it has proven it to be just plain stupid. Like I said, the expanded address space is nice, but it's a dumb protocol from an networking standpoint. There are plenty of things they could have done to make it better and easier to manage and I guess that's my major beef. IPv6 is a thousand times more difficult to manage for a large network than IPv4 is. You'd think managment should get easier, but it doesn't, and it just pisses me off.
I think we're going to have a lot of people suprised by how unwieldy IPv6 truely is, once they have to begin deployment... but by then, it will be too late.
What I think will eventually happen is the large backbone providers and large companies will deploy IPv6 externally, and internally (behind the corporate firewall, etc...) we'll see IPv6 networks on private subnets, just because they will be easier to manage. So I don't believe IPv6 will change much for the end user, and most of them will still be on IPv4 networks, with the encumbant problems we currently have.
Ahh... so basically everyone who flamed me didn't even bother to read my entire post.
I'm not anti-BSD. I have no problems with BSD at all. I was speaking as a Linux user who's never tried BSD and I explained why.
I find it hilarious that the BSD zealots came out of the woodwork to flame me when I basically agree with everything they've said. If BSD people could be troubled to read, I guess they wouldn't look like such fools in this instance.
The bottom line is the fact that BSD has less support than Linux. I never said that you couldn't run GPL/GNU software on BSD. Linux has the mindshare, BSD does not. That's not an opinion, it's an established fact, for good or ill. Because of that, more people develop applications targeted at Linux. If it works with BSD, GREAT! But if not, most programmers aren't going to spend the time and effort to make it compatible with BSD (I know I don't... and I run one of the most popular O/S projects on Sourceforge) - I let the BSD people do that... because I simply have no interest in BSD.
Like I said, it's not that I think BSD is bad; I just know nothing about it and have absolutely no reason to know anything about it. I don't even know anyone that's run any of the BSD varients.
So all of your tools that felt the need to flame me over the quote about Linux users not needing to know BSD... I took that essentially from the article itself, that asked the question as to why most BSD users know Linux, but Linux users don't know BSD.
I answered the question of why... I didn't make the statement. One of your own BSD zealots made the statement, go flame him for asking a blindingly obvious question.
Popular OS's get the application support. BSD is not popular. That doesn't make it bad, it's just the way it is. Flaming me is not going to get me to try out BSD, that's for sure.
The page is already slashdotted and the server doesn't work.
Yep, that makes me want to run right out and install BSD!
So, since I can't read the article, I'll just comment on it anyway. That's the tradition, as I recall.
I don't use BSD, and I haven't tried it because it seems pretty much the same as Linux to me. I'm sure that's a wrong assumption, but that's the way I view it.
The reason there are so many BSD people who know a lot about Linux, and not vice versa is because there's a ton more support for Linux than BSD. A BSD user almost *has* to know about Linux to get a lot of stuff running on BSD... but a Linux user has to know exactly NOTHING to get applications to run under Linux.
The fact is, Linux has more support than BSD, which is why it's more popular with users. Most Open Source/FSF/GPL software is built for Linux. So why should Linux users bother to learn about BSD? There's nothing in the BSD world they need or want, but the opposite is not true.
Quote: "The fact that it seems obvious and trivial now is a testament to how DVR's have changed our lives. There was nothing obvious or trivial about what they did when they were first invented, and that's the whole point of patents. DVR's are a major advance, an incredible invention, and one of the things that makes them so unique is the very feature TiVo is trying to protect."
I'm going to have to assume you're younger and wern't around during the heydey of VCRs.
Of course it's obvious. I can remember in the 80's wishing fervently to be able to do just that... but given the medium, specifically Beta and VHS, being a linear access device, it just wasn't possible. It was trivial and obvious the first time someone wanted to start watching a show they were currently recording.
I VIVIDLY remember having to wait until a show was done recording, almost staring at the "feet of tape used" analog rotary dial counter on my VCR so I could start watching the show... because I didn't want to see the end, and then just go back and watch the beginning.
To anyone who grew up prior to and during the Beta and VHS boom, time shifting was trivial and obvious, but was not feasable. The concept (IE - the IP) was and has been out there since time immemorial... the technology just wasn't there. Tivo was the first to the street with the technology, but they sure as hell don't have any legitimate patent on the IP of the act.
Until you can prove it, you are just speculating. No one, anywhere, has been able to find a patent for it. Why? Because there was prior art long before Tivo.
Name Based recording wouldn't hold up in a court. Many people, like you, have tried to claim the patent defense, but none of them can back it up... so don't speculate on things you can't back up. Just give the facts or conjecture you can back up with facts.
That is patently false (pun intented)... Tivo does not have a patent on Name Based Recording.
Dish does not want to implement it, because it requires effort.
Before you reply and tell me I'm wrong, go find the patent. It doesn't exist (I've looked)... if you can show a patent number, you can prove a lot of people wrong, and redeem E*'s reputation at the same time. Sadly, though, Tivo does not have a patent on Name Based Recording.
Like I said, it's the Dish PVRs are the ONLY PVR's on the market today that does not have it. The ONLY ones.
If any of you have ever used the 721, or really any Dish PVR... you'll know how pathetic and bug ridden dish PVRs.
One of the biggest issues with the 721 and 921 is the fact that they totally and utterly lack any sort of Name based recording. Every other PVR on the market, Tivo, Replay, UltimateTV, etc... all have name based recording, but Dish saw fit to leave this critical feature off.
This makes the 721 and 921 nothing more than a glorified VCR. The whole point of a PVR is to make recording easier and to handle the mundane, day to day tasks so you don't have to. Leaving off name based recording makes you search through the guide on a daily basis, hoping to find the programs that you want to record, instead of telling your unit to "Record anything with XXXXX in the title/description"
I switched to Dishnetwork from my UltimateTV and Tivo boxes, and was never sorrier I took the plunge. I always liked Dish over DTV, due to the superior customer service, but after this fiasco with these jokes of a PVR (which I paid far more than a Tivo with lifetime for) and it's just a VCR with a hard drive, I want to cancle my Dish service just out of spite. Unfortunately, I'm under a contract, and I hate DTV more than I hate Dish, so I'm pretty much stuck with Dish for the time being. As soon as Voom comes out with an HD PVR, I will be signing up for Voom.
As far as the 921 goes, I suspect it's going to suffer from many of the same bugs as the 721 does. Such as random reboots, crashing to the X desktop (requiring reboot), misfiring timers, timers recording until the HD fills up for no explicable reason, unit not responding to the remote, etc... I could go on and on with the problems on the 721 (and by extension, probably the 921) that are never addressed by the Dish developers... problems I never had with Tivo or UTV. They are very easy to fix some of these problems, but they just won't do it, because it would cut into their profit.
I never realized how much I relied on my UTV box to "do the right thing" until I got my 721, which was suppose to be superior. Now I come home at night and wonder if my programs will still be on my PVR after some wierd crash... I watch shows when I really don't want to, because I'm afraid that if I don't, I'll lose them. These are things that I never even thought of with my Tivo or UTV box.
Dish is also charging an outrageous and ridiculous price for the unit... $1000? Come on, you are gouging people because it's the only HD PVR on the market, plain and simple. I guess you gotta charge it while you can.
The bottom line is, if you've ever used another PVR, you'll hate the 921 (and the 721) because of all the bugs and total lack of features and brain dead UI. If all you've ever had is a VCR, then you'll like the 7 and 921's, because they ARE better than a VCR... but when compared to the PVR competition, the Dish PVRs are an utter and lasting joke... a travesty to the PVR buying public.
Realisitcally, if Dish would just add NBR, I would be less critical of the other flaws, but since that one glaring deficiency is being refused by dish to impliment, I have no sympathy for the company. NBR is the defining feature of a PVR, and Dish DOES NOT HAVE IT. All they have are glorified VCRs with a misleading lable.
Dish still has the best pricing plans for satellite service though, so it's a big plus in their favor.
Why wouldn't I use a debit card? I don't like credit cards. Credit is bad for you, much like sugar. I already eat too much sugar, so I'll stay away from credit.
Seriously, though, the larger the purchase, the more apt I'd be to use a debit card, as opposed to a credit card, if I had one. If I could buy a house on my debit card, I probably would... would keep me from having to tote around a suitcase of cash... or go to the bank and get a cashiers check for the outrageous price of $6.00 for a slip of paper.
Slashdot Mirror
Why are people bashing this? Because they are doing something wacky? Why is that so "geeky?"
It's something fun to do, that's silly... why be so negative about it? Actually, why are the negative comments modded up, instead of down?
But don't programs like SpyBot S&D install "fake" cookies and such, and then lock them down to prevent the real cookies from being installed?
If that's the case, how many of these cookies (or actual programs) are variations on that theme? Would Earthlinks audit utility see a Spybot S&D cookie and count it as spyware, when it's really not?
If that's the case, then if you've Immunized your computer with S&D, you have every known spyware cookie on your computer according to the audit. This would inflate those numbers dramatically.
It's not unique. This has been around for more than a decade. I remember an add on card for sale in CompUSA that allowed this exact thing.
I never bought one, because I never had a need. But this is no unique, in so far as allowing to people to use the same box via a mouse and keyboard. It's kinda nice to see this functionality updated, but it's certianly not unique.
However, it leads to some legal question for software licenses.
Most EULA's say you can run "One instance of the software on ONE machine at a time" - how does this apply to this machine? If you run two instances of a software package on the same machine, are you in violation of the EULA? My gut reation is yes... but will they really care?
Depends. If it's not popular, this obviously won't be inforced, but if this is something that becomes more popular, will we start to see software that won't let you run multiple instances of it at once?
The article says you can play head to head VGA games against each other... but how does that work if you're only running one instance, or are you running two instances?
This just doesn't seem all that practical for game playing. For productivity apps, though, this could be killer for cube rats. IT could deploy one machine for two cubes, cutting your hardware budget, and support in half!
Lots of questions, both technical and legal need to be worked out before this could really take off. Couple that with the fact that previous attempts at this didn't seem to fly, for whatever reason, it makes me wonder if this isn't already a dead technology.
The music has been so crappy lately, I haven't even DOWNLOADED a pirated MP3 in about 6 months. There's literally been NOTHING out there that I've wanted to even bother with downloading, much less going to purchase for a ridiculous price.
Boy, what a sad state of affairs for music if there's nothing out there even worth getting for free. It sure is a bit sobering, now that I think about it. I use to download MP3's all the time; I'd hear a song on the radio that I liked and go snag it off of a P2P network, but now I can't even recall the last time I fired up my P2P software to search for something. It was at LEAST 6 months ago, though.
So gee, I don't think the CD sales being down is in any way due to piracy, because even piracy is down. That would indicate a product no one wants, not a product that's being stolen.
I think it's about time some of these worms start being ultimately destructive, and destroying the host systems after they've spread themselves.
Does it suck for those infected? Yes, it surely does. But if you stop and think about it for the moment... if you have an unpatched machine, and you typically don't care about what happens to others because of your infection, which most Windows users do... either through ignorance or through apathy. Destroying the host machine will force the people to come to grips with their apathy or ignorance in the most obvious way possible.
After this happens once, twice, three times, the aforementioned person is going to sit up and take notice, and be proactive in keeping their system up to date, lest they lose everything again and again.
More destructive worms = less apathetic/ignorant users out there, as they lose their work and systems over and over. Either they'll be kept off the net for good, or they'll keep their systems updated and patched. One way or another, the world would be a better place in a lot of aspects.
... but it was more interesting, and he wrote it over a year ago.
You can see it here
Lots of interesting insight.
Well... I RTFA and that article didn't go anywhere.
/. postings and personal experiences.
He says there's a spam problem (no kidding?) and that the economics of it are viable (Well, no kidding? Is that why we continue to receive spam?) and there's no way to stop it without incuring an overhead in transmission (either through permission based, authentication or challenge and response) - well... we already knew that through 100's of
So what was the point of the article? To just rehash the same old situation?
We need a solution, not a restatement of the problem. The solution is going to involve more overhead, because the fundamental problem with SMTP is the touted low overhead itself. There's no real authentication and anyone can send anything to anyone else. THAT is the problem, so of COURSE we are going to have to have more overhead in a "new" SMTP protocol of some sort if we want to affect a change. This is just a given.
The focus needs to be on coming up with a system to track the responsible parties (for good or ill) - and that will cost overhead. We'll have to suck it up, but it's the way it's going to have to be, unless we want to continue on the road we are on now.
>> ... it's not funny
>Something that is funny... Google Images
Holy crap, it's sasquatch!
And they say the missing link has never been found...
She just looks mean and petty. No surprise she'd give a quote like that. Wish I was attending the conference, I'd like to join in booing her off stage.
What would be the legal ramifications of:
1) Someone taking the W2K source and making an Out of the Country host of a tweaked (and improved?) W2K source? Would this be illegal to use? I realize it would be illegal to distribute in the US, but would it be illegal to *use*. Especially if you owned a valid copy of W2K?
2) If you own a valid copy of W2K, could you legally look at/use the leaked W2K source?
3) If there were any derivative works off the W2K source, I'd think the W2K license would allow you to use any subsequent O/S created with that source by independent developers. I realize the EULA may forbid this, but I seriously doubt that would hold up in court. You probably couldn't do this from a commercial standpoint, but as a private citizen, I can't see there being any legal recourse MS could take against using what would effectively be an OSS version of W2K.
Anyway, something to think about.
...that they forgot to mention as number six that SCO will be out of business in the next few years.
Of course... that's probably not really good marketing strategy. I'd leave off point number 6 myself.
I've been playing Battlefield 1942 with the Desert Combat mod a lot lately.
I've not played FPS's since Doom 2 (no joke), because they are all pretty much the same old, same old. Couple that with the rampant cheating, and I was just totally turned off by the genre until last month.
My brother came to visit and convinced me to play, and I was pretty much hooked after awhile. You can pick up BF1942 for $30 or less and the DC mod is free... and it's a killer mod. It's worth the $30 to give it a shot and see if you like it.
Like any online game and FPS, though, there's an adjustment period where you feel like a dumb ass. I was very frustrated and felt like a total noob the first week or two I played, but now I'm getting pretty decent, and make it into the top ten fairly often. I still get pwned by a lot of the better peeps, and I think there are still a few cheats out there, even with PB supposedly protecting a server, but it's not terrible, and maybe some of those cheats really are god-like players *shrug*.
It's worth the $30 if you want to try out an online game, IMHO.
Rightly or wrongly, what I typically do with these is "forget" to sign them. I even go so far as to not include that sheet when I return my new hire packet to HR. I've never been asked to sign it, and no one has ever asked about the missing sheet.
This has worked with the last 4 companies I've worked at over the past decade. Maybe it's just luck, or what not.
I'm not sure of the ramifications of this method though. Maybe someone with some legal background can tell me why this would be bad or worse than changing the standard contract to something more beneficial. It seems to me, that without any signature on that portion of the employment contract, there's nothing stopping me from even developing stuff on the company dime (not that I do that.. and in fact, my current company has great incentives to patent stuff in their name, which I have done.)
I don't have any fundamental problem of assigning rights away to stuff I develop with company resources (even non-loss resources that don't affect the company measurably). However, if I develop something outside (say at home) with my own resources, it's mine, plain and simple. My not signing the contract, could that come back and bite me in the ass if I develop the next big thing, or am I pretty much covered if I make a million bucks and my company says they want a piece of the pie... and I tell 'em to stuff it and show me a contract where it says I have to give it to them (and they can't produce it obviously)?
Anyone know?
I seriously doubt this will damage Linux and/or OS in the long run. In fact, this is the kind of boost that may tip things in our favor.
The old addage that "There's no such thing as bad publicity" really is true, especially when dealing with people who don't know exactly what's going on. The big thing is to get the name out there, anything after that won't be retained by 99% of the population.
When the dust finally settles, and assuming it settles in Linux favor (how can it not?) - everyone will see a big brouhaha that happened, and think "If there was such a big stink about this, and Linux won, it must be "really cool!"
So we'll have a big boost in mindshare from this no matter what, and that pretty much translates into a good thing once all is said and done.
I'm going to take your word for it, that you can easily and quickly do that. However, my training comes in the form of a SUN network... and with SUN, it's based on the MAC; thus you have no control over the actual address assigned.
I'm sure there *will be* ways to get Solaris to change the IPv6 address, according to the SUN provided training material and instructors, that's the "way it is"(tm).
I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying it's set in stone, but according to SUN, that's the way it's done... and I think it's hideous. I really do hope you are right, and I can asssign consecutive address space to various machines, and my biggest beef with IPv6 will go out the window.
Yes, my experience with IPv6 is limited, but from everything I've experienced so far, it's a horrible, horrible experience.
SPEWS is just for the lazy admin who can't be bothered with setting up his or her network properly.
Admins that use SPEWS should be fired, plain and simple. If you can't be bothered to use a reputable and logical spam RBL, or at least use SPEWS as part of a weighting scheme, then you have no business admining a network. The retarded monkies running SPEWS are welcome to do so, but it's the admins that use them that need to be taken out an beaten.
SPEWS is a joke, yes... but it shouldn't be shut down. I'm sure it has it's place with the zealots who have no concept of how the real world works; I mean, seriously, if you only have access to one ISP where you live, how, exactly, do you go about switching? You can't... and using draconian measures to punish people who have nothing to do with, aside from the fact that they happen to live in some backwater with only one option, is utterly childish and sad.
I've never been hit by the SPEWS stupidity, thank god... and even if I was, at least I have have the technical expertise to get around it fairly easily and quickly... but the poor schmucks who can barely turn their computer on would be screwed. I have sympathy for them. I don't condone DDoS's, but the DDoS's on SPEWS awhile back is about the best use I can think of to put DDoS's to use, if they are going to be used anyway.
SpamAssasin w Bayes + Exiscan for life!
Yes, that's right... I think IPv6 is a stupid, stupid move.
While the expanded address space is good, that is the only advantage I can see to IPv6. As a system admin, and one of the people responsible for moving my company to IPv6, I've taken a couple training courses on it, and I have found it wanting... alot.
From an end user standpoint, IPv6 is no big deal. I'm not worried about that. But from a sysadmin standpoint, IPv6 is going to be an utter troubleshooting nightmare. The biggest problem that immediately jumps out at you with IPv6 is the fact that individual addresses in a subnet have absolutely no relation to each other. So John in the cube next to me will have an entirely different address than I do, and it will have no relation to me. From a troubleshooting standpoint, it's just plain illogical.
I dread the day we have to officially switch over to IPv6, because keeping the lists of ip's in use on the network, then finding that list (have to *always* use search and find, as opposed to scrolling to the appropriate place on the list).. and if you mistype an hextet (since it's not an octet!), trying to track that down is going to be a nightmare.
I'm sure there's a lot I don't know about IPv6, but everything I've read on it, and everything I've experienced with it has proven it to be just plain stupid. Like I said, the expanded address space is nice, but it's a dumb protocol from an networking standpoint. There are plenty of things they could have done to make it better and easier to manage and I guess that's my major beef. IPv6 is a thousand times more difficult to manage for a large network than IPv4 is. You'd think managment should get easier, but it doesn't, and it just pisses me off.
I think we're going to have a lot of people suprised by how unwieldy IPv6 truely is, once they have to begin deployment... but by then, it will be too late.
What I think will eventually happen is the large backbone providers and large companies will deploy IPv6 externally, and internally (behind the corporate firewall, etc...) we'll see IPv6 networks on private subnets, just because they will be easier to manage. So I don't believe IPv6 will change much for the end user, and most of them will still be on IPv4 networks, with the encumbant problems we currently have.
Ahh... so basically everyone who flamed me didn't even bother to read my entire post.
I'm not anti-BSD. I have no problems with BSD at all. I was speaking as a Linux user who's never tried BSD and I explained why.
I find it hilarious that the BSD zealots came out of the woodwork to flame me when I basically agree with everything they've said. If BSD people could be troubled to read, I guess they wouldn't look like such fools in this instance.
The bottom line is the fact that BSD has less support than Linux. I never said that you couldn't run GPL/GNU software on BSD. Linux has the mindshare, BSD does not. That's not an opinion, it's an established fact, for good or ill. Because of that, more people develop applications targeted at Linux. If it works with BSD, GREAT! But if not, most programmers aren't going to spend the time and effort to make it compatible with BSD (I know I don't... and I run one of the most popular O/S projects on Sourceforge) - I let the BSD people do that... because I simply have no interest in BSD.
Like I said, it's not that I think BSD is bad; I just know nothing about it and have absolutely no reason to know anything about it. I don't even know anyone that's run any of the BSD varients.
So all of your tools that felt the need to flame me over the quote about Linux users not needing to know BSD... I took that essentially from the article itself, that asked the question as to why most BSD users know Linux, but Linux users don't know BSD.
I answered the question of why... I didn't make the statement. One of your own BSD zealots made the statement, go flame him for asking a blindingly obvious question.
Popular OS's get the application support. BSD is not popular. That doesn't make it bad, it's just the way it is. Flaming me is not going to get me to try out BSD, that's for sure.
You trying to tell me BSD isn't another Distro of Linux?
WTF?
The page is already slashdotted and the server doesn't work.
Yep, that makes me want to run right out and install BSD!
So, since I can't read the article, I'll just comment on it anyway. That's the tradition, as I recall.
I don't use BSD, and I haven't tried it because it seems pretty much the same as Linux to me. I'm sure that's a wrong assumption, but that's the way I view it.
The reason there are so many BSD people who know a lot about Linux, and not vice versa is because there's a ton more support for Linux than BSD. A BSD user almost *has* to know about Linux to get a lot of stuff running on BSD... but a Linux user has to know exactly NOTHING to get applications to run under Linux.
The fact is, Linux has more support than BSD, which is why it's more popular with users. Most Open Source/FSF/GPL software is built for Linux. So why should Linux users bother to learn about BSD? There's nothing in the BSD world they need or want, but the opposite is not true.
Can they use it to teach the monkeys to program?
That would make them the ultimate code monkeys!
Where do you think Windows came from? Duh.
Quote: "The fact that it seems obvious and trivial now is a testament to how DVR's have changed our lives. There was nothing obvious or trivial about what they did when they were first invented, and that's the whole point of patents. DVR's are a major advance, an incredible invention, and one of the things that makes them so unique is the very feature TiVo is trying to protect."
:)
I'm going to have to assume you're younger and wern't around during the heydey of VCRs.
Of course it's obvious. I can remember in the 80's wishing fervently to be able to do just that... but given the medium, specifically Beta and VHS, being a linear access device, it just wasn't possible. It was trivial and obvious the first time someone wanted to start watching a show they were currently recording.
I VIVIDLY remember having to wait until a show was done recording, almost staring at the "feet of tape used" analog rotary dial counter on my VCR so I could start watching the show... because I didn't want to see the end, and then just go back and watch the beginning.
To anyone who grew up prior to and during the Beta and VHS boom, time shifting was trivial and obvious, but was not feasable. The concept (IE - the IP) was and has been out there since time immemorial... the technology just wasn't there. Tivo was the first to the street with the technology, but they sure as hell don't have any legitimate patent on the IP of the act.
Yes, I will testify in court over that!
Until you can prove it, you are just speculating. No one, anywhere, has been able to find a patent for it. Why? Because there was prior art long before Tivo.
Name Based recording wouldn't hold up in a court. Many people, like you, have tried to claim the patent defense, but none of them can back it up... so don't speculate on things you can't back up. Just give the facts or conjecture you can back up with facts.
That is patently false (pun intented) ... Tivo does not have a patent on Name Based Recording.
Dish does not want to implement it, because it requires effort.
Before you reply and tell me I'm wrong, go find the patent. It doesn't exist (I've looked)... if you can show a patent number, you can prove a lot of people wrong, and redeem E*'s reputation at the same time. Sadly, though, Tivo does not have a patent on Name Based Recording.
Like I said, it's the Dish PVRs are the ONLY PVR's on the market today that does not have it. The ONLY ones.
The 921 is based on the 721 software...
If any of you have ever used the 721, or really any Dish PVR... you'll know how pathetic and bug ridden dish PVRs.
One of the biggest issues with the 721 and 921 is the fact that they totally and utterly lack any sort of Name based recording. Every other PVR on the market, Tivo, Replay, UltimateTV, etc... all have name based recording, but Dish saw fit to leave this critical feature off.
This makes the 721 and 921 nothing more than a glorified VCR. The whole point of a PVR is to make recording easier and to handle the mundane, day to day tasks so you don't have to. Leaving off name based recording makes you search through the guide on a daily basis, hoping to find the programs that you want to record, instead of telling your unit to "Record anything with XXXXX in the title/description"
I switched to Dishnetwork from my UltimateTV and Tivo boxes, and was never sorrier I took the plunge. I always liked Dish over DTV, due to the superior customer service, but after this fiasco with these jokes of a PVR (which I paid far more than a Tivo with lifetime for) and it's just a VCR with a hard drive, I want to cancle my Dish service just out of spite. Unfortunately, I'm under a contract, and I hate DTV more than I hate Dish, so I'm pretty much stuck with Dish for the time being. As soon as Voom comes out with an HD PVR, I will be signing up for Voom.
As far as the 921 goes, I suspect it's going to suffer from many of the same bugs as the 721 does. Such as random reboots, crashing to the X desktop (requiring reboot), misfiring timers, timers recording until the HD fills up for no explicable reason, unit not responding to the remote, etc... I could go on and on with the problems on the 721 (and by extension, probably the 921) that are never addressed by the Dish developers... problems I never had with Tivo or UTV. They are very easy to fix some of these problems, but they just won't do it, because it would cut into their profit.
I never realized how much I relied on my UTV box to "do the right thing" until I got my 721, which was suppose to be superior. Now I come home at night and wonder if my programs will still be on my PVR after some wierd crash... I watch shows when I really don't want to, because I'm afraid that if I don't, I'll lose them. These are things that I never even thought of with my Tivo or UTV box.
Dish is also charging an outrageous and ridiculous price for the unit... $1000? Come on, you are gouging people because it's the only HD PVR on the market, plain and simple. I guess you gotta charge it while you can.
The bottom line is, if you've ever used another PVR, you'll hate the 921 (and the 721) because of all the bugs and total lack of features and brain dead UI. If all you've ever had is a VCR, then you'll like the 7 and 921's, because they ARE better than a VCR... but when compared to the PVR competition, the Dish PVRs are an utter and lasting joke... a travesty to the PVR buying public.
Realisitcally, if Dish would just add NBR, I would be less critical of the other flaws, but since that one glaring deficiency is being refused by dish to impliment, I have no sympathy for the company. NBR is the defining feature of a PVR, and Dish DOES NOT HAVE IT. All they have are glorified VCRs with a misleading lable.
Dish still has the best pricing plans for satellite service though, so it's a big plus in their favor.
$50 is a large purchase to you?
Why wouldn't I use a debit card? I don't like credit cards. Credit is bad for you, much like sugar. I already eat too much sugar, so I'll stay away from credit.
Seriously, though, the larger the purchase, the more apt I'd be to use a debit card, as opposed to a credit card, if I had one. If I could buy a house on my debit card, I probably would... would keep me from having to tote around a suitcase of cash... or go to the bank and get a cashiers check for the outrageous price of $6.00 for a slip of paper.
I hate banks too...