At least with POP, you can easily save, archive and organize all your messages permanently and move them from machine to machine.
AOL mail can do this too. By default, it doesn't save messages to the filing cabinet, but two checkboxes and all your mail is automatically saved. It's much more IMAP-model than POP-model, and most users just access their mail from the server, but that doesn't mean you can't store all your mail locally if you don't want to. 6.0 has a much more usable filing cabinet, though there is still no rule processing.
AOL doesn't quite support standard HTML e-mail
6.0 supports full HTML e-mail, modulo JavaScript and ActiveX, which are disabled for security.
Send more than one attachment to the outside world, and it gets zipped if you send it from a PC
This is true, and can be a pain when doing cross-platform multiple attachments. I know the Mac client can unzip, but I am not sure if the PC client can unstuff - or if stuffing is still what the current Mac clients do.
Actually, the "ideal" outcome pretty much describes what's been going on. A lot of behind-the-scenes work has been done to make the AOL mail system more suitable to TW - which, in the end, can make it more suitable for everyone. Is it there yet? No. But there's a LOT more than is exposed by the current AOL client, or even NetCenter.
You don't have to use the AOL client; Netscape 6 works with AOL mail over IMAP. And CompuServe 2000, running on the same back end, works with many IMAP clients. I'm not sure how SecurID works with these yet, but I'm seeing more and more support for it in general applications like ssh, so hopefully it will spread to the mail world - and 70,000 desktops could be an incentive to support it.
The criticisms of the AOL client in the article were interesting, since it was clear the people had no experience with AOL. It has many shortcomings, but quoting is not among them. AOL has one of the best reply-quoting systems; you highlight the part you want, you click reply, it quotes it. Internally it uses a nice, paragraph-oriented HTML quoting scheme (since AOL mail is paragraph-oriented), and if you send it out to the external net, it automagically becomes carets. Compare that to OE, Outlook, or Netscape, all of which can either quote the entire message or nothing at all. I don't remember what Eudora and Pegasus do; I had too many problems using them in IMAP mode and uninstalled them.
As for attachments, all the current AOL clients support seamless multiple attachments via ZIP, and they interchange pretty cleanly with the outside world via MIME. Intra-AOL attachments are much less likely to accidentally turn into text than some of the poorly-formatted MIME attachments that OE, for one, creates.
The lack of auto-reply is indeed frustrating; having just gone on a three-month sabbatical, I feel their pain. Perhaps that will be one of the changes that comes out of this. As for SecurID: Yes, it's a pain. No question. It's also really important, and any company with an externally-accessible mail system should really have some kind of strong, multi-factor authentication.
I wasn't personally involved in the decision to migrate to AOL mail, but I think it's a good one. Short term, there will be a lot of headaches, as there are with any migration. Then I wouldn't be surprised to see the TW needs driving more feature development to fill in the gaps. Long term, it'll be a more reliable, supported system than what TW had, with more features than either the old system or the current AOL system - and it will help connect the two disparate halves of the company.
Funny. My job is fighting spam at the biggest, evilest ISP in the world, and *I* think it's spam. Someone (doesn't matter who) was sending mail to his account and he couldn't get it to stop.
On what grounds do you declare it not spam? Do you work for Amazon? Why are you so worried about the sooper-sekrit c0nsipricy between Ironfist and Slashdot to "vilify" Amazon?
You can argue that the prior business relationship made it solicited, but once he requested it stop, it was clearly no longer solicited. It's unsolicited, it's bulk, it's email. That's spam.
Amazon needs to provide a way for mailbox owners to stop the mail. Period. Nothing to do with passwords, purchases, or anything else - Amazon simply doesn't have the legal right to send mail to people who don't want to receive it.
If messages to postmaster and webmaster (required accounts by RFC2142) bounce, I usually find an e-mail to the upstream provider fixes things very quickly.
Yes, absolutely, Amazon should have Herculean protections against giving your your password. But that misses the main point:
Amazon should NOT require your password to stop mailing to you!
Amazon, like anyone else, should respect the legal right of the mailbox owner to control what mail gets sent to it. Amazon doesn't have the right to set up so many barriers to stopping mail to a mailbox that may never have even given permission.
What if I set up an account tonight and give your e-mail address? We know Amazon doesn't do any sort of verification; they just add you to the list. You can't possibly know or find out my password; you don't even know who did this to you.
Amazon's actions wouldn't stand up in court, if anyone had the time, energy and money to sue them. In fact, you could probably sue them in small claims to avoid the money part.
Ah! That's a different argument, then. I'm not arguing about whether reproducing >20KHz is important, as I don't know nearly enough about signal processing. I do know that I can hear a pure 21KHz tone on my monitors (Genelec 1030a), but I realize I'm in the minority there.
I was merely responding to the statement that nothing reproduces above 20KHz. FWIW, here's the reply from Neumann. Looks like they handle the upper frequencies decently, at least on some mics, but just don't bother to spec them. Of course, he's talking about the KM184 (a small-condenser mic, and my next toy, in KM100 form), not the U89i.
(I tried to e-mail this to you but you didn't publish your address.. perhaps you'll see this anyway here.)
---------------------------------
Dear Mr. Levitt,
Along to the standard for microphones (IEC 60268-4) the 'Frequency Range' that you will find within the Technical Data just gives the frequency
'band' within the manufacturer is willing to show or to define any specific values i.e. a frequency graph showing an amplitude response. That does not mean that microphones will not 'hear' signals below of 20 Hz or above 20.000 Hz.
At low frequencies you may extrapolate the frequency response shown in the data. Since it is not easy to measure the low frequency response along the standard exactly you should not trust the figures given by many companies.
Let's have a look into the figure of KM 184 as an example: You will find a low frequency roll off of about 5 dB @ 50 Hz and 12 dB @ 20 Hz. This is the free field frequency response along the o.m. standard. It is to the law of physics. Many companies whould like to make you believe that their microphones would be more flat within this frequency range. TEST IT.
But sorry for going astray: you actually are asking for the high frequency response.
The frequency response above 20.000 Hz depends of the type of microphone. Normally you also may extrapolate the response given if you can realize any specific tendency. For the KM184 again as an example the -3dB point is at 25 kHz. (That means: The use of any steep cut off filter with 20 kHz
boundary frequency would still affect the transient response of the microphone!)
With best regards
Georg Neumann GmbH, Berlin
i.V. Stephan Peus
(Director of Development)
The fact that some manufacturers post specs that cast them in a better light (Shure SM-58? Narrow response? Shocking!) or that some go the extra mile to get or measure flatness up to 30KHz (cool!) doesn't mean anything. Have you asked Neumann if their mic actually stops reproducing at 20K?
20-20K is a standard spec range, and allows easy comparison from one mic/speaker to the next. That doesn't mean it doesn't reproduce or transduce frequencies above 20KHz, just that they haven't spec'd out its frequency response there.
I have had quite a few different Kryotech PCs in my house. I first ordered an 800. Within a week or two, either the mobo or the chip had fried. Because of their proprietary chip cage, that meant dragging the whole 85-lb thing up the stairs.
When they shipped my replacement, they sent me someone else's new 900 by accident, and graciously agreed to let me keep it at no charge. This worked for a while, and then mysteriously failed one night while I was out of town. It didn't POST at all.
I asked them to replace it under warranty and I'd pay the difference to upgrade to the new SuperG. Again, they were amenable to this, and my 1GHz was on its way.
I don't remember what happened this time, but it didn't work at all either. So they sent a replacement Super G, but the power supply was dead out of the box.
By this time, of course, room-temperature 1GHz chips were widely available. It is a tribute to Kryotech that they were willing to take back the last of the Kryotech hardware and give me a full refund, but it never really worked.
I don't think I've ever said this about anyone, but Kryotech is one company that could stand to bring their *quality* department up to where their *customer service* is!
The Apple Airport is a low-cost version of, I believe, the Aironet, but it's not nearly as robust. I actually bought an Orinoco, but returned it, because I couldn't get it working and Lucent tech support will only talk to dealers.
The Aironet won me over with the following features:
- True 802.11b
- 11 Mb/sec
- Diversity antennas for better reception at the edge
- Availability of several external antennas for the Access Point
- Great support from Cisco
- Much better-written, smoother-installing drivers
- Full control of the access point (config, logs, help text) via HTTP/telnet/console
- Feels better-built and -designed in general
One caution: You will want an external antenna on the access point, so do NOT get the "captured antennas" (e.g. AP342EC) - you cannot remove them, and it's a $300 repair to replace them with TNC connectors.
Ironically, some of the most pioneering and fascinating psychological research was done by Microsoft in developing their Office suite.
They discovered that people react to computers just as they would to humans, and imbue their software with human characteristics. Just a few of the many examples:
- People perceive specialized tools to be more important, informative, and interesting than general tools, even when the tools themselves are identical. People watching news on a TV found it of higher quality when they were told that the network - or even the TV itself - was a "news network" or a "news television".
- People assign their gender biases to computers. Male-voiced computers are viewed as more serious, and more knowledgeable about technical topics. Female-voiced computers are perceived to be better versed in relationships, but people don't like being evaluated by a female computer.
- A computer that praises itself will be viewed somewhat negatively, but a computer that is praised by another computer is seen as more intelligent. Conversely, a computer that criticizes another is itself seen as more intelligent.
The trouble is that, when you roll all these facets into an actual software design, you come up with.... (drum roll...) the Office Assistant.
For a really great read on the psychological study side of this research, pick up _The Media Equation_, Reeves & Nass, 1996.
My pen doesn't make any guarantees about the validity of things it writes, either. Still, if I sign someone else's name to a check (or, in Canada, to a cheque), it's forgery.
You're confusing computer protocols with human law. The law says that there are restrictions on creating a document and pretending it's from someone else, whether you use an unreliable pen or an unreliable protocol.
It's infringement regardless of whether IBM is in the spam business. It intentionally caused confusion in the mind of the recipient, making them believe this came from IBM and was possibly sanctioned by them.
"As a result, this also means that copying music onto a computer hard drive is not permitted. It is copyright infringement, and a violation of federal law. "
That's a fascinating interpretation of the law. I agree that computer-based CD recorders are not "digital audio recording devices" as defined under the AHRA. In fact, you tried to claim they were in RIAA v. Diamond, but the court ruled against you.
So, on what basis do you claim that any copying not explicitly permitted by AHRA is a violation of copyright act? In fact, in RIAA v. Diamond, the Court held that "the purpose of [the Act] is to ensure the right of consumers to make analog or digital audio recordings of copyrighted music for their private, noncommercial use" and that "the Act seems designed to allow files to be "laundered" by passage through a computer".
Let me put the RIAA on notice right now: I have made and continue to make home audio compilations on CD-R, via computer, of music that I own on CD. If you believe this is illegal, go ahead and sue. I will interpret lack of a lawsuit as implicit encouragement of my activities.
What that means, in English, is that individuals cannot be sued (or prosecuted) under the AHRA for making recordings, analog or digital, for non-commercial use.
Doesn't that only apply if the digital recording was made by a digital audio recording device as defined by the AHRA? Seems to me that if the courts established in RIAA v. Diamond (?) that computer-based CD-Rs are not digital audio recording devices, then the AHRA simply doesn't apply at all, and we fall under the rest of Title 17. No?
Is anyone organizing a fund? Defending this properly will cost money. I'll start the pot with $10k. Paging Eric Raymond and any VA Linux millionaires..
They actualled got payed because they couldn't send out their *OWN* spam?
It's nothing like that. AOL has banner ads on the "list your new mail" screen. A click on that ad takes you to the full advertisement, just as a double-click on the spam takes you to the spammer's ad. Therefore, we stated (and the judge agreed) that spamming AOL members was equivalent to advertising without paying AOL's ad rates. The lost revenue is what we would have been paid had the Apricot brothers legitimately paid for an ad online for that many impressions. It's just like the lost revenue software companies sue pirates for.
Jay Levitt Chief Architect, AOL Mail Systems Drawing on my job, but speaking for myself
Hmm.. light bulb. Placing all your orders with Amazon, and THEN immediately cancelling them before they can be fulfilled, is (a) more expensive for Amazon, (b) more easily quantified by their bean-counters and (c) more likely to get their attention, especially if you call, speak to a human, and tell them why you are cancelling. Be sure to tell them who you will be placing the final order with.
If you want to cost them even more money, you can let them ship the order, and then refuse it - leave a note for the UPS man telling him you refuse the package, in case he shows up while you're out.
This could put a whole new spin on boycotts of e-Commerce sites, if I do say so myself. Note that I'm NOT advocating that you make up phony orders and cancel them. But for books you actually intend to buy - and don't want to buy from Amazon - this could wake them up.
Er, It wouldn't work that way. Ever server doesn't send login messages to every other server. The only server a given user logs into is his own. At this point, his home server sends an announcement that he is online only to the servers that have subscribed to his/her/its presence.
When I said "login messages" I meant notifications of logins to fill in others' buddy lists. It sounds like we're describing about the same thing, though I was envisioning a simpler non-subscription model. But they end up the same.
Say Alvin, Betty and Chris are on servers A, B and C, and each person has the other two on his/her buddy list.
When Alvin signs on to A, server A has to send a message to B saying "Please subscribe me to Betty". In addition, if Betty is already signed on, and B has subscribed to Alvin, this message implicitly lets B know that Alvin is on. The same goes on with C for Chris.
So for every login Alvin on A, a message will be sent to B if either (1) Alvin has someone on B on his buddy list, or (2) someone on B has Alvin on THEIR buddy list.
And, of course, if Alvin logs in, Alvin must also log out, generating a second unsubscribe message to B.
As the systems grow in popularity, the chances of one of those two cases being met at login approach 1 for each server pair. Therefore, for nearly every login, you will eventually have two messages per server pair as a result.
That's how you get to tens of thousands of messages per second for a few million simultaneous users.
But their server should be able to talk to OTHER servers.
That works for the IM part, but I suspect there is a scaling problem when you have a few million simultaneous users, and every server has to send login/logout data to every other server for buddy lists. That gets into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of messages per second per server pair. That's tough with the latencies on a worldwide network.
Jabber attempts to address this by creating a non centralized IM system
As far as I can tell from the FAQ, Jabber doesn't really decentralize the back end. It seems to be a "middleware" server that sits between the Jabber client and all the proprietary back-end servers. To your client, it must seem to be the server, and to the real IM servers, it appears to be just another client. I'm not sure how it gets all the buddy data from the servers, but it's possible that at high volumes it runs into the same problem.
Slashdot Mirror
At least with POP, you can easily save, archive and organize all your messages permanently and move them from machine to machine.
AOL mail can do this too. By default, it doesn't save messages to the filing cabinet, but two checkboxes and all your mail is automatically saved. It's much more IMAP-model than POP-model, and most users just access their mail from the server, but that doesn't mean you can't store all your mail locally if you don't want to. 6.0 has a much more usable filing cabinet, though there is still no rule processing.
AOL doesn't quite support standard HTML e-mail
6.0 supports full HTML e-mail, modulo JavaScript and ActiveX, which are disabled for security.
Send more than one attachment to the outside world, and it gets zipped if you send it from a PC
This is true, and can be a pain when doing cross-platform multiple attachments. I know the Mac client can unzip, but I am not sure if the PC client can unstuff - or if stuffing is still what the current Mac clients do.
Jay, the mail guy, speaking for myself
Actually, the "ideal" outcome pretty much describes what's been going on. A lot of behind-the-scenes work has been done to make the AOL mail system more suitable to TW - which, in the end, can make it more suitable for everyone. Is it there yet? No. But there's a LOT more than is exposed by the current AOL client, or even NetCenter.
You don't have to use the AOL client; Netscape 6 works with AOL mail over IMAP. And CompuServe 2000, running on the same back end, works with many IMAP clients. I'm not sure how SecurID works with these yet, but I'm seeing more and more support for it in general applications like ssh, so hopefully it will spread to the mail world - and 70,000 desktops could be an incentive to support it.
The criticisms of the AOL client in the article were interesting, since it was clear the people had no experience with AOL. It has many shortcomings, but quoting is not among them. AOL has one of the best reply-quoting systems; you highlight the part you want, you click reply, it quotes it. Internally it uses a nice, paragraph-oriented HTML quoting scheme (since AOL mail is paragraph-oriented), and if you send it out to the external net, it automagically becomes carets. Compare that to OE, Outlook, or Netscape, all of which can either quote the entire message or nothing at all. I don't remember what Eudora and Pegasus do; I had too many problems using them in IMAP mode and uninstalled them.
As for attachments, all the current AOL clients support seamless multiple attachments via ZIP, and they interchange pretty cleanly with the outside world via MIME. Intra-AOL attachments are much less likely to accidentally turn into text than some of the poorly-formatted MIME attachments that OE, for one, creates.
The lack of auto-reply is indeed frustrating; having just gone on a three-month sabbatical, I feel their pain. Perhaps that will be one of the changes that comes out of this. As for SecurID: Yes, it's a pain. No question. It's also really important, and any company with an externally-accessible mail system should really have some kind of strong, multi-factor authentication.
I wasn't personally involved in the decision to migrate to AOL mail, but I think it's a good one. Short term, there will be a lot of headaches, as there are with any migration. Then I wouldn't be surprised to see the TW needs driving more feature development to fill in the gaps. Long term, it'll be a more reliable, supported system than what TW had, with more features than either the old system or the current AOL system - and it will help connect the two disparate halves of the company.
- Jay, the mail guy, speculating only for himself
If the best God can do is simple tech support type activities then you can color me unimpressed.
Well, obviously, the level-2 God can do more advanced troubleshooting, but you have to escalate.
Funny. My job is fighting spam at the biggest, evilest ISP in the world, and *I* think it's spam. Someone (doesn't matter who) was sending mail to his account and he couldn't get it to stop.
On what grounds do you declare it not spam? Do you work for Amazon? Why are you so worried about the sooper-sekrit c0nsipricy between Ironfist and Slashdot to "vilify" Amazon?
You can argue that the prior business relationship made it solicited, but once he requested it stop, it was clearly no longer solicited. It's unsolicited, it's bulk, it's email. That's spam.
Amazon needs to provide a way for mailbox owners to stop the mail. Period. Nothing to do with passwords, purchases, or anything else - Amazon simply doesn't have the legal right to send mail to people who don't want to receive it.
If messages to postmaster and webmaster (required accounts by RFC2142) bounce, I usually find an e-mail to the upstream provider fixes things very quickly.
Yes, absolutely, Amazon should have Herculean protections against giving your your password. But that misses the main point:
Amazon should NOT require your password to stop mailing to you!
Amazon, like anyone else, should respect the legal right of the mailbox owner to control what mail gets sent to it. Amazon doesn't have the right to set up so many barriers to stopping mail to a mailbox that may never have even given permission.
What if I set up an account tonight and give your e-mail address? We know Amazon doesn't do any sort of verification; they just add you to the list. You can't possibly know or find out my password; you don't even know who did this to you.
Amazon's actions wouldn't stand up in court, if anyone had the time, energy and money to sue them. In fact, you could probably sue them in small claims to avoid the money part.
Ah! That's a different argument, then. I'm not arguing about whether reproducing >20KHz is important, as I don't know nearly enough about signal processing. I do know that I can hear a pure 21KHz tone on my monitors (Genelec 1030a), but I realize I'm in the minority there.
I was merely responding to the statement that nothing reproduces above 20KHz. FWIW, here's the reply from Neumann. Looks like they handle the upper frequencies decently, at least on some mics, but just don't bother to spec them. Of course, he's talking about the KM184 (a small-condenser mic, and my next toy, in KM100 form), not the U89i.
(I tried to e-mail this to you but you didn't publish your address.. perhaps you'll see this anyway here.)
---------------------------------
Dear Mr. Levitt,
Along to the standard for microphones (IEC 60268-4) the 'Frequency Range' that you will find within the Technical Data just gives the frequency
'band' within the manufacturer is willing to show or to define any specific values i.e. a frequency graph showing an amplitude response. That does not mean that microphones will not 'hear' signals below of 20 Hz or above 20.000 Hz.
At low frequencies you may extrapolate the frequency response shown in the data. Since it is not easy to measure the low frequency response along the standard exactly you should not trust the figures given by many companies.
Let's have a look into the figure of KM 184 as an example: You will find a low frequency roll off of about 5 dB @ 50 Hz and 12 dB @ 20 Hz. This is the free field frequency response along the o.m. standard. It is to the law of physics. Many companies whould like to make you believe that their microphones would be more flat within this frequency range. TEST IT.
But sorry for going astray: you actually are asking for the high frequency response.
The frequency response above 20.000 Hz depends of the type of microphone. Normally you also may extrapolate the response given if you can realize any specific tendency. For the KM184 again as an example the -3dB point is at 25 kHz. (That means: The use of any steep cut off filter with 20 kHz
boundary frequency would still affect the transient response of the microphone!)
With best regards
Georg Neumann GmbH, Berlin
i.V. Stephan Peus
(Director of Development)
The fact that some manufacturers post specs that cast them in a better light (Shure SM-58? Narrow response? Shocking!) or that some go the extra mile to get or measure flatness up to 30KHz (cool!) doesn't mean anything. Have you asked Neumann if their mic actually stops reproducing at 20K?
20-20K is a standard spec range, and allows easy comparison from one mic/speaker to the next. That doesn't mean it doesn't reproduce or transduce frequencies above 20KHz, just that they haven't spec'd out its frequency response there.
Port-scanning is against most AUPs. Report them to their ISP...
I have had quite a few different Kryotech PCs in my house. I first ordered an 800. Within a week or two, either the mobo or the chip had fried. Because of their proprietary chip cage, that meant dragging the whole 85-lb thing up the stairs.
When they shipped my replacement, they sent me someone else's new 900 by accident, and graciously agreed to let me keep it at no charge. This worked for a while, and then mysteriously failed one night while I was out of town. It didn't POST at all.
I asked them to replace it under warranty and I'd pay the difference to upgrade to the new SuperG. Again, they were amenable to this, and my 1GHz was on its way.
I don't remember what happened this time, but it didn't work at all either. So they sent a replacement Super G, but the power supply was dead out of the box.
By this time, of course, room-temperature 1GHz chips were widely available. It is a tribute to Kryotech that they were willing to take back the last of the Kryotech hardware and give me a full refund, but it never really worked.
I don't think I've ever said this about anyone, but Kryotech is one company that could stand to bring their *quality* department up to where their *customer service* is!
The Apple Airport is a low-cost version of, I believe, the Aironet, but it's not nearly as robust. I actually bought an Orinoco, but returned it, because I couldn't get it working and Lucent tech support will only talk to dealers.
The Aironet won me over with the following features:
- True 802.11b
- 11 Mb/sec
- Diversity antennas for better reception at the edge
- Availability of several external antennas for the Access Point
- Great support from Cisco
- Much better-written, smoother-installing drivers
- Full control of the access point (config, logs, help text) via HTTP/telnet/console
- Feels better-built and -designed in general
One caution: You will want an external antenna on the access point, so do NOT get the "captured antennas" (e.g. AP342EC) - you cannot remove them, and it's a $300 repair to replace them with TNC connectors.
since no one has found any magnetic monopoles yet
Untrue. I had MONOPOLE stored on a magnetic floppy as early as 1984. I expect many of the older folks here did as well.
Doesn't look funny or depressing at all. I think Stephenson is sending a pretty strong message as to whose side he's on..
Ironically, some of the most pioneering and fascinating psychological research was done by Microsoft in developing their Office suite.
They discovered that people react to computers just as they would to humans, and imbue their software with human characteristics. Just a few of the many examples:
- People perceive specialized tools to be more important, informative, and interesting than general tools, even when the tools themselves are identical. People watching news on a TV found it of higher quality when they were told that the network - or even the TV itself - was a "news network" or a "news television".
- People assign their gender biases to computers. Male-voiced computers are viewed as more serious, and more knowledgeable about technical topics. Female-voiced computers are perceived to be better versed in relationships, but people don't like being evaluated by a female computer.
- A computer that praises itself will be viewed somewhat negatively, but a computer that is praised by another computer is seen as more intelligent. Conversely, a computer that criticizes another is itself seen as more intelligent.
The trouble is that, when you roll all these facets into an actual software design, you come up with.... (drum roll...) the Office Assistant.
For a really great read on the psychological study side of this research, pick up _The Media Equation_, Reeves & Nass, 1996.
My pen doesn't make any guarantees about the validity of things it writes, either. Still, if I sign someone else's name to a check (or, in Canada, to a cheque), it's forgery.
You're confusing computer protocols with human law. The law says that there are restrictions on creating a document and pretending it's from someone else, whether you use an unreliable pen or an unreliable protocol.
It's infringement regardless of whether IBM is in the spam business. It intentionally caused confusion in the mind of the recipient, making them believe this came from IBM and was possibly sanctioned by them.
AOL's won several lawsuits on that count.
As subject.
Your web page claims:
"As a result, this also means that copying music onto a computer hard drive is not permitted. It is copyright infringement, and a violation of federal law. "
That's a fascinating interpretation of the law. I agree that computer-based CD recorders are not "digital audio recording devices" as defined under the AHRA. In fact, you tried to claim they were in RIAA v. Diamond, but the court ruled against you.
So, on what basis do you claim that any copying not explicitly permitted by AHRA is a violation of copyright act? In fact, in RIAA v. Diamond, the Court held that "the purpose of [the Act] is to ensure the right of consumers to make analog or digital audio recordings of copyrighted music for their private, noncommercial use" and that "the Act seems designed to allow files to be "laundered" by passage through a computer".
Let me put the RIAA on notice right now: I have made and continue to make home audio compilations on CD-R, via computer, of music that I own on CD. If you believe this is illegal, go ahead and sue. I will interpret lack of a lawsuit as implicit encouragement of my activities.
Jay Levitt
[address deleted]
jay@aol.com
What that means, in English, is that individuals cannot be sued (or prosecuted) under the AHRA for making recordings, analog or digital, for non-commercial use.
Doesn't that only apply if the digital recording was made by a digital audio recording device as defined by the AHRA? Seems to me that if the courts established in RIAA v. Diamond (?) that computer-based CD-Rs are not digital audio recording devices, then the AHRA simply doesn't apply at all, and we fall under the rest of Title 17. No?
Is anyone organizing a fund? Defending this properly will cost money. I'll start the pot with $10k. Paging Eric Raymond and any VA Linux millionaires..
They actualled got payed because they couldn't send out their *OWN* spam?
It's nothing like that. AOL has banner ads on the "list your new mail" screen. A click on that ad takes you to the full advertisement, just as a double-click on the spam takes you to the spammer's ad. Therefore, we stated (and the judge agreed) that spamming AOL members was equivalent to advertising without paying AOL's ad rates. The lost revenue is what we would have been paid had the Apricot brothers legitimately paid for an ad online for that many impressions. It's just like the lost revenue software companies sue pirates for.
Jay Levitt
Chief Architect, AOL Mail Systems
Drawing on my job, but speaking for myself
Call their service # and cancel your order.
Hmm.. light bulb. Placing all your orders with Amazon, and THEN immediately cancelling them before they can be fulfilled, is (a) more expensive for Amazon, (b) more easily quantified by their bean-counters and (c) more likely to get their attention, especially if you call, speak to a human, and tell them why you are cancelling. Be sure to tell them who you will be placing the final order with.
If you want to cost them even more money, you can let them ship the order, and then refuse it - leave a note for the UPS man telling him you refuse the package, in case he shows up while you're out.
This could put a whole new spin on boycotts of e-Commerce sites, if I do say so myself. Note that I'm NOT advocating that you make up phony orders and cancel them. But for books you actually intend to buy - and don't want to buy from Amazon - this could wake them up.
Jay
Er, It wouldn't work that way. Ever server doesn't send login messages to every other server. The only server a given user logs into is his own. At this point, his home server sends an announcement that he is online only to the servers that have subscribed to his/her/its presence.
When I said "login messages" I meant notifications of logins to fill in others' buddy lists. It sounds like we're describing about the same thing, though I was envisioning a simpler non-subscription model. But they end up the same.
Say Alvin, Betty and Chris are on servers A, B and C, and each person has the other two on his/her buddy list.
When Alvin signs on to A, server A has to send a message to B saying "Please subscribe me to Betty". In addition, if Betty is already signed on, and B has subscribed to Alvin, this message implicitly lets B know that Alvin is on. The same goes on with C for Chris.
So for every login Alvin on A, a message will be sent to B if either (1) Alvin has someone on B on his buddy list, or (2) someone on B has Alvin on THEIR buddy list.
And, of course, if Alvin logs in, Alvin must also log out, generating a second unsubscribe message to B.
As the systems grow in popularity, the chances of one of those two cases being met at login approach 1 for each server pair. Therefore, for nearly every login, you will eventually have two messages per server pair as a result.
That's how you get to tens of thousands of messages per second for a few million simultaneous users.
But their server should be able to talk to OTHER servers.
That works for the IM part, but I suspect there is a scaling problem when you have a few million simultaneous users, and every server has to send login/logout data to every other server for buddy lists. That gets into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of messages per second per server pair. That's tough with the latencies on a worldwide network.
Jabber attempts to address this by creating a non centralized IM system
As far as I can tell from the FAQ, Jabber doesn't really decentralize the back end. It seems to be a "middleware" server that sits between the Jabber client and all the proprietary back-end servers. To your client, it must seem to be the server, and to the real IM servers, it appears to be just another client. I'm not sure how it gets all the buddy data from the servers, but it's possible that at high volumes it runs into the same problem.