Lots of 'mericans would say any partial nudity belongs n the.xxx domain; lots of people elsewhere in the world laugh at that. Lots of 'mericans would say violence *doesn't* belong in.xxx; lots of others would disagree. My brother-in-law will happily rent the goriest action videos for his kids, with profanity, gore, mayhem, etc, but it better not show much in the way of nudity.
It wouldn't work. It would just create more and more arguments.
You can ftp to it or look at its HTTP port for various formats of pics (10 frames a second updated, single pics, various sizes).
I have plans for something similar myself, but haven't done anything with it yet.
Only drawback is it is an indoor camera. They say don't aim it at the sun or any bright light (such as a halogen light), so it would be easy for a knowledgeable crook to toast it. But this seems a pretty minor concern, and if you download a frame every second or two, you should have some idea who did it.
If I am researching products, and find no negative comments, that in itself raises my suspicions. Case in point -- HardiBoard siding. Gee, really exciting stuff. I searched the web, and found very little negative stories. That set off alarms. I eventually found answers to my questions, and decided it is good stuff, but the lack of objectivity in most reviews was what made me dig deeper.
I suspect these Apologee idiots will run into the same problem eventually. If they truly enforce this nonsense, all reviews will be positive and glowing, and eventually people will earn to NEVER buy from Apologee. They will have the well earned rep of being unstrustworthy.
The problem is more demand than supply. It has to be rationed somehow. If not by price, how? Govt boards? Roll of the dice?
Right. Do you really think money wouldn't talk somehow? I knew of many people in rent controlled cities who paid cash under the table to get "cheap" over the table rents.
If you look at the history of artists being paid, the recorded era is an aberration built on scarcity of the physical media.
Before the printing press or the record or photograph, copy protection was a natural result of the process involved. It was too difficult to copy a book or painting. Someone could listen to a storyteller or musician and "steal" their work, but it inevitably changed in the process, such that the stolen copy was noticeably different.
Artists made a living by performing or producing new material. Most producers had very little luck getting royalties, even when the concept existed. Beethoven worried about copying. "What have you done for me lately?" was the question, and the answer was, "Next show at 9." There was no concept of living off the past. They had to keep producing or keep performing to make a living.
Recordings changed that, and good communication enforced it.
The net will turn things back, with more hobby artists and fewer mega artists. The scarcity aspect is fast disappearing. Contrary to what Lars thinks, it won't take huge marketing budgets to promote artists. Reputations will spread by word of mouth, searches, and respected sites. Without marketing and retailers gobbling up 90 percent of the retail price, artists will be able to survive on far fewer paying customers. More artists will produce merely because they want to. People will support the artists they like, though nothing like the inflated way of today. Concerts and new material will become more important. Most artists will forego the expensive and lengthy editing which studios and book publishers have used to justify their huge take.
In the 1930s and 1940s, when records were just taking off, Fats Waller usually went with his first takes. In the 1960s, the Beatles came out with, what, 5 albums in a couple of years? Nowadays music is so heavily produced that bands are lucky to come out with one album a year. Is the music really that much better?
Who says you have to have a Start button or Apple or anything else visible on the screen at all times?
I run fvwm2 on Slackware because I can customize it my way. I have no borders, no title bars. To get menus, I click on the root window, or I use keys combined with that extra "Windows" MENU key.
When I have dozens of xterms scattered around my windows and desktops, I am working, and don't want to waste precious screen space on decorations and sillybuttons. Need a new xterm? MENU + KP-INSERT, up it comes. Want a new browser window? MENU + 'w'. And so on.
Maybe this guy set his up the same. Maybe he waits until the mouse is near the edge before he shows the home menu. Maybe he double clicks two buttons together. Maybe it's voice activated!
My high school chemistry teacher was a former naval officer. As a midshipman in the 1920s, he and some buddies installed a big gyroscope in a suitcase, spun it up on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, walked straight in to the front desk, set it down, booked a room, and laughed their middie asses off when the poor bellhop picked it up and tried to turn around.
--
Because realistic science == engineering
on
NASA Snake-Bots
·
· Score: 2
It is only a slight exageration to say the science by definition is unrealistic, and engineering is realistic.
If the Wright brothers had stuck to realistic science, they would never have flown.
If Einstein had stuck to realistic science, he would have been a patent examiner for the rest of his life.
If Newton had stuck to realistic science -- now that's an interesting thought; would that have meant alchemy back then?
Yes, all this is a simplistic exageration. But complaining about unrealistic science is simplistic exageration itself.
Compaq have code which runs under Linux and they have code which runs under Windows. Now if you want to port it to BeOS, or Apple's OS-of-the-week, or DOS, or VMS, or CPM, that's your project, not Compaq's, and not Hemos'.
GPL my ass. Who said anything about violating the GPL?
You say common carriers are required to server everyone, not just their customers -- how do phone companies and ISPs differ? Both can cancel service for non-payment, both have to accept all incoming calls.
--
Are copyrights essential?
on
RMS On eBooks
·
· Score: 2
Are you aware that in the 1800s the USA was the copyright pirate of the world? Books from Britain especially were reprinted freely in the USA without paying royalties.
Much like various countries pirate copyrighted works nowadays.
Those who love to write will continue to write. Disney stole many of his ideas from Rudyard Kipling, for instance, without any expectation that the copyright on his own work would extend so far into the future. In fact, if Rudyard Kipling had had that same copyright protection, Disney would not have been able to steal his stories. Probably ditto for Han Christian Andersen and the Grimm Bros.
I understand an author wanting a reasonable return on his writing. But are you saying that Stephen King, for instance, would stop writing if he only made 10% of what he makes now?
I am not advocating a cap on royalties. But before you SHOUT that copyrights are essential, I suggest you think a bit more.
No, a closed source driver is not better than nothing. Closed source == binary == specific kernel version. People will load it for other versions anyway. Closed source == little review == it-compiles-so-ship-it attitude == lousy quality. Both cases lead to people complaining about Linux when it's a specific driver at fault which they almost certainly don't know about.
Furthermore, a closed source driver will lead to pressure to not update the kernel because it would break closed source drivers == no improvements == obsolete code, code to handle historic cases, etc etc etc.
Hardware vendors who can't see the rational for open source now aren't going to suddenly see the light just because it's UDI instead of native. They will still be narrow minded and myopic. They will still imagine their competitors are so inept that they can't or won't reverse engineer the damned thing, even tho they do it themselves all the time.
As for redundant drivers for different OSs, the problem is NOT getting vendors to write drivers, it's getting vendors to release specs so WE can write drivers. Think of it! They could release ONE spec and get drivers for free. What a concept!
Backward and forward compatibility hinders development. You get a bloated slow kernel because it has to support all sorts of obsolete crap and try (and fail) to support unknown future capabilities. Worst aspect of "future" compatibility is that future drivers are constrained by previous thinking, meaning losing all advances since the forward compatibility was designed.
The ONLY advantage would be for prototyping drivers. Maybe someone could write a user mode driver with a generic kernel interface. Gawddd! Swapping in a user task to handle interrupts! What a mess.
I believe it used to be a practice a thousand years ago for petition signers to sign names ina circle, so that the "instigator" could not be determined from the order of signing.
The US supreme court ruled that political posters can be distributed anonymously, being a fundamental right.
Voting is anonymous.
Anyone afraid of anonymity is being awfully silly. Only Big Brother need fear it.
Now way back in the glory days of that last great war, way back in 19 and forty something, there were two developments which have been entangled down to this very day, causing no end of grief while each tries to ensnare and evade the other. I am referring, of course, to the digital computer and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which has morphed into the current CIA and NSA.
I put it to you: is it just a coincidence that we have here a claim that Micro$oft coined the term? Or is there some deeper conspiracy that has been in progress these many years?
Or is it just another example of Micro$oft falsely claiming innovation?
If there's that much in common, it's going to be hard to patent it.
And how is Microsoft going to get a monopoly if they re-use the same tired old techonology? After all, if Unix/Linux at 30 years is too old and must bow down before the young upstart W2K nee NT, surely the new M$ genome will supplant the old human stuff?
No, surely the future lies with proprietary genomes. This will automatically enforce species separation as a much harder line than currently. This closed source genome will be much more secure against viruses and DoS attacks than the current genomes, which are constantly under attack from both DoS and DDos crackers.
Follow the proprietary genome into the future! Leave your tired old baggage behind you!
I wrote a very patient email, explaining how their password change policy doesn't do beans towards keeping people from getting into my account, and in fact, makes it easier, because if I have to change passwords, I am going to pick easier to remember passwords, which defeats the good passwords I had memorized.
And for a computer system, or a general purpose password, it may well make sense to change passwords often, but not for a bank account, because the only reason to break in is to steal money and get out. No one will break in and steal, say, $10 a month and hope to not be detected. They might break in and look around, and check back to get the big deposits, but only over a short period; not over several months.
I use Security First Network Bank and it works pretty well. It's a complete bank, replacing the brick and mortar variant for me. See below for the only drawback I see with this approach.
I chose this bank over the brick and mortars about 3 years ago, because the brick and mortars use custom software, which not only does not work under Linux, but also has to be installed on a computer. SFNB works from any web browser. Perhaps things have changed since then.
There's a button on their site for "Pay Bills". It brings up a table of payees you have set up. You fill in the amount for the ones you want to pay, and change the pay date if you want, or leave it at the default earliest possible Then click SUBMIT and it sets up the transactions. I find it incredibly easy compared to writing checks, adding stamps, and mailing the payments.
Setting up a new payee is a minor nuisance. They need name, address, phone number, and account id. From then on it's very easy to deal with. You can set up regular payments, with various intervals (weekly, monthly, semi-monthly, etc). I collect my credit card, utility, etc bills once every week or two and do them all at once.
They supply an ATM card. No extra charge at grocery stores, most gas stations, etc. Brick and mortar banks will nick you for actually using their ATMs, so I just get cash back from the grocery stores.
I dump the "register" of transactions periodically in case they try to do something incredibly stupid such as change things. You can annotate transactions. They include GIFs of the front and back (I think both:-) of actual checks you have written.
The only drawback in this case is having to mail in deposits; it can be a couple of weeks before you see the funds:-( Worst of all, they could easily send email when the check is received and when it clears, but they don't; you have to check your account periodically to find out. I left the stamp and return address off one check I mailed in, and it took a month before I was convinced it hadn't arrived (took the PO 2 mohths to send it back). Had to stop the old check, get a new check, etc.
I don't like their password policy; it has to be changed every few months, and if you forget the new one, you have to call them up and they snail mail a new password, so there go several days at least with no access. I have tried sending email about how this does not improve security. If someone wants to clean out my account, changing the password twice a year won't do squat to prevent it. It will only stop someone taking small amounts once in a while, and then only when the password changes. In that case, it's my own fault for not monitoring my account. But they persist.
And even more minor, the data entry field checking is very anal about the exact format of phone numbers and such.
But I will keep the account, as it makes most transactions much easier, and I don't deposit a lot of checks, and don't live paycheck to paycheck anyway. And electronic deposit of paychecks happens overnight anyway.
I don't like those RPM managers. You start installing manually, you bodge up the package manager database. I really like Slackware NOT having RPMs.
Yes, I know I can install from source and bypass the package manager. But then the package manager falls on its face because it doesn't understand the libs I've added. So I'd rather just not have the danged thing to start with and do everything the source way. Besides, then I can set the options *I* want, and I don't have to whine about no packages for my particular machine:-)
Back then, it was the desktop, and there was no competition.
Right now, this is for servers, M$ is trying to make W2K the be-all, and there's some fierce competition. This will be a real black eye for M$ marketing. It will put paid to a lt of their boasting as to being ready for the enterprise server market. It will be DELICIOUS!
Slashdot Mirror
Lots of 'mericans would say any partial nudity belongs n the .xxx domain; lots of people elsewhere in the world laugh at that. Lots of 'mericans would say violence *doesn't* belong in .xxx; lots of others would disagree. My brother-in-law will happily rent the goriest action videos for his kids, with profanity, gore, mayhem, etc, but it better not show much in the way of nudity.
It wouldn't work. It would just create more and more arguments.
--
Very nice webcam. It also runs Linux Inside (tm).
You can ftp to it or look at its HTTP port for various formats of pics (10 frames a second updated, single pics, various sizes).
I have plans for something similar myself, but haven't done anything with it yet.
Only drawback is it is an indoor camera. They say don't aim it at the sun or any bright light (such as a halogen light), so it would be easy for a knowledgeable crook to toast it. But this seems a pretty minor concern, and if you download a frame every second or two, you should have some idea who did it.
--
No one seems to understand the gravity of the situation.
--
If I am researching products, and find no negative comments, that in itself raises my suspicions. Case in point -- HardiBoard siding. Gee, really exciting stuff. I searched the web, and found very little negative stories. That set off alarms. I eventually found answers to my questions, and decided it is good stuff, but the lack of objectivity in most reviews was what made me dig deeper.
I suspect these Apologee idiots will run into the same problem eventually. If they truly enforce this nonsense, all reviews will be positive and glowing, and eventually people will earn to NEVER buy from Apologee. They will have the well earned rep of being unstrustworthy.
--
...then the public wins!
--
The problem is more demand than supply. It has to be rationed somehow. If not by price, how? Govt boards? Roll of the dice?
Right. Do you really think money wouldn't talk somehow? I knew of many people in rent controlled cities who paid cash under the table to get "cheap" over the table rents.
--
If you look at the history of artists being paid, the recorded era is an aberration built on scarcity of the physical media.
Before the printing press or the record or photograph, copy protection was a natural result of the process involved. It was too difficult to copy a book or painting. Someone could listen to a storyteller or musician and "steal" their work, but it inevitably changed in the process, such that the stolen copy was noticeably different.
Artists made a living by performing or producing new material. Most producers had very little luck getting royalties, even when the concept existed. Beethoven worried about copying. "What have you done for me lately?" was the question, and the answer was, "Next show at 9." There was no concept of living off the past. They had to keep producing or keep performing to make a living.
Recordings changed that, and good communication enforced it.
The net will turn things back, with more hobby artists and fewer mega artists. The scarcity aspect is fast disappearing. Contrary to what Lars thinks, it won't take huge marketing budgets to promote artists. Reputations will spread by word of mouth, searches, and respected sites. Without marketing and retailers gobbling up 90 percent of the retail price, artists will be able to survive on far fewer paying customers. More artists will produce merely because they want to. People will support the artists they like, though nothing like the inflated way of today. Concerts and new material will become more important. Most artists will forego the expensive and lengthy editing which studios and book publishers have used to justify their huge take.
In the 1930s and 1940s, when records were just taking off, Fats Waller usually went with his first takes. In the 1960s, the Beatles came out with, what, 5 albums in a couple of years? Nowadays music is so heavily produced that bands are lucky to come out with one album a year. Is the music really that much better?
--
Who says you have to have a Start button or Apple or anything else visible on the screen at all times?
I run fvwm2 on Slackware because I can customize it my way. I have no borders, no title bars. To get menus, I click on the root window, or I use keys combined with that extra "Windows" MENU key.
When I have dozens of xterms scattered around my windows and desktops, I am working, and don't want to waste precious screen space on decorations and sillybuttons. Need a new xterm? MENU + KP-INSERT, up it comes. Want a new browser window? MENU + 'w'. And so on.
Maybe this guy set his up the same. Maybe he waits until the mouse is near the edge before he shows the home menu. Maybe he double clicks two buttons together. Maybe it's voice activated!
Ya gots to think outside da box.
--
My high school chemistry teacher was a former naval officer. As a midshipman in the 1920s, he and some buddies installed a big gyroscope in a suitcase, spun it up on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, walked straight in to the front desk, set it down, booked a room, and laughed their middie asses off when the poor bellhop picked it up and tried to turn around.
--
It is only a slight exageration to say the science by definition is unrealistic, and engineering is realistic.
If the Wright brothers had stuck to realistic science, they would never have flown.
If Einstein had stuck to realistic science, he would have been a patent examiner for the rest of his life.
If Newton had stuck to realistic science -- now that's an interesting thought; would that have meant alchemy back then?
Yes, all this is a simplistic exageration. But complaining about unrealistic science is simplistic exageration itself.
--
Compaq have code which runs under Linux and they have code which runs under Windows. Now if you want to port it to BeOS, or Apple's OS-of-the-week, or DOS, or VMS, or CPM, that's your project, not Compaq's, and not Hemos'.
GPL my ass. Who said anything about violating the GPL?
--
You say common carriers are required to server everyone, not just their customers -- how do phone companies and ISPs differ? Both can cancel service for non-payment, both have to accept all incoming calls.
--
Are you aware that in the 1800s the USA was the copyright pirate of the world? Books from Britain especially were reprinted freely in the USA without paying royalties.
Much like various countries pirate copyrighted works nowadays.
Those who love to write will continue to write. Disney stole many of his ideas from Rudyard Kipling, for instance, without any expectation that the copyright on his own work would extend so far into the future. In fact, if Rudyard Kipling had had that same copyright protection, Disney would not have been able to steal his stories. Probably ditto for Han Christian Andersen and the Grimm Bros.
I understand an author wanting a reasonable return on his writing. But are you saying that Stephen King, for instance, would stop writing if he only made 10% of what he makes now?
I am not advocating a cap on royalties. But before you SHOUT that copyrights are essential, I suggest you think a bit more.
--
Gee, I thought you could actually log in with a real account name. That would be, uh, non-anonymous, wouldn't it?
How about telnet -- is that a server by your definition? Of course not -- it's not anonymous.
Ii think you had better rethink your redefinition.
--
...cuz we all want to replay that flameware :-)
--
No, a closed source driver is not better than nothing. Closed source == binary == specific kernel version. People will load it for other versions anyway. Closed source == little review == it-compiles-so-ship-it attitude == lousy quality. Both cases lead to people complaining about Linux when it's a specific driver at fault which they almost certainly don't know about.
Furthermore, a closed source driver will lead to pressure to not update the kernel because it would break closed source drivers == no improvements == obsolete code, code to handle historic cases, etc etc etc.
Hardware vendors who can't see the rational for open source now aren't going to suddenly see the light just because it's UDI instead of native. They will still be narrow minded and myopic. They will still imagine their competitors are so inept that they can't or won't reverse engineer the damned thing, even tho they do it themselves all the time.
As for redundant drivers for different OSs, the problem is NOT getting vendors to write drivers, it's getting vendors to release specs so WE can write drivers. Think of it! They could release ONE spec and get drivers for free. What a concept!
Backward and forward compatibility hinders development. You get a bloated slow kernel because it has to support all sorts of obsolete crap and try (and fail) to support unknown future capabilities. Worst aspect of "future" compatibility is that future drivers are constrained by previous thinking, meaning losing all advances since the forward compatibility was designed.
The ONLY advantage would be for prototyping drivers. Maybe someone could write a user mode driver with a generic kernel interface. Gawddd! Swapping in a user task to handle interrupts! What a mess.
--
I believe it used to be a practice a thousand years ago for petition signers to sign names ina circle, so that the "instigator" could not be determined from the order of signing.
The US supreme court ruled that political posters can be distributed anonymously, being a fundamental right.
Voting is anonymous.
Anyone afraid of anonymity is being awfully silly. Only Big Brother need fear it.
--
Spend $250,000, get $20,000/year. You could shove that $250,000 in a crummy CD and get 6%, $15,000. Or put it in a mutual fund, get 20% easy, $50,000.
Why work like crazy to make so little?
--
Now way back in the glory days of that last great war, way back in 19 and forty something, there were two developments which have been entangled down to this very day, causing no end of grief while each tries to ensnare and evade the other. I am referring, of course, to the digital computer and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which has morphed into the current CIA and NSA.
I put it to you: is it just a coincidence that we have here a claim that Micro$oft coined the term? Or is there some deeper conspiracy that has been in progress these many years?
Or is it just another example of Micro$oft falsely claiming innovation?
--
And it's you on the front lines, so ignore any who say you chose wrong; if they want to set the rules, they can pick their own fight.
--
If there's that much in common, it's going to be hard to patent it.
And how is Microsoft going to get a monopoly if they re-use the same tired old techonology? After all, if Unix/Linux at 30 years is too old and must bow down before the young upstart W2K nee NT, surely the new M$ genome will supplant the old human stuff?
No, surely the future lies with proprietary genomes. This will automatically enforce species separation as a much harder line than currently. This closed source genome will be much more secure against viruses and DoS attacks than the current genomes, which are constantly under attack from both DoS and DDos crackers.
Follow the proprietary genome into the future! Leave your tired old baggage behind you!
--
I wrote a very patient email, explaining how their password change policy doesn't do beans towards keeping people from getting into my account, and in fact, makes it easier, because if I have to change passwords, I am going to pick easier to remember passwords, which defeats the good passwords I had memorized.
And for a computer system, or a general purpose password, it may well make sense to change passwords often, but not for a bank account, because the only reason to break in is to steal money and get out. No one will break in and steal, say, $10 a month and hope to not be detected. They might break in and look around, and check back to get the big deposits, but only over a short period; not over several months.
A real annoying clueless policy.
--
I use Security First Network Bank and it works pretty well. It's a complete bank, replacing the brick and mortar variant for me. See below for the only drawback I see with this approach.
:-) of actual checks you have written.
:-( Worst of all, they could easily send email when the check is received and when it clears, but they don't; you have to check your account periodically to find out. I left the stamp and return address off one check I mailed in, and it took a month before I was convinced it hadn't arrived (took the PO 2 mohths to send it back). Had to stop the old check, get a new check, etc.
I chose this bank over the brick and mortars about 3 years ago, because the brick and mortars use custom software, which not only does not work under Linux, but also has to be installed on a computer. SFNB works from any web browser. Perhaps things have changed since then.
There's a button on their site for "Pay Bills". It brings up a table of payees you have set up. You fill in the amount for the ones you want to pay, and change the pay date if you want, or leave it at the default earliest possible Then click SUBMIT and it sets up the transactions. I find it incredibly easy compared to writing checks, adding stamps, and mailing the payments.
Setting up a new payee is a minor nuisance. They need name, address, phone number, and account id. From then on it's very easy to deal with. You can set up regular payments, with various intervals (weekly, monthly, semi-monthly, etc). I collect my credit card, utility, etc bills once every week or two and do them all at once.
They supply an ATM card. No extra charge at grocery stores, most gas stations, etc. Brick and mortar banks will nick you for actually using their ATMs, so I just get cash back from the grocery stores.
I dump the "register" of transactions periodically in case they try to do something incredibly stupid such as change things. You can annotate transactions. They include GIFs of the front and back (I think both
The only drawback in this case is having to mail in deposits; it can be a couple of weeks before you see the funds
I don't like their password policy; it has to be changed every few months, and if you forget the new one, you have to call them up and they snail mail a new password, so there go several days at least with no access. I have tried sending email about how this does not improve security. If someone wants to clean out my account, changing the password twice a year won't do squat to prevent it. It will only stop someone taking small amounts once in a while, and then only when the password changes. In that case, it's my own fault for not monitoring my account. But they persist.
And even more minor, the data entry field checking is very anal about the exact format of phone numbers and such.
But I will keep the account, as it makes most transactions much easier, and I don't deposit a lot of checks, and don't live paycheck to paycheck anyway. And electronic deposit of paychecks happens overnight anyway.
--
I don't like those RPM managers. You start installing manually, you bodge up the package manager database. I really like Slackware NOT having RPMs.
:-)
Yes, I know I can install from source and bypass the package manager. But then the package manager falls on its face because it doesn't understand the libs I've added. So I'd rather just not have the danged thing to start with and do everything the source way. Besides, then I can set the options *I* want, and I don't have to whine about no packages for my particular machine
--
Back then, it was the desktop, and there was no competition.
Right now, this is for servers, M$ is trying to make W2K the be-all, and there's some fierce competition. This will be a real black eye for M$ marketing. It will put paid to a lt of their boasting as to being ready for the enterprise server market. It will be DELICIOUS!
--