Forcing people to behave artificially causes people to not be able to bond and communicate.
This rather obvious realization has been surfacing over the past few decades. 20 years ago professionals were expected to wear suits and ties to work. Today, most employers I've worked for only require that of sales people, or on certain ocassions. The average employee can wear jeans, at in their cube, swear, and scratch their butt. I think this leads to a more relaxed and more productive work environment.
Interestingly though, in the 80's, it was socially acceptable to have a drink during lunch. Now it is taboo to drink during work hours at all.
With that in mind, it's kind of hard for Apple to compete at $1.29 Most iPod owners aren't going to bother downloading from Amazon and importing into iTunes. So Apple still could compete, but only by relying on users who don't know or care enough to switch to the alternative. Even so, this is still a good move.
Now I have to figure out how to tell the DRM-tunes from the non-DRM tunes. It was easy when there was a price difference.
Is there any concern that gathering solar energy in this way would contribute to global warming? Granted it won't release greenhouse gases, but it will increase the amount of solar radiation that is transmitted to the planet. I guess 5GW of solar radiation is better than burning 5GW of oil, but this has the potential to generate huuuge amounts of power in the future, and I could see politicians in 2050 deciding to "turn up the juice" and grab more solar energy while deciding to install more air conditioners as a solution.
Any comments on this? Or is it just not a concern since the energy amount is minimal and there is no greenhouse emission?
I find myself often times walking down the street and thinking "If someone threw a penny off of that roof, how hard would it hit me on the head?" and other such silly questions. When Slashdot posts about solar panels approaching X% efficiency, I wonder "So how long will it take to pay themselves off?" These are questions I find interesting, so I solve the equations and come-up with the answer. It keeps me proficient in a few subjects I don't otherwise use, but I know are useful and can even be fun.
The topic itself is redacted each time it appears in the hundreds of pages of documents, but there is mention of Nacchio believing the request was both inappropriate and illegal, and repeatedly refusing to go along with it.
The NSA contract was awarded in July 2001 to companies other than Qwest. I'm glad Qwest did the right thing. But my next question is, who did those contracts go to, and what illegal thing is THAT company doing right now? Unfortunately, the documents that would indicate this are sealed. There might be the makings of another EFF/ACLU -vs- AT&T case hiding amongst those documents.
In the past year, many Wikipedia articles have been tagged for issues such as needing to cite sources and correct biased viewpoints. Wikipedia is not growing in size at this point, it is growing in quality.
The article spends most of the time talking about how hard it would be to create a flying car, and it includes a 3D rendering of someone's concept vehicle. Then, the last page has a quote from a non-existant company about how they will exist in 2009, even though the engineering required to build it isn't even known yet. The first page even links to an article about how NASA helped finance a flying car but there were no takers. I'll be driving a Moller Skycar powered by a perpetual motion device before this thing even makes it past a design review.
This is great. The first thing I do when I setup a new Windows/Mac/Linux machine is to install all the standard stuff that nobody includes. Ex:
Windows: WinAmp, XVID, FireFox... Mac: Flip4Mac, VLC, DIVX,... Linux: MP3 support for XMMS, Video drivers,...
I understand why Linux distros can't install this stuff. It requires licenses, and the OS is free.
But I would gladly pay $50 for a distro that had this. Most end-users would too (many of them pay me far more than that for time it takes me to do it manually). The Slashdot editorial ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hheadline makes it sounds like Linspire paid for a Novell-like or SCO-like patent license. That isn't what the press release says. It says they included some codecs.
Every year is supposed to be the year of "Linux on the desktop" yet whenever an article comes out about Linspire trying to make that happen, all the geeks jump on them like they are awful. Linspire is trying to make Linux easy and friendly and a pretty package. Yes, they rebranded RPM/DEB modules as "click-and-run" Yes, they pay licenses for stuff so you don't have to download it. They provide a service to the end-user, and we should be happy for every new Linux user who installs it and says "Hey, this is really great! It has everything I need" instead of complaining and making them look like Microsoft's evil twin brother.
It wouldn't matter how bloated the format is, since it would just be used for importing/exporting. Those types of formats are supposed to be descriptive and extensible, not efficient.
This problem isn't specific to cars. There is commercial software that will zap the contents of a hard drive if the computer is stolen. Naturally, that is controlled by the company providing the service. Hopefully, they used some good encryption on that signal. And hopefully the thief doesn't know how to disable that. But this is the limitation of remote access of any kind. I can remote into my computer - that means that someone else with the correct password can also do it.
We need some sort of standard mail format that all mail programs can import/export. It doesn't have to be efficient, just something robust. Probably XML-ish. That would be nice so that it is possible to dump mail from one app into another without significant degredation, and without the authors all writing import filters for every other app.
This seems like a fairly open and shut case, so I'm not sure I understand the confusion here.
Prosecution:
...her user name, IP address, Modem MAC address, pass-word-protected computer, and the songs in the shared folder matched her musical tastes.
...Thomas replaced the hard drive in her computer two weeks after an investigation. Defendant: Tried to get the RIAA president to testify, who has nothing to do with the facts of the case.
...There could have been a computer party at Thomas's home or someone could have been outside her window with a laptop.
...suggested that computer hacking or IP spoofing could as explanations. The RIAA had facts, and the defendant had excuses. I know everyone wants to defend the little guy, but please pick a better case than this one to represent the people. The only thing I see odd here is the fines. THAT is ridiculous.
I worked at an office where someone had this posted on an empty cubicle:
Stupid people talk about people.
Average people talk about events.
Smart people talk about ideas.
It ain't about stupid, it is about social climbing. I guess to me, the need for social climbing is an aspects of stupidity. But perhaps my definition of stupid is too broad, or I am using the wrong word. By that definition, someone who works hard to become a lawyer then uses their skill to climb a social ladder, is stupid. Perhaps it is possible to be stupid and intelligent. Maybe I need a thesaurus here.
Regarding your former employer, this is a sign that the world economy is screwed-up. If companies can knowingly act against their own self interest and survive. I would expect that such actions would lead to companies failing, and new companies replacing them. Perhaps that isn't possible without standardization -- the barriers of entry for becoming a communications company are too high. So the incumbents don't fall even if they make big mistakes. Maybe markets don't matter anymore. me rambling again...
On the one hand, it is great to see courts telling companies that they can't store every little tidbit of information about you. Too many companies (globally) retain customer credit card numbers, addresses, etc. for longer than is required for the transaction. I just got a letter from my credit card company saying that my card may have been stolen, and they issued me a new card. But they won't tell me how they know. Most likely, one of the gzillion places that retain my CC# had a database breach.
On the other hand, IP address is not truly personally identifying information (see below), and is often necessary for proper auditing, problem tracking, etc. My employer holds the IP addresses of people who purchase our software online and what IP they login from so we can determine where to put future data centers, who is causing a problem when a server gets pounded, etc.
From the article:
"it is even today possible in most cases, without any elaborate effort being required, to identify Internet users by merging personal data with the help of third parties, The problem here isn't the keeping of IP address. It's the fact that they then contact another company and share that information. There are many little surveys that ask for seemingly non-identifying information like your postal code and age, but nothing else. Then they combine that with a shipping manifest from a partner company, then with "anonymous" info from a dating site, and they can statistically correlate it to determine a lot of personal information. So retention is slightly dangerous. But sharing is the crime.
I'm not sure which is worse: The fact that companies constantly make self-contradicting statements like this, or the fact that we all get riled-up over it. Novell, Sony, Microsoft, AT&T, even Apple (less so) - these companies, on a weekly basis, make press statements that conflict with something they said last week, or the position of an organization they support.
I've never worked for a company that had PR people like this, so I don't get it. I'd love to know what the average employee thinks of Sony. Do they roll their eyes at this stuff too? Do they show it to their coworkers and bosses and snicker over it during lunch? What do they executives think of this? Are they struggling to manage a company with conflicting goals and they just can't keep the departments on one track? Do they not even know? Are the instrumenting it for some purpose? Are they just dumb? I used to think that nobody could get to that kind of position and be stupid - but then the 2000 and 2004 US Presidential elections proved me wrong. I think maybe becoming an executive is the kind of dumb luck and politics that it takes to become a politician.
ahhh well, from the rambling mind of a long-time Slashdotter...
This is why the company that provides telephone service should be a separate company from the one that maintains the wires. Same with power. Same with cable.
SIP is not a videoconferencing/white board/instant messaging protocol. It's a glorified internet doorbell. Now Jingle is something I've never heard of... researching... thank you!
I'm locked-in to a 2-year contract, and my AT&T service (formerly Cingular) quality has decreased since AT&T bought them. This clause gives me a way to get out of my contract. Hopefully this can count as my first official criticism. Oh, and the fact that they keep sending me text messages offering me additional services. Cingular didn't do THAT.
Skype can be used for business as well as home. I am a contractor for a company that has employees in 5 different time zones. We all work together on a daily basis, and I would LOVE to use a professional, secure, videoconferencing system with a white board. There is DEFINITELY a market.
The problem is that nothing has enough momentum for people to be willing to download it. It's like how everyone has 3 different instant-messaging applications. What we need are open standards.
Nothing is wrong with chroot. What's wrong are people's misconceptions of it. It is not a security function. Well said.
Then, do you think that using chroot decreases security because it increases the perception that something is secure? In that case, should it not be used in a secure app because it might fool the designer into thinking they have secured the system when they have not? Or do you think it is still an incremental improvement and that secure apps should still use chroot, so long as they know it is an extra layer that may help rather than a solution unto itself?
I agree that there is an anti-Microsoft bias, but I think it is duly appropriate with respect to Novell.
I am 98% a Windows user. I have Microsoft certifications, own an MSDN license, and use it and develop on it. But I have an interest in other OS's: There's an aging Linux partition on my system and a Mac on my wife's desktop. I'm not Microsoft hater, nor an apologist. But the Novell-Microsoft deal outrages me. Novell signs a cross-licensing deal, then claims that they don't infringe on any of Microsoft's patents. Then they claim that they are going to make their Linux more Microsoft friendly, which implies that they will put Microsoft patents into open-source Linux. It's like each sentence that comes from the collective mouth of Novell conflicts with the previous, and the next. All appearances imply that Novell is going to try and poison Linux and try to remain the only one standing because of the patent deal. And Microsoft is using Novell to spread FUD. Even if I have the exact plan wrong, something sinister is going on here.
There's a real reason to hate Novell these days. Maybe even a good explanation of what they are trying to accomplish would change my mind. But for now, I'm avoiding Novell.
Slashdot Mirror
1) Congress does not have the power to grant pardons
2) The US constitution forbids ex-post-facto laws
This is above-and-beyond the obvious fact that it is perhaps the most illegal and immoral thing I've ever heard of congress doing.
It's too bad I'll never get to play Bioshock because of the stupid copy protection and since I don't plan on getting an XBOX.
Forcing people to behave artificially causes people to not be able to bond and communicate.
This rather obvious realization has been surfacing over the past few decades. 20 years ago professionals were expected to wear suits and ties to work. Today, most employers I've worked for only require that of sales people, or on certain ocassions. The average employee can wear jeans, at in their cube, swear, and scratch their butt. I think this leads to a more relaxed and more productive work environment.
Interestingly though, in the 80's, it was socially acceptable to have a drink during lunch. Now it is taboo to drink during work hours at all.
Now I have to figure out how to tell the DRM-tunes from the non-DRM tunes. It was easy when there was a price difference.
Is there any concern that gathering solar energy in this way would contribute to global warming? Granted it won't release greenhouse gases, but it will increase the amount of solar radiation that is transmitted to the planet. I guess 5GW of solar radiation is better than burning 5GW of oil, but this has the potential to generate huuuge amounts of power in the future, and I could see politicians in 2050 deciding to "turn up the juice" and grab more solar energy while deciding to install more air conditioners as a solution.
Any comments on this? Or is it just not a concern since the energy amount is minimal and there is no greenhouse emission?
I find myself often times walking down the street and thinking "If someone threw a penny off of that roof, how hard would it hit me on the head?" and other such silly questions. When Slashdot posts about solar panels approaching X% efficiency, I wonder "So how long will it take to pay themselves off?" These are questions I find interesting, so I solve the equations and come-up with the answer. It keeps me proficient in a few subjects I don't otherwise use, but I know are useful and can even be fun.
The NSA contract was awarded in July 2001 to companies other than Qwest. I'm glad Qwest did the right thing. But my next question is, who did those contracts go to, and what illegal thing is THAT company doing right now? Unfortunately, the documents that would indicate this are sealed. There might be the makings of another EFF/ACLU -vs- AT&T case hiding amongst those documents.
In the past year, many Wikipedia articles have been tagged for issues such as needing to cite sources and correct biased viewpoints. Wikipedia is not growing in size at this point, it is growing in quality.
The article spends most of the time talking about how hard it would be to create a flying car, and it includes a 3D rendering of someone's concept vehicle. Then, the last page has a quote from a non-existant company about how they will exist in 2009, even though the engineering required to build it isn't even known yet. The first page even links to an article about how NASA helped finance a flying car but there were no takers. I'll be driving a Moller Skycar powered by a perpetual motion device before this thing even makes it past a design review.
This is great. The first thing I do when I setup a new Windows/Mac/Linux machine is to install all the standard stuff that nobody includes. Ex:
... ...
Windows: WinAmp, XVID, FireFox...
Mac: Flip4Mac, VLC, DIVX,
Linux: MP3 support for XMMS, Video drivers,
I understand why Linux distros can't install this stuff. It requires licenses, and the OS is free.
But I would gladly pay $50 for a distro that had this. Most end-users would too (many of them pay me far more than that for time it takes me to do it manually). The Slashdot editorial ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hheadline makes it sounds like Linspire paid for a Novell-like or SCO-like patent license. That isn't what the press release says. It says they included some codecs.
Every year is supposed to be the year of "Linux on the desktop" yet whenever an article comes out about Linspire trying to make that happen, all the geeks jump on them like they are awful. Linspire is trying to make Linux easy and friendly and a pretty package. Yes, they rebranded RPM/DEB modules as "click-and-run" Yes, they pay licenses for stuff so you don't have to download it. They provide a service to the end-user, and we should be happy for every new Linux user who installs it and says "Hey, this is really great! It has everything I need" instead of complaining and making them look like Microsoft's evil twin brother.
It wouldn't matter how bloated the format is, since it would just be used for importing/exporting. Those types of formats are supposed to be descriptive and extensible, not efficient.
This problem isn't specific to cars. There is commercial software that will zap the contents of a hard drive if the computer is stolen. Naturally, that is controlled by the company providing the service. Hopefully, they used some good encryption on that signal. And hopefully the thief doesn't know how to disable that. But this is the limitation of remote access of any kind. I can remote into my computer - that means that someone else with the correct password can also do it.
We need some sort of standard mail format that all mail programs can import/export. It doesn't have to be efficient, just something robust. Probably XML-ish. That would be nice so that it is possible to dump mail from one app into another without significant degredation, and without the authors all writing import filters for every other app.
Prosecution:
...her user name, IP address, Modem MAC address, pass-word-protected computer, and the songs in the shared folder matched her musical tastes.
...Thomas replaced the hard drive in her computer two weeks after an investigation. Defendant:Tried to get the RIAA president to testify, who has nothing to do with the facts of the case.
...There could have been a computer party at Thomas's home or someone could have been outside her window with a laptop.
...suggested that computer hacking or IP spoofing could as explanations. The RIAA had facts, and the defendant had excuses. I know everyone wants to defend the little guy, but please pick a better case than this one to represent the people. The only thing I see odd here is the fines. THAT is ridiculous.How do you figure that?
I worked at an office where someone had this posted on an empty cubicle:
Stupid people talk about people.
Average people talk about events.
Smart people talk about ideas. It ain't about stupid, it is about social climbing. I guess to me, the need for social climbing is an aspects of stupidity. But perhaps my definition of stupid is too broad, or I am using the wrong word. By that definition, someone who works hard to become a lawyer then uses their skill to climb a social ladder, is stupid. Perhaps it is possible to be stupid and intelligent. Maybe I need a thesaurus here.
Regarding your former employer, this is a sign that the world economy is screwed-up. If companies can knowingly act against their own self interest and survive. I would expect that such actions would lead to companies failing, and new companies replacing them. Perhaps that isn't possible without standardization -- the barriers of entry for becoming a communications company are too high. So the incumbents don't fall even if they make big mistakes. Maybe markets don't matter anymore. me rambling again...
On the one hand, it is great to see courts telling companies that they can't store every little tidbit of information about you. Too many companies (globally) retain customer credit card numbers, addresses, etc. for longer than is required for the transaction. I just got a letter from my credit card company saying that my card may have been stolen, and they issued me a new card. But they won't tell me how they know. Most likely, one of the gzillion places that retain my CC# had a database breach.
On the other hand, IP address is not truly personally identifying information (see below), and is often necessary for proper auditing, problem tracking, etc. My employer holds the IP addresses of people who purchase our software online and what IP they login from so we can determine where to put future data centers, who is causing a problem when a server gets pounded, etc.
From the article: "it is even today possible in most cases, without any elaborate effort being required, to identify Internet users by merging personal data with the help of third parties, The problem here isn't the keeping of IP address. It's the fact that they then contact another company and share that information. There are many little surveys that ask for seemingly non-identifying information like your postal code and age, but nothing else. Then they combine that with a shipping manifest from a partner company, then with "anonymous" info from a dating site, and they can statistically correlate it to determine a lot of personal information. So retention is slightly dangerous. But sharing is the crime.
I'm not sure which is worse: The fact that companies constantly make self-contradicting statements like this, or the fact that we all get riled-up over it. Novell, Sony, Microsoft, AT&T, even Apple (less so) - these companies, on a weekly basis, make press statements that conflict with something they said last week, or the position of an organization they support.
I've never worked for a company that had PR people like this, so I don't get it. I'd love to know what the average employee thinks of Sony. Do they roll their eyes at this stuff too? Do they show it to their coworkers and bosses and snicker over it during lunch? What do they executives think of this? Are they struggling to manage a company with conflicting goals and they just can't keep the departments on one track? Do they not even know? Are the instrumenting it for some purpose? Are they just dumb? I used to think that nobody could get to that kind of position and be stupid - but then the 2000 and 2004 US Presidential elections proved me wrong. I think maybe becoming an executive is the kind of dumb luck and politics that it takes to become a politician.
ahhh well, from the rambling mind of a long-time Slashdotter...
This is why the company that provides telephone service should be a separate company from the one that maintains the wires. Same with power. Same with cable.
SIP is not a videoconferencing/white board/instant messaging protocol. It's a glorified internet doorbell. Now Jingle is something I've never heard of... researching... thank you!
I'm locked-in to a 2-year contract, and my AT&T service (formerly Cingular) quality has decreased since AT&T bought them. This clause gives me a way to get out of my contract. Hopefully this can count as my first official criticism. Oh, and the fact that they keep sending me text messages offering me additional services. Cingular didn't do THAT.
Skype can be used for business as well as home. I am a contractor for a company that has employees in 5 different time zones. We all work together on a daily basis, and I would LOVE to use a professional, secure, videoconferencing system with a white board. There is DEFINITELY a market.
The problem is that nothing has enough momentum for people to be willing to download it. It's like how everyone has 3 different instant-messaging applications. What we need are open standards.
Then, do you think that using chroot decreases security because it increases the perception that something is secure? In that case, should it not be used in a secure app because it might fool the designer into thinking they have secured the system when they have not? Or do you think it is still an incremental improvement and that secure apps should still use chroot, so long as they know it is an extra layer that may help rather than a solution unto itself?
It's more like they steal your funnel. The car still works, if you switch back to Shell gas. No shotguns required.
I agree that there is an anti-Microsoft bias, but I think it is duly appropriate with respect to Novell.
I am 98% a Windows user. I have Microsoft certifications, own an MSDN license, and use it and develop on it. But I have an interest in other OS's: There's an aging Linux partition on my system and a Mac on my wife's desktop. I'm not Microsoft hater, nor an apologist. But the Novell-Microsoft deal outrages me. Novell signs a cross-licensing deal, then claims that they don't infringe on any of Microsoft's patents. Then they claim that they are going to make their Linux more Microsoft friendly, which implies that they will put Microsoft patents into open-source Linux. It's like each sentence that comes from the collective mouth of Novell conflicts with the previous, and the next. All appearances imply that Novell is going to try and poison Linux and try to remain the only one standing because of the patent deal. And Microsoft is using Novell to spread FUD. Even if I have the exact plan wrong, something sinister is going on here.
There's a real reason to hate Novell these days. Maybe even a good explanation of what they are trying to accomplish would change my mind. But for now, I'm avoiding Novell.