Perhaps your right, more of us should use encryption by default. Pidgin has encryption plugins which you can use fairly transparently on a one to one basis. Talking to friends with encryption on is effortless.
So what about email how easy is it to default to encrypted and not make it awkward for the recipients to read the content?
Any recommendations?
incidentally it might have a side benefit of making encrypted mail easy to white list. would spammers have your public key...
The problem is that deletionism is viewed as an acceptable way of doing things, which is intrinsically flawed due to capricious and arbitrary notability standards. While administrators are sometimes rather wild, they are not the big problem. The big problem is the systemic denial that Wikipedia could eventually be the sum of all recordable knowledge, and the push to try and remove valuable information "in favor of" more notable entries. Wikipedia is not paper; it's possible to both expand a notable entry and keep a non-notable entry. The Essential problem is that Wikipedia is pulled in two directions, notability is a great aim, but the not so notable has some value too. It seems to me that a moderate course of action would be to fork or divide wikipedia. I suggest the greater and lesser wikipedia. The Greater Wikipedia would be for the notable articles pretty much the bulk of wikipedia as is. The Lesser wikipedia would contain articles of some interest but not really suited to the wikipedia proper. Thus allowing the Admins the options of keep delete demote and promote. The natural starting place for any first draft would be the lesser wikipedia. Almost a Slashdot of wikipedia if that makes any sense.
ahem Microsoft, doesn't exist everywhere outside the US because of piracy, It's rather arrogant and insulting to infer this is the case.
Microsoft has been extremely success in getting its operating systems paid for and installed on most prebuilt PC's in the world. It doesn't really matter much that someone gets XP installed on a PC designed for Windows 98. Because the next PC they buy will come with XP and now Vista.
As long as the majority of PC's can run windows, and does run windows they are happy with that. Even WGA is a half hearted effort, i think most people would agree.
Your right thou the worst scenario is a large user base using PC's without windows, the natural upgrade path from OLPC is Linux. The cost of not getting Windows on OLPC to Microsoft is the decline of Microsoft. Linux still doesn't quite replace Windows in most peoples eyes, but how is it going to look in 5 years time when millions are using Linux and have no need of windows.
If it gets too hard in Linux we take the easy path and use Windows with a OLPC system you have to make it work (If windows isn't an option). Microsoft already has plans in place to minimise the use of Linux in its home markets, as we all have seen with the covenant.
Of course Microsoft could be doing this for charitable reasons, but even then that wouldn't exclude the good business strategy reasons would it ?
The London underground isn't a "subway" in London. Yes there are adverts but also other interesting things. There is a definite style to the London underground, which makes it unique. Take a look at this page
You mustn't forget the poetry either which is all over the underground. The underground is pretty much a historical site, part of the character of the city. If your going to use the underground for a setting you should endeavor to do it well.
It seems to be a missed opportunity to create really great atmosphere.
You make it sound like a bad thing and really it isn't.
If you grab the album of bit torrent you can do as you please, listen to it decide what you feel its worth with no obligation to buy. Having got it from bit torrent you haven't cost RadioHead anything. In fact you might even be helping to raise interest in this album and you may decide it's worth paying for and do so.
Well why bother doing that? Pure self interest if people don't buy it, then there is little incentive for them to do the same with their next album. Other artists will be looking at this album with interest.
It's not important how many copies get downloaded it's the return on the investment. If radiohead make more on this album than on their more conventional releases, It's a success.
It's probably a success anyway more people will be listening to radiohead tracks, people who never bothered with them before. What ever they decide to do for their next album they have increased their fan base and it should be successful.
sure your internet usage you can do something to ensure some privacy, any suggestions for what the end user can do to secure their telephone calls?
Voip and instant messaging programs probably could build in pgp or something similar so that whats transmitted isn't plain text or voice but I've yet to see anything like that, why is that? A public / private key system should be easy to implement even over a standard messaging service like AIM or MSN or any of the others.
It would make sense to routinely encrypt instant messages, just to ensure some privacy.
With Internet access over Satellite for example its relatively easy to use a packet capturing program in combination with a simple satellite card. just takes time and some hard drive space.
There is also an interesting possibility of using automated pre and post processing of instant messages to communicate across languages. For example French to English and back again. (ok most machine translation is quite poor but you can adapt to the limitations and get a good approximation of what you want to say).
The closest thing I ever saw to this was a muppet swedish chef script which took normal English and translated it./bork what ever:)
Catering to the needs of disabled people isn't only a choice, its usually backed by legislation. There are lots of modifications in place to benefit wheelchair users / mothers with prams and buggys. crossings tend to have a different paving texture making it easier for blind people to locate.
Is this unreasonable to try to ensure disabled people get a similar quality of service to able bodied people? Isn't it written into the constitution that its illegal to discriminate?
Now don't you think it would be reasonable for Target to make their website accessible to all their customers. You can make websites accessible for disabled users and Target should make modifications to their site. If only to avoid the bad publicity it makes good business sense.
This case is important not because of Target, but to highlight the issue for other sites. Is Slashdots website design accessable for disabled people for example? more importantly is yours?
What elements enable disabled users to make better use of a site and what create barriers to use? These are important things which we have an opportunity to discuss.
It was a big deal when websites were blocking access to users of browsers other than IE and most sites have changed and there was a choice for most users, disability isn't a choice.
On a positive note microsoft seem to have got something right with Vista, greatly improved accessibility options built in including decent voice control.
Discriminating against part of your society because you ignore their needs is very wrong. Those of us who do get to grow old may well become disabled too. That includes you too maybe ?
1: you have to pay for the phone, no one pays for a phone on contract in the uk they all come free with the contract. not true, the majority of phones are discounted to free, or very near free in return for signing a contract. My phone cost me £130 however it is my phone/pda not t-mobiles. In return i agreed to sign up for a phone plan. I chose a flex plan which suits me fine web and walk costs me £1 a day when i use it (I could pay £7.50 a month but mostly I use wifi on my own broadband connection). I do not have to use this pdaphone with my t-mobile sim (actually currently I don't as its in for repair) however I am locked into a contract with t-mobile which currently I am using with an unlocked razor v3.
Just to make things clear, I own my phones one of which was bought through t-mobile at a discounted price. I also own a contract which I use with a t-mobile sim which can go in any unlocked phone. I also am free to run any ap which runs on windows mobile or on linux as my phone will boot linux too. I can pay for ringtones or setup an existing mp3 as a ringtone. I can load tv and film recordings made with mythtv, I can load and run gps software. I can take my pda/phone abroad and put in a local sim card.
I am very happy with my phone and the price i paid for it and separately very happy with my phone plan.
I agree the iPhone deals in the uk are appalling.
Ofcom seems to have guide lines that say phone networks should unlock phones for a reasonable fee, and mostly they do, I don't believe there is a law compelling operators to unlock phones in the UK.
The iPhone contract may be unreasonable and uncompetitive but is probably legal.
To a large degree your right, however the music is only part of the product they sell.
About the best product they sold was the LP. It felt good it looked good it was possible to instantly recognise an album you could grab a handful and flick through and find what you wanted in seconds they were easy to gather up..
CD's Improve only in the quality of the recording. The cases are terrible they break slide pop open and scratch the CD's they are fiddly to store. Even the Cabinets are ugly. An LP could be a beautiful thing some of them did get displayed on walls.
A cd hdd ipod full of music doesn't really count for much, do you really want to flick through your friends ipod or look at track listings for a CD or HDD with a few thousand tracks.
Honestly stop with the tacky perspex cases already and make a better product. The Movie Industry seems to do better with DVD's. Film Collections seem to grow faster than CD collections with most people more prepared to pay for a DVD than a CD. why is that?
The recording industry seems to be clueless as to how music spreads and builds a fan base, the attacks on customers and online radio stations is counter productive. It was by sharing music with our friends we developed our appreciation of artists, certain DJ's actually went looking for new music and shared it with their audience. There should be websites dedicated to particular genres run by people who love the music, bringing it to new audiences letting us hear the music they love. But we know that should anyone set up such a site the RIAA would have them shutdown fined and their lives ruined. I'd love to be able to explore music outside of my experience listen and read about the artists and the history,but even writing down the lyrics on a website is inviting a law suit.
unfortunately rather than allow a love for the music to flourish, they are intent on destroying any appreciation of music by the bean counting and law suits.
I might be wrong here but the top 50 or 100 is where most money is made outside of that most retailers will not give shelf space. If the RIAA focuses its attention on the Top 100 where illegal downloads do make a real difference to real sales and ignored the rest. Then file sharing and internet radio would be promoting the music we otherwise wouldn't hear or more importantly BUY. People will pay for the music they really like. They don't want a CD'r with a felt tip track listing. unless of course they have the original and are using the CDR to avoid damaging the original. CDR's go bad hard drives fail. No matter how much music you have the best is on a pre recorded stamped disk. That should be able to be last a lifetime maybe more.
music today is seen as a cheap disposable product, it isn't. it's been part of our lives and our loves and memories.
Theres a value in an original recording that you bought at the time of its release. something you can keep for your kids and grandkids even.
so really music does have a value, mp3's don't. If the RIAA actually got that, their members would be appreciated as custodians of our culture, providing a valued service to the community instead of puss filled maggots with couldn't care less what was created as long as they made money from it.
So This woman has been hit for $222,000 dollars for 24 tracks
We need to know the names of these 24 tracks, this will allow the general public to demonstrate their appreciation of the artists in question. by boycotting sales of these artists while under contract to capitol. Since it's Capitol which chose to initiate this prosecution unless the artist is willing to come out in support of this prosecution. there is no reason to boycott the artist once they are released from their contract.
of course the Artist may be angry that their music was used to attempt to bankrupt the woman and might even wish to show that this isn't what their music is about and actually pay the part of the fine which is for their track. Actually if they did that I would download the track legally just for the embarrassment this would cause the RIAA AND CAPITOL.
Of course it wouldn't be too hard to create a torrent containing the 24 tracks worth $222,000 a download (ok thats a bit risky but funny) or alternatively a file containing the names of the tracks and just a text file explaining what they were used for and promoting a boycott of this particular music.
I know this probably will not help her but it might cause problems for future cases.
Finally a simple thing can we paypal her a few dollars to help pay the fine. Even $5 each would help and that would be another kick in the pants for the RIAA.
"And certaynly our language now used varyeth ferre from that whiche was used and spoken when I was borne.... And that comyn Englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a nother."- William Caxton 1490
"What sholde a man in thyse dayes now write, egges or eyren? Certaynly it is harde to playse everyman by cause of dyversite and chaunge of langage."
I think most of us can understand whats being written in the quotes above egges and eyren mean the same thing eggs. English as you can see has changed some what since Mr Caxtons day, and continues to change. Many American English spellings are down to webster. In computing many terms are borrowed, you do know what an Icon is?
So if you dislike the term virii, due to it being incorrect, perhaps you should re educate yourself to use the words and spellings of Mr Caxton.
English language is a moving target perhaps virii has a future,It's pretty much a case of egges or eyren isn't it.:)
The only problem with truecrypt is the two encrypted volumes feature is extremely well known and the obvious reason for choosing truecrypt is this feature.
In other words anyone who knows anything about encryption will expect a second encrypted volume. Especially when the first volume holds nothing incriminating. You can't even realistically act dumb, since you knew enough to install truecrypt in the first place.
If i really wanted something accessible but secure then it would be easiest hidden in a jpeg in an attachment to an email on a webmail service. or possibly in an iso of a popular torrent.
not necessarily, If we assume that we think in a language, define our concepts through a language then our thoughts are constrained by that language too.
If translation between languages was purely a case of substitution then machine translation would be easy and clearly it isn't. It is also clear that when it comes to programming, language is important and can make a significant difference to a projects success.
However lets go back to real languages, I am not really multilingual but i believe in japanese for example the word "you" has seven variations the use of which is determined by the relative status and position of the speaker and the subject. the choice of which you to use is defining a relationship. This clearly isn't the case in English.
In Polish the words you use whilst writing, will define you as a man or a woman. "I was" for example in Polish would define your gender. Polish also has formal and informal modes of address to be polite you would address a stranger in the third person.
Then there are concepts which are defined in some languages and not in others. If language does in fact place constraints on our thought processes and different languages have differing constraints, then the loss of a language may result in a loss of a perspective that doesn't exist within English perhaps.
There is a benefit to multilingualism at the very least it opens up new experiences and perspectives to the individual, one of the things you should do before you die is learn another language. It will expand your mind.
There is a big difference, money. The cost of releasing the modified source is essentially zero. Most businesses want a slice of the offending products revenues. Monsoon haven't really lost anything, maybe an open source version of the firmware might get released a little sooner and maybe they might sell more hardware as a result. Possibly Monsoon actually gain a defence if media owners come after them. Being forced to release source, makes them a little less responsible if users infringe big media's IP using hacked firmware.
At least Monsoon have enough about them to allow users to record via their products unlike Slingbox, who removed that ability in their product. Any one actually own a Hava and willing to rate it?
I own a slingbox and its unable to record due to software limitations imposed by slingbox and only transmits encrypted wmv to a single windows client. complete waste of my money.
what gives with the troll moderation? anyone remember the guidelines concentrate on modding up rather than down?
One thing I hate about slashdot is moderators with an agenda, moderation isn't supposed to be about imposing your view point on a discussion, but promoting the better comments out of the mire.
In this case wikipedia watch appears to be a troll site the page linked too has as its opening line.
"January 2006: Harassing someone while hiding behind a screen name is now a criminal offense"
which is strange on a page giving profiles of wikipedia editors and former editors.
its pretty clear that there is an intent to harrass the people listed on that page and make them more than a little uncomfortable.
There is very little information "about us (wikipedia watch)" just some names on that site and a PO box number for mail.
if the parent is linda mack its not a troll post, and if it isn't its an insight into the problems faced by wikipedia editors. either way undeserving of the troll mod.
There are a number of sources available that show unix wasn't a commercial project initially and was developed as a hobby project with numerous free contributions. Bell commercialized unix and locked out many of the original contributers.
A lot of code was written and contributed because the authors wanted to, not because they wanted to get paid for it.
If you examine Unix history it is hard to ignore the free contributions to unix.
your signature seems to indicate you have a uk based company.
so I am wondering how you get to use the DMCA an american law to issue take down notices, and secondly how the penalties for misuse of this law would apply to you. If you did make false claims would American courts or any other courts for that matter be able to throw the book at you?
Can you explain how the DMCA has any legal validity for any citizen of any other country?
To be honest, checking with Google, the parent might well be telling the truth and therefore not really off-topic
Homeopathy may have nothing in it but snake oil but this guy may be who he claims to be.
Personally I would chalk up homeopathy as part of a belief system, as irrational as islam or christianity or scientology or the tooth fairy. However the rational your born, you live, you die. Is not much comfort to those in pain or fear of death.
Should we deny hope for those in hopeless situations? what do we leave in its place despair?
Why use zip programs as examples of Programs people don't pay for. The ability to unzip archives is built into XP, There are a bunch of free archive tools for Linux and Windows. Winzip would get near zero use if most people had to pay for it. Winrar is a better product anyway, probably windows commander would have greater sales if winzip and winrar were not available. Or maybe rar and zip files wouldnt be universally used.
Copy protection generally is a practice which turns paying customers into ex-customers and is off putting to potential new customers. Rule number one has to be keep your customers happy.
If you want paying customers focus on getting paying customers, focusing on piracy will generally mean problems for your paying customers. consider which is better for you a user base of 10,000 of which 5,000 paid you or a user base of 100,000 of which 10,000 paid you. Those 90,000 free copies are raising the profile of your software. It's worked pretty well for microsoft and adobe. Maybe it's worth having a support forum for your software, the feedback will help you improve the next version and those 90,000 pirate users may actually help your 10,000 paying customers. You may even get some converts for the next version.
Actually wifi software seems to be stuck with American limitations, as a European Linux user I should be able to use channels 12 and 13 (if I was in Japan channel 14 as well) but the wifi software in ubuntu at least will not allow me too. I don't know if any other distro's have this limitation. It's especially annoying since in home TV repeaters use the same spectrum and the two systems interfere badly with each other.
There is one way that you could do video ads without being annoying about it.
Give the user the option of setting video ads on or off in preferences, you can't be any fairer than that.
Stating the obvious here but you will know when it gets annoying, and when you have hit a sensible balance. If every page load contains a video ad, then that will be annoying pretty quickly, as an option that I can turn on or off. It might be an enhancement.
I use google for lots of things, shopping is just one of those things. If I am thinking of buying something then is the time to OFFER to show me a presentation of a particular product. You could even show me an advert for a competing product.
Unfortunately most Ads run automatically, it is kind of like opening your front door and finding a queue of salesmen outside who immediately launch into their pitch and more often than not simultaneously.
Oh one more thing you really could do is store a list of automatic -search strings. in user preferences. If I really don't want dealtime or ebay or wikipedia results then let me specify that I don't.
Those shopping aggregation sites are the worst, you search for product A they get returned in the results, click on the link and you get unrelated product B.
Of course I am not your customer, I am your product but surely your customers would prefer to target their ads at someone who is interested.
Alternatively somebody could write a firefox plugin which does a wget on every advert meeting a particular criteria and outputs the results to dev:null. That'll soon get expensive for advertisers paying per click.
I don't think you can reasonably expect Mr rubin or a reporter to have much of a clue about rootkits.
"it was some kind of corporate thing -- had put spyware on the CD. That kept people from copying it, but it also somehow recorded information about whoever bought the record. The spyware became public knowledge, and people freaked out. There were some lawsuits filed, and the CD was recalled by Columbia"
Is what he said as written in the article.
He's angry and bitter coz something was put on the CD that caused people to panic and not buy it. After spending 2 years getting the album together he doesn't care what it did technically, its effect was to cause the CD to bomb.
Public perception was something like - this thing Sony put on its CD infected your computer and spied on you, kinda Like a virus and thats bad isn't it...
He doesn't know, I doubt he would ever want to know, how it worked or what it did exactly- it killed his album sales thats all that matters.
The only insight we really get is that a producer produces the album not the CD. I feel sorry for him, Columbia took his baby and grafted horns on.
Freedom to wander, With the US I am assuming that State to State phone calls are charged similarly to City to City Calls within the same state
In Europe we have call roaming where the phone companys charge excessive rates to use your sim in another country. not only that but we are charged for incoming calls and generally have weird codes to enter to dial out and even restrictions on calling within a country.
Most phone plans don't allow for calling outside of a nations borders, which makes skype and wifi so much more popular. Some one asked why the interest in mobiles with wifi and voip (it makes certain calls a lot cheaper).
The obvious solution to the international phone call price rip off is a local sim card. pay as you go will cost as little as $20 on average with call credit included. However this requires an unlocked phone. So while I am mostly happy with my call plan i'd rather switch sim cards when i switch countrys.
it is also quite cool when you can use your phone as a modem for your laptop cheaper than the hotel charges for its wifi hotspot or network.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps your right, more of us should use encryption by default.
...
Pidgin has encryption plugins which you can use fairly transparently on a one to one basis. Talking to friends with encryption on is effortless.
So what about email how easy is it to default to encrypted and not make it awkward for the recipients to read the content?
Any recommendations?
incidentally it might have a side benefit of making encrypted mail easy to white list. would spammers have your public key
ahem Microsoft, doesn't exist everywhere outside the US because of piracy, It's rather arrogant and insulting to infer this is the case.
Microsoft has been extremely success in getting its operating systems paid for and installed on most prebuilt PC's in the world. It doesn't really matter much that someone gets XP installed on a PC designed for Windows 98. Because the next PC they buy will come with XP and now Vista.
As long as the majority of PC's can run windows, and does run windows they are happy with that. Even WGA is a half hearted effort, i think most people would agree.
Your right thou the worst scenario is a large user base using PC's without windows, the natural upgrade path from OLPC is Linux. The cost of not getting Windows on OLPC to Microsoft is the decline of Microsoft. Linux still doesn't quite replace Windows in most peoples eyes, but how is it going to look in 5 years time when millions are using Linux and have no need of windows.
If it gets too hard in Linux we take the easy path and use Windows with a OLPC system you have to make it work (If windows isn't an option). Microsoft already has plans in place to minimise the use of Linux in its home markets, as we all have seen with the covenant.
Of course Microsoft could be doing this for charitable reasons, but even then that wouldn't exclude the good business strategy reasons would it ?
interesting links but unfortunately it seems your solution is limited to users of turbolinux and linspire distro's.
clicknrun seems to be able to offer this kind of support as this article shows to other distro's such as ubuntu.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7474779842.html
unfortunately the date on that article is march 2006 and there seems to have been little progress.
Linspires covenant with Microsoft might be the reason why. Would Ubuntu users using Linspire products on ubuntu be covered by the covenant?
The London underground isn't a "subway" in London. Yes there are adverts but also other interesting things. There is a definite style to the London underground, which makes it unique. Take a look at this page
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/finsbury/254/tubeads.html
You mustn't forget the poetry either which is all over the underground. The underground is pretty much a historical site, part of the character of the city. If your going to use the underground for a setting you should endeavor to do it well.
It seems to be a missed opportunity to create really great atmosphere.
Mind the Gap ?
You make it sound like a bad thing and really it isn't.
If you grab the album of bit torrent you can do as you please, listen to it decide what you feel its worth with no obligation to buy. Having got it from bit torrent you haven't cost RadioHead anything.
In fact you might even be helping to raise interest in this album and you may decide it's worth paying for and do so.
Well why bother doing that? Pure self interest if people don't buy it, then there is little incentive for them to do the same with their next album. Other artists will be looking at this album with interest.
It's not important how many copies get downloaded it's the return on the investment. If radiohead make more on this album than on their more conventional releases, It's a success.
It's probably a success anyway more people will be listening to radiohead tracks, people who never bothered with them before. What ever they decide to do for their next album they have increased their fan base and it should be successful.
sure your internet usage you can do something to ensure some privacy, any suggestions for what the end user can do to secure their telephone calls?
/bork what ever :)
Voip and instant messaging programs probably could build in pgp or something similar so that whats transmitted isn't plain text or voice but I've yet to see anything like that, why is that?
A public / private key system should be easy to implement even over a standard messaging service like AIM or MSN or any of the others.
It would make sense to routinely encrypt instant messages, just to ensure some privacy.
With Internet access over Satellite for example its relatively easy to use a packet capturing program in combination with a simple satellite card. just takes time and some hard drive space.
There is also an interesting possibility of using automated pre and post processing of instant messages to communicate across languages. For example French to English and back again. (ok most machine translation is quite poor but you can adapt to the limitations and get a good approximation of what you want to say).
The closest thing I ever saw to this was a muppet swedish chef script which took normal English and translated it.
Catering to the needs of disabled people isn't only a choice, its usually backed by legislation. There are lots of modifications in place to benefit wheelchair users / mothers with prams and buggys. crossings tend to have a different paving texture making it easier for blind people to locate.
Is this unreasonable to try to ensure disabled people get a similar quality of service to able bodied people?
Isn't it written into the constitution that its illegal to discriminate?
Now don't you think it would be reasonable for Target to make their website accessible to all their customers. You can make websites accessible for disabled users and Target should make modifications to their site. If only to avoid the bad publicity it makes good business sense.
This case is important not because of Target, but to highlight the issue for other sites. Is Slashdots website design accessable for disabled people for example? more importantly is yours?
What elements enable disabled users to make better use of a site and what create barriers to use?
These are important things which we have an opportunity to discuss.
It was a big deal when websites were blocking access to users of browsers other than IE and most sites have changed and there was a choice for most users, disability isn't a choice.
On a positive note microsoft seem to have got something right with Vista, greatly improved accessibility options built in including decent voice control.
Discriminating against part of your society because you ignore their needs is very wrong. Those of us who do get to grow old may well become disabled too. That includes you too maybe ?
... the IPhone contract in the UK is appalling.1: you have to pay for the phone, no one pays for a phone on contract in the uk they all come free with the contract. not true, the majority of phones are discounted to free, or very near free in return for signing a contract. My phone cost me £130 however it is my phone/pda not t-mobiles. In return i agreed to sign up for a phone plan. I chose a flex plan which suits me fine web and walk costs me £1 a day when i use it (I could pay £7.50 a month but mostly I use wifi on my own broadband connection). I do not have to use this pdaphone with my t-mobile sim (actually currently I don't as its in for repair) however I am locked into a contract with t-mobile which currently I am using with an unlocked razor v3.
Just to make things clear, I own my phones one of which was bought through t-mobile at a discounted price. I also own a contract which I use with a t-mobile sim which can go in any unlocked phone. I also am free to run any ap which runs on windows mobile or on linux as my phone will boot linux too. I can pay for ringtones or setup an existing mp3 as a ringtone. I can load tv and film recordings made with mythtv, I can load and run gps software. I can take my pda/phone abroad and put in a local sim card.
I am very happy with my phone and the price i paid for it and separately very happy with my phone plan.
I agree the iPhone deals in the uk are appalling.
Ofcom seems to have guide lines that say phone networks should unlock phones for a reasonable fee, and mostly they do, I don't believe there is a law compelling operators to unlock phones in the UK.
The iPhone contract may be unreasonable and uncompetitive but is probably legal.
To a large degree your right, however the music is only part of the product they sell.
About the best product they sold was the LP. It felt good it looked good it was possible to instantly recognise an album you could grab a handful and flick through and find what you wanted in seconds they were easy to gather up..
CD's Improve only in the quality of the recording. The cases are terrible they break slide pop open and scratch the CD's they are fiddly to store. Even the Cabinets are ugly. An LP could be a beautiful thing some of them did get displayed on walls.
A cd hdd ipod full of music doesn't really count for much, do you really want to flick through your friends ipod or look at track listings for a CD or HDD with a few thousand tracks.
Honestly stop with the tacky perspex cases already and make a better product. The Movie Industry seems to do better with DVD's. Film Collections seem to grow faster than CD collections with most people more prepared to pay for a DVD than a CD. why is that?
The recording industry seems to be clueless as to how music spreads and builds a fan base, the attacks on customers and online radio stations is counter productive. It was by sharing music with our friends we developed our appreciation of artists, certain DJ's actually went looking for new music and shared it with their audience.
There should be websites dedicated to particular genres run by people who love the music, bringing it to new audiences letting us hear the music they love. But we know that should anyone set up such a site the RIAA would have them shutdown fined and their lives ruined. I'd love to be able to explore music outside of my experience listen and read about the artists and the history,but even writing down the lyrics on a website is inviting a law suit.
unfortunately rather than allow a love for the music to flourish, they are intent on destroying any appreciation of music by the bean counting and law suits.
I might be wrong here but the top 50 or 100 is where most money is made outside of that most retailers will not give shelf space. If the RIAA focuses its attention on the Top 100 where illegal downloads do make a real difference to real sales and ignored the rest. Then file sharing and internet radio would be promoting the music we otherwise wouldn't hear or more importantly BUY. People will pay for the music they really like. They don't want a CD'r with a felt tip track listing. unless of course they have the original and are using the CDR to avoid damaging the original. CDR's go bad hard drives fail. No matter how much music you have the best is on a pre recorded stamped disk. That should be able to be last a lifetime maybe more.
music today is seen as a cheap disposable product, it isn't. it's been part of our lives and our loves and memories.
Theres a value in an original recording that you bought at the time of its release. something you can keep for your kids and grandkids even.
so really music does have a value, mp3's don't.
If the RIAA actually got that, their members would be appreciated as custodians of our culture, providing a valued service to the community instead of puss filled maggots with couldn't care less what was created as long as they made money from it.
great choice of song it's one of 24 worth approximately 222,000 in total apparently.
:)
I'd love to see a list of all 24 or a torrent file for them
So This woman has been hit for $222,000 dollars for 24 tracks
We need to know the names of these 24 tracks, this will allow the general public to demonstrate their appreciation of the artists in question.
by boycotting sales of these artists while under contract to capitol. Since it's Capitol which chose to initiate this prosecution unless the artist is willing to come out in support of this prosecution. there is no reason to boycott the artist once they are released from their contract.
of course the Artist may be angry that their music was used to attempt to bankrupt the woman and might even wish to show that this isn't what their music is about and actually pay the part of the fine which is for their track. Actually if they did that I would download the track legally just for the embarrassment this would cause the RIAA AND CAPITOL.
Of course it wouldn't be too hard to create a torrent containing the 24 tracks worth $222,000 a download (ok thats a bit risky but funny) or alternatively a file containing the names of the tracks and just a text file explaining what they were used for and promoting a boycott of this particular music.
I know this probably will not help her but it might cause problems for future cases.
Finally a simple thing can we paypal her a few dollars to help pay the fine. Even $5 each would help and that would be another kick in the pants for the RIAA.
"And certaynly our language now used varyeth ferre from that whiche was used and spoken when I was borne. ... And that comyn Englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a nother."- William Caxton 1490
:)
"What sholde a man in thyse dayes now write, egges or eyren? Certaynly it is harde to playse everyman by cause of dyversite and chaunge of langage."
I think most of us can understand whats being written in the quotes above egges and eyren mean the same thing eggs.
English as you can see has changed some what since Mr Caxtons day, and continues to change. Many American English spellings are down to webster. In computing many terms are borrowed, you do know what an Icon is?
So if you dislike the term virii, due to it being incorrect, perhaps you should re educate yourself to use the words and spellings of Mr Caxton.
English language is a moving target perhaps virii has a future,It's pretty much a case of egges or eyren isn't it.
The only problem with truecrypt is the two encrypted volumes feature is extremely well known and the obvious reason for choosing truecrypt is this feature.
In other words anyone who knows anything about encryption will expect a second encrypted volume. Especially when the first volume holds nothing incriminating. You can't even realistically act dumb, since you knew enough to install truecrypt in the first place.
If i really wanted something accessible but secure then it would be easiest hidden in a jpeg in an attachment to an email on a webmail service. or possibly in an iso of a popular torrent.
not necessarily,
If we assume that we think in a language, define our concepts through a language then our thoughts are constrained by that language too.
If translation between languages was purely a case of substitution then machine translation would be easy and clearly it isn't. It is also clear that when it comes to programming, language is important and can make a significant difference to a projects success.
However lets go back to real languages, I am not really multilingual but i believe in japanese for example the word "you" has seven variations the use of which is determined by the relative status and position of the speaker and the subject. the choice of which you to use is defining a relationship. This clearly isn't the case in English.
In Polish the words you use whilst writing, will define you as a man or a woman. "I was" for example in Polish would define your gender.
Polish also has formal and informal modes of address to be polite you would address a stranger in the third person.
Then there are concepts which are defined in some languages and not in others. If language does in fact place constraints on our thought processes and different languages have differing constraints, then the loss of a language may result in a loss of a perspective that doesn't exist within English perhaps.
There is a benefit to multilingualism at the very least it opens up new experiences and perspectives to the individual, one of the things you should do before you die is learn another language. It will expand your mind.
There is a big difference, money.
The cost of releasing the modified source is essentially zero. Most businesses want a slice of the offending products revenues.
Monsoon haven't really lost anything, maybe an open source version of the firmware might get released a little sooner and maybe they might sell more hardware as a result.
Possibly Monsoon actually gain a defence if media owners come after them. Being forced to release source, makes them a little less responsible if users infringe big media's IP using hacked firmware.
At least Monsoon have enough about them to allow users to record via their products unlike Slingbox, who removed that ability in their product.
Any one actually own a Hava and willing to rate it?
I own a slingbox and its unable to record due to software limitations imposed by slingbox and only transmits encrypted wmv to a single windows client.
complete waste of my money.
what gives with the troll moderation?
anyone remember the guidelines concentrate on modding up rather than down?
One thing I hate about slashdot is moderators with an agenda, moderation isn't supposed to be about imposing your view point on a discussion, but promoting the better comments out of the mire.
In this case wikipedia watch appears to be a troll site the page linked too has as its opening line.
"January 2006: Harassing someone while hiding
behind a screen name is now a criminal offense"
which is strange on a page giving profiles of wikipedia editors and former editors.
its pretty clear that there is an intent to harrass the people listed on that page and make them more than a little uncomfortable.
There is very little information "about us (wikipedia watch)" just some names on that site and a PO box number for mail.
if the parent is linda mack its not a troll post, and if it isn't its an insight into the problems faced by wikipedia editors. either way undeserving of the troll mod.
Ahem, you have an interesting viewpoint, regarding Unix.
The origins of Unix are not with Bell Labs, but with individuals including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, and many others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Thompson_(computer_programmer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kernighan
There are a number of sources available that show unix wasn't a commercial project initially and was developed as a hobby project with numerous free contributions.
Bell commercialized unix and locked out many of the original contributers.
A lot of code was written and contributed because the authors wanted to, not because they wanted to get paid for it.
If you examine Unix history it is hard to ignore the free contributions to unix.
your signature seems to indicate you have a uk based company.
so I am wondering how you get to use the DMCA an american law to issue take down notices, and secondly how the penalties for misuse of this law would apply to you. If you did make false claims would American courts or any other courts for that matter be able to throw the book at you?
Can you explain how the DMCA has any legal validity for any citizen of any other country?
To be honest, checking with Google, the parent might well be telling the truth and therefore not really off-topic
Homeopathy may have nothing in it but snake oil but this guy may be who he claims to be.
Personally I would chalk up homeopathy as part of a belief system, as irrational as islam or christianity or scientology or the tooth fairy. However the rational your born, you live, you die. Is not much comfort to those in pain or fear of death.
Should we deny hope for those in hopeless situations? what do we leave in its place despair?
Why use zip programs as examples of Programs people don't pay for.
The ability to unzip archives is built into XP, There are a bunch of free archive tools for Linux and Windows. Winzip would get near zero use if most people had to pay for it. Winrar is a better product anyway, probably windows commander would have greater sales if winzip and winrar were not available. Or maybe rar and zip files wouldnt be universally used.
Copy protection generally is a practice which turns paying customers into ex-customers and is off putting to potential new customers.
Rule number one has to be keep your customers happy.
If you want paying customers focus on getting paying customers, focusing on piracy will generally mean problems for your paying customers. consider which is better for you a user base of 10,000 of which 5,000 paid you or a user base of 100,000 of which 10,000 paid you. Those 90,000 free copies are raising the profile of your software. It's worked pretty well for microsoft and adobe. Maybe it's worth having a support forum for your software, the feedback will help you improve the next version and those 90,000 pirate users may actually help your 10,000 paying customers. You may even get some converts for the next version.
Actually wifi software seems to be stuck with American limitations, as a European Linux user I should be able to use channels 12 and 13 (if I was in Japan channel 14 as well) but the wifi software in ubuntu at least will not allow me too. I don't know if any other distro's have this limitation. It's especially annoying since in home TV repeaters use the same spectrum and the two systems interfere badly with each other.
There is one way that you could do video ads without being annoying about it.
Give the user the option of setting video ads on or off in preferences, you can't be any fairer than that.
Stating the obvious here but you will know when it gets annoying, and when you have hit a sensible balance.
If every page load contains a video ad, then that will be annoying pretty quickly, as an option that I can turn on or off. It might be an enhancement.
I use google for lots of things, shopping is just one of those things. If I am thinking of buying something then is the time to OFFER to show me a presentation of a particular product. You could even show me an advert for a competing product.
Unfortunately most Ads run automatically, it is kind of like opening your front door and finding a queue of salesmen outside who immediately launch into their pitch and more often than not simultaneously.
Oh one more thing you really could do is store a list of automatic -search strings. in user preferences.
If I really don't want dealtime or ebay or wikipedia results then let me specify that I don't.
Those shopping aggregation sites are the worst, you search for product A they get returned in the results, click on the link and you get unrelated product B.
Of course I am not your customer, I am your product but surely your customers would prefer to target their ads at someone who is interested.
Alternatively somebody could write a firefox plugin which does a wget on every advert meeting a particular criteria and outputs the results to dev:null. That'll soon get expensive for advertisers paying per click.
I don't think you can reasonably expect Mr rubin or a reporter to have much of a clue about rootkits.
"it was some kind of corporate thing -- had put spyware on the CD. That kept people from copying it, but it also somehow recorded information about whoever bought the record. The spyware became public knowledge, and people freaked out. There were some lawsuits filed, and the CD was recalled by Columbia"
Is what he said as written in the article.
He's angry and bitter coz something was put on the CD that caused people to panic and not buy it. After spending 2 years getting the album together he doesn't care what it did technically, its effect was to cause the CD to bomb.
Public perception was something like - this thing Sony put on its CD infected your computer and spied on you, kinda Like a virus and thats bad isn't it...
He doesn't know, I doubt he would ever want to know, how it worked or what it did exactly- it killed his album sales thats all that matters.
The only insight we really get is that a producer produces the album not the CD. I feel sorry for him, Columbia took his baby and grafted horns on.
Freedom to wander,
With the US I am assuming that State to State phone calls are charged similarly to City to City Calls within the same state
In Europe we have call roaming where the phone companys charge excessive rates to use your sim in another country. not only that but we are charged for incoming calls and generally have weird codes to enter to dial out and even restrictions on calling within a country.
Most phone plans don't allow for calling outside of a nations borders, which makes skype and wifi so much more popular. Some one asked why the interest in mobiles with wifi and voip (it makes certain calls a lot cheaper).
The obvious solution to the international phone call price rip off is a local sim card. pay as you go will cost as little as $20 on average with call credit included. However this requires an unlocked phone. So while I am mostly happy with my call plan i'd rather switch sim cards when i switch countrys.
it is also quite cool when you can use your phone as a modem for your laptop cheaper than the hotel charges for its wifi hotspot or network.