Rather, perhaps it's the stupid criminals who get caught, and convicted at higher rates. The smarter ones tend to still be out there among us. We aren't even aware of many of them, I suppose.
Pretty sure that the reports referred to the BLACK Sea as the body of water which was most recently greatly augmented by floodwaters from the Mediterranean.
Horseshit, hole-ridden garbage machines foisted off on taxpayers like me, either deliberately, or through plain old incompetence, all to the end of giant profits for unabashedly partisan executives? Say it ain't so!
Maybe now the invisible hand that has slapped Diebold will help bring forth e-voting that sucks measurably less. I'm pretty sure it can be done. Just need a few people with modest amounts of both skill AND ethics.
Apple grudgingly implemented FairPlay with the full realization that it would provide only modest deterrent value to TEH 3V!7 91R@+z. As Jobs stated in his posting, what is the real point of all this DRM garbage anyway, when easily obtained CDs with no copy protection and superior quality already exist in immensely greater number, as well as variety.
This whole argument is like two people fighting over the food dish after passively watching someone else eat dinner off it, leaving a couple of scraps and gristly bones. Moronic and misguided.
DRM must die. There already exist plenty of legal avenues to pursue wholesale infringers, whom DRM does nothing at all to block. And don't get me started on copyright "terms" themselves.
World + dog will inevitably weigh in on this subject so near and dear to/.er hearts on several levels.
Firstly, add me to the list of those calling for the end of DRMed/crippled music.
Second, however, without knowing the details of the record labels' agreement with Apple to sell their music on the iTMS, there's no way to know if Apple CAN treat the indie labels music differently. If not prohibited, then the clever folks at Apple ought to be able to create a workable non-DRMed channel for such sales. If this is prohibited to them, they should say so to remove the doubt.
The calls to license FairPlay are rather disingenuous and unfair I think, unless ALL companies (yes, pointing at you, Microsoft) are required to do the same. I don't think such a thing would prove workable anyway unless the DRM standard(s) itself was placed under the control of an international standards body rather than a single company. Even then there are multiple problems with it.
Steve Jobs was right on. The simplest solution here is the best. DRM must die. Try trusting people to do the right thing for once. Enough of them will probably do it to keep you pigopolists from having to actually work for a living after all.
I guess this begs the question: Under what authority does the federal government issue such legislation then?
I realize it's far too late to go back and undo whatever started us down this road, but we need to be increasingly vigilant and reluctant to countenance continued expansion of federal power, particularly when the only apparent justification for such is, "Well, we already do such-and-such, and the states aren't moving quickly enough to agree with us, like the sheep we want them to be."
The Framers intended the states to be different, realizing that nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. Rather the states were expected to learn from one another, and not to need spoonfeeding from Washington. It should be even easier to do this today, with instant communication.
The feds are exercising unconstitutional authority while we watch passively. We'll deserve the tyranny that inevitably follows. Maybe it won't be the big TYRANNY with a single Tyrant ruling by fiat, but thousands of little petty ones like national IDs (note that we already have one - it's called a passport!), drinking age mandated to 21, moronic drug laws that treat marijuana more seriously than methamphetamine, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
In my opinion, the main problem with this is that the US Constitution enumerates the rights granted to the federal government, and specifically states, that those rights not so enumerated are reserved to the states. The intent was to limit the breadth and reach of federal power.
Over the years, more and more power has been assumed by the federal government under guise of the "Interstate commerce clause." Some breathtaking twisting and stretching has often been involved, and people like me who believe that the Constitution means something approximately in the vicinity of what it says, get extremely angry at this.
If the states have indeed become as irrelevant to the governance of the country as the ongoing federal power grabs seem to imply, they should be dissolved and the state bureaucracies demolished. As it is they seem to serve little purpose, and a few tax dollars might possibly be saved. All it would take is a Constitutional amendment to that effect, or simply the repeal of Amendment X.
At which point I'll go find someplace else to live, because this will have ceased to be the country I was born in. It's pretty far off now, and I'm not that damn old.
Of course the users will ignore IT and our fascistic policies. At least until the crapware they've managed to install in spite of the technological restrictions we've put in place, and despite this violating the usage policy they signed at the start of their employment, borks their system to the point that they can't print their pathetically lame 200 slide PowerPoint presentation. Then they call my group, informing us how terribly important this is and we must get it fixed RIGHT NOW, complaining how unstable our PCs are, how much better their home system is, et cetera.
When our help desk guy finds out what they've done, and removes the offending stuff, and informs them that, yes indeed there is a reason that it takes significant time to vet and approve software for deployment in a corporate environment, they look at us as if we're speaking to them in Babylonian. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I need a nice long vacation. About 20 years ought to git 'er done.
Voltage losses over long distances of wiring are much greater for DC than with AC. If power were generated locally, say by rooftop solar, DC might be a better choice. The prevalence of AC appliances complicates that issue though.
If we could do all that you've described here, I submit that we'd have surpassed the concersational skills of 80% of the human population. Not too bad.
Sure, and feed their grandkids, and their great-grandchildren, and great-great... None of whom lift a finger to contribute anything, but cry foul at the prospect of ever losing the stream of golden eggs their ancestor's work provides. Yeah, I'm in favor of forbidding that.
Cf. US Constitution, something about a "limited time".
Copyright has been twisted into a mechanism for the creation of hereditary aristocracy in the US. As if we needed more mechanisms for that.
Because the difference between the companies is pretty much as you stated, even though you were apparently trying to argue the opposite?
No I don't quite believe that, even though my experience with Dell in the past two years has been horrendous - little things like 100% failure on 200 or so corporate desktop PC hard drives, ~50% mobo failures on same (GX-270 if you want to know), multiple DOA laptops, server build quality into the toilet with idiotic case designs, crappified rack rails, reduction in drive bays, I can't go on without calling my rep to bitch more (or his boss, or whoever there, none of whom give a crap since my company doesn't buy 10000 at a time).
Contrast with Apple, from whom we purchased some lowly 12" iBook G4s for IT staff remote use (VPN, remote desktop, and Cisco console connections in emergency, with USB to serial adaptors). They've been trouble free, except mine, which gets treated pretty harshly, and had the HD give out after a year and change. I called, talked with a rep in less than 2 mins., gave them the scoop. They sent a shipping box overnight, I sent it to their repair facility, had it back the next day. And by the way, they replaced the mobo as well at that time for a problem with weak 802.11g reception, which I had vaguely noticed - it was good enough to use everywhere I use it. I hadn't even thought to mention it to them. They just did it.
So yes, I can vouch for a difference between the two. Apple is hardly perfect. They're just a lot better than Dell.
Today's standard keyboards are likely to be subjects of ridicule in the future. Caps Lock is but one of the travesties. Why can that function not be relegated to, say, holding down both Shift keys, or a longer hold down on one? That reuses a key with similar function, thus easy to remember. I often hit Caps Lock when reaching for Tab. Dunno about putting Control there, as that makes standard cut/copy/paste more awkward.
Maybe the guy was being truthful. As in, he didn't personally know anyone who'd been harmed by this reprehensible practice, since all his friends were other execs well aware of the scam, and partaking themselves. Why would he want to know anybody so lowly? They might want him to pick up the tab for dinner.
Slashdot Mirror
Rather, perhaps it's the stupid criminals who get caught, and convicted at higher rates. The smarter ones tend to still be out there among us. We aren't even aware of many of them, I suppose.
[clears browser cache and history]
Pretty sure that the reports referred to the BLACK Sea as the body of water which was most recently greatly augmented by floodwaters from the Mediterranean.
Acronym Is Too Short, Needs More OOs
What we really need is an Object Oriented OpenOffice.org Office Open XML translator (OOOOoOOXML).
Horseshit, hole-ridden garbage machines foisted off on taxpayers like me, either deliberately, or through plain old incompetence, all to the end of giant profits for unabashedly partisan executives? Say it ain't so!
Maybe now the invisible hand that has slapped Diebold will help bring forth e-voting that sucks measurably less. I'm pretty sure it can be done. Just need a few people with modest amounts of both skill AND ethics.
If pirating "killed" MS revenue, come one, come all pirates, and kill mine. Aaarrr!!!
Hi, Mr. Kineticabstract, I'm with the IRS. About this $80 profit you made on the sale of your phone...
Relevant line from /etc/services:
telnet 23/tcp imadumbass hackmenow rootrus rotflmao
Thank you. Good analysis.
Apple grudgingly implemented FairPlay with the full realization that it would provide only modest deterrent value to TEH 3V!7 91R@+z. As Jobs stated in his posting, what is the real point of all this DRM garbage anyway, when easily obtained CDs with no copy protection and superior quality already exist in immensely greater number, as well as variety.
This whole argument is like two people fighting over the food dish after passively watching someone else eat dinner off it, leaving a couple of scraps and gristly bones. Moronic and misguided.
DRM must die. There already exist plenty of legal avenues to pursue wholesale infringers, whom DRM does nothing at all to block. And don't get me started on copyright "terms" themselves.
World + dog will inevitably weigh in on this subject so near and dear to /.er hearts on several levels.
Firstly, add me to the list of those calling for the end of DRMed/crippled music.
Second, however, without knowing the details of the record labels' agreement with Apple to sell their music on the iTMS, there's no way to know if Apple CAN treat the indie labels music differently. If not prohibited, then the clever folks at Apple ought to be able to create a workable non-DRMed channel for such sales. If this is prohibited to them, they should say so to remove the doubt.
The calls to license FairPlay are rather disingenuous and unfair I think, unless ALL companies (yes, pointing at you, Microsoft) are required to do the same. I don't think such a thing would prove workable anyway unless the DRM standard(s) itself was placed under the control of an international standards body rather than a single company. Even then there are multiple problems with it.
Steve Jobs was right on. The simplest solution here is the best. DRM must die. Try trusting people to do the right thing for once. Enough of them will probably do it to keep you pigopolists from having to actually work for a living after all.
I guess this begs the question: Under what authority does the federal government issue such legislation then?
I realize it's far too late to go back and undo whatever started us down this road, but we need to be increasingly vigilant and reluctant to countenance continued expansion of federal power, particularly when the only apparent justification for such is, "Well, we already do such-and-such, and the states aren't moving quickly enough to agree with us, like the sheep we want them to be."
The Framers intended the states to be different, realizing that nobody has a monopoly on good ideas. Rather the states were expected to learn from one another, and not to need spoonfeeding from Washington. It should be even easier to do this today, with instant communication.
The feds are exercising unconstitutional authority while we watch passively. We'll deserve the tyranny that inevitably follows. Maybe it won't be the big TYRANNY with a single Tyrant ruling by fiat, but thousands of little petty ones like national IDs (note that we already have one - it's called a passport!), drinking age mandated to 21, moronic drug laws that treat marijuana more seriously than methamphetamine, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
In my opinion, the main problem with this is that the US Constitution enumerates the rights granted to the federal government, and specifically states, that those rights not so enumerated are reserved to the states. The intent was to limit the breadth and reach of federal power.
Over the years, more and more power has been assumed by the federal government under guise of the "Interstate commerce clause." Some breathtaking twisting and stretching has often been involved, and people like me who believe that the Constitution means something approximately in the vicinity of what it says, get extremely angry at this.
If the states have indeed become as irrelevant to the governance of the country as the ongoing federal power grabs seem to imply, they should be dissolved and the state bureaucracies demolished. As it is they seem to serve little purpose, and a few tax dollars might possibly be saved. All it would take is a Constitutional amendment to that effect, or simply the repeal of Amendment X.
At which point I'll go find someplace else to live, because this will have ceased to be the country I was born in. It's pretty far off now, and I'm not that damn old.
Isn't mining kinda dangerous to do while naked? Especially on an airless moon? And why do only Republicans do that? I'm so confused.
Rearranging these, we get a nice acronym: DIM
Of course the users will ignore IT and our fascistic policies. At least until the crapware they've managed to install in spite of the technological restrictions we've put in place, and despite this violating the usage policy they signed at the start of their employment, borks their system to the point that they can't print their pathetically lame 200 slide PowerPoint presentation. Then they call my group, informing us how terribly important this is and we must get it fixed RIGHT NOW, complaining how unstable our PCs are, how much better their home system is, et cetera.
When our help desk guy finds out what they've done, and removes the offending stuff, and informs them that, yes indeed there is a reason that it takes significant time to vet and approve software for deployment in a corporate environment, they look at us as if we're speaking to them in Babylonian. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I need a nice long vacation. About 20 years ought to git 'er done.
Voltage losses over long distances of wiring are much greater for DC than with AC. If power were generated locally, say by rooftop solar, DC might be a better choice. The prevalence of AC appliances complicates that issue though.
Pay a visit to your friendly neighborhood Wikipedia entry on the the subject.
I did. They were a poor fuck. They kept bitching about money. Had to slap 'em around a little to shut 'em up.
If they have 50 quintillion nukes, you're welcome to lead the assault. I'll wait here, a non-Anonymous Coward. Guilty as charged.
With their rarified geek status, at least one girlfriend may not be of the inflatable variety.
If we could do all that you've described here, I submit that we'd have surpassed the concersational skills of 80% of the human population. Not too bad.
Sure, and feed their grandkids, and their great-grandchildren, and great-great... None of whom lift a finger to contribute anything, but cry foul at the prospect of ever losing the stream of golden eggs their ancestor's work provides. Yeah, I'm in favor of forbidding that. Cf. US Constitution, something about a "limited time". Copyright has been twisted into a mechanism for the creation of hereditary aristocracy in the US. As if we needed more mechanisms for that.
And it laughed at you, I presume. This being /. and all.
Did the authors of said fine book manage to spell "Engineering" correctly?
Because the difference between the companies is pretty much as you stated, even though you were apparently trying to argue the opposite?
No I don't quite believe that, even though my experience with Dell in the past two years has been horrendous - little things like 100% failure on 200 or so corporate desktop PC hard drives, ~50% mobo failures on same (GX-270 if you want to know), multiple DOA laptops, server build quality into the toilet with idiotic case designs, crappified rack rails, reduction in drive bays, I can't go on without calling my rep to bitch more (or his boss, or whoever there, none of whom give a crap since my company doesn't buy 10000 at a time).
Contrast with Apple, from whom we purchased some lowly 12" iBook G4s for IT staff remote use (VPN, remote desktop, and Cisco console connections in emergency, with USB to serial adaptors). They've been trouble free, except mine, which gets treated pretty harshly, and had the HD give out after a year and change. I called, talked with a rep in less than 2 mins., gave them the scoop. They sent a shipping box overnight, I sent it to their repair facility, had it back the next day. And by the way, they replaced the mobo as well at that time for a problem with weak 802.11g reception, which I had vaguely noticed - it was good enough to use everywhere I use it. I hadn't even thought to mention it to them. They just did it.
So yes, I can vouch for a difference between the two. Apple is hardly perfect. They're just a lot better than Dell.
Today's standard keyboards are likely to be subjects of ridicule in the future. Caps Lock is but one of the travesties. Why can that function not be relegated to, say, holding down both Shift keys, or a longer hold down on one? That reuses a key with similar function, thus easy to remember. I often hit Caps Lock when reaching for Tab. Dunno about putting Control there, as that makes standard cut/copy/paste more awkward.
Maybe the guy was being truthful. As in, he didn't personally know anyone who'd been harmed by this reprehensible practice, since all his friends were other execs well aware of the scam, and partaking themselves. Why would he want to know anybody so lowly? They might want him to pick up the tab for dinner.