Let's compare two optimized C++ classes that create ODF and DOC written by professional programmers familiar with the formats and compare that.
Ah... now we get back to the other point. In 20 years, anyone will be able to write an optimized C++ class that creates an ODF document, as anyone can become familiar with the format. The same cannot be said of DOC (although due to its pervasiveness, most people writing such software understand how to generate the basic elements of a DOC file).
1. Government should not be involved in encouraging and helping DRM.
They should only be involved in prosecuting offenders. Also, get rid of that McGruff the Crime Dog crap. The government has no business encouraging the use of doorlocks or rape whistles. The government isn't in the business of preventing crime.
Are you arguing that DRM is a crime, and the Government should only be involved in prosecuting offenders? Isn't that a little bit hard-line?
2. One could make the argument that company in a monopolistic position such as microsoft shouldn't be activly pushing DRM
Yes, an argument could be made that Microsoft should refrain from adding value to their products by adding features that their users might want because I don't like those features.
I think you missed the point. Microsoft is actively selling DRM to OTHER markets that they don't control, but will if those markets accept their DRM conditions. Think HD-DVD, automobile computer systems, etc. This adds no value to their products (DRM doesn't add value to products anyway); unless you mean that the other large corporate monopolies/cartels are their users. The argument is that Microsoft doesn't give users a choice, because they're a monopoly.
Personally, I have no problem with monoplolistic companies pushing DRM. I DO have a problem with companies that have been convicted of abusing those powers having an active role in pushing DRM.
Sure it may be a great attention grabber for the media, but it poses as an even greater tool for people who are pro-DRM. Look at those "crazies", "liberals", "communists", etc. All I'm saying is, it makes for a great labeling scenario.
Hmm... you mean like those "other guys" who wore the bunny suits in their TV commercials?
I think this was a really smart move; those HazMat suits are already strongly identified with one of the companies they're protesting against. Either way, they win.
What is lacking is a way to scale down photos for such uses that Joe Winblows User/Best Buy Shopper can understand.
You must use Linux. On Windows, the OS says, "I see you're trying to email a picture. Would you like me to scale it down for you?"; on MacOS, there's a Resolution menu available when you attach a picture for mailing. Same thing happens with slideshow presentations on both platforms.
The problem *I* have is that when I ask someone to email me the original photo, I invariably get a 640x480 copy that their computer has automatically scaled down for emailing.
Ah; then I guess mine was too vague. I was pointing out that following the argument as laid out from the perspective of the original poster, your argument had no merit. Chalk it up to multitasking;)
If you re-read my post, you'll notice that I never said I agreed with it, just that it was a solid argument within the worldview it was espousing.
And for the record, I tend to agree with you on your last paragraph. For Bible-based Christians, the last imperatives were: "Love YWH your God with all your heart," "Love your neighbour as yourself" and "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Anything extrapolated beyond that is open to debate.
Plus, if you don't believe the Bible is the Voice of God, then EVERYTHING in that world view is open to debate. Including tolerance being the right solution.
So... you're saying that if I care what happens to you but I'm not your mother/father, I won't warn you about the 40' drop you're about to step off?
You both have a point. If you're talking Old Testament Bible-based God, he loves people. He generally doesn't tolerate destructive actions, however. It's the old "Hate the sin, not the sinner" attitude. This is the same God that commanded the nation of Israel to commit genocide on more than one occasion, so it kind of makes you re-evaluate the Western humanist concept of "love" in this context. The nation of Israel was almost wiped out itself for refusing to commit the genocide commanded. If you're talking about a Trinitarian-post-Christ God, you're talking about the same God... however, he loved people enough to give them one way out of the retribution if they were willing to humble themselves and take it. In this situation, NOT telling others about this one way would be an unforgivable sin, as you'd be saying "I don't care that you don't know." In such a situation, the person isn't saying they know God's mind better than he does, they're saying they're willing to follow explicit instructions from God. This being said, judging is not one of the things they've been commanded to do. Judging in this situation would be hypocritical; sharing information however, would be required.
I couldn't let this one pass either, as it seemed to be assuming too much on both sides of the argument:)
Think of it more like this:
You're a Brit on holiday in the US, driving down the highway. You see a sign saying "Air Force Installation: 5 miles". You're into UFO's, and heard that there might be some evidence at this installation, so you think you'll drive down and see what's up.
5 miles down the road, you see a sign saying "Now entering USAF property." You notice lots of airforce people around, and they appear to ignore you.
You poke your head into some unlocked hangars, and see some strange shaped object under a tarpaulin. You get curious, go over and peek under... it's a large John Deere mower.
Just then, someone in uniform sees you poking around, calls security, and yells at you to come with them. Instead, you run back to your car, hop in, drive off, and catch the next flight back to the UK.
You're met at the airport by a number of Bobbies in uniform, who usher you off to a containment cell. According to them, you're wanted back in the US by the USAF on grounds that you entered a restricted installation without permission, and were seen messing around in one of the hangars. They have no idea where else you went, or what you did, so you're a security threat. The UK government is more than happy to comply, and so gives approval to extradite you back to the US for questioning and "punishment".
Why don't we ask Russia how well Marx's system works. I'm sure the millions of people murdered under their collectivist system would wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments.
Why don't we ask Cuba how well Fascism works?
Russia's system might have been loosely based on Marxist ideals, but Karl Marx would have been the first person to disavow such a system. Marx's system involved a total ownership of all resources by monopolies that had saturated their markets -- this was to cause a market implosion, while at the same time causing the masses to rebel as a united front against the elite controlling class who held all the strings but did none of the work. If you think Stalinist Russia fit this description, I suggest you do some more historical research.
Speaking of millions of people murdered, (Yes, this is a straw man, but it's similar to the one used by the parent) how many people die each year in the US due to unsafe "it's not my problem" corporate practises?
Really, I don't view the cableco's ideas as being far off from "Hey Google... accidents happen... packets get lost... connections get unexpectedly closed... it'd be a shame for something to happen to your traffic..."
I don't think they are that different... however, Google can respond with, "Hey Cable Cartel... how come the accidents always happen on YOUR turf? I think I'm just not going to go there anymore. It's a shame that'll cause something to happen to YOUR traffic...."
I have one friend.... I have another friend.... So, I'm going to have to agree that the majority of Mac owners just don't think in terms of computer security, networking, etc.
Funny; I'm a network admin, and I've been using Macs for 19 years. I've got around 40 friends and aquaintences who are also Mac users, who serve websites, write software, are hardware engineers etc. Does this mean that I'm going to have to disagree and say that the majority of Mac owners think in terms of computer security? No. When it comes to their home computers, most of them don't think beyond the original hardware purchase and system hardening stages; after that, they let the software updates autoinstall, and don't think about it at all (besides laughing at the runme.jpg.com attachments they get in their email). The trick is, so far they haven't had to think beyond that. It makes using a computer a much more enjoyable experience.
Your anecdotal evidence is lacking, but I think your general conclusion is correct... to a point. You see, mac users tend to get educated about email security pretty quickly, since they get the same number of Windows-based viruses emailed to them as Windows users do -- the difference is that the attachments won't run, and the email programs don't tend to hide what the mails actually contain. From this, most Mac users learn fairly quickly to identify virulent emails, without actually becoming infected by them.
The gist of what I'm saying is this: why spend all the extra time/money/effort combatting non-existant security threats, when you could spend that time being productive? So long as you make backups, does it really matter that there is a 0.0001% chance that you might be infected with some software that can trash your data? Your computer is more likely to be fried in a lightning storm.
I can hear you thinking: yeah... but what about spyware and botnets? Well, botnets require the cooperation of your router, among other things. If someone actually discovers a botnet app making the rounds for OS X, I'm sure Steps Will Be Taken fairly quickly to block this activity -- at multiple levels, from the hardware, through the software, right up to user education. The Mac community's like that.
Spyware, on the other hand, is a bit of an issue... except that OS X's security model makes spyware fairly difficult to transparently integrate. Add to this that there is so much free software available to do the "simple" tasks on a Mac, and well known and reasonably priced software to do the more complex things (as well as a limited number of above board well established sites where people get their shareware), and the result is an extremely small injection vector for spyware software. Why download something that is reported to install spyware, when you can get the equivalent thing a) for free, or b) for $19? These are Mac users we're talking about -- I'd say most are either creative enough to get the free software, or rich enough to pay a shareware fee.
What I'd personally like to see is some sort of a statistically significant study that compares phishing results between Mac and Windows users... I'd also like to see a comparison of *AMP servers compromised across MacOS, Linux and Windows. THIS is an area where the same exploits tend to work on all platforms, meaning that the users are the only differing link.
I'd also like to see Apple integrate ClamAV into the startup process of OS X, or even into spotlight indexing. All you'd really need to do is create a "virus" plugin for spotlight, and all *known* infected files would automatically be flagged as such at the fs metadata level, and have their permissions disabled.
And just for reference, the last time I accidentally infected a Mac, it was via floppy -- contained both WDEF A and nVir B. Disinfectant caught both immediately, and removed them. You see, when there is an actual need for a piece of software on the Mac, the community tends to come up with either a low cost solution (if everyone needs it) or a very powerful high cost solution (if a small segment needs it -- and they'll pay for it).
[/ramble]
I think people are missing part of the point of my post above... the issue isn't "games that are 1-2 years old" -- it's new games (Mac releases tend to be a bit behind PC releases), and OLD games. Games people already own. Apple replaces pretty much everything else you'd use on Windows with a default install of OS X, but if someone wants to play their old copy of Counterstrike, they don't want to have to figure out how to get it all over again for the Mac. They just want to take it off the shelf, install it, and play.
The other issue is emulation. MAME (including CLRMP), PSX, and N64 emulation is currently more advanced on Windows than on the Mac. Of course, as people start to port the asm code to MacX86, this will begin to change... but that's in a year or so.
If they wanted to sell more Macs to gamers, they'd pay game developers to write for the Mac. Besides, just how many gamers -- with an investment in Windows hardware and software -- are going to run out and buy a Mac just so they can boot it into Windows?
Who said anything about selling more macs to "Gamers"? They want to sell more macs to casual PC users who don't care what OS they're using, but still want to be able to fire up their favourite game every once in a while.
After all, hardcore Gamers are willing to drop a lot of money; if they want to try OS X, they'd probably just buy a Mini as an extra computer and hook it up to the chain of devices attached to their plasma HTDV; it would cost about the same amount as their biannual graphics card upgrade for their AMD gaming box. No need for dual booting.
--This has nothing to do with the office environment, and everything to do with shoring up the gaming system on Macs. One OS for games, and one OS for everything else... you don't generally need to have both running at the same time.
Remember: that loss amount doesn't just take into account XviD copies on your computer -- the main thing it is measuring is the black market copies available in China and Russia (along with most other countries). I'm sure that including torrent numbers increases their statistics a bit, but the big issue is organized crime: commercial pirating for sale on DVD.
If I recall correctly, something similar to this was used in the serbo-croatian conflict; one side found that they could detect incoming airborne objects (planes, missiles, etc.) by detecting "holes" in cellphone broadcast beacon radiation. They were basicly able to see every location in the sky where reflection was either greater or less than it should be.
Sadly, actual functioning of the motorcycle invisibility effect is extremely erratic... it tends to turn on only when you don't want it to. I'll leave the examples up to the reader:)
Spammers aren't sending you spam because they hate you, they are trying to sell stuff and people are actually buying that stuff due to the spam.
Normally... but in this case, I think they're sending spam because the recipients are seriously impacting their business model. They are trying to "make an example" of BlueSecurity to discourage people from taking actions that actually affect their bottom line. Sorta like the RIAA:)
Sounds to me like they've tried submitting each email address in their distribution list to BlueSecurity to see if it already exists. The ones that exist get emails. However, since BlueSecurity is no longer accepting these checks, there's no way the spammers can continue along this vector... ALL email addresses from now on will be rejected.
Plus, it should be trivial for BlueSecurity to fix this; a simple check of where the address check is initiated from should do the trick. If someone signs up using a Comcast IP, and then checks to see if they're signed up via a proxy in Korea, it should be pretty easy to foil. Hey... they could even use captchas to slow down the spammers... who will then be devoting a significant part of their time to comparing email addresses instead of spamming the world at large.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole point of University that it is a place where peers can meet to exchange information? While p2p exchange of RIAA-owned IP might indeed be rampant on university campuses, this is nothing new -- and giving a niche market watchdog group power over the exchange of information on an educational campus seems more than a little scary. Almost as scary as letting private corporations sponsor professors or courses....
The traffic will also occur on non-standard bit torrent ports so admins can tell the difference between the Apple feature and standard bit torrent traffic.
What do you consider a "non-standard bit torrent port?" Most modern clients, the first time you run them, open a config dialog that asks you what port you want to use... I'd think that this makes all 65536 ports pretty "standard" for bit torrent.
More likely, any apple torrents would be signed somehow, making it easy to identify Apple torrent packets. Of course, with the upcoming balkanization of the internet, this might not be a good idea.
The other thing is that this feature probably won't implement carte-blanche torrenting... expect it to work on intranets and with the Apple iTMS feature length movie torrents (requiring your iTMS key and the iTMS central key in order to use it). This way, they could sell full length films on iTMS, and offload the bandwidth requirements onto the internet as a whole (while making the content unplayable if you don't have a key).
Quicktime works very well on Windows; what *doesn't* work well is the old Quicktime Plugin for IE4 running inside Firefox... I found that this was the cause of much grief for me; after removing it and doing a clean install of iTunes, all the loading and crashing issues vanished.
Something interesting of note:
Quicktime for Windows actually contains a lot of the QuickDraw and Carbon APIs in it; there is basicly an API emulation platform, and Mac Quicktime runs on top of it. iTunes runs on top of all that. The end result? Unless your other multimedia player is extremely skinnable or horribly coded, it will definitely 'feel' less clunky than iTunes for Windows.
Some solid figures:
On my 1.8GHz Athlon, it takes 15 seconds for a virgin load of iTunes. Once the background caching daemon has loaded (the first time you run iTunes after a reset), it takes 3 seconds to launch it.
iTunes installer installs 2 helper apps that run in the background: iPodService.exe and iTunesHelper.exe. The first makes an iPod show up in iTunes instead of as a removable drive -- I don't own an iPod, so I just deleted this app, and nothing seems to complain. The second is used for a number of things: it captures your CD burner for use from within iTunes, pre-caches the iTunes UI for quick launching, and adds context-awareness to your desktop (play song in iTunes, etc.). Generally I find I don't need this either, so I've disabled it too. For some reason, the caching still works (quick launching), and I don't use the rest. It'd be nice of Apple to allow power users to disable these two helper apps from within the prefs though (or even keep the iPod one turned off by default, until the first time you launch iTunes with an iPod connected).
FYI: These "celebrities" might include famous people you've heard of, but they also include many that you haven't heard of... what happened a few weeks ago is that most of the Canadian artists pulled out of the CRIA (Canadian version of RIAA) because they felt it had become a puppet of the US recording industry, whose views no longer represented Canadian artists.
In the current setup, CRIA members tend to get the "CD Tax" (which, IIRC, hasn't been passed on to the actual musicians). The long and short of it is, if you want to make it in the Canadian music industry, you have to play ball with the CRIA (which is a front for the RIAA). A large portion of the Canadian Recording Artists have finally called foul, and are saying they're not going to play this game anymore -- they want the freedom to produce their music and distribute it without paying off some foreign organization that's offering them nothing more than "protection", while blatantly supporting agendas that are detrimental to the artists.
On the flip side, you're right... if they start making more money, this would mean that the CRIA is (at least on some level) working for them again instead of against them, and they'd stop complaining.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah... now we get back to the other point. In 20 years, anyone will be able to write an optimized C++ class that creates an ODF document, as anyone can become familiar with the format. The same cannot be said of DOC (although due to its pervasiveness, most people writing such software understand how to generate the basic elements of a DOC file).
Already invented... you're looking for Fluoroplastic Paint.
They should only be involved in prosecuting offenders. Also, get rid of that McGruff the Crime Dog crap. The government has no business encouraging the use of doorlocks or rape whistles. The government isn't in the business of preventing crime.
Are you arguing that DRM is a crime, and the Government should only be involved in prosecuting offenders? Isn't that a little bit hard-line?
Yes, an argument could be made that Microsoft should refrain from adding value to their products by adding features that their users might want because I don't like those features.
I think you missed the point. Microsoft is actively selling DRM to OTHER markets that they don't control, but will if those markets accept their DRM conditions. Think HD-DVD, automobile computer systems, etc. This adds no value to their products (DRM doesn't add value to products anyway); unless you mean that the other large corporate monopolies/cartels are their users. The argument is that Microsoft doesn't give users a choice, because they're a monopoly.
Personally, I have no problem with monoplolistic companies pushing DRM. I DO have a problem with companies that have been convicted of abusing those powers having an active role in pushing DRM.
Hmm... you mean like those "other guys" who wore the bunny suits in their TV commercials?
I think this was a really smart move; those HazMat suits are already strongly identified with one of the companies they're protesting against. Either way, they win.
You must use Linux. On Windows, the OS says, "I see you're trying to email a picture. Would you like me to scale it down for you?"; on MacOS, there's a Resolution menu available when you attach a picture for mailing. Same thing happens with slideshow presentations on both platforms.
The problem *I* have is that when I ask someone to email me the original photo, I invariably get a 640x480 copy that their computer has automatically scaled down for emailing.
If you re-read my post, you'll notice that I never said I agreed with it, just that it was a solid argument within the worldview it was espousing.
And for the record, I tend to agree with you on your last paragraph. For Bible-based Christians, the last imperatives were: "Love YWH your God with all your heart," "Love your neighbour as yourself" and "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Anything extrapolated beyond that is open to debate.
Plus, if you don't believe the Bible is the Voice of God, then EVERYTHING in that world view is open to debate. Including tolerance being the right solution.
You got my point exactly. I was assuming he was able to figure this out from my original post ;)
You both have a point. If you're talking Old Testament Bible-based God, he loves people. He generally doesn't tolerate destructive actions, however. It's the old "Hate the sin, not the sinner" attitude. This is the same God that commanded the nation of Israel to commit genocide on more than one occasion, so it kind of makes you re-evaluate the Western humanist concept of "love" in this context. The nation of Israel was almost wiped out itself for refusing to commit the genocide commanded. If you're talking about a Trinitarian-post-Christ God, you're talking about the same God... however, he loved people enough to give them one way out of the retribution if they were willing to humble themselves and take it. In this situation, NOT telling others about this one way would be an unforgivable sin, as you'd be saying "I don't care that you don't know." In such a situation, the person isn't saying they know God's mind better than he does, they're saying they're willing to follow explicit instructions from God. This being said, judging is not one of the things they've been commanded to do. Judging in this situation would be hypocritical; sharing information however, would be required.
I couldn't let this one pass either, as it seemed to be assuming too much on both sides of the argument :)
You're a Brit on holiday in the US, driving down the highway. You see a sign saying "Air Force Installation: 5 miles". You're into UFO's, and heard that there might be some evidence at this installation, so you think you'll drive down and see what's up.
5 miles down the road, you see a sign saying "Now entering USAF property." You notice lots of airforce people around, and they appear to ignore you.
You poke your head into some unlocked hangars, and see some strange shaped object under a tarpaulin. You get curious, go over and peek under... it's a large John Deere mower.
Just then, someone in uniform sees you poking around, calls security, and yells at you to come with them. Instead, you run back to your car, hop in, drive off, and catch the next flight back to the UK.
You're met at the airport by a number of Bobbies in uniform, who usher you off to a containment cell. According to them, you're wanted back in the US by the USAF on grounds that you entered a restricted installation without permission, and were seen messing around in one of the hangars. They have no idea where else you went, or what you did, so you're a security threat. The UK government is more than happy to comply, and so gives approval to extradite you back to the US for questioning and "punishment".
Why don't we ask Cuba how well Fascism works?
Russia's system might have been loosely based on Marxist ideals, but Karl Marx would have been the first person to disavow such a system. Marx's system involved a total ownership of all resources by monopolies that had saturated their markets -- this was to cause a market implosion, while at the same time causing the masses to rebel as a united front against the elite controlling class who held all the strings but did none of the work. If you think Stalinist Russia fit this description, I suggest you do some more historical research.
Speaking of millions of people murdered, (Yes, this is a straw man, but it's similar to the one used by the parent) how many people die each year in the US due to unsafe "it's not my problem" corporate practises?
I don't think they are that different... however, Google can respond with, "Hey Cable Cartel... how come the accidents always happen on YOUR turf? I think I'm just not going to go there anymore. It's a shame that'll cause something to happen to YOUR traffic...."
Funny; I'm a network admin, and I've been using Macs for 19 years. I've got around 40 friends and aquaintences who are also Mac users, who serve websites, write software, are hardware engineers etc. Does this mean that I'm going to have to disagree and say that the majority of Mac owners think in terms of computer security? No. When it comes to their home computers, most of them don't think beyond the original hardware purchase and system hardening stages; after that, they let the software updates autoinstall, and don't think about it at all (besides laughing at the runme.jpg.com attachments they get in their email). The trick is, so far they haven't had to think beyond that. It makes using a computer a much more enjoyable experience.
Your anecdotal evidence is lacking, but I think your general conclusion is correct... to a point. You see, mac users tend to get educated about email security pretty quickly, since they get the same number of Windows-based viruses emailed to them as Windows users do -- the difference is that the attachments won't run, and the email programs don't tend to hide what the mails actually contain. From this, most Mac users learn fairly quickly to identify virulent emails, without actually becoming infected by them.
The gist of what I'm saying is this: why spend all the extra time/money/effort combatting non-existant security threats, when you could spend that time being productive? So long as you make backups, does it really matter that there is a 0.0001% chance that you might be infected with some software that can trash your data? Your computer is more likely to be fried in a lightning storm.
I can hear you thinking: yeah... but what about spyware and botnets? Well, botnets require the cooperation of your router, among other things. If someone actually discovers a botnet app making the rounds for OS X, I'm sure Steps Will Be Taken fairly quickly to block this activity -- at multiple levels, from the hardware, through the software, right up to user education. The Mac community's like that.
Spyware, on the other hand, is a bit of an issue... except that OS X's security model makes spyware fairly difficult to transparently integrate. Add to this that there is so much free software available to do the "simple" tasks on a Mac, and well known and reasonably priced software to do the more complex things (as well as a limited number of above board well established sites where people get their shareware), and the result is an extremely small injection vector for spyware software. Why download something that is reported to install spyware, when you can get the equivalent thing a) for free, or b) for $19? These are Mac users we're talking about -- I'd say most are either creative enough to get the free software, or rich enough to pay a shareware fee.
What I'd personally like to see is some sort of a statistically significant study that compares phishing results between Mac and Windows users... I'd also like to see a comparison of *AMP servers compromised across MacOS, Linux and Windows. THIS is an area where the same exploits tend to work on all platforms, meaning that the users are the only differing link.
I'd also like to see Apple integrate ClamAV into the startup process of OS X, or even into spotlight indexing. All you'd really need to do is create a "virus" plugin for spotlight, and all *known* infected files would automatically be flagged as such at the fs metadata level, and have their permissions disabled.
And just for reference, the last time I accidentally infected a Mac, it was via floppy -- contained both WDEF A and nVir B. Disinfectant caught both immediately, and removed them. You see, when there is an actual need for a piece of software on the Mac, the community tends to come up with either a low cost solution (if everyone needs it) or a very powerful high cost solution (if a small segment needs it -- and they'll pay for it).
[/ramble]
The other issue is emulation. MAME (including CLRMP), PSX, and N64 emulation is currently more advanced on Windows than on the Mac. Of course, as people start to port the asm code to MacX86, this will begin to change... but that's in a year or so.
To recap: it's GAMES -- not Gamers.
Who said anything about selling more macs to "Gamers"? They want to sell more macs to casual PC users who don't care what OS they're using, but still want to be able to fire up their favourite game every once in a while.
After all, hardcore Gamers are willing to drop a lot of money; if they want to try OS X, they'd probably just buy a Mini as an extra computer and hook it up to the chain of devices attached to their plasma HTDV; it would cost about the same amount as their biannual graphics card upgrade for their AMD gaming box. No need for dual booting.
--This has nothing to do with the office environment, and everything to do with shoring up the gaming system on Macs. One OS for games, and one OS for everything else... you don't generally need to have both running at the same time.
Remember: that loss amount doesn't just take into account XviD copies on your computer -- the main thing it is measuring is the black market copies available in China and Russia (along with most other countries). I'm sure that including torrent numbers increases their statistics a bit, but the big issue is organized crime: commercial pirating for sale on DVD.
If I recall correctly, something similar to this was used in the serbo-croatian conflict; one side found that they could detect incoming airborne objects (planes, missiles, etc.) by detecting "holes" in cellphone broadcast beacon radiation. They were basicly able to see every location in the sky where reflection was either greater or less than it should be.
Sadly, actual functioning of the motorcycle invisibility effect is extremely erratic... it tends to turn on only when you don't want it to. I'll leave the examples up to the reader :)
Normally... but in this case, I think they're sending spam because the recipients are seriously impacting their business model. They are trying to "make an example" of BlueSecurity to discourage people from taking actions that actually affect their bottom line. Sorta like the RIAA :)
Plus, it should be trivial for BlueSecurity to fix this; a simple check of where the address check is initiated from should do the trick. If someone signs up using a Comcast IP, and then checks to see if they're signed up via a proxy in Korea, it should be pretty easy to foil. Hey... they could even use captchas to slow down the spammers... who will then be devoting a significant part of their time to comparing email addresses instead of spamming the world at large.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole point of University that it is a place where peers can meet to exchange information? While p2p exchange of RIAA-owned IP might indeed be rampant on university campuses, this is nothing new -- and giving a niche market watchdog group power over the exchange of information on an educational campus seems more than a little scary. Almost as scary as letting private corporations sponsor professors or courses....
What do you consider a "non-standard bit torrent port?" Most modern clients, the first time you run them, open a config dialog that asks you what port you want to use... I'd think that this makes all 65536 ports pretty "standard" for bit torrent.
More likely, any apple torrents would be signed somehow, making it easy to identify Apple torrent packets. Of course, with the upcoming balkanization of the internet, this might not be a good idea.
The other thing is that this feature probably won't implement carte-blanche torrenting... expect it to work on intranets and with the Apple iTMS feature length movie torrents (requiring your iTMS key and the iTMS central key in order to use it). This way, they could sell full length films on iTMS, and offload the bandwidth requirements onto the internet as a whole (while making the content unplayable if you don't have a key).
Something interesting of note: Quicktime for Windows actually contains a lot of the QuickDraw and Carbon APIs in it; there is basicly an API emulation platform, and Mac Quicktime runs on top of it. iTunes runs on top of all that. The end result? Unless your other multimedia player is extremely skinnable or horribly coded, it will definitely 'feel' less clunky than iTunes for Windows.
Some solid figures: On my 1.8GHz Athlon, it takes 15 seconds for a virgin load of iTunes. Once the background caching daemon has loaded (the first time you run iTunes after a reset), it takes 3 seconds to launch it.
iTunes installer installs 2 helper apps that run in the background: iPodService.exe and iTunesHelper.exe. The first makes an iPod show up in iTunes instead of as a removable drive -- I don't own an iPod, so I just deleted this app, and nothing seems to complain. The second is used for a number of things: it captures your CD burner for use from within iTunes, pre-caches the iTunes UI for quick launching, and adds context-awareness to your desktop (play song in iTunes, etc.). Generally I find I don't need this either, so I've disabled it too. For some reason, the caching still works (quick launching), and I don't use the rest. It'd be nice of Apple to allow power users to disable these two helper apps from within the prefs though (or even keep the iPod one turned off by default, until the first time you launch iTunes with an iPod connected).
In the current setup, CRIA members tend to get the "CD Tax" (which, IIRC, hasn't been passed on to the actual musicians). The long and short of it is, if you want to make it in the Canadian music industry, you have to play ball with the CRIA (which is a front for the RIAA). A large portion of the Canadian Recording Artists have finally called foul, and are saying they're not going to play this game anymore -- they want the freedom to produce their music and distribute it without paying off some foreign organization that's offering them nothing more than "protection", while blatantly supporting agendas that are detrimental to the artists.
On the flip side, you're right... if they start making more money, this would mean that the CRIA is (at least on some level) working for them again instead of against them, and they'd stop complaining.
This raises a question... how do Wikipedia articles fare? --I'd guess that they should be at least *somewhat* scientific....