Iâ(TM)ve been advocating for the whole time that animals deserve the same respect and treatment as humans, i.e. equality
I don't agree with this, and I expect very few humans do. Other animals are not humans. They are not equal. I would agree that animals (and natures in general) deserve much better respect and treatment than they get from humans now, but I think equality is taking it a bit too far.
I've recently been doing a lot of reading about nutrition and it is becoming clear to me that we, as humans, are killing ourselves by the way we treat our food. If you look at my Slashdot journal I have a link to Amazon for a book that contains a lot of interesting information about the food we eat and how it affects our health. By the way, this book asserts that meat is essential in the diet, and even cites a herbavore relative to homo sapien that became extinct long ago -- possibly because some the nutrients our bodies need only exist in food from animal sources. But, it seems clear to me both from this book and other related books that the amount of meat in the standard american diet far exceeds any dietary need.
TiVo isn;'t big enough tp influence the life or death of a show.
I would argue that it is. With 700,000 households, it is 350 times larger than the highly influential Nielsen Media Research sample size. (See http://www.nielsenmedia.com/FAQ/)
Two major things to point out to those who will complain about the invasion of privacy: 1) Tivo says the info will be anonymous, and I believe them as that is all networks and advertisers are interested in anyway. 2) Tivo does allow you to opt-out from even anonymous data collection if you call up their customer service number.
I like it because I think it will show several interesting things about viewing habits. I think they will find that quality shows tend to have more loyal viewers than cheaper programming. I think they will also find that Tivo owners *do* watch some commercials, and that commercials are much more likely to be watched if they are *good*. I would hope than advertisers are smarter than we give them credit for, and I expect they won't mind, for example, if men fast forward past commercials for women's products.
Well, it's still trading way above where it was before all this started. Wall street pumped this stock up pretty much, and if any insiders are selling, I hope the SEC is taking notes. Looks like a pretty blatant pump-and-dump to me.
They seem to think the PR newswires are instant messenger services.
I couldn't have put it better myself. I meen geez, the press release from SCO said (verbatim!):
Copyrights and patents are protection against strangers. Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with.
There are so many things wrong with that I don't even know where to begin. I mean, when is the last time anyone used the word "you" in a press release?? And contracts are something you use against others? I think this was actually written by Harvey Richards.
Re:If protecting against the weather is possible..
on
Broadband Barrage Balloons
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
One-word question:
Airplanes?
That's what I was thinking as I read this article. Fortunately most commercial airplanes fly well above 1.5km, just make sure you don't put these balloons near an airport. General aviation planes (that is, small private planes, not commercial airliners) often fly much lower, and these balloons would be a serious safety threat for them. The balloons would need to be brightly marked and lighted, and there presence would need to be depicted on aeronautical charts. Assuming that's done, however, and assuming there are not so many of them that flying at 1.5km or below becomes an obstacle course, I think it would be okay. If they put VOR transmitters (something pilots use for navigation) in the balloons, they could actually benefit pilots.
Of course, the main benefit as far as internet access goes is to be able to reach rural areas. My guess is that the speed claims would not hold true in real usage, and concerns about privacy and security would be significant. For those in rural areas that have little other choice, this could be one of the few choices they have.
Once IPv6 has a killer app, you will see widespread adoption. Until then, who really cares? There just isn't a real need for it.
Nobody -- not ISPs, not users -- is going to switch to IPv6 until they have a reason to do so. Private networks have obliterated (not just mitigated, in my opinion) the argument that IPv4 does not offer enough IP addresses for everyone. We have all the IP addresses we will ever need using IPv4 and NAT. That was once considered the main reason for IPv6 adoption. Now there isn't much of any reason to switch, other than the coolness factor that only techies will appreciate.
Napster tried to use this law to defend their case, and the court ruled this law did not apply to them because they are a commercial company. But as a consumer it seems to me you are perfectly within your rights when you make a copy for noncommercial private use.
Napster did try to use this law as a defense. It was shot down, but it had nothing to do with them being a commercial operation. The AHRA only permits certain copying when done with those devices for which royalties have been paid. The judge rejected this defense because computers (and the Napster software) do not qualify as digital audio recording devices under the definition of the law. The definition is here: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1001.html.
That doesn't meet my definition of ethics. I consider ethical behavior to be defined by whether or not you have consent of the people affected by your actions. Spammers generally do not have the consent of ISPs whose resources they are using, nor the consent of the indviduals receiving the email, so there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that their behavior is unethical.
In my mind, the argument you make ("by increasing the level of pain we will motivate people to take action, ultimately making the world a better place") is a moral one, not an ethical one. To me, morals are subjective and ethics are objective. If a spammer truly believes that he is making the world a better place, then he is acting within his moral beliefs. The first problem with that is, different people have different morals. The second problem with that is, I really doubt that is the spammer's motivation.
By the way, the argument you make (if I paraphrased it correctly above) could also be used to morally justify the war in Iraq. Whether or not it is ethical...
Then I suggest you read foo.com's privacy policy carefully before you give them you email address in the first place. If you really don't want them to sell your email address, it is *your* responsibility to make sure they won't. Be realistic: you know many companies sell email addresses, and you know that even if you expect them to take you off of their customer's lists, they won't.
So every slimeball company would form a second company called "email address holdings [inc]" and immediately sell them your email address upon opt-in. From this point, even if you opt out, EAHI has full rights to keep spamming you and selling your address for ever?
Well, yes. How do you think we get so much spam in the first place? Spam companies already do stuff like this; it's how they weasle out of anti-spam rules in acceptable use policies.
I don't think anyone could sanely call that an opt-out.
Probably true, but the spammers will surely call it opt-out, and they will say they are "enhancing customer experience" or some crap like that by "informing them of valuable offers from other companies". How nice of them!
If they are going to sell email addresses of their customers, they need to provide a way to do that, or they are being irresponsible.
I would argue that simply selling the email address in the first place is being irresponsible, but if their privacy policy discloses that, then it is your responsibility to choose whether or not to give them your email address in the first place.
Let's be realistic, everyone knows there is a lot of spam on the internet. If you can't take basic steps to protect your email account, such as not handing it over to companies that don't have clear, good privacy policies, you are going to get spam.
From the article, it seems that this is what happened:
- User signs up on website run by company A (Audio Galaxy) - company A sells User's email address to company B (Sprint) - User opts-out on company A's web site - User gets spam from company B
I hate spam as much as everyone else, but I don't see how this can violate any law. If the User opted-in, which it appears he did, and then later opted-out, Audio Galaxy can't be expected to go around to everyone they sold his email address to and say "Hey, that email we sold to you before? Stop using it!" Audio Galaxy should stop selling his email address at that point, but that would have no effect on the apparent sequence of events here.
If anyone is able to find the actual court ruling I'd be interested in reading it. I don't see where the "existing business relationship" exists (for all we know he may be a Sprint customer), but if the events happened as I listed, I don't think it's relevant.
Accountability is useful, but skipping class is not an addiction. For many people, viewing pr0n is. Third-party accountability alone is not going to have any long-term impact on overcoming an addiction. Being accountable to yourself is a lot harder but much more effective.
"Why did you come to class today?"
reason 1) "Because if I didn't, there would be a record of that."
reason 2) "Because I enjoy going to class and learning"
Guess which one is a better motivator?
"Why did you choose not to look at pr0n today?"
reason 1) "Because my accountability partner would find out if I did"
reason 2) "Because I would rather enjoy real life instead of sitting in front of a computer watching other people (pretend to) enjoy it."
The reason that comes from within will always be more effective in the long run.
Someone please tell me, what is a "Napster Insite" (what the slashdot headline says) or a "Napster Insits" (what the slashdot summary says)? Neither "insite" or "insits" appear in the text of the CNN article.
You cow-orker was right. When Microsoft Update said "No information is being sent to Microsoft", no information -- at all -- was being sent to Microsoft. The update server sent your computer a list of available updates, and code ran on your computer which determined which ones were necessary.
Microsoft Update no longer says "No information is being sent...", which is what this article is about.
I think Dave Barry and Jay Leno both fall into the same category. Their humor takes no risks -- it's mostly politically correct -- and therefore, to me at least, is pretty bland and not especially funny. I like Jon Stewart (for example) a lot better because he tends to present a different (and riskier) viewpoint than the rest of the media, and he's funny too.
Humor is one of those things that's very personal. That's why that joke about the hunters calling 911 is "The World's Funniest Joke". It's not really especially funny, but it is at least mildly funny to a broad range of people. Edgier humor tends to be very funny to some people and very unfunny to others.
Heh.. well, I do work for the government (I am a contractor). The things I said in the last post seem pretty obvious *to me*, but apparently they aren't to a lot of the government officials out there buying these things.
I sure get a lot of AC replies to my posts... weird.
IMHO, any voting system, computerized or not, must meet the following requirements:
- The voting must be anonymous.
- There must be a backup method that allows for tallying votes if the primary method fails.
- There must be a permanent audit trail to make recounts possible.
- There must be no way to associate a specific ballot with a specific voter (yes, this is the same as "anonymous" above but I feel it deserves special mention).
- Most importantly, the system must be designed such that its privacy and auditability are *readily apparent* to the *vast majority of voters*. You should not have to have a CS degree to be able to trust that your vote will be counted.
To me, to meet this criteria, any computerized voting system must print paper ballots which the voter can read and then turn in to a separate vote-counting entity. The system which solicits your vote and prints a completed ballot must be physically and logically distinct from the system which collects your complete ballot and counts it. I don't think open source matters -- if it prints paper ballots and the casting and counting functions are separate, it is easy to audit its accuracy.
I think my answer to the question is: use both if possible.
But the question brings up another point: FTP is a rather cumbersome protocol for transferring files. Ok, so you have two separate connections for entering commands and for sending data. Why then can I not enter any commands while data is being transferred?? Some FTP clients simulate this capability by open multiple control connections, but it really should be built into the protocol, IMHO.
HTTP was designed for small text file transfers, and not really for bigger files (although it does usually handle them pretty well).
I propose an "FTP2" protocol. This protocol will have the following features over and above the original FTP protocol:
Control connection is fully functional even when data is being transferred
Multiple data connections are allowed for each control connection (configurable by server operator)
Ability to queue files for download
Separate server-wide limits on control and data connections (for example, so I can log in and look around even if all data connections are used up. If I try to download something, it is queued until a data connection frees up. This puts an end to hammering on anon-ftp servers.)
Modular authentication -- ability to support authentication methods other than clear-text passwords
Support for encrypted connections
No server connecting to the client to establish a data connection, eliminating most firewall and NAT problems
MIME-type support, rather than clunky BIN/ASCII modes.
If an email bounces, the bounce is supposed to go back to the sender, not to the Reply-to: address. (I believe this is in RFC 2821) It's amazing how many commercial mail servers out there use Reply-to: to send postmaster notifications.
For many bands this type of recording is illegal. But for many other bands it is perfectly legitimate. Dave Matthews Band, Phish, the Grateful Dead, all permitted and even encouraged tape trading as a grass roots way of promoting the band. The problem many tape traders face these days, at least for someone who follows the likes of a popular band like Dave Matthews Band, is the incredible demand for these recordings. It's very hard for one person who taped a show to get copies of his tape out to the hundreds of people who want it. And a lot of those that want it want it *right now*.
I ran a web site for a few years that offered free downloads of Dave Matthews Band shows. The taping community is very strict about people not profiting from exchanging tapes, but because the demand is so great there are always a few unscrupulous individuals selling copies of a show that someone else taped. The actual tapers would usually get pretty pissed about this, rightfully so, since someone else was profiting off of something they 1) spent a lot of money on equipment to do and 2) did for free as a hobby and for the benefit of others.
Running the website I was kind of in a similar position: I was spending literally hundreds of dollars per month keeping the site running and paying for the bandwidth to let people download these shows, I was doing it as a hobby and to share the music with others, but the majority of the emails I got from the people who visited my site were gripes about slow downloads, inability to get the show they wanted, etc. I tried to encourage people to trade with each other instead of download from me, by creating a sort of match making database where they could post the shows they have and the shows they wanted and them email each other to work out a trade. People complained about that too, even though I was offering it all for free.
I finally decided it wasn't worth the trouble and shut everything down. (The final straw was when I had a hardware failure that took the site down and I didn't have the time to fix it.) From my point of view, the problem with the taping community was that they were collapsing under the enormous demand of all of the 'newbies' who didn't know anything about taping, but knew that someone out there was taping and therefore they absolutely had to have a copy of the show they were just at.
I'm not a big fan of Clear Channel, but if they can simultaneously make a few bucks off of concert CDs and at the same time relieve the pressure on the taping community by satistying the demand for instant gratification, I say go for it. My guess is that the quality will not be as good as some of the hobbyist tapers out there (these guys take sound quality *very* seriously), but it will be good enough for Joe Average, and the hardcore taping community will keep on doing what they are doing, without quite so much pressure from everyone else to get fast, wide distribution of their recordings.
There are many, many contracts which are binding that do not involve a signature. In fact, many contract are oral, not written, and some are only implied through your actions. When you go to the gas station you are entering into an implied contract to purchase gas. If you drive away without paying you are in violation of that contract and can be sued (in addition to being charged with theft).
I will agree with someone else who posted that this guys comments about personality types are right on. You do not *have* to have a particular personality type to be a good sysadmin, but you need to at least have the self-awareness to know what your personality is and how it affects your job performance.
Of course people on slashdot are always looking for something to disagree with, so a few of you have already lashed out at the "strong experience-based opinions" quote. Experience is the number one most important part of being good at *any* job. If you don't agree, then you probably don't have enough experience.
I'll also say this: You don't have to agree with everything someone says to learn from them. (In fact, if you only listen to people who you are in complete agreement with, you will never learn much of anything.) There are a lot of good points in this article, and even if you are somehow offended by the experience-based opinions remark or something else, you can still gain something from it.
Slashdot Mirror
Iâ(TM)ve been advocating for the whole time that animals deserve the same respect and treatment as humans, i.e. equality
I don't agree with this, and I expect very few humans do. Other animals are not humans. They are not equal. I would agree that animals (and natures in general) deserve much better respect and treatment than they get from humans now, but I think equality is taking it a bit too far.
I've recently been doing a lot of reading about nutrition and it is becoming clear to me that we, as humans, are killing ourselves by the way we treat our food. If you look at my Slashdot journal I have a link to Amazon for a book that contains a lot of interesting information about the food we eat and how it affects our health. By the way, this book asserts that meat is essential in the diet, and even cites a herbavore relative to homo sapien that became extinct long ago -- possibly because some the nutrients our bodies need only exist in food from animal sources. But, it seems clear to me both from this book and other related books that the amount of meat in the standard american diet far exceeds any dietary need.
TiVo isn;'t big enough tp influence the life or death of a show.
I would argue that it is. With 700,000 households, it is 350 times larger than the highly influential Nielsen Media Research sample size. (See http://www.nielsenmedia.com/FAQ/)
Two major things to point out to those who will complain about the invasion of privacy: 1) Tivo says the info will be anonymous, and I believe them as that is all networks and advertisers are interested in anyway. 2) Tivo does allow you to opt-out from even anonymous data collection if you call up their customer service number.
I like it because I think it will show several interesting things about viewing habits. I think they will find that quality shows tend to have more loyal viewers than cheaper programming. I think they will also find that Tivo owners *do* watch some commercials, and that commercials are much more likely to be watched if they are *good*. I would hope than advertisers are smarter than we give them credit for, and I expect they won't mind, for example, if men fast forward past commercials for women's products.
Well, it's still trading way above where it was before all this started. Wall street pumped this stock up pretty much, and if any insiders are selling, I hope the SEC is taking notes. Looks like a pretty blatant pump-and-dump to me.
SCOX stock closing prices:
Feb-28-03: $1.85
Mar-31-03: $2.88
Apr-30-03: $3.15
May-19-03: $6.80 (SCO Announces UNIX licensing deal with Microsoft)
May-22-03: $8.89
May-27-03: $8.71
May-28-03: $6.60
I was *very* tempted to short this stock earlier today even though I've never shorted a stock in my life, and it looks like it would have paid off.
They seem to think the PR newswires are instant messenger services.
I couldn't have put it better myself. I meen geez, the press release from SCO said (verbatim!):
Copyrights and patents are protection against strangers. Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with.
There are so many things wrong with that I don't even know where to begin. I mean, when is the last time anyone used the word "you" in a press release?? And contracts are something you use against others? I think this was actually written by Harvey Richards.
One-word question:
Airplanes?
That's what I was thinking as I read this article. Fortunately most commercial airplanes fly well above 1.5km, just make sure you don't put these balloons near an airport. General aviation planes (that is, small private planes, not commercial airliners) often fly much lower, and these balloons would be a serious safety threat for them. The balloons would need to be brightly marked and lighted, and there presence would need to be depicted on aeronautical charts. Assuming that's done, however, and assuming there are not so many of them that flying at 1.5km or below becomes an obstacle course, I think it would be okay. If they put VOR transmitters (something pilots use for navigation) in the balloons, they could actually benefit pilots.
Of course, the main benefit as far as internet access goes is to be able to reach rural areas. My guess is that the speed claims would not hold true in real usage, and concerns about privacy and security would be significant. For those in rural areas that have little other choice, this could be one of the few choices they have.
Once IPv6 has a killer app, you will see widespread adoption. Until then, who really cares? There just isn't a real need for it.
Nobody -- not ISPs, not users -- is going to switch to IPv6 until they have a reason to do so. Private networks have obliterated (not just mitigated, in my opinion) the argument that IPv4 does not offer enough IP addresses for everyone. We have all the IP addresses we will ever need using IPv4 and NAT. That was once considered the main reason for IPv6 adoption. Now there isn't much of any reason to switch, other than the coolness factor that only techies will appreciate.
Napster tried to use this law to defend their case, and the court ruled this law did not apply to them because they are a commercial company. But as a consumer it seems to me you are perfectly within your rights when you make a copy for noncommercial private use.
Napster did try to use this law as a defense. It was shot down, but it had nothing to do with them being a commercial operation. The AHRA only permits certain copying when done with those devices for which royalties have been paid. The judge rejected this defense because computers (and the Napster software) do not qualify as digital audio recording devices under the definition of the law. The definition is here: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1001.html.
That doesn't meet my definition of ethics. I consider ethical behavior to be defined by whether or not you have consent of the people affected by your actions. Spammers generally do not have the consent of ISPs whose resources they are using, nor the consent of the indviduals receiving the email, so there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that their behavior is unethical.
In my mind, the argument you make ("by increasing the level of pain we will motivate people to take action, ultimately making the world a better place") is a moral one, not an ethical one. To me, morals are subjective and ethics are objective. If a spammer truly believes that he is making the world a better place, then he is acting within his moral beliefs. The first problem with that is, different people have different morals. The second problem with that is, I really doubt that is the spammer's motivation.
By the way, the argument you make (if I paraphrased it correctly above) could also be used to morally justify the war in Iraq. Whether or not it is ethical...
Then I suggest you read foo.com's privacy policy carefully before you give them you email address in the first place. If you really don't want them to sell your email address, it is *your* responsibility to make sure they won't. Be realistic: you know many companies sell email addresses, and you know that even if you expect them to take you off of their customer's lists, they won't.
So every slimeball company would form a second company called "email address holdings [inc]" and immediately sell them your email address upon opt-in. From this point, even if you opt out, EAHI has full rights to keep spamming you and selling your address for ever?
Well, yes. How do you think we get so much spam in the first place? Spam companies already do stuff like this; it's how they weasle out of anti-spam rules in acceptable use policies.
I don't think anyone could sanely call that an opt-out.
Probably true, but the spammers will surely call it opt-out, and they will say they are "enhancing customer experience" or some crap like that by "informing them of valuable offers from other companies". How nice of them!
If they are going to sell email addresses of their customers, they need to provide a way to do that, or they are being irresponsible.
I would argue that simply selling the email address in the first place is being irresponsible, but if their privacy policy discloses that, then it is your responsibility to choose whether or not to give them your email address in the first place.
Let's be realistic, everyone knows there is a lot of spam on the internet. If you can't take basic steps to protect your email account, such as not handing it over to companies that don't have clear, good privacy policies, you are going to get spam.
From the article, it seems that this is what happened:
- User signs up on website run by company A (Audio Galaxy)
- company A sells User's email address to company B (Sprint)
- User opts-out on company A's web site
- User gets spam from company B
I hate spam as much as everyone else, but I don't see how this can violate any law. If the User opted-in, which it appears he did, and then later opted-out, Audio Galaxy can't be expected to go around to everyone they sold his email address to and say "Hey, that email we sold to you before? Stop using it!" Audio Galaxy should stop selling his email address at that point, but that would have no effect on the apparent sequence of events here.
If anyone is able to find the actual court ruling I'd be interested in reading it. I don't see where the "existing business relationship" exists (for all we know he may be a Sprint customer), but if the events happened as I listed, I don't think it's relevant.
Accountability is useful, but skipping class is not an addiction. For many people, viewing pr0n is. Third-party accountability alone is not going to have any long-term impact on overcoming an addiction. Being accountable to yourself is a lot harder but much more effective.
"Why did you come to class today?"
reason 1) "Because if I didn't, there would be a record of that."
reason 2) "Because I enjoy going to class and learning"
Guess which one is a better motivator?
"Why did you choose not to look at pr0n today?"
reason 1) "Because my accountability partner would find out if I did"
reason 2) "Because I would rather enjoy real life instead of sitting in front of a computer watching other people (pretend to) enjoy it."
The reason that comes from within will always be more effective in the long run.
Someone please tell me, what is a "Napster Insite" (what the slashdot headline says) or a "Napster Insits" (what the slashdot summary says)? Neither "insite" or "insits" appear in the text of the CNN article.
You cow-orker was right. When Microsoft Update said "No information is being sent to Microsoft", no information -- at all -- was being sent to Microsoft. The update server sent your computer a list of available updates, and code ran on your computer which determined which ones were necessary.
Microsoft Update no longer says "No information is being sent...", which is what this article is about.
I think Dave Barry and Jay Leno both fall into the same category. Their humor takes no risks -- it's mostly politically correct -- and therefore, to me at least, is pretty bland and not especially funny. I like Jon Stewart (for example) a lot better because he tends to present a different (and riskier) viewpoint than the rest of the media, and he's funny too.
Humor is one of those things that's very personal. That's why that joke about the hunters calling 911 is "The World's Funniest Joke". It's not really especially funny, but it is at least mildly funny to a broad range of people. Edgier humor tends to be very funny to some people and very unfunny to others.
Heh.. well, I do work for the government (I am a contractor). The things I said in the last post seem pretty obvious *to me*, but apparently they aren't to a lot of the government officials out there buying these things.
I sure get a lot of AC replies to my posts... weird.
IMHO, any voting system, computerized or not, must meet the following requirements:
- The voting must be anonymous.
- There must be a backup method that allows for tallying votes if the primary method fails.
- There must be a permanent audit trail to make recounts possible.
- There must be no way to associate a specific ballot with a specific voter (yes, this is the same as "anonymous" above but I feel it deserves special mention).
- Most importantly, the system must be designed such that its privacy and auditability are *readily apparent* to the *vast majority of voters*. You should not have to have a CS degree to be able to trust that your vote will be counted.
To me, to meet this criteria, any computerized voting system must print paper ballots which the voter can read and then turn in to a separate vote-counting entity. The system which solicits your vote and prints a completed ballot must be physically and logically distinct from the system which collects your complete ballot and counts it. I don't think open source matters -- if it prints paper ballots and the casting and counting functions are separate, it is easy to audit its accuracy.
But the question brings up another point: FTP is a rather cumbersome protocol for transferring files. Ok, so you have two separate connections for entering commands and for sending data. Why then can I not enter any commands while data is being transferred?? Some FTP clients simulate this capability by open multiple control connections, but it really should be built into the protocol, IMHO.
HTTP was designed for small text file transfers, and not really for bigger files (although it does usually handle them pretty well).
I propose an "FTP2" protocol. This protocol will have the following features over and above the original FTP protocol:
Control connection is fully functional even when data is being transferred
Multiple data connections are allowed for each control connection (configurable by server operator)
Ability to queue files for download
Separate server-wide limits on control and data connections (for example, so I can log in and look around even if all data connections are used up. If I try to download something, it is queued until a data connection frees up. This puts an end to hammering on anon-ftp servers.)
Modular authentication -- ability to support authentication methods other than clear-text passwords
Support for encrypted connections
No server connecting to the client to establish a data connection, eliminating most firewall and NAT problems
MIME-type support, rather than clunky BIN/ASCII modes.
If an email bounces, the bounce is supposed to go back to the sender, not to the Reply-to: address. (I believe this is in RFC 2821) It's amazing how many commercial mail servers out there use Reply-to: to send postmaster notifications.
For many bands this type of recording is illegal. But for many other bands it is perfectly legitimate. Dave Matthews Band, Phish, the Grateful Dead, all permitted and even encouraged tape trading as a grass roots way of promoting the band. The problem many tape traders face these days, at least for someone who follows the likes of a popular band like Dave Matthews Band, is the incredible demand for these recordings. It's very hard for one person who taped a show to get copies of his tape out to the hundreds of people who want it. And a lot of those that want it want it *right now*.
I ran a web site for a few years that offered free downloads of Dave Matthews Band shows. The taping community is very strict about people not profiting from exchanging tapes, but because the demand is so great there are always a few unscrupulous individuals selling copies of a show that someone else taped. The actual tapers would usually get pretty pissed about this, rightfully so, since someone else was profiting off of something they 1) spent a lot of money on equipment to do and 2) did for free as a hobby and for the benefit of others.
Running the website I was kind of in a similar position: I was spending literally hundreds of dollars per month keeping the site running and paying for the bandwidth to let people download these shows, I was doing it as a hobby and to share the music with others, but the majority of the emails I got from the people who visited my site were gripes about slow downloads, inability to get the show they wanted, etc. I tried to encourage people to trade with each other instead of download from me, by creating a sort of match making database where they could post the shows they have and the shows they wanted and them email each other to work out a trade. People complained about that too, even though I was offering it all for free.
I finally decided it wasn't worth the trouble and shut everything down. (The final straw was when I had a hardware failure that took the site down and I didn't have the time to fix it.) From my point of view, the problem with the taping community was that they were collapsing under the enormous demand of all of the 'newbies' who didn't know anything about taping, but knew that someone out there was taping and therefore they absolutely had to have a copy of the show they were just at.
I'm not a big fan of Clear Channel, but if they can simultaneously make a few bucks off of concert CDs and at the same time relieve the pressure on the taping community by satistying the demand for instant gratification, I say go for it. My guess is that the quality will not be as good as some of the hobbyist tapers out there (these guys take sound quality *very* seriously), but it will be good enough for Joe Average, and the hardcore taping community will keep on doing what they are doing, without quite so much pressure from everyone else to get fast, wide distribution of their recordings.
There are many, many contracts which are binding that do not involve a signature. In fact, many contract are oral, not written, and some are only implied through your actions. When you go to the gas station you are entering into an implied contract to purchase gas. If you drive away without paying you are in violation of that contract and can be sued (in addition to being charged with theft).
This is business law 101.
Non-sectarian charities (say, Habitat for Humanity) are fine
You should take a look at this.
I will agree with someone else who posted that this guys comments about personality types are right on. You do not *have* to have a particular personality type to be a good sysadmin, but you need to at least have the self-awareness to know what your personality is and how it affects your job performance.
Of course people on slashdot are always looking for something to disagree with, so a few of you have already lashed out at the "strong experience-based opinions" quote. Experience is the number one most important part of being good at *any* job. If you don't agree, then you probably don't have enough experience.
I'll also say this: You don't have to agree with everything someone says to learn from them. (In fact, if you only listen to people who you are in complete agreement with, you will never learn much of anything.) There are a lot of good points in this article, and even if you are somehow offended by the experience-based opinions remark or something else, you can still gain something from it.