analog TV is not being outlawed by congress. you are free to have one and watch whatever you want on it. Over the air broadcasters are just not going to be allowed to send analog signals over the same public airwaves as they have been.
but don't be silly. If True Cost was factored into everything, we'd be paying $6/gallon for gasoline in the US. (Some say $13, i think it depends on how you allocate defense expenditures.) We can't have that, this is America dammit! True Cost Economics
On the other hand, if you also calculate my ecological footprint, if everyone lived like me, we'd need four planets to support us all. Good thing everyone doesn't live like me. It's good to be on top.
umm.. for other ignorant people in the U.S. like me, the AltGr key is explained Here
in short, it's the Right Alt Key on International Keyboards. Layout shown on that Wikipedia page. (for non-US'ians, US standard keyboards just have identical left and right Alt keys.)
Ep 1 seemed way to formulaic to me. ep's 4-6 worked and he was trying to just copy what they did. Jar jar was trying to be another Chewbacca, but he was so horrible he had to get virtually written out of the rest of the series, making for a wasted character opportunity. Seemed like he was trying to copy the end battle of Jedi, with a space battle, a ground battle, and a few selects attempting an infiltration. The whole thing just seemed forced to a formula.
ASCII (extended) escape sequence 0233. So, within windows, hold down ALT and type 0233 on your numeric keypad (TEST: é). Translation to HTML questionable when fed into a text field. If it takes HTML, the HTML escape sequence is é. (these comments seem to keep that as plaintext no matter what you select in the comment format drop down box (HTML Formatted, POT, xtrans, etc. The code option displays the Test character above as the html escape code, however.)
essentially, the RolePlaying aspect of the games is why they survive. In most computer renditions of an RPG, the RP aspect of the game is typically a bare minimum compared to what's achievable with real people. Freedom to act (with total number of options equal to those a 'real' person would have), realistic world reaction to your actions, actual human interaction as a part of the story (rather than a chat string to remind you that there are real people), etc. MMORPG's are RP in the fact that they let you control a character, but not really play a role. Most single player CRPG's are similar. A FPS with 'leveling stats' does not equal a roleplaying aspect to the game. MUD's/MOO's/MUSH's can get closer to tabletop RPG's, but only a bit. The environment is still limited, actions are limited, interaction is limited to how much patience you have to wait for text on screen. Roleplaying is rather hollow, as your actions are either limited to non-interaction, or you make assumptions about the results of your actions, whereas with a real GM-run game your intents are your own actions, but the results are not, making things a little more believable.
Similarly, my daughter likes to play with Barbie dolls. This is despite the fact that I have 3 Barbie games on my PC. She likes those games, but get's bored with them, as they limit what you can do.
CRPG's are trying. They just don't have real-life gaming beat yet.
did you even read the post you replied to? either way, a response:
1)The only problem is that the customer never knows that his email is being droped
Very true, and a sign that the mailserver is making poor use of blacklists. A rejection notice should always be sent. Proper use of blacklists will, as I mentioned above, either allow the message through, but tag it, or notify the sender that it was rejected, providing alternate means of contact or correction.
2)The problem with those black lists is that is quite easy to get in one of those and is near impossible to get out
Quite easy to get in: if your mailserver is sending out lots of spam, yes it is, and it should be. It is the sign of a mailserver that is misconfigured, insecure, or just has bad policies.
Near impossible to get out: It seems you have moved to describing BL's, not RBL's. A Realtime BlockList is supposed to list a mailserver upon significant spam amounts coming from it, and then de-list after the problem has been corrected. Correction doesn't equal "Hey, we have ligit mail over here, let us through please!!!" It means ending the flood of spam from the server. the onus is on the server operator to be a good net-citizen. otherwise, our servers don't want to talk to his servers. Some blocklists are overagressive, and have poor de-listing practices. It's the implementing admin's job to understand the lists he implements and the potential impacts of those lists.
As I mentioned above, alternate forms of contact and customer whitelisting capability are crucial if you are actually blocking mail.
RBL's are very effective when used conscientiously. Combined with grey listing, they can cut your 'processed' spam (i.e., what you pay to handle) down to almost nothing.
yes, but I'd also qualify running a capable high-volume mailserver as a little bit... tricky.
RBL's are rather reliable, having few false positives from a server listing point of view. That said, you will have collateral damage from other users of shared spamming mailservers. There's no way around that, and less-than-clueful business customers will get upset about non-delivery of email. Most issues can be avoided by making customers fully aware of your mailhandling policies, and offer easy whitelisting, or customer adjustable blocking preferences.
Some RBL's recommend greylisting all RBL'd servers, and automatically flagging anything that gets through as junk/spam. Then, the legit email will have gotten through, and you need to let your server customers know to periodically review their junk folders for legit mail. Avoids the SpamAssassin overhead on those messages that get through, and blocks receipt of most of the real junk.
It'll probably be a lot like google scholar. You'll get a blurb, and get a link to the publisher site, and have the option to purchase, subscribe, etc. From what I gather, that has been rather successful. And if people only wanted to go to the library and read stuff there, the commercial 'old-news' databases wouldn't be in business, would they? (Hint: they are, and they're profiting, too.)
If I remember correctly (haven't looked in a while), the MIT opencourseware thing seemed more like an 'online classnotes repository'. That would make it a perfect complement to an open source textbook.
Now, from an academic validity standpoint, how would you reference the texts? Would the editors have finalized 'editions' that go into an uneditable archive mode, and only the 'latest' editions are wiki-able? That would at least be managable from a referencing point of view, but would detract a bit of the credibility from the 'work in progress' copies.
My guess is this will turn into another "completed before it gets too far off the ground" project, but then I'm typically a pessimist on most of these Wonderful-Webby-Proclamations(TM). It leaves me pleasantly surprised in when the exceptions stick around.
This was a troll. It was leaving an inflammatory (to libetarians) comment likely to start a whole thread of pointless quibbling. Yes, usually, but not necessarily, offtopic as well.
10,000 employees, estimate $100,000 per year total expenses per employee = 1 Billion dollars per year saved. If you can minimize the negative impact of that cut on your budget (i.e., drop money sucking programs, keep production/sales at a status quo, etc.) then you have increased your yearly net profit. Profit = competition resource. More competition resources at your disosal = more competitive.
If needed and done right, it's the way capitalism is supposed to work. If it's just a wall-street ploy and actually hurts other areas of their bottom line, well, poo on them.
umm, no, it is a troll. correct, but still a troll. (usage: trolling, as in "to fish for by trailing a baited line from behind a slowly moving boat", not as in "you're an ugly troll".)
It wasn't going to be "under the guise of some FCC fee" at all
Correct. Here's the cut and paste from my notice:
Effective August 14, 2006, Verizon Online will stop charging the FUSF (Federal Universal Ser vice Fund) recovery fee. We will stop being assessed the fee by our DSL network suppliers. Therefore, we will no longer be recovering this fee from our customers. The impact of the FUSF fee is as follows: for customers of Verizon Online with service up to 768Kbps, the fee eliminated is $1.25 a month; for customers of Verizon Online with service up to 1.5 Mbps or 3Mbps, the fee eliminated is $2.83 a month (based on current FUSF surcharge amounts). On your bill that includes charges for August 14, 2006 you will see either a partial FUSF Recovery Fee or no FUSF line item at all, depending on your bill cycle.
Starting August 26, 2006, Verizon Online will begin charging a Supplier Surcharge for all new DSL customers, existing customers with a DSL monthly or bundle package, and existing DSL annual plan customers at the time their current annual plan expires. This surcharge is not a government imposed fee or a tax; however, it is intended to help offset costs we incur from our network supplier in providing Verizon Online DSL service. The Supplier Surcharge will initially be set at $1.20 a month for Verizon Online DSL customers with service up to 768Kbps and $2.70 per month for customers with DSL service at higher speeds.
On balance your total bill will remain about the same as it has been or slightly lower.
It was their hope that the last line was all that anyone would really notice when the bill finally came. "Hey, my bill went down a nickel! Cool!". It was some Verizon exec's way of saying, "hmmmmm... people are willing to pay our prices, and here's a slick little way to add that dropped FUSF fee right into the Profit Margin. No one will be the wiser! We'll call it a 'cost offset'. AND, we'll let them know the 'initial price'. I bet later we can tweak it up a bit at a time, and still keep our advertised rates the same. W00t!"
the fact that postal mail is a federally regulated communication/delivery mechanism, and email is a set of agreements between private entities for connectivity between their systems. They still have the right to do whatever they want with their system. Anyone they have contractual relationships with may or may not have grounds on which to seek compensation or relief from them if harm was caused.
Let's split some hairs here. DRM does not limit your rights. Just like Macrovision, SafeDisc, etc., do not limit your rights. They just make it more difficult to 'do whatever you want to do' with the thing you bought. Your fair-use rights in no way dictate that the manufacturer/producer must make it easy for you to exercise those rights, or that they cannot take action to make it more difficult for you. This is supported by one of the arguments against DRM: Any DRM, or other analog or digital protection mechanism can and will be circumvented. Thus, implementation doesn't block your fair use rights, it just adds to the difficulty. This is the end goal of the implementors: to raise the difficulty above the point where Joe-public does it without thinking (i.e., fast-dubbing a copy of your friend's cassette tape, and how common/easy that was/is).
NOW, the legal problem isn't the DRM. in the U.S., it's the DMCA which makes it illegal to break/bypass/strip the DRM. SO, DRM doesn't block fair use (just impedes it), the DMCA is what blocks fair use. So, again, DRM doesn't limit your rights. The legal backing (the DMCA, or your country's equivalent) limits your rights.
NOW, on top of this, any contract you sign can modify your legal right to act in certain ways. If you sign a valid contract saying 'I will not say 'thud' in your presence', and then say 'thud' in his presence, you may be contractually bound by any penalties stipulated in the contract, free speech be damned. Why? BECAUSE YOU LEGALLY AGREED TO LIMIT YOUR OWN RIGHTS.
Until proven otherwise in a court of law, EULA's and TOS's seem to be considered part of the purchase agreement, whether you like that or not. You have the option of attempting to modify the contract prior to ratification (good luck), or you refuse to enter into the contract, where the seller will likely refuse sale, as is his right.
So, reviewing, your fair-use rights are currently limited by:
(a) laws making protection removal/circumvention illegal (DMCA or equiv.)
(b) contracts your voluntarily entered into.
(a) is a tough one, and where the focus needs to be. (b) should be able to be determined by the fair market, but won't until (a) is taken care of. The majority of this topic seems to be that (b) is somehow the fault of the selling side, and not the buying side. But, as long as rule of law is on their side, they'd be stupid not to use DRM if it would mean more sales in the end. (which the Marketing dept currently says is so.)
The solution, if you can't change (a)? Don't buy DRM'd music, and don't give away your rights via EULA's. Yes, it limits your available options, but that's your choice. And (Chicken and egg) more people making that choice will give those options more market share.
ummmm.... no.
most people follow the most absolutely basic instructions they receive from Verizon/SBC/Comcast/RoadRunner/InsertOtherNameHere and hook their modem directly to their primary PC. they might have a software firewall, assuming they've been upgraded to SP2 by a knowledgable friend or WinUpdate. Most people just assume it's normal for their PC to get really slow after a couple months of use, and may have learned to do a reinstall by themselves. Or, there's the Geek Squad (or equivalent).
Slashdot Mirror
analog TV is not being outlawed by congress. you are free to have one and watch whatever you want on it. Over the air broadcasters are just not going to be allowed to send analog signals over the same public airwaves as they have been.
On the other hand, if you also calculate my ecological footprint, if everyone lived like me, we'd need four planets to support us all. Good thing everyone doesn't live like me. It's good to be on top.
in short, it's the Right Alt Key on International Keyboards. Layout shown on that Wikipedia page. (for non-US'ians, US standard keyboards just have identical left and right Alt keys.)
Ep 1 seemed way to formulaic to me. ep's 4-6 worked and he was trying to just copy what they did. Jar jar was trying to be another Chewbacca, but he was so horrible he had to get virtually written out of the rest of the series, making for a wasted character opportunity. Seemed like he was trying to copy the end battle of Jedi, with a space battle, a ground battle, and a few selects attempting an infiltration. The whole thing just seemed forced to a formula.
yes, like he said, that isn't helping things.
and just for further FYI, here's the page where I looked up the codes: Charlie's Extended ASCII/HTML Codes
ASCII (extended) escape sequence 0233. So, within windows, hold down ALT and type 0233 on your numeric keypad (TEST: é). Translation to HTML questionable when fed into a text field. If it takes HTML, the HTML escape sequence is é. (these comments seem to keep that as plaintext no matter what you select in the comment format drop down box (HTML Formatted, POT, xtrans, etc. The code option displays the Test character above as the html escape code, however.)
Similarly, my daughter likes to play with Barbie dolls. This is despite the fact that I have 3 Barbie games on my PC. She likes those games, but get's bored with them, as they limit what you can do.
CRPG's are trying. They just don't have real-life gaming beat yet.
...and the devil. never forget that D&D turns kids into satan worshipers.
Problem: third party applications are prevented from working with the OS, to 'prevent weakening the built in security".
1)The only problem is that the customer never knows that his email is being droped
Very true, and a sign that the mailserver is making poor use of blacklists. A rejection notice should always be sent. Proper use of blacklists will, as I mentioned above, either allow the message through, but tag it, or notify the sender that it was rejected, providing alternate means of contact or correction.
2)The problem with those black lists is that is quite easy to get in one of those and is near impossible to get out
Quite easy to get in: if your mailserver is sending out lots of spam, yes it is, and it should be. It is the sign of a mailserver that is misconfigured, insecure, or just has bad policies.
Near impossible to get out: It seems you have moved to describing BL's, not RBL's. A Realtime BlockList is supposed to list a mailserver upon significant spam amounts coming from it, and then de-list after the problem has been corrected. Correction doesn't equal "Hey, we have ligit mail over here, let us through please!!!" It means ending the flood of spam from the server. the onus is on the server operator to be a good net-citizen. otherwise, our servers don't want to talk to his servers. Some blocklists are overagressive, and have poor de-listing practices. It's the implementing admin's job to understand the lists he implements and the potential impacts of those lists.
As I mentioned above, alternate forms of contact and customer whitelisting capability are crucial if you are actually blocking mail. RBL's are very effective when used conscientiously. Combined with grey listing, they can cut your 'processed' spam (i.e., what you pay to handle) down to almost nothing.
RBL's are rather reliable, having few false positives from a server listing point of view. That said, you will have collateral damage from other users of shared spamming mailservers. There's no way around that, and less-than-clueful business customers will get upset about non-delivery of email. Most issues can be avoided by making customers fully aware of your mailhandling policies, and offer easy whitelisting, or customer adjustable blocking preferences.
Some RBL's recommend greylisting all RBL'd servers, and automatically flagging anything that gets through as junk/spam. Then, the legit email will have gotten through, and you need to let your server customers know to periodically review their junk folders for legit mail. Avoids the SpamAssassin overhead on those messages that get through, and blocks receipt of most of the real junk.
It'll probably be a lot like google scholar. You'll get a blurb, and get a link to the publisher site, and have the option to purchase, subscribe, etc. From what I gather, that has been rather successful. And if people only wanted to go to the library and read stuff there, the commercial 'old-news' databases wouldn't be in business, would they? (Hint: they are, and they're profiting, too.)
but that requires direct human evaluation. What blog admin wants to read through every comment attempt before it gets posted?
Now, from an academic validity standpoint, how would you reference the texts? Would the editors have finalized 'editions' that go into an uneditable archive mode, and only the 'latest' editions are wiki-able? That would at least be managable from a referencing point of view, but would detract a bit of the credibility from the 'work in progress' copies.
My guess is this will turn into another "completed before it gets too far off the ground" project, but then I'm typically a pessimist on most of these Wonderful-Webby-Proclamations(TM). It leaves me pleasantly surprised in when the exceptions stick around.
I'll set the over-under at 16 months...
More precisely, I believe he has demonstrated that he's also not old enough to attend frat parties :)
Beer is free if I ain't payin'.
This was a troll. It was leaving an inflammatory (to libetarians) comment likely to start a whole thread of pointless quibbling. Yes, usually, but not necessarily, offtopic as well.
If needed and done right, it's the way capitalism is supposed to work. If it's just a wall-street ploy and actually hurts other areas of their bottom line, well, poo on them.
umm, no, it is a troll. correct, but still a troll. (usage: trolling, as in "to fish for by trailing a baited line from behind a slowly moving boat", not as in "you're an ugly troll".)
Correct. Here's the cut and paste from my notice:
Effective August 14, 2006, Verizon Online will stop charging the FUSF (Federal Universal Ser vice Fund) recovery fee. We will stop being assessed the fee by our DSL network suppliers. Therefore, we will no longer be recovering this fee from our customers. The impact of the FUSF fee is as follows: for customers of Verizon Online with service up to 768Kbps, the fee eliminated is $1.25 a month; for customers of Verizon Online with service up to 1.5 Mbps or 3Mbps, the fee eliminated is $2.83 a month (based on current FUSF surcharge amounts). On your bill that includes charges for August 14, 2006 you will see either a partial FUSF Recovery Fee or no FUSF line item at all, depending on your bill cycle.
Starting August 26, 2006, Verizon Online will begin charging a Supplier Surcharge for all new DSL customers, existing customers with a DSL monthly or bundle package, and existing DSL annual plan customers at the time their current annual plan expires. This surcharge is not a government imposed fee or a tax; however, it is intended to help offset costs we incur from our network supplier in providing Verizon Online DSL service. The Supplier Surcharge will initially be set at $1.20 a month for Verizon Online DSL customers with service up to 768Kbps and $2.70 per month for customers with DSL service at higher speeds.
On balance your total bill will remain about the same as it has been or slightly lower.
It was their hope that the last line was all that anyone would really notice when the bill finally came. "Hey, my bill went down a nickel! Cool!". It was some Verizon exec's way of saying, "hmmmmm... people are willing to pay our prices, and here's a slick little way to add that dropped FUSF fee right into the Profit Margin. No one will be the wiser! We'll call it a 'cost offset'. AND, we'll let them know the 'initial price'. I bet later we can tweak it up a bit at a time, and still keep our advertised rates the same. W00t!"
Glad the pressure got to them.
the fact that postal mail is a federally regulated communication/delivery mechanism, and email is a set of agreements between private entities for connectivity between their systems. They still have the right to do whatever they want with their system. Anyone they have contractual relationships with may or may not have grounds on which to seek compensation or relief from them if harm was caused.
Please wait by the phone, the RIAA/MPAA lawyers will be calling shortly.
NOW, the legal problem isn't the DRM. in the U.S., it's the DMCA which makes it illegal to break/bypass/strip the DRM. SO, DRM doesn't block fair use (just impedes it), the DMCA is what blocks fair use. So, again, DRM doesn't limit your rights. The legal backing (the DMCA, or your country's equivalent) limits your rights.
NOW, on top of this, any contract you sign can modify your legal right to act in certain ways. If you sign a valid contract saying 'I will not say 'thud' in your presence', and then say 'thud' in his presence, you may be contractually bound by any penalties stipulated in the contract, free speech be damned. Why? BECAUSE YOU LEGALLY AGREED TO LIMIT YOUR OWN RIGHTS.
Until proven otherwise in a court of law, EULA's and TOS's seem to be considered part of the purchase agreement, whether you like that or not. You have the option of attempting to modify the contract prior to ratification (good luck), or you refuse to enter into the contract, where the seller will likely refuse sale, as is his right.
So, reviewing, your fair-use rights are currently limited by:
(a) laws making protection removal/circumvention illegal (DMCA or equiv.)
(b) contracts your voluntarily entered into.
(a) is a tough one, and where the focus needs to be. (b) should be able to be determined by the fair market, but won't until (a) is taken care of. The majority of this topic seems to be that (b) is somehow the fault of the selling side, and not the buying side. But, as long as rule of law is on their side, they'd be stupid not to use DRM if it would mean more sales in the end. (which the Marketing dept currently says is so.)
The solution, if you can't change (a)? Don't buy DRM'd music, and don't give away your rights via EULA's. Yes, it limits your available options, but that's your choice. And (Chicken and egg) more people making that choice will give those options more market share.
ummmm.... no. most people follow the most absolutely basic instructions they receive from Verizon/SBC/Comcast/RoadRunner/InsertOtherNameHere and hook their modem directly to their primary PC. they might have a software firewall, assuming they've been upgraded to SP2 by a knowledgable friend or WinUpdate. Most people just assume it's normal for their PC to get really slow after a couple months of use, and may have learned to do a reinstall by themselves. Or, there's the Geek Squad (or equivalent).
you get what you pay for.