start trying to make a
difference where it really matters, in creating and strengthening a strong, corporate-checking, world
government.
Ummm, reality check, Pollyanna. What makes you think your precious 'world government' will be working on the behalf of (and accountable to) the People? The UN already exclusively serves the interests of major corporations and their proxies (such as the US Federal gov't)... what makes you think that will change when UN law supercedes any national law (which is next to inevitable, unfortunately.) What mechanism will we have to ensure the world government does not simply become the tyrannical tool of the power elites? The answer: there is no and will be no mechanism. There is no hope. Just remember the golden rule: he who owns the gold makes the rules. If you have trouble picturing this, try to imagine a giant boot pressed in the face of humanity for all eternity. That is, until we're all wiped out by asteroids, which will be a happy, happy (though distant) day.
Your cable modem will filter out all packets not destined for your computer's MAC address.
Also, your cable modem has a private key and everything between you and the bridge for your segment is
encrypted.
This may be true for the newer generation of cable modems like I have (RR Austin / Toshiba PCX1100)... god I hope so... but I belive this was not the case for the first generation cable modems, which were much as the original poster described -- you could put your ethernet card into promiscuous mode and see all the traffic in your segment. However, I don't have any references to back this up. A lot of people still have the old-style cable modems...
"German Jews Concerned About Hitler's 'Kill All Jews' Proposal" -- The Onion, Our Dumb Century
how about...
"Dastardly Japs Attack Colonially Occupied U.S. Non-State... Congress Declares War after Sneak Attack on US Imperial Holding... FDR: 'We Conquered the Hawaiians First'
You certainly can patent (the most absurdly simple) algorithms -- how about using XOR on bitmaps to move a mouse cursor across a screen? Also, just because it's 'obvious to any expert' doesn't mean it's not patentable (one click shopping, anyone?)
You can definetely make a bit-for-bit copy of a DVD without using any decryption (like DeCSS.) And that copy can be used in an authorized player with no problem. (If you have the means to do full DVD copies, it's probably not worth your time.) Think of a coded message written on a piece of paper. You can xerox (tm) that paper all day long and still not be able to read the message.
Though the MPAA kept shouting "piracy" it was really about access control -- do you have the right to decrypt a DVD by non-approved means? I say YES, and the MPAA (and their lacky, Judge Kaplan) says no. Of course, DeCSS does allow you to create a compressed version of the movie that will fit on a single CD, but then you're not doing a bit-for-bit copy of the original work. Think of it as the difference between an MP3 and a full uncompressed WAV file.
Even without DeCSS, it's certainly possible to 'pirate' DVDs: just take the audio/video out signals from the DVD player and pipe it into the recorder of your choice (VCR, video capture card, etc.) No, its not a perfect copy, but then neither was CSS stopping you from making a perfect copy.
So, what happened? Did the manager agree that forcing you to supply a name and address for a cash purchase is absurd, or did he attempt to enforce their policy? (BTW, this is one of the reasons why I have avoided Radio Shacks for years. There's just no good reason for them to collect this information, other than their own marketing purposes, which I don't really give two shits about. The other reason is a general policy about shopping at any store with the word "shack" in its name.)
More accurately, the only thing you do is a comparison shopping "portal". Deja used to have a great Usenet
archive, but it's been MIA for a long Long LONG time.
Ummm, ok. whatever. We currently have articles going back to the beginning of 1999 online, same as always. Presumably you are refering to the pre-99 articles, which have been offline for a couple of months now for technical / cost reasons. completely unofficially, I can tell you that they are likely to be back soon (another month or two at most.) We all want the old articles back. Usenet @ Deja never went away.
And as far as being a "portal", no, obviously we are not a general purpose portal like Yahoo, Excite, and so on, and not even really a "shopping portal" per se. Yes, we have links to vendors sites, but they are organized around specific products. In other words, you don't come to Deja.com and get pushed towards a few merchants sites, maybe based on broad categories. You use our services to find the actual product(s) you want and then you are presented with a list of links we have gathered to specific product pages. (IE, linking directly into the merchant's specific product page.) If you want to call this a 'portal', fine, use whatever word you like. I just can't figure out why what we do seems to bother you so much.
Ever heard of Deja.com? Well, the other thing we do besides Usenet is comparison shopping for all sorts of products. It's fairly objective and useful. Most of the merchants did NOT pay to be listed on our site. The ones that did are clearly marked as 'preferred merchants' in yellow.
For instance, here are 14+ different choices for buying The Matrix on DVD sorted by price.
We're continually adding new merchants and product categories all the time. That's my job actually. In fact, if you know of any good DVD merchants (or any other good web merchants actually) feel free to send suggestions to me in email (see above) and I will look at putting them on our site. (Note that not every web merchant will be able to be listed -- if they have really crappy inconsistent HTML and/or don't list enough identifying information on their pages, it won't work. Perl regexp's are neat but not magical;-))
We could seize offensive rougue
control over the entire globe with a large enough forcefield.
This is obviously absurd. A 'forcefield' over the entire globe? Please. It will be much more cost-efficient to deploy drone-management neck restraints with thoughtcrime detection circuits and remote detonation capabilities. As the noble ideal of fitting these on all of humanity is currently (regrettably) somewhat remote, we will start with those who presume to debate the Ministry of Love's inherent authority to conduct electronic surveillance.
The
world offers him a strawberry, so he takes it.
Nobody offered him anything. The strawberry was minding its own business when this stranger came along and savagely consumed it. Not only that, but it was pure gluttony too, as the man obviously didn't need the nurishment of said berry if he was in such a predicament. PLANT RIGHTS NOW!
Anyway it sounds like this Rt Hon John Prescott is an MP and involved with transportation and is probably a right honorable fuckup, if he's like any politician in God's Own Land.
They [nuclear weapons] both work exceedingly well to
prevent problems.
Umm, problems like uranium processing by-products stored improperly and seeping into groundwater? (Ever hear of Superfund?) Problems like a few 'arrows' getting stolen by god knows who from a poorly guarded central asian military base? Problems like warheads laying on the bottom of the sea, seeping out poisonous death? (Thanks, Kursk!) (Not that poisonous death doesn't come from many other sources.)
I'm curious, what 'problems' do nuclear weapons solve except the problem of wiping out all of humanity? (Which I am for, by the way. And the obvious retort to that is "why don't you start with yourself", to which I reply: "I wanted to wait around to check that you got included.")
Theoretically, the duly elected representatives of the people make laws, and "the government" merely carries out the implementation of those laws. I do realize that your statement is more or less true; the many-headed apparatus of the US Government pretty much decides its own laws, with a few helpful suggestions here and there from major corporations and contributors.
That means the only group who has the power to change these odious practicies is the stockholders. Now, how do you convince a bunch of fat old Japanese and American investors (men) who directly own stock or run mutual funds and the like that preventing the product of Sony Music from being stolen by a bunch of dirty hippies and kids on the net is a bad thing? Sounds like a really hard sell to me.
You have a point... it is needlessly confusing.. but you speak as if there's not "licensing confusion" in the proprietary side of the sofware biz. Software licenses are extremely complex things, free or not. Just as one example, look at the myriad of issues Microsoft customers (serfs) must endure -- possibly buying multiple licenses for the same computer, application serving (you don't own anything, have virtual no rights), etc.
There is nothing inherient about the Publius system that prevents >100k files. It's just an arbitrary restriction the research group has put on it ('at first,' they are quoted as saying) to make sure it gets used for its main purposes and not filled up with Brittany Spears mp3s. Those purposes are primarily the distribution of banned / sensitive / political documents, and general 'research' (presumably for an enhanced V2 of the system.) I imagine eventually systems like this and Freenet and others will become widespread, and the size restrictions will be raised and eventually go away.
After all, you can go ahead and set up your own unlimited public storage network now if you wanted. Got a few RAID arrays laying around?
you should visit the Stile Project for all of your MPEG encoded pr0n needs. Stile has conviently encoded a lot of stuff in MPEG format which should play back fine in Linux with an appropriate player (try one based on Loki's SMPEG library, or even the bare-bones player that comes with the SMPEG distribution.)
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm, reality check, Pollyanna. What makes you think your precious 'world government' will be working on the behalf of (and accountable to) the People? The UN already exclusively serves the interests of major corporations and their proxies (such as the US Federal gov't) ... what makes you think that will change when UN law supercedes any national law (which is next to inevitable, unfortunately.) What mechanism will we have to ensure the world government does not simply become the tyrannical tool of the power elites? The answer: there is no and will be no mechanism. There is no hope. Just remember the golden rule: he who owns the gold makes the rules. If you have trouble picturing this, try to imagine a giant boot pressed in the face of humanity for all eternity. That is, until we're all wiped out by asteroids, which will be a happy, happy (though distant) day.
This may be true for the newer generation of cable modems like I have (RR Austin / Toshiba PCX1100) ... god I hope so ... but I belive this was not the case for the first generation cable modems, which were much as the original poster described -- you could put your ethernet card into promiscuous mode and see all the traffic in your segment. However, I don't have any references to back this up. A lot of people still have the old-style cable modems ...
how about...
"Dastardly Japs Attack Colonially Occupied U.S. Non-State... Congress Declares War after Sneak Attack on US Imperial Holding... FDR: 'We Conquered the Hawaiians First'
You certainly can patent (the most absurdly simple) algorithms -- how about using XOR on bitmaps to move a mouse cursor across a screen? Also, just because it's 'obvious to any expert' doesn't mean it's not patentable (one click shopping, anyone?)
TLA == Three Letter Acronym (ie, CIA, FBI, NSA, DEA, etc.) alternatively, They Liberate America. ;-)
Though the MPAA kept shouting "piracy" it was really about access control -- do you have the right to decrypt a DVD by non-approved means? I say YES, and the MPAA (and their lacky, Judge Kaplan) says no. Of course, DeCSS does allow you to create a compressed version of the movie that will fit on a single CD, but then you're not doing a bit-for-bit copy of the original work. Think of it as the difference between an MP3 and a full uncompressed WAV file.
Even without DeCSS, it's certainly possible to 'pirate' DVDs: just take the audio/video out signals from the DVD player and pipe it into the recorder of your choice (VCR, video capture card, etc.) No, its not a perfect copy, but then neither was CSS stopping you from making a perfect copy.
So, what happened? Did the manager agree that forcing you to supply a name and address for a cash purchase is absurd, or did he attempt to enforce their policy? (BTW, this is one of the reasons why I have avoided Radio Shacks for years. There's just no good reason for them to collect this information, other than their own marketing purposes, which I don't really give two shits about. The other reason is a general policy about shopping at any store with the word "shack" in its name.)
Ummm, ok. whatever. We currently have articles going back to the beginning of 1999 online, same as always. Presumably you are refering to the pre-99 articles, which have been offline for a couple of months now for technical / cost reasons. completely unofficially, I can tell you that they are likely to be back soon (another month or two at most.) We all want the old articles back. Usenet @ Deja never went away.
And as far as being a "portal", no, obviously we are not a general purpose portal like Yahoo, Excite, and so on, and not even really a "shopping portal" per se. Yes, we have links to vendors sites, but they are organized around specific products. In other words, you don't come to Deja.com and get pushed towards a few merchants sites, maybe based on broad categories. You use our services to find the actual product(s) you want and then you are presented with a list of links we have gathered to specific product pages. (IE, linking directly into the merchant's specific product page.) If you want to call this a 'portal', fine, use whatever word you like. I just can't figure out why what we do seems to bother you so much.
For instance, here are 14+ different choices for buying The Matrix on DVD sorted by price.
We're continually adding new merchants and product categories all the time. That's my job actually. In fact, if you know of any good DVD merchants (or any other good web merchants actually) feel free to send suggestions to me in email (see above) and I will look at putting them on our site. (Note that not every web merchant will be able to be listed -- if they have really crappy inconsistent HTML and/or don't list enough identifying information on their pages, it won't work. Perl regexp's are neat but not magical ;-))
This is obviously absurd. A 'forcefield' over the entire globe? Please. It will be much more cost-efficient to deploy drone-management neck restraints with thoughtcrime detection circuits and remote detonation capabilities. As the noble ideal of fitting these on all of humanity is currently (regrettably) somewhat remote, we will start with those who presume to debate the Ministry of Love's inherent authority to conduct electronic surveillance.
I believe binaries compiled for i586 WILL run on 486 based machines, though not as 'optimized'.
Nobody offered him anything. The strawberry was minding its own business when this stranger came along and savagely consumed it. Not only that, but it was pure gluttony too, as the man obviously didn't need the nurishment of said berry if he was in such a predicament. PLANT RIGHTS NOW!
And be almost as reliable!
Umm, what exactly about that document is proof? He talks about working in Netscape there.
You dork, jwz didn't work for Sun, he worked for Netscape! jwz has nothing to do with Java / Jini!
http:// www.uk.emb.gov.au/BRITISH_GOVERNMENT/biographies/p rescott_detail.htm
and this, but I don't think it's related:
http://www.ukacts.com/act/z/john-prescott.h tm
Anyway it sounds like this Rt Hon John Prescott is an MP and involved with transportation and is probably a right honorable fuckup, if he's like any politician in God's Own Land.
Umm, problems like uranium processing by-products stored improperly and seeping into groundwater? (Ever hear of Superfund?) Problems like a few 'arrows' getting stolen by god knows who from a poorly guarded central asian military base? Problems like warheads laying on the bottom of the sea, seeping out poisonous death? (Thanks, Kursk!) (Not that poisonous death doesn't come from many other sources.)
I'm curious, what 'problems' do nuclear weapons solve except the problem of wiping out all of humanity? (Which I am for, by the way. And the obvious retort to that is "why don't you start with yourself", to which I reply: "I wanted to wait around to check that you got included.")
Theoretically, the duly elected representatives of the people make laws, and "the government" merely carries out the implementation of those laws. I do realize that your statement is more or less true; the many-headed apparatus of the US Government pretty much decides its own laws, with a few helpful suggestions here and there from major corporations and contributors.
That means the only group who has the power to change these odious practicies is the stockholders. Now, how do you convince a bunch of fat old Japanese and American investors (men) who directly own stock or run mutual funds and the like that preventing the product of Sony Music from being stolen by a bunch of dirty hippies and kids on the net is a bad thing? Sounds like a really hard sell to me.
You are reading slashdot comments to find facts? What's wrong with you?
Oh yeah, as if the modern Republican Party if famous for standing up for individual rights, especially when the conflict with corporate profits.
You have a point ... it is needlessly confusing .. but you speak as if there's not "licensing confusion" in the proprietary side of the sofware biz. Software licenses are extremely complex things, free or not. Just as one example, look at the myriad of issues Microsoft customers (serfs) must endure -- possibly buying multiple licenses for the same computer, application serving (you don't own anything, have virtual no rights), etc.
Read this.
After all, you can go ahead and set up your own unlimited public storage network now if you wanted. Got a few RAID arrays laying around?
you should visit the Stile Project for all of your MPEG encoded pr0n needs. Stile has conviently encoded a lot of stuff in MPEG format which should play back fine in Linux with an appropriate player (try one based on Loki's SMPEG library, or even the bare-bones player that comes with the SMPEG distribution.)