But the criteria for what makes a good coder have changed over the years. Back then, you were good if you could squeeze lots of features into limited memory. Now, that would be regarded as bad code, because it is unmaintainable. Good code now is code that is secure and robust. But Microsoft are still going for "as many features as possible" instead.
There also seems to be index information at the end of an avi, and many players won't play it if that is missing. But mplayer will. So mplayer is the tool that I always use for trying to play partially-downloaded files, to see if they are genuine.
But to maintain your reputation, you've got to mod up company Y and Z. Meanwhile someone from Y has had the same idea and is modding up X and Z, and someone from Z is modding up X and Y.
The result is a net gain in accurate votes.
Not all university research has to be immediately useful. Students can learn a lot by simply picking a hard problem (like this) and trying to solve it.
Another problem that the students might like to ponder is this: should there be unenforcable laws against copying music, and if not, how could the music industry be profitable in the absence of such laws? An answer to that problem might be really useful.
But usenet has been running for years, and there's never been a legal attack of that sort. New PtoP systems get attacked quite quickly. It looks like usenet really is below the radar of the RIAA, simply because it is not new and not advertised.
There are lots of precedents for academics subverting what the business world wants to do: look at the GNU project, for example.
Businessmen make money by selling things, so their priority is to keep the supply of whatever they are selling (music, videos,...) under their control and to limit the spread of information in order to keep it rare and valuable.
Academics make money by having a reputation, so their priority is to do things that maximize the spread of information, because this boosts the reputation of the author.
I haven't tried VLC, but
mplayer
will usually play partially-downloaded torrents if they are mpeg files. It just skips the bits that haven't been downloaded yet.
It's less reliable with avi files: it doesn't seem to like it if the first part of the file is missing.
When I worked in SA a few years ago, the procedure for calling England from work was as follows:
1. Dial a special number in the US. Let it ring and then put the phone down.
2. A machine in the US would then call me back.
3. The machine would then connect me to another phone line in the US, and I would dial the number I wanted in England.
This resulted in two phone calls from the US, one to SA and one to England. It was explained to me that this was *much* cheaper than paying the SA telecom's monopoly rates for one call
I totally agree with you. I use a Bayesian filter myself. My point is, I trained the filter myself, and it does what I want it to do. It doesn't follow the (possibly hidden) agenda of a third party.
Suppose I set up a service described like this:
All your (snail) mail gets delivered to me. I will read it, and throw away anything that looks like junk, and then send the good stuff on to you. I won't tell you what I've thrown away, or what criteria I use.
You wouldn't sign up for that, would you? So why do people put up with third-party spam filters that do the same thing? I know that spam is a big problem, but everyone ought to take control over their own communications. It's one thing for me to decide to throw some email away unread; it's quite a different thing to give someone else that power over me.
This reads to me like a marketing exercise by Ebay: it's all buzz-words and vague empty statements:
Q: How much (in dollar terms) and how many subscribers have made claims to eBay's buyer protection program?
A: I cannot put a dollar amount on this figure.
Q: How does eBay weed out unscrupulous sellers on your site?
A: We have zero tolerance for wrongdoing and are committed to making eBay as safe as possible for our members.
Q: Is Linux really more secure than Windows?
A: eBay does not endorse any particular platform.
The whole point is that Microsoft is trying to fix things so that you can't choose a vendor who sells systems without it. That's what people are complaining about.
He came to the attention of the police, and they discovered that he could be prosecuted for breaking a law. That's one more point in their favour in the crime statistics.
Why would they care whether he was doing any harm or not?
You should have come to England. When I was at college, my university had an exemption from the licensing laws, and the college bars could serve alcohol whenever they liked.
Sadly, I hear that the exemption has been removed by recent legal reforms.
When you say "there is no good reason", you mean "I'm not imaginative enough to think of a reason."
I get a lot of mail from Asia (from friends, not spammers). My ISP doesn't handle 8-bit mail correctly: the characters are not just mangled, they are completely removed, leaving a blank message.
So I can't use my ISP for sending or receiving mail. So I run my own mail server.
"It's" = "It is". The possessive is "its". Why is that so freaking difficult to grasp?
Because it's illogical: most other possessives have an apostrophe. And a short survey of modern English usage (as seen, for example, on Slashdot) will tell you that the usage is changing: quite possibly the apostrophe in the possessive "it's" will be the norm in a few years time.
Slashdot Mirror
But the criteria for what makes a good coder have changed over the years. Back then, you were good if you could squeeze lots of features into limited memory. Now, that would be regarded as bad code, because it is unmaintainable. Good code now is code that is secure and robust. But Microsoft are still going for "as many features as possible" instead.
There also seems to be index information at the end of an avi, and many players won't play it if that is missing. But mplayer will. So mplayer is the tool that I always use for trying to play partially-downloaded files, to see if they are genuine.
But to maintain your reputation, you've got to mod up company Y and Z. Meanwhile someone from Y has had the same idea and is modding up X and Z, and someone from Z is modding up X and Y.
The result is a net gain in accurate votes.
Another problem that the students might like to ponder is this: should there be unenforcable laws against copying music, and if not, how could the music industry be profitable in the absence of such laws? An answer to that problem might be really useful.
But usenet has been running for years, and there's never been a legal attack of that sort. New PtoP systems get attacked quite quickly. It looks like usenet really is below the radar of the RIAA, simply because it is not new and not advertised.
Businessmen make money by selling things, so their priority is to keep the supply of whatever they are selling (music, videos,...) under their control and to limit the spread of information in order to keep it rare and valuable.
Academics make money by having a reputation, so their priority is to do things that maximize the spread of information, because this boosts the reputation of the author.
I haven't tried VLC, but mplayer will usually play partially-downloaded torrents if they are mpeg files. It just skips the bits that haven't been downloaded yet.
It's less reliable with avi files: it doesn't seem to like it if the first part of the file is missing.
1. Dial a special number in the US. Let it ring and then put the phone down.
2. A machine in the US would then call me back.
3. The machine would then connect me to another phone line in the US, and I would dial the number I wanted in England.
This resulted in two phone calls from the US, one to SA and one to England. It was explained to me that this was *much* cheaper than paying the SA telecom's monopoly rates for one call
Does this sort of thing still go on?
I totally agree with you. I use a Bayesian filter myself. My point is, I trained the filter myself, and it does what I want it to do. It doesn't follow the (possibly hidden) agenda of a third party.
All your (snail) mail gets delivered to me. I will read it, and throw away anything that looks like junk, and then send the good stuff on to you. I won't tell you what I've thrown away, or what criteria I use.
You wouldn't sign up for that, would you? So why do people put up with third-party spam filters that do the same thing? I know that spam is a big problem, but everyone ought to take control over their own communications. It's one thing for me to decide to throw some email away unread; it's quite a different thing to give someone else that power over me.
Intelligent discourse? Are you sure?
If you want *real* feedback, nothing beats the old ASR 33 teletype.
Of course you need nuclear weapons. Saddam didn't have any, and look what someone did to him.
Q: How much (in dollar terms) and how many subscribers have made claims to eBay's buyer protection program?
A: I cannot put a dollar amount on this figure.
Q: How does eBay weed out unscrupulous sellers on your site?
A: We have zero tolerance for wrongdoing and are committed to making eBay as safe as possible for our members.
Q: Is Linux really more secure than Windows?
A: eBay does not endorse any particular platform.
And so on.
The whole point is that Microsoft is trying to fix things so that you can't choose a vendor who sells systems without it. That's what people are complaining about.
Why would they care whether he was doing any harm or not?
It's not the "dumb user" who left his wireless insecure who is at fault. He has just bought a product, plugged it in and expected it to work. Why not?
Sadly, I hear that the exemption has been removed by recent legal reforms.
And we snort so much coke that we measure it in ounces.
I get a lot of mail from Asia (from friends, not spammers). My ISP doesn't handle 8-bit mail correctly: the characters are not just mangled, they are completely removed, leaving a blank message.
So I can't use my ISP for sending or receiving mail. So I run my own mail server.
Maybe NASA could pay it? They haven't been to the moon for a while.
My car doesn't need an oil change until 18000 miles. Does this mean it's running Linux?
How about adding the same amount of real memory? That would work even better.
If it's common enough, it's not a mistake any longer.
Because it's illogical: most other possessives have an apostrophe. And a short survey of modern English usage (as seen, for example, on Slashdot) will tell you that the usage is changing: quite possibly the apostrophe in the possessive "it's" will be the norm in a few years time.
Still, I'm glad you're not pompous.