This is a Liberal bill and the author wishes to peg it on the Conservatives?
Well, after the kafuffle, the Liberals were supposed to have eschewed evil. So this bill being introduced by a Liberal sets up a kind of cognitive dissonace.
I live in Canada, so I can't threaten to move there. Some of the Northern European countries seem nice, but so cold, even for a Canadian.
So can we build a battery out of fat and give it caffeine to stimulate energy output? That would make for one disgusting battery. But we'd have a virtually unlimited natural resource!
sysadmins are called upon to do enough as is without requiring them to also power everything.
And a lot of students are assisted or have their way paid by parents. These same parents would probably be the ones footing legal bills if things went to court, so in a lot of instances I suspect it should read 'student's parents choose to settle'. Still, would hate to be making that phone call... "Uh, dad? Guess what?... Hey, I don't only call when I want money... So what do I want? Well, it's like this..."
For their current strategy - it's actually beneficial to be despised, hopefully feared. It's the front man for several big music companies and as long as their names (Sony, BMG, etc) are out of the headlines, it is doing its job.
Excellent point. Here is Wikipedia's list of RIAA Member Labels. The big four, * EMI
* Sony BMG Music Entertainment
* Universal Music Group
* Warner Music Group
The list is long, long, long, and even though the Wikipedia list thoughtfully lists them in alphabetical order, it may be easier to look up potential purchases on riaaradar.com, and pass if RIAA tainted, or acquire by other means (buying 2nd hand is legit still I think, and doesn't put money in member label coffers).
No, they treat their computers like they treat their furnace: it should just work. Like it or not, Mom and Pop expect their computer to work like an appliance: it should do what it's supposed to do, and they shouldn't have to fiddle with it.
Let me get this straight, you're suggesting Windows is like that? I can understand people not switching to Linux just because they read a glowing review on the CBC site, but I don't understand their not wanting to escape from Windows and from the shit they seem to regard as normal. I think it may be due to some form of learned helplessness syndrome.
Except wikipedia notes that
Fascism has been defunct in the Western world as a major political ideology since the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II.
So even if a gov't has a large measure of nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, and corporatism, we can't call it fascist, because it was defeated in the second world war.
It may be that we need a new term for something similar, something which hasn't been defeated yet.
What card do you recommend for Linux? I have an audigy 2 with dicky line in (have to use mic in which works but...). In fairness this may be a non-Creative kernel driver, but to an end user what matters is that things work, and if you could recommend a sound card for Linux that 'just works' I would appreciate hearing about it. Thanks.
It operates within Russian law. There are two ways they can shut it down
Poison everyone involved with radioactive pellets.
Change the law so that allofmp3.com is operating outside it.
Basically, American perception that the Russian gov't is shutting down allofmp3.com is a misperception, and one which I suspect the Russians are happy not to correct. Perhaps they'll get around to changing the law, but remember that allofmp3.com pays a cut to some Russian licensing agency -- not sure where that money goes, but wouldn't surprise me if money is finding its way into gov't coffers (or politicians' pockets?)
They shouldn't be suing their customers AT ALL, never mind the legal shit. When they sue children, the disabled, the dead, and so on it's even worse. It really gets my goat that people will defend these bastards. They have reduced my purchasing of CD's dramatically, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who checks riaaradar.com when considering a CD purchase. What they're doing is not only wicked, it's stupid.
The argument for pre-installations is really about novice users who can't be bothered to install an OS onto a fresh machine, and just want something that's going to work with minimal fuss.
I'm not a novice user, and 'something that's going to work with minimal fuss' sounds pretty darned good to me.
I have a couple geek friends who formerly used Linux but are now using the OS/X that came on their Mac laptops. They're easily smart enough to slap a Linux distro on it if they wanted, but they don't. They've got a complete little no fuss package that works just fine and with which they're happy. Power geeks can do all sorts of stuff mere mortals cannot, but that doesn't mean they want to. Something that 'just works' right out of the box might be really nice for a change.
The Dubai office is to get closer to the action and get some PR separation from us dirty Americans
Uh huh. And are they changing their name? Ahalibartan or something like that? Otherwise it's like Coca Cola trying to distance itself from its American image.
If you want Linux to be mainstream-friendly, one of the absolute must-haves is that the user must NEVER EVER EVER, any any circumstances, have to either (1) edit a text config file by hand, or (2) use the command line.
That would be nice, but it's a higher standard than exists for Windows where sometimes the fix involves tweaks with regedit and such non-user friendly stuff. The catch for Linux is that it won't become mainstream until grandma's grandchild is likely using it so she can call him (or her) when she runs into that sort of problem, and that likely won't be the case until it's mainstream. Perhaps some billionaire can fund a massive ad campaign aimed at the youth market suggesting that Linux is really cool and you'll be immensely popular with the opposite sex if you use it.
From the article:
Under the bill, networking sites that failed to verify ages and failed to obtain parental permission before posting profiles of users under age 18 would face civil penalties of up to $5,000 a day for every day of noncompliance.
I gather their target is large sites with explicit emphasis on social networking, but a lot is going to depend on how any law is worded. It could apply to anything on the internet which invites user submitted content. Like Slashdot. Or Joe Blow's Blog. Or whatever.
Canada has a large, sparsely populated, territory called Nunavut. The US should negotiate a deal with Canada to set up camps where America's children could be raised in a safe, non-networked environment, with tight control on any and all content coming in from the outside world. That could solve so many of the 'won't someone think of the children' type problems.
Credentials are a lot less relevant than good references. But there should be some checking for those who claim credentials, since there are still folk who trust that, failing to appreciate just how many people with credentials are out to lunch. When academics cite references, it can be very interesting to actually follow them up.
Exactly. The most secure system is no system. Next most secure is a system which is unusable by anyone. But once it's usable by someone, then it gets complicated trying make absolutely certain it can't be used by someone else. What makes this particular system especially worrisome the way it is described is that once the switch is flicked, it allegedly can't be defeated. That's swell if the good guys are controling the autopilot. Otherwise one can imagine suicide hijackers attempting to force the door just to activate the system, to 'flick the switch' and initiate a flight to their chosen target.
If worse came to worse I suppose the hijacked plane could be shot down. Though as some have posted, it might be nice if the passengers at least had the option of trying to retake the plane. This system eliminates that option.
On the contrary, it's quite modest. Beyond a couple of bucks the cost of a dvd is somewhat arbitrary. Also for fun we'll grant that every dvd not paid for is a dvd that otherwise would have been paid for. They might be pulling $30 as the cost of a dvd out of their ass, I don't know, but since we're just making shit up, how about a thousand dollars per dvd? Being a little more bold with the fictitious figures, we should be able to come up with figures to demonstrate a loss of a hundred thousand dollars per Canadian, or more. A thousand? Piffle. They should be able to do much better than that.
Anyone who can't install it probably couldn't install Windows either.
And there's the rub. They didn't install it. It came preinstalled on their computer. And when they run into troubles, they call their nephew. Damn the nephews for all spam. Damning the average user is just a waste of breath.
There are differences between Linux distributions and distribution families (an important one is package management), but where the/home directory is isn't one of them. If you were to sysadmin at a colo that was predominantly an OSS house, you would find a great deal of similarity between different distributions and even FreeBSD. The various quirks also exist, but you learn those as you go. If you know what it is you want to do, the how usually isn't that difficult to figure out.
Though Windows may have a place for the clueless. I once saw an example of a Linux based network that was so gunked up with web admin based control applications and backup and mysql backend for everything including web logging and such that the owner might actually have been better off just going with Windows. Prior to that I maintained that Microsoft should never be allowed on a server, but rather than butcher a brilliant OS with chaotic crap, it might be better to go with one that's pre-pooched in a much more orderly way.
I doubt it's that simple looking at things cross culturally. There are religions without Gods, as well as religions with lots of gods, most gods aren't creator gods, then there are a wealth of godlets in religion, supernatural entities which aren't tops on some sort of god scale... quite a lot of diversity, something I'm not sure North Americans always fully appreciate, focussing on the Abrahamic religions as being somehow definitive of religion.
Personally, I prefer to define religion in terms of function, rather than cast of characters. Religion is a filter through which the individual makes sense of everything. Just about every -ism can be a religion as well, by this definition. You can debate which filters are the healthiest, but any filter is probably better than no filter, wandering about uncertain of everything. Monotheisms are a just one filter family.
I think the whole academic accreditation process is screwy. Instead of grades and final exams, there should be prerequisite exams at the beginning of each semester. They are pass/fail. If you pass you go on, fail and you repeat. There would be no homework (though teachers could suggest outside readings/projects that would enhance knowledge of the subject), but most students would likely have to do some work outside school hours if they hoped to understand the subject and pass the prereq exams.
I call this an 'assumed competence' model, since no one graduates without moving through, and there's no movement through without passing the prereqs. I've been thinking of it in relation to post secondary, but it could work in public school as well. If Johnny is still in grade 9 by age 17 he'll either drop out or get serious.
Another advantage of the prereq exam is that knowledge must be retained over semester break, no allowing it to simply evaporate off one's head over summer vacation. This would contribute, I think, to greater life long retention of knowledge. Perhaps I wasn't the best of students, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one for which end of semester was a pattern of cram, cram, cram, exam, party, forget.
For any law that passes, the sunset duration should be the subject of a separate vote, where each legislator picks a duration (from say 1 to 20 years), and they use the mean duration, rounded to the following January 1st. So if a bill is signed into law on June 15th 2007, and the sunset vote says 3.4 years, that adds to around November 2010, and would round up to January 1st 2011.
Easier still, 1d20 plus an additional year for every point of charisma beyond 16 of legislator proposing the bill.
Only later did it come out that it was undercover Mounties who sold them fake ammonium nitrate, and even encouraged them to buy the stuff.
"Come on, five bucks."
"Nah, we thought about it, but we'd have to go all the way to Ottawa, and scope things out, and there's all the planning... Man, it's a lot of work, we're gonna pass."
I have never had trouble using pirated editions of Windows.
Are you listening Microsoft? Here is an opportunity to make some money. Package and sell the pirated version as 'Windows Freebooter', perhaps for a $50 premium over regular price. Seriously, I'll bet there's a market for it.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, after the kafuffle, the Liberals were supposed to have eschewed evil. So this bill being introduced by a Liberal sets up a kind of cognitive dissonace.
I live in Canada, so I can't threaten to move there. Some of the Northern European countries seem nice, but so cold, even for a Canadian.
sysadmins are called upon to do enough as is without requiring them to also power everything.
And a lot of students are assisted or have their way paid by parents. These same parents would probably be the ones footing legal bills if things went to court, so in a lot of instances I suspect it should read 'student's parents choose to settle'. Still, would hate to be making that phone call... "Uh, dad? Guess what?... Hey, I don't only call when I want money... So what do I want? Well, it's like this..."
Excellent point. Here is Wikipedia's list of RIAA Member Labels. The big four, * EMI * Sony BMG Music Entertainment * Universal Music Group * Warner Music Group
The list is long, long, long, and even though the Wikipedia list thoughtfully lists them in alphabetical order, it may be easier to look up potential purchases on riaaradar.com, and pass if RIAA tainted, or acquire by other means (buying 2nd hand is legit still I think, and doesn't put money in member label coffers).
Let me get this straight, you're suggesting Windows is like that? I can understand people not switching to Linux just because they read a glowing review on the CBC site, but I don't understand their not wanting to escape from Windows and from the shit they seem to regard as normal. I think it may be due to some form of learned helplessness syndrome.
Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, Ultimate... There is no Vista Secure. Given the demand, how did Microsoft miss that one?
So even if a gov't has a large measure of nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, and corporatism, we can't call it fascist, because it was defeated in the second world war.
It may be that we need a new term for something similar, something which hasn't been defeated yet.
What card do you recommend for Linux? I have an audigy 2 with dicky line in (have to use mic in which works but...). In fairness this may be a non-Creative kernel driver, but to an end user what matters is that things work, and if you could recommend a sound card for Linux that 'just works' I would appreciate hearing about it. Thanks.
Basically, American perception that the Russian gov't is shutting down allofmp3.com is a misperception, and one which I suspect the Russians are happy not to correct. Perhaps they'll get around to changing the law, but remember that allofmp3.com pays a cut to some Russian licensing agency -- not sure where that money goes, but wouldn't surprise me if money is finding its way into gov't coffers (or politicians' pockets?)
For guts, whatever. Give me a couple gigs ram, decent graphics card, and multicore processor (at least dual).
But for aesthetics, give me the classic steampunk keyboard mod featured in this slashdot post (except based on Model M Space Saver), and this 30 inch Apple cinema screen monitor. I'd apply a little black paint and gold leaf accents to the monitor to make it go with the keyboard.
The actual computer would have a black case, be as silent as possible, and be hidden beneath the desk.
They shouldn't be suing their customers AT ALL, never mind the legal shit. When they sue children, the disabled, the dead, and so on it's even worse. It really gets my goat that people will defend these bastards. They have reduced my purchasing of CD's dramatically, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who checks riaaradar.com when considering a CD purchase. What they're doing is not only wicked, it's stupid.
I'm not a novice user, and 'something that's going to work with minimal fuss' sounds pretty darned good to me.
I have a couple geek friends who formerly used Linux but are now using the OS/X that came on their Mac laptops. They're easily smart enough to slap a Linux distro on it if they wanted, but they don't. They've got a complete little no fuss package that works just fine and with which they're happy. Power geeks can do all sorts of stuff mere mortals cannot, but that doesn't mean they want to. Something that 'just works' right out of the box might be really nice for a change.
Uh huh. And are they changing their name? Ahalibartan or something like that? Otherwise it's like Coca Cola trying to distance itself from its American image.
That would be nice, but it's a higher standard than exists for Windows where sometimes the fix involves tweaks with regedit and such non-user friendly stuff. The catch for Linux is that it won't become mainstream until grandma's grandchild is likely using it so she can call him (or her) when she runs into that sort of problem, and that likely won't be the case until it's mainstream. Perhaps some billionaire can fund a massive ad campaign aimed at the youth market suggesting that Linux is really cool and you'll be immensely popular with the opposite sex if you use it.
I gather their target is large sites with explicit emphasis on social networking, but a lot is going to depend on how any law is worded. It could apply to anything on the internet which invites user submitted content. Like Slashdot. Or Joe Blow's Blog. Or whatever.
Canada has a large, sparsely populated, territory called Nunavut. The US should negotiate a deal with Canada to set up camps where America's children could be raised in a safe, non-networked environment, with tight control on any and all content coming in from the outside world. That could solve so many of the 'won't someone think of the children' type problems.
Credentials are a lot less relevant than good references. But there should be some checking for those who claim credentials, since there are still folk who trust that, failing to appreciate just how many people with credentials are out to lunch. When academics cite references, it can be very interesting to actually follow them up.
Exactly. The most secure system is no system. Next most secure is a system which is unusable by anyone. But once it's usable by someone, then it gets complicated trying make absolutely certain it can't be used by someone else. What makes this particular system especially worrisome the way it is described is that once the switch is flicked, it allegedly can't be defeated. That's swell if the good guys are controling the autopilot. Otherwise one can imagine suicide hijackers attempting to force the door just to activate the system, to 'flick the switch' and initiate a flight to their chosen target.
If worse came to worse I suppose the hijacked plane could be shot down. Though as some have posted, it might be nice if the passengers at least had the option of trying to retake the plane. This system eliminates that option.
On the contrary, it's quite modest. Beyond a couple of bucks the cost of a dvd is somewhat arbitrary. Also for fun we'll grant that every dvd not paid for is a dvd that otherwise would have been paid for. They might be pulling $30 as the cost of a dvd out of their ass, I don't know, but since we're just making shit up, how about a thousand dollars per dvd? Being a little more bold with the fictitious figures, we should be able to come up with figures to demonstrate a loss of a hundred thousand dollars per Canadian, or more. A thousand? Piffle. They should be able to do much better than that.
And there's the rub. They didn't install it. It came preinstalled on their computer. And when they run into troubles, they call their nephew. Damn the nephews for all spam. Damning the average user is just a waste of breath.
There are differences between Linux distributions and distribution families (an important one is package management), but where the /home directory is isn't one of them. If you were to sysadmin at a colo that was predominantly an OSS house, you would find a great deal of similarity between different distributions and even FreeBSD. The various quirks also exist, but you learn those as you go. If you know what it is you want to do, the how usually isn't that difficult to figure out.
Though Windows may have a place for the clueless. I once saw an example of a Linux based network that was so gunked up with web admin based control applications and backup and mysql backend for everything including web logging and such that the owner might actually have been better off just going with Windows. Prior to that I maintained that Microsoft should never be allowed on a server, but rather than butcher a brilliant OS with chaotic crap, it might be better to go with one that's pre-pooched in a much more orderly way.
Show me the 'God' gene.
I doubt it's that simple looking at things cross culturally. There are religions without Gods, as well as religions with lots of gods, most gods aren't creator gods, then there are a wealth of godlets in religion, supernatural entities which aren't tops on some sort of god scale... quite a lot of diversity, something I'm not sure North Americans always fully appreciate, focussing on the Abrahamic religions as being somehow definitive of religion.
Personally, I prefer to define religion in terms of function, rather than cast of characters. Religion is a filter through which the individual makes sense of everything. Just about every -ism can be a religion as well, by this definition. You can debate which filters are the healthiest, but any filter is probably better than no filter, wandering about uncertain of everything. Monotheisms are a just one filter family.
I think the whole academic accreditation process is screwy. Instead of grades and final exams, there should be prerequisite exams at the beginning of each semester. They are pass/fail. If you pass you go on, fail and you repeat. There would be no homework (though teachers could suggest outside readings/projects that would enhance knowledge of the subject), but most students would likely have to do some work outside school hours if they hoped to understand the subject and pass the prereq exams.
I call this an 'assumed competence' model, since no one graduates without moving through, and there's no movement through without passing the prereqs. I've been thinking of it in relation to post secondary, but it could work in public school as well. If Johnny is still in grade 9 by age 17 he'll either drop out or get serious.
Another advantage of the prereq exam is that knowledge must be retained over semester break, no allowing it to simply evaporate off one's head over summer vacation. This would contribute, I think, to greater life long retention of knowledge. Perhaps I wasn't the best of students, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one for which end of semester was a pattern of cram, cram, cram, exam, party, forget.
Easier still, 1d20 plus an additional year for every point of charisma beyond 16 of legislator proposing the bill.
"Come on, five bucks."
"Nah, we thought about it, but we'd have to go all the way to Ottawa, and scope things out, and there's all the planning... Man, it's a lot of work, we're gonna pass."
"We'll throw in a case of beer."
Are you listening Microsoft? Here is an opportunity to make some money. Package and sell the pirated version as 'Windows Freebooter', perhaps for a $50 premium over regular price. Seriously, I'll bet there's a market for it.