We're constantly being told that market share is not the biggest factor in the security equation. Because e.g. we're constantly point to the example of a piece of software (Apache) with enormous market share that is almost never breached.
We're constantly told these things 'cause they're true.
"The mythical "mom" doesn't want to worry about emailing a document in the right format, or having the right program to read the attachment she received. She just wants it to do what she tells it, with no bloody prompting with questions"
No offense, but I'm getting sick of this line of reasoning. You're right, mom wants the computer to read her thoughts, know exactly what she really meant when she said X, anticipate every need she might have, and pre-calculate its complexity out of existence.
In other news, my boss would like this entire website built in one hour ($40), never need support, and scale to 300,000 users.
At a certain point IT's job goes from "give every user what heshe wants" to "educate users about what is feasible in the current technological situation.
"the more people use Firefox, the more people look for bugs and vulnerabilities, the more people find them. The same thing happened with IE."
Except that with the Fox, half of the people looking for and finding bugs are doing so in order to help get them fixed.
Last time I checked, MS did not produce food, water, or shelter. When they do, it'll probably be awhile before they're the *only source of those things...
"the DRM Restriction crosses the line between, software freedom and telling the programmers what the can and can't program"
I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it the DRM clause is just meant to take any covered software out of the legal definition of "technical protection measure" and therefore out from under the heinous anticircumvention clause.
"Our view is it's our job to provide the technology and the content providers can tell us what kind of restrictions and policies they want to apply to that."
That's an interesting opinion to have. If party X is in charge of dictating the restrictions and policies in your product, isn't party X your real customer?
He's right that redefinitions of digital "rights" "management" to suit the speaker is pernicious, but in my opinion it's because the people trying to implement the stuff are almost always being deceptive.
If "management" *could mean (as TFA suggests) just attaching stuff to your work that indicates what you think your rights are, I'm all for it I guess. Attach it, be honest, and I'll avoid most of your crap like the plague.
But what many technologies do is actually digital rights *enforcement (i.e. of what your rights are) on people who might not share that opinion; in a great many instances, the federal government agrees with the *recipient about what is allowable.
You have forgotten that, at least in the short term, many of the former gatekeepers of knowledge stand to lose a lot if their "product" -- i.e. information -- is distributed for free by people with no ownership interest in it. It's not overstating too much to say they stand to lose their livelihood.
"the music "sharing" (pronounced "stealing") problem still needs to be solved or EMI will be very broke, very fast"
Protectionism at its best. EMI is going to go broke because what they do (find, promote, and distribute music) is done better and at lower cost by middle schoolers in their spare time.
I am writing to ask that you will vote in favor of bill (SB 446), introduced by Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, which would require all electronic state documents to be stored in a format described by an open standard
As an IT professional, document formats play an important role in my work (and, consequently, my contribution to the Texas economy). Open standards and open formats ensure that critical information will always be available to citizens, but they also make it possible for government operations to be more efficient. When government functions are not tied in to closed formats and specific applications, competition for the government's IT contracts is freer.
Additionally, open formats make it possible for government to use local contractors, so that monies spent on IT go back into the Texas economy instead of to an external vendor.
Actually, I like that it's only marketed in Italy. That means someone could (and should) get one, bring it to the states, reverse-engineer the DRM off of it, and publish a HOWTO so we can all use these things to access whatever books we want. If telecom isn't selling the thing here, I don't think you can SLAPP that kind of activity down. (IANAL, just thinking aloud)
I think your experience might be unusual. When I had unlimited plan, I went through their movies like crazy and never noticed any throttling. Shipment came a day late 3-4 times, but a day early 2-3 times.
I do have a crappy DVD player so I often had to wash the discs a bit to get them to play, but never felt the slightest bit riptoff. Calculated it once and was paying around $3.50 per film -- less than a "real" rental (anyone been in a Blockbuster recently?) and selection at least 50 times as good.
I believe the idea is that a democracy operates "properly" when the government only has/uses powers given to it through the explicit consent of the governed.
Hi, welcome to America. About 75 years ago, we decided that basic civics was too hard to figure out/keep on top of. We changed things around a bit so that now "the business of America is business" and that government's job is figure out inventive ways to move money from the tax base into the revenue column of a couple hundred corporations.
This makes civics a lot easier; instead of discussing things like "rights" and government's "mandate" or "powers", you just have to ask whether companies like X in order to determine whether X is good and represents the American Way of Life (TM)
Slashdot Mirror
We're constantly being told that market share is not the biggest factor in the security equation. Because e.g. we're constantly point to the example of a piece of software (Apache) with enormous market share that is almost never breached. We're constantly told these things 'cause they're true.
I would pay about $200 to prevent Vista's being installed on any machine I use.
"The mythical "mom" doesn't want to worry about emailing a document in the right format, or having the right program to read the attachment she received. She just wants it to do what she tells it, with no bloody prompting with questions"
No offense, but I'm getting sick of this line of reasoning. You're right, mom wants the computer to read her thoughts, know exactly what she really meant when she said X, anticipate every need she might have, and pre-calculate its complexity out of existence.
In other news, my boss would like this entire website built in one hour ($40), never need support, and scale to 300,000 users.
At a certain point IT's job goes from "give every user what heshe wants" to "educate users about what is feasible in the current technological situation.
"the more people use Firefox, the more people look for bugs and vulnerabilities, the more people find them. The same thing happened with IE." Except that with the Fox, half of the people looking for and finding bugs are doing so in order to help get them fixed.
Last time I checked, MS did not produce food, water, or shelter. When they do, it'll probably be awhile before they're the *only source of those things...
"the DRM Restriction crosses the line between, software freedom and telling the programmers what the can and can't program"
I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it the DRM clause is just meant to take any covered software out of the legal definition of "technical protection measure" and therefore out from under the heinous anticircumvention clause.
frickin' discordians... totally got me on that one
"we will eventually get degredation over time, and the quality of education will drop"
As someone who spent a year (viz. 1997) teaching community college kids what constitutes a complete sentence, this line made my day.
"Our view is it's our job to provide the technology and the content providers can tell us what kind of restrictions and policies they want to apply to that."
That's an interesting opinion to have. If party X is in charge of dictating the restrictions and policies in your product, isn't party X your real customer?
He's right that redefinitions of digital "rights" "management" to suit the speaker is pernicious, but in my opinion it's because the people trying to implement the stuff are almost always being deceptive.
If "management" *could mean (as TFA suggests) just attaching stuff to your work that indicates what you think your rights are, I'm all for it I guess. Attach it, be honest, and I'll avoid most of your crap like the plague.
But what many technologies do is actually digital rights *enforcement (i.e. of what your rights are) on people who might not share that opinion; in a great many instances, the federal government agrees with the *recipient about what is allowable.
You have forgotten that, at least in the short term, many of the former gatekeepers of knowledge stand to lose a lot if their "product" -- i.e. information -- is distributed for free by people with no ownership interest in it. It's not overstating too much to say they stand to lose their livelihood.
"Just don't switch to something else. Longh^H^H^H^H^H Vienna is going to blow you away, seriously."
"the music "sharing" (pronounced "stealing") problem still needs to be solved or EMI will be very broke, very fast"
Protectionism at its best. EMI is going to go broke because what they do (find, promote, and distribute music) is done better and at lower cost by middle schoolers in their spare time.
I am writing to ask that you will vote in favor of bill (SB 446), introduced by Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, which would require all electronic state documents to be stored in a format described by an open standard
As an IT professional, document formats play an important role in my work (and, consequently, my contribution to the Texas economy). Open standards and open formats ensure that critical information will always be available to citizens, but they also make it possible for government operations to be more efficient. When government functions are not tied in to closed formats and specific applications, competition for the government's IT contracts is freer.
Additionally, open formats make it possible for government to use local contractors, so that monies spent on IT go back into the Texas economy instead of to an external vendor.
Dallas county blue for the first time in decades, if I'm not mistaken http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2006/
Read those EULAs, ppl:
Amazon Unbox to Customers: Eat shit and die
... it takes a couple more years for everyone to realize you can't just keep dumping shit in a spacefill forever.
Actually, I like that it's only marketed in Italy. That means someone could (and should) get one, bring it to the states, reverse-engineer the DRM off of it, and publish a HOWTO so we can all use these things to access whatever books we want. If telecom isn't selling the thing here, I don't think you can SLAPP that kind of activity down. (IANAL, just thinking aloud)
I think your experience might be unusual. When I had unlimited plan, I went through their movies like crazy and never noticed any throttling. Shipment came a day late 3-4 times, but a day early 2-3 times.
I do have a crappy DVD player so I often had to wash the discs a bit to get them to play, but never felt the slightest bit riptoff. Calculated it once and was paying around $3.50 per film -- less than a "real" rental (anyone been in a Blockbuster recently?) and selection at least 50 times as good.
He's "Listed in Who's Who in Dance".
You don't wanna just awaken a sleeping giant and stuff...
not very friendly...
http://books.dreambook.com/nycsdancer/
Nabokov called _Lolita_ the story of his love affair with the English language.
(I vote we talk about anything and everything *except TFA.)
I believe the idea is that a democracy operates "properly" when the government only has/uses powers given to it through the explicit consent of the governed.
Hi, welcome to America. About 75 years ago, we decided that basic civics was too hard to figure out/keep on top of. We changed things around a bit so that now "the business of America is business" and that government's job is figure out inventive ways to move money from the tax base into the revenue column of a couple hundred corporations.
This makes civics a lot easier; instead of discussing things like "rights" and government's "mandate" or "powers", you just have to ask whether companies like X in order to determine whether X is good and represents the American Way of Life (TM)
This is by far the worst one.