43 million active users... How many are unwilling or unaware victims? I've never met anyone who had gator on their computer know what it was or want it installed. That doesn't sound like being an "active user" to me, more like virtual date-rape victims than anything else.
The fact that it makes a generic computer case actually look nice doesn't matter then?
Might as well not have paint on your car because everyone knows that paint just covers up that nasty looking anti-corrosion stuff on plain old steel, and who knows how that will look in a few years.
Or maybe making something that is at best "industrial looking" look nicer is a valid effort and may be worth something to some people?
Well, I do a lot of P2P filesharing, and what really frightens me is someone using *%$%^&%^&_lib and &^^%$& so they can track the ip addresses of everyone who is participating on the P2P network. They would be able to log all the pron, ebooks, movies, and music sharing that goes on and have times/dates/ip addresses. It's so simple, just one command (&%&%&((%$ piped to the corporate lawyer and we're all fscked.
--- This message has been post-processed and sanitized by network processing tool theft_be_safe to protect the user. ---
The military has formal customs and courtesies that must be followed, and many of them take ritual form. Saluting, formal reporting, seating and other positional preferences, all are physical measures of the military structure. Within the formal structure are undercurrents of respect and deference. It is interesting to see an older enlisted troop call a new officer "sir", yet receive nearly complete deference from the officer because it is clear who has greater experience and knowledge.
Not to imply that military members act like chimps (heh), but that they follow and are measured by a set of social rules much like the chimp societies the zoologists are so interested in. There is usually less baring of teeth though.
War is only an extension of diplomacy anyhow
on
Weapons in Space
·
· Score: 1
Since war is "merely" the extreme end of diplomatic tools used by countries to interact with each other, how does this change a thing? I'm sure that US soldiers will appreciate the enhanced ability to do their jobs more effectively with less risk, and their opponents will experience the benefits of being on the receiving end of a much more precise application of force. Compare the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo to the "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq... Those horrible horrible modern weapons allowed the US military to take a major capitol city with a fraction of the civilian and military casualties that would have been required even 20 years ago. The weaponization of space is just one more step along that road.
Whether or not you agree with the application of that power is a personal decision, and as the 2000 US Presidential elections proved, your vote might be more important than you think. It's a matter of time before all modernized nations have the ability to create these types of weapons, so you're a fool if you think your own country should allow others to capitalize on your own sense of right and wrong. Give your military the best tools, but TIGHTLY CONTROL the government that authorizes the use of those weapons. Vote the power away from the central government if necessary, but cast your vote for the people you'd trust with these weapons that each country is going to have anyway.
Although the editorial style is a little *ahem* younger *ahem* and less formal than I usually like, I have found that the results hardocp (www.hardocp.com) reports have generally matched my own experiences when using the same hardware they reported on. By extrapolation, it leads me to put some trust in their reviews. Of course you always have to read between the lines and pick/choose what you're looking for in any hardware review, but that is merely common sense.
For example, if I'm buying a motherboard to upgrade my Dad's computer, and I see a positive review for a motherboard that says something like "setup isn't easy and the chipset is slightly flaky but it overclocks great and has a cool red color!", then maybe I'll go with a different board even though they may have liked it. On the same note, when a board is given a negative review to the effect of "it was rock solid stable at default settings but doesn't overclock worth crap", maybe I'll take a second look at that one.
Hardocp seems to do a good job at balancing their reviews and pointing out both positives and negatives for everything, including products they love, products they hate, and products that are just so-so for various reasons. They also don't assign some arbitrary number score or grade to each product either, taking the time to write a actual rationally thought out conclusion unlike some sites that give an 8 or better (out of 10) to every single product they see.
The question is if it takes more power to create the converter than you get back out. If it takes more power to make one of these devices than they can get back out, then it becomes little more than a battery or power distribution device.
It's sort of like hydrogen powercells... They don't actually "make" electricity because it takes more electricity to crack the hydrogen from water than you get from the cell, plus it takes energy to make the cell in the first place.
If this power from waste converter/cell actually generates more power than it took to make, it could be a big deal but otherwise it's just another way to get power from one place (the manufacturing plant) to another (the site where it's set up).
I used my standard handheld (screwdriver) to emulate another handheld (phillips screwdriver), so I guess I owe Nintendo an apology... I showed someone else how to do it too, so does that mean I violated the DMCA since the handheld (screwdrivers) were hardware-keyed for their intended purposes and I circumvented the useage restrictions?
Maybe I should have a lawyer haul around my toolbox for me.
And for those who still don't get it, software tools are just like hardware tools, but the lawyers are trying to make it illegal to do with software what people have been doing with hardware for thousands of years. So if you substitute "screwdriver" for whatever tech or digital tool and the issue suddenly doesn't sound criminal anymore, maybe it shouldn't have been brought up in the first place.
It only works sometimes and for some people. I have all the required ports open and have had the torrent going for 8 hours, and it's downloaded 63 meg while uploading 500 meg. It'll upload as fast or as slow as I tell it to, but it only downloads at 1 or 2 kbps if at all.
I want compensation from France in case they surrender to someone and we have to bail them out. Again. How about repaying us for WWII before coming to us for money?
I did RTFA. Again, what "rights" are being denied? State what constitutionally guaranteed right is being denied. In addition, many (most) lawsuits like those being tracked are public record, and collecting public records in one location is far less intrusive than the practice of forcing doctors to place their private personal records in publically searchable databases, as is the practice in some states.
Turnabout is fair play. Doctors, whether they are good or not, place their careers and the wellfare of their entire family on the line every time they go into work. In addition to the threat from lawsuits claiming huge damages from even honest mistakes, doctors have aids patients spit blood on them and all sorts of ther nastiness. A doctor I know had a patient with aids and hepatitis pull his mask down and spit blood in his face. The doctor had no recourse because according to laws in that state, the patients had some bullshit protections that basically allow them to assault doctors at will, facing no repercussions. The doctor couldn't even file assault charges due to confidentiality rules. That doctor now has to get tested for aids every month and must report that they have been exposed to aids every time he changes jobs or applies for further credentials. That doctor can't actually DO anything because if he refused to treat a patient that was actively assaulting him, he could be sued and fired, losing everything he'd worked for, wasting years of education aimed at helping the people who are spitting in his face.
Get off your greedy socialist/communist high horse and realize that people seeking medical care have NO constitutionally guaranteed rights beyond those given to any other consumer seeking service from a commercial provider. Medical providers have been crapped on for decades now and people who feel they have some innate "right" which forces skilled professionals to put their lives, careers, and financial welfare at their mercy need to figure out that beating the cow is no way to get milk. TANSTAAFL. If you need something, you better be able to pay for it because I sure as hell don't want to pay for your crap. And when you go to a professional for a service, don't complain if he keeps track of which customers cause more trouble than the others.
So, where in the constitution does it say everyone has a right to force doctors to treat them? Is it right under the line that says that doctors have no rights and must be forced to use their 6+ years of intensive training whenever anyone asks, even if that person is doctor shopping or has a history of multiple lawsuits?
Exactly who's "rights" does this database infringe upon? How is it any different than similiar databases set up in states like New York that list all doctors, their certifications, where they trained, and if they've been sued or not? Oh yea, THAT's OK, because it's easy to shit on doctors because we can always sue them if they gripe about it.
Even before the cyberterrorism laws and other post 9/11 legislation, messing with the 911 system was a quick way to land in jail. This moron ought to have known that. Regardless of what laws are most convenient to prosecute him, messing with the 911 system is easily "proven" in court to be a reckless and dangerous act.
I hope he has fun in prison. It could have been someone in YOUR family who got a busy signal when they dialed 911 had this little attack spread beyond those 21 people. Think about how that just might be a bad thing regardless of whether you call it "terrorism" or not.
Wouldn't it be neat if you could go to a website, enter in a list of all the hardware on your computer, enter in the applications or types of applications you want to use, and then download a customized installation CD with only what you want included? Then if you changed any hardware or wanted more software, you'd revisit the site, enter in the changes, and then download a patch including required modules, applications, and a script that installed/configured the changes?
Chances are the Japanese government warned them, but Microsoft thought the email with the attachment full of legalese was either spam or yet another trojan, and deleted it without opening. Seriously, who opens attachments you weren't expecting anyhow?
The original patent is invalid because it interferes with my own previous patent. I have whimsically called my own patent "cause and effect", which describes the process where when something is done, something else happens. This patent has been recently strengthened by the scientific works of Stephen Hawking, which not only clarifies my patent, but describes exactly when, where, and how exceptions to the process described may occur. To protect my patent, I am bypassing the lawyers and proceeding directly to locusts and plague.
More interesting than the actual act of hacking into a US DoE network is the legal precedent set by the Judge in the UK. Although he found the kid guilty and sentenced him to 200 hours of community service, he failed to make him pay the roughly $38,000 in damages he cost the DoE as they took 17 computers down for 3 days to clean up the mess he made.
According to CNN http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/02/03/britai n.hacker.reut/index.html the justification for failing to make the kid pay the actual financial damages he caused was that no classified information was compromised. This sets a legal precedent that is simply outstanding for budding young international hackers both in the US and the UK, because it means that as long as they do not compromise classified information, they can cause as much financial loss as they want and not be held liable for it beyond public service outside of the country they caused the damage in. For US script kiddies, this should mean that if they're caught hacking into UK government systems, the UK government should not ask the US to recover any financial damages unless classified information was compromised.
See, the US and UK really ARE allies in the war against... ummm... are we FOR or AGAINST script kiddies this week?
If you attack a community, rightly or wrongly, what moron wouldn't expect that community to fight back?
Bleeding SCO dry as quickly as possible may be the only way to end the insanity. The question will be whether this whole situation resolves as a mere survival of the fittest example, or as a true legal precedent setting case that supports the open source and free (as in both beer and libre) software models.
blah blah blah our shitty authentication and exploitable code is a feature not a bug blah blah blah.
Welllll, ok then. The question becomes do I not use gamespy because they're cracking down on a bug researcher, or because their products have exploitable holes that are "officially recognized" design features?
Talk about overpaid... The "expert" ought to list his own salary. Everyone is so willing to point at the other guy and cry foul, and of course someone gets paid to do that? Who here couldn't write that article, picking your 10 pet peeves, and claim that "expert's" salary?
He begins by shouting that supply/demand statistics don't justify those salaries, but nowhere does he list a single number supporting his personal choices. And in the end, that's all his article is, a list of the jobs he personally thinks are overpaid, because he lists no supporting evidence. When he's done with the training required to be an orthodontist, or has compiled 20 years of mishap-free commercial flying as a senior pilot, then maybe he can claim how trivially easy it is to get those qualifications. And he can STFU until he backs his grandiose claims about the supply/demand balance with a few numbers rather than his personal (worthless) opinion.
You mean I can break any license I want if it's unenforcable? I can just say "they can't catch me" and that's a valid legal reason to declare a license void?
Schweet! I have an unlimited number of win9x copies now, because all those licences are VOID BABY! Music copyright? Unenforcable, therefore VOID BABY!
SCO allegations unenforcable? I have an unspecified copies of unspecified versions of unspecified distributions of Linux... SCO can't enforce anything on me, so their claims are VOID BABY, YEA!
"Your Honor, I'd like to cite precident, SCO vs. everyone, in which it was ruled that any unenforcable license is void. Since I'm only being tried for stealing a tenth of the stuff I stole, but you can't prove I stole the other stuff, the licenses covering all of it is void. I move for dismissal of all charges plus I claim ownership of every physical object my stolen stuff touched, because their ownership rights is unenforcable and therefore void."
Didn't anyone notice the part in the licencing agreement, you know, the one that's been there since the first Bill Gates version of DOS, that says there is no warranty of suitability in any of microsoft's products?
It doesn't get any clearer than that. You use their products at your own risk. They have said this since day one. You may notice that hospitals don't use microsoft products to monitor or run critical machinery, right? That's because... you guessed it... Microsoft has NEVER EVER EVER said that they guarantee their software to do anything correctly or consistently.
People wonder why medical and military equipment seems overpriced. This warranty/guarantee of suitability is one reason. Whenever someone's life is at stake, the software and hardware must undergo a significantly more rigorous testing and validation process to provide the guarantee that it is suitable for a specific task.
Again, check that license from Microsoft, because it's always been there, one of the few parts of the license that never ever changes.
It's kind of like suing a shoelace company if your shoelace breaks and you trip. The shoelace is designed to hold your shoe on, everyone uses shoelaces, and people depend on shoelaces every day. But where does it say that the shoelace is guaranteed to actually DO anything?
Find the part of the Microsoft product licenses that say their products are actually certified to DO ANYTHING AT ALL, and you might have a lawsuit, however you'll find that the license specifically states the opposite.
So the people who actually expected a MS product to work correctly need to quit whining and stop putting all their eggs in one basket. Everyone knew that principle long before the first computer was made and it's no different now. The only people who profit from a frivolous lawsuit like this are the lawyers.
Another court already has placed another delay on the DNC list, this time based on free speech grounds. The next telemarketer that calls me is going to get a few choice free speech curses thrown his way. If they want to play that game, the 1st amendment street goes two ways. As long as you don't actually threaten a telemarketer, you can say whatever you want to them, their corporate execs, and their secretaries/phone screeners. Not to mention your free speech right to call every court and judge's home number and explain exactly how you feel about free speech applies to people forcing their words on you. Call it harassment, call it stalking when the same company calls you 5 times, call it verbal rape, the telemarketers are calling it free speech. Fight's on boys.
Don't hang up anymore! Leave the phone off the hook and when you hear a real live telemarketer, first try to sound reasonable and get a customer service or supervisor phone number you can call back, then say the most offensive thing you can get out before THEY hang up. Then post that phone number up on slashdot:)
This will just be more "proof" that copying music hurts CD sales. Fewer people will buy the CD, and a hack will be announced which allows a high-quality rip of the CD. This will be held up as proof positive that people stealing music is the only reason CD sales are declining.
I've already voted with my wallet and I listen to FM radio a lot more than I used to. We can only hope the RIAA itself dies sooner rather than later, but I forsee CD prices actually increasing and artist compensation dropping, to cover the legal costs of suing everyone and buying congressmen. It will get worse before it gets better.
64 bit... who really cares RIGHT NOW? The Athlon 64 appears to be posting up a very nice showing with today's apps and games, so the processor you buy tomorrow morning ought to be the one that will run your programs the best today and next week. Next month and next year... Bah. You can drive yourself crazy trying to lead-turn the chip industry. Get a cpu with "hidden 64 bit inside" and by the time any software is written to take advantage of it (meaning it actually runs faster than before), there will be another cheaper cpu already available that once again runs "today's" programs faster. If you need bleeding edge performance at any cost, go ahead and buy the latest cpu every 3 months and be happy. If not, buy the best bang/buck AT THE TIME OF PURCHASE and just accept that you may want to upgrade 6 months from now. 40-50% of the price will buy you 80-90% of the performance of the top cpu out there, so that makes it a lot easier to afford an upgrade that will leapfrog past what used to be the top cpu at the time of your original purchase.
Buying a cpu for applications more than 3ish months away is a foolish decision. The price and product cycles makes buying those capabilities ahead of time a bad idea. You only have to look back at the early pentium adopters to realize what a little patience can do for you. Back then, a fast 486 would hands-down beat a pentium in any application except for a couple of image editing apps, and things stayed that way for months. Things stayed that way for nearly a year until Intel nearly doubled the speed of the pentium, finally putting the 486 out of the picture. A 64 bit processor better be damn fast today or it shouldn't be purchased. By the time the extra performance seen from 64 bit apps and operating systems is realized, you'll be able to buy an even faster/newer cpu for less money. Save your pennies and get what works the best today.
For what it's worth, TODAY the fastest cpu seems to be an Athlon64 or Opteron. Hidden 64 bit instructions won't change that a bit. Show me the application benchmarks and I'll believe. Until then, I'm saving my coin for the next upgrade cycle.
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43 million active users... How many are unwilling or unaware victims? I've never met anyone who had gator on their computer know what it was or want it installed. That doesn't sound like being an "active user" to me, more like virtual date-rape victims than anything else.
The fact that it makes a generic computer case actually look nice doesn't matter then?
Might as well not have paint on your car because everyone knows that paint just covers up that nasty looking anti-corrosion stuff on plain old steel, and who knows how that will look in a few years.
Or maybe making something that is at best "industrial looking" look nicer is a valid effort and may be worth something to some people?
Well, I do a lot of P2P filesharing, and what really frightens me is someone using *%$%^&%^&_lib and &^^%$& so they can track the ip addresses of everyone who is participating on the P2P network. They would be able to log all the pron, ebooks, movies, and music sharing that goes on and have times/dates/ip addresses. It's so simple, just one command (&%&%&((%$ piped to the corporate lawyer and we're all fscked.
--- This message has been post-processed and sanitized by network processing tool theft_be_safe to protect the user. ---
The military has formal customs and courtesies that must be followed, and many of them take ritual form. Saluting, formal reporting, seating and other positional preferences, all are physical measures of the military structure. Within the formal structure are undercurrents of respect and deference. It is interesting to see an older enlisted troop call a new officer "sir", yet receive nearly complete deference from the officer because it is clear who has greater experience and knowledge.
Not to imply that military members act like chimps (heh), but that they follow and are measured by a set of social rules much like the chimp societies the zoologists are so interested in. There is usually less baring of teeth though.
Since war is "merely" the extreme end of diplomatic tools used by countries to interact with each other, how does this change a thing? I'm sure that US soldiers will appreciate the enhanced ability to do their jobs more effectively with less risk, and their opponents will experience the benefits of being on the receiving end of a much more precise application of force. Compare the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo to the "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq... Those horrible horrible modern weapons allowed the US military to take a major capitol city with a fraction of the civilian and military casualties that would have been required even 20 years ago. The weaponization of space is just one more step along that road.
Whether or not you agree with the application of that power is a personal decision, and as the 2000 US Presidential elections proved, your vote might be more important than you think. It's a matter of time before all modernized nations have the ability to create these types of weapons, so you're a fool if you think your own country should allow others to capitalize on your own sense of right and wrong. Give your military the best tools, but TIGHTLY CONTROL the government that authorizes the use of those weapons. Vote the power away from the central government if necessary, but cast your vote for the people you'd trust with these weapons that each country is going to have anyway.
Although the editorial style is a little *ahem* younger *ahem* and less formal than I usually like, I have found that the results hardocp (www.hardocp.com) reports have generally matched my own experiences when using the same hardware they reported on. By extrapolation, it leads me to put some trust in their reviews. Of course you always have to read between the lines and pick/choose what you're looking for in any hardware review, but that is merely common sense.
For example, if I'm buying a motherboard to upgrade my Dad's computer, and I see a positive review for a motherboard that says something like "setup isn't easy and the chipset is slightly flaky but it overclocks great and has a cool red color!", then maybe I'll go with a different board even though they may have liked it. On the same note, when a board is given a negative review to the effect of "it was rock solid stable at default settings but doesn't overclock worth crap", maybe I'll take a second look at that one.
Hardocp seems to do a good job at balancing their reviews and pointing out both positives and negatives for everything, including products they love, products they hate, and products that are just so-so for various reasons. They also don't assign some arbitrary number score or grade to each product either, taking the time to write a actual rationally thought out conclusion unlike some sites that give an 8 or better (out of 10) to every single product they see.
The question is if it takes more power to create the converter than you get back out. If it takes more power to make one of these devices than they can get back out, then it becomes little more than a battery or power distribution device.
It's sort of like hydrogen powercells... They don't actually "make" electricity because it takes more electricity to crack the hydrogen from water than you get from the cell, plus it takes energy to make the cell in the first place.
If this power from waste converter/cell actually generates more power than it took to make, it could be a big deal but otherwise it's just another way to get power from one place (the manufacturing plant) to another (the site where it's set up).
I used my standard handheld (screwdriver) to emulate another handheld (phillips screwdriver), so I guess I owe Nintendo an apology... I showed someone else how to do it too, so does that mean I violated the DMCA since the handheld (screwdrivers) were hardware-keyed for their intended purposes and I circumvented the useage restrictions?
Maybe I should have a lawyer haul around my toolbox for me.
And for those who still don't get it, software tools are just like hardware tools, but the lawyers are trying to make it illegal to do with software what people have been doing with hardware for thousands of years. So if you substitute "screwdriver" for whatever tech or digital tool and the issue suddenly doesn't sound criminal anymore, maybe it shouldn't have been brought up in the first place.
It only works sometimes and for some people. I have all the required ports open and have had the torrent going for 8 hours, and it's downloaded 63 meg while uploading 500 meg. It'll upload as fast or as slow as I tell it to, but it only downloads at 1 or 2 kbps if at all.
I want compensation from France in case they surrender to someone and we have to bail them out. Again. How about repaying us for WWII before coming to us for money?
I did RTFA. Again, what "rights" are being denied? State what constitutionally guaranteed right is being denied. In addition, many (most) lawsuits like those being tracked are public record, and collecting public records in one location is far less intrusive than the practice of forcing doctors to place their private personal records in publically searchable databases, as is the practice in some states.
Turnabout is fair play. Doctors, whether they are good or not, place their careers and the wellfare of their entire family on the line every time they go into work. In addition to the threat from lawsuits claiming huge damages from even honest mistakes, doctors have aids patients spit blood on them and all sorts of ther nastiness. A doctor I know had a patient with aids and hepatitis pull his mask down and spit blood in his face. The doctor had no recourse because according to laws in that state, the patients had some bullshit protections that basically allow them to assault doctors at will, facing no repercussions. The doctor couldn't even file assault charges due to confidentiality rules. That doctor now has to get tested for aids every month and must report that they have been exposed to aids every time he changes jobs or applies for further credentials. That doctor can't actually DO anything because if he refused to treat a patient that was actively assaulting him, he could be sued and fired, losing everything he'd worked for, wasting years of education aimed at helping the people who are spitting in his face.
Get off your greedy socialist/communist high horse and realize that people seeking medical care have NO constitutionally guaranteed rights beyond those given to any other consumer seeking service from a commercial provider. Medical providers have been crapped on for decades now and people who feel they have some innate "right" which forces skilled professionals to put their lives, careers, and financial welfare at their mercy need to figure out that beating the cow is no way to get milk. TANSTAAFL. If you need something, you better be able to pay for it because I sure as hell don't want to pay for your crap. And when you go to a professional for a service, don't complain if he keeps track of which customers cause more trouble than the others.
So, where in the constitution does it say everyone has a right to force doctors to treat them? Is it right under the line that says that doctors have no rights and must be forced to use their 6+ years of intensive training whenever anyone asks, even if that person is doctor shopping or has a history of multiple lawsuits?
Exactly who's "rights" does this database infringe upon? How is it any different than similiar databases set up in states like New York that list all doctors, their certifications, where they trained, and if they've been sued or not? Oh yea, THAT's OK, because it's easy to shit on doctors because we can always sue them if they gripe about it.
Even before the cyberterrorism laws and other post 9/11 legislation, messing with the 911 system was a quick way to land in jail. This moron ought to have known that. Regardless of what laws are most convenient to prosecute him, messing with the 911 system is easily "proven" in court to be a reckless and dangerous act.
I hope he has fun in prison. It could have been someone in YOUR family who got a busy signal when they dialed 911 had this little attack spread beyond those 21 people. Think about how that just might be a bad thing regardless of whether you call it "terrorism" or not.
Wouldn't it be neat if you could go to a website, enter in a list of all the hardware on your computer, enter in the applications or types of applications you want to use, and then download a customized installation CD with only what you want included? Then if you changed any hardware or wanted more software, you'd revisit the site, enter in the changes, and then download a patch including required modules, applications, and a script that installed/configured the changes?
That would be cool.
Chances are the Japanese government warned them, but Microsoft thought the email with the attachment full of legalese was either spam or yet another trojan, and deleted it without opening. Seriously, who opens attachments you weren't expecting anyhow?
The original patent is invalid because it interferes with my own previous patent. I have whimsically called my own patent "cause and effect", which describes the process where when something is done, something else happens. This patent has been recently strengthened by the scientific works of Stephen Hawking, which not only clarifies my patent, but describes exactly when, where, and how exceptions to the process described may occur. To protect my patent, I am bypassing the lawyers and proceeding directly to locusts and plague.
--god
More interesting than the actual act of hacking into a US DoE network is the legal precedent set by the Judge in the UK. Although he found the kid guilty and sentenced him to 200 hours of community service, he failed to make him pay the roughly $38,000 in damages he cost the DoE as they took 17 computers down for 3 days to clean up the mess he made.
i n.hacker.reut/index.html the justification for failing to make the kid pay the actual financial damages he caused was that no classified information was compromised. This sets a legal precedent that is simply outstanding for budding young international hackers both in the US and the UK, because it means that as long as they do not compromise classified information, they can cause as much financial loss as they want and not be held liable for it beyond public service outside of the country they caused the damage in. For US script kiddies, this should mean that if they're caught hacking into UK government systems, the UK government should not ask the US to recover any financial damages unless classified information was compromised.
According to CNN http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/02/03/brita
See, the US and UK really ARE allies in the war against... ummm... are we FOR or AGAINST script kiddies this week?
If you attack a community, rightly or wrongly, what moron wouldn't expect that community to fight back?
Bleeding SCO dry as quickly as possible may be the only way to end the insanity. The question will be whether this whole situation resolves as a mere survival of the fittest example, or as a true legal precedent setting case that supports the open source and free (as in both beer and libre) software models.
blah blah blah our shitty authentication and exploitable code is a feature not a bug blah blah blah.
Welllll, ok then. The question becomes do I not use gamespy because they're cracking down on a bug researcher, or because their products have exploitable holes that are "officially recognized" design features?
Talk about overpaid... The "expert" ought to list his own salary. Everyone is so willing to point at the other guy and cry foul, and of course someone gets paid to do that? Who here couldn't write that article, picking your 10 pet peeves, and claim that "expert's" salary?
He begins by shouting that supply/demand statistics don't justify those salaries, but nowhere does he list a single number supporting his personal choices. And in the end, that's all his article is, a list of the jobs he personally thinks are overpaid, because he lists no supporting evidence. When he's done with the training required to be an orthodontist, or has compiled 20 years of mishap-free commercial flying as a senior pilot, then maybe he can claim how trivially easy it is to get those qualifications. And he can STFU until he backs his grandiose claims about the supply/demand balance with a few numbers rather than his personal (worthless) opinion.
You mean I can break any license I want if it's unenforcable? I can just say "they can't catch me" and that's a valid legal reason to declare a license void?
Schweet! I have an unlimited number of win9x copies now, because all those licences are VOID BABY! Music copyright? Unenforcable, therefore VOID BABY!
SCO allegations unenforcable? I have an unspecified copies of unspecified versions of unspecified distributions of Linux... SCO can't enforce anything on me, so their claims are VOID BABY, YEA!
"Your Honor, I'd like to cite precident, SCO vs. everyone, in which it was ruled that any unenforcable license is void. Since I'm only being tried for stealing a tenth of the stuff I stole, but you can't prove I stole the other stuff, the licenses covering all of it is void. I move for dismissal of all charges plus I claim ownership of every physical object my stolen stuff touched, because their ownership rights is unenforcable and therefore void."
Didn't anyone notice the part in the licencing agreement, you know, the one that's been there since the first Bill Gates version of DOS, that says there is no warranty of suitability in any of microsoft's products?
It doesn't get any clearer than that. You use their products at your own risk. They have said this since day one. You may notice that hospitals don't use microsoft products to monitor or run critical machinery, right? That's because... you guessed it... Microsoft has NEVER EVER EVER said that they guarantee their software to do anything correctly or consistently.
People wonder why medical and military equipment seems overpriced. This warranty/guarantee of suitability is one reason. Whenever someone's life is at stake, the software and hardware must undergo a significantly more rigorous testing and validation process to provide the guarantee that it is suitable for a specific task.
Again, check that license from Microsoft, because it's always been there, one of the few parts of the license that never ever changes.
It's kind of like suing a shoelace company if your shoelace breaks and you trip. The shoelace is designed to hold your shoe on, everyone uses shoelaces, and people depend on shoelaces every day. But where does it say that the shoelace is guaranteed to actually DO anything?
Find the part of the Microsoft product licenses that say their products are actually certified to DO ANYTHING AT ALL, and you might have a lawsuit, however you'll find that the license specifically states the opposite.
So the people who actually expected a MS product to work correctly need to quit whining and stop putting all their eggs in one basket. Everyone knew that principle long before the first computer was made and it's no different now. The only people who profit from a frivolous lawsuit like this are the lawyers.
Another court already has placed another delay on the DNC list, this time based on free speech grounds. The next telemarketer that calls me is going to get a few choice free speech curses thrown his way. If they want to play that game, the 1st amendment street goes two ways. As long as you don't actually threaten a telemarketer, you can say whatever you want to them, their corporate execs, and their secretaries/phone screeners. Not to mention your free speech right to call every court and judge's home number and explain exactly how you feel about free speech applies to people forcing their words on you. Call it harassment, call it stalking when the same company calls you 5 times, call it verbal rape, the telemarketers are calling it free speech. Fight's on boys.
:)
Don't hang up anymore! Leave the phone off the hook and when you hear a real live telemarketer, first try to sound reasonable and get a customer service or supervisor phone number you can call back, then say the most offensive thing you can get out before THEY hang up. Then post that phone number up on slashdot
This will just be more "proof" that copying music hurts CD sales. Fewer people will buy the CD, and a hack will be announced which allows a high-quality rip of the CD. This will be held up as proof positive that people stealing music is the only reason CD sales are declining.
I've already voted with my wallet and I listen to FM radio a lot more than I used to. We can only hope the RIAA itself dies sooner rather than later, but I forsee CD prices actually increasing and artist compensation dropping, to cover the legal costs of suing everyone and buying congressmen. It will get worse before it gets better.
64 bit... who really cares RIGHT NOW? The Athlon 64 appears to be posting up a very nice showing with today's apps and games, so the processor you buy tomorrow morning ought to be the one that will run your programs the best today and next week. Next month and next year... Bah. You can drive yourself crazy trying to lead-turn the chip industry. Get a cpu with "hidden 64 bit inside" and by the time any software is written to take advantage of it (meaning it actually runs faster than before), there will be another cheaper cpu already available that once again runs "today's" programs faster. If you need bleeding edge performance at any cost, go ahead and buy the latest cpu every 3 months and be happy. If not, buy the best bang/buck AT THE TIME OF PURCHASE and just accept that you may want to upgrade 6 months from now. 40-50% of the price will buy you 80-90% of the performance of the top cpu out there, so that makes it a lot easier to afford an upgrade that will leapfrog past what used to be the top cpu at the time of your original purchase.
Buying a cpu for applications more than 3ish months away is a foolish decision. The price and product cycles makes buying those capabilities ahead of time a bad idea. You only have to look back at the early pentium adopters to realize what a little patience can do for you. Back then, a fast 486 would hands-down beat a pentium in any application except for a couple of image editing apps, and things stayed that way for months. Things stayed that way for nearly a year until Intel nearly doubled the speed of the pentium, finally putting the 486 out of the picture. A 64 bit processor better be damn fast today or it shouldn't be purchased. By the time the extra performance seen from 64 bit apps and operating systems is realized, you'll be able to buy an even faster/newer cpu for less money. Save your pennies and get what works the best today.
For what it's worth, TODAY the fastest cpu seems to be an Athlon64 or Opteron. Hidden 64 bit instructions won't change that a bit. Show me the application benchmarks and I'll believe. Until then, I'm saving my coin for the next upgrade cycle.