Is that like a "government law enforcement employee disguised as a 15 year old girl", or maybe like a "professional Monsanto representative disguised as a farmer"?
Hang on, if the guy set out to exploit Googles' rules of the time (I cannot do 'x', but 'y' and 'z' are open to interpretation) then he's perfectly entitled to use 'y' and 'z' to their fullest extent. At the time, they were not excluded.
If, sometime later, Google decide to blacklist methods 'y' and 'z' that's hardly the 'spammers' fault. It's simply that Google have moved the goal posts.
It's as if I set a new world bicycle land speed record at 320 kmh over 2 km, and you decided arbitrarily to set the rules for surpassing the record as 'measured in mph'..
If people opt not to use AOL products and services, AOL loses money.
Be careful with the phraseology citizen. Witness:
If people opt to pirate RIAA products and services, RIAA artists starve.
Don't confuse a lost opportunity for advertising revenue (which this is) with a budget shortfall (claimed) based on optimistically projected earnings from potential sales.
The difference is subtle, and the wording is similar, but the reality is nonetheless distinct.
It's quite evident you have no experience of avionics. After 9 years repairing aircraft radio, intercom and nav aids I can tell you with absolute authority that all airborne electronic equipment is securely grounded, from the copper braided sleeve running up the pilots' headset cord to the 8 inch copper straps between the ac generators and the airframe.
Hell, in our test bay we'd have banks of vhf radios in for repair or test, stacked up along a bench. Some would be on full 400w ssb transmit tests into dummy loads while those alongside would be hooked up to oscilloscopes measuring bfo drift, and there wouldn't be as much as a stray spike on the scope.
Aircraft electronics are *designed* to be robust, else they wouldn't get the damn accreditation in the first place.
If that's their main concern then I believe it's unfounded in reality. For the uninitiated, here's a quick resumé of how cell phones work...
When a cellphone connects to a tower to transmit a call it gets one of a couple of possible responses:
a) If the tower has no relay slots free for the call it sends a 'fail' response and your phone automatically tries another tower. If your phone gets above a certain number of 'fail' responses, it will just give up with a 'no service' error.
b) If the tower has a free slot the call is connected. In this case, the phone will either stay connected to that tower until the termination of the call, or until the signal drops below a certain threshold (range), whichever happens soonest. When the signal level drops below an acceptable level you'll get passed on to the tower with the 2nd strongest signal, etc, ad infinitum.
Now it's important to realise that your phone connects initially to the tower with the strongest signal, but that needn't necessarily be the closest tower. If you're flying at 30,000ft above a grid of towers, the tower you connect to will be decided not only on signal strength but also on available slots, so not everyone on the plane will connect to the same tower. If there are no relay slots available you simply will not connect. Fears of disconnecting other users by your sudden appearance on the network are unfounded, as slots are served on a 'first come, first served' basis. We already do this every day travelling by train, or by car on the interstate.
Logically though, a plane travelling through a cell with 300 passengers making calls at 500mph would be less disruptive than a train travelling through the same cell with 300 passengers making calls at 120mph, as their calls would get handed over to other towers sooner, freeing relay slots as it passes.
If there's any potential bottleneck, it's during 'registration', whereby every 7 seconds or so your phone sends 'hello, I'm phone $model $IME $serial_no belonging to $network, can I connect?' and waits for a response from the cell towers, but as this handshake takes mere milliseconds I cannot see even this presenting a problem.
I'm willing to bet that it's not at all statistically uncommon for 20 or 30 callers in a high user density area with good coverage to be equidistant from their surrounding towers on the ground at any one time.
In fact, as the system explicitly allows you to skip from tower to tower in search of the best signal, I'm also willing to bet that the system was, in fact, designed with this in mind and will simply queue your call.
So is it a good idea to uninstall EasyUbuntu and/or Automatix before an upgrade?
Should I reset my machine to a default 6.10 installation before upgrading? How are customizations handled? For example, I removed Evolution because it was crap. Will this affect an upgrade?
Perhaps even more on topic for this site is the Slashdotter extension, which not only automatically adds the various cache links to article links, but tells you when you have mod points.
Amended June 19 2006 - The rate of unemployment in London is 7.6% (January to March) according to the Labour Force Survey. This is almost 1 percentage point higher than the next region, the North East of England which has a rate of 6.7% for the same period. The UK national average for January-March is 5.2%. London's total of 301,000 unemployed is more than the totals for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined, more than the entire English Midlands and more than the North West and North East of England combined.
When are you going to understand that information wants to be free?
Don't anthromorphize information, he *really* hates that...
Music, films, software, games, are nothing more than ideas
Yes they are. They're the physical / audible / visual / interactive realization of ideas that took actual work to create. There's a world of difference between having the thought "Wouldn't it be cool if...", and actually doing something about it.
GIVE ME LIBERTY (TO ENJOY ANY AND ALL DIGITAL CONTENT WITHOUT PAYMENT)
One company is buckling to industry pressure and including DRM, the other has a fricking Trusted Platform Module in every new computer it makes. The double standard is infuriating.
Are systems with TPMs available?
Desktop, notebook and tablet PCs with TPMs are available from Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Toshiba and others.
More here and here. In fact, it's becoming more difficult to find a manufacturer that *doesn't* implement a TPM.
Besides, it's not the addition of a chip on the motherboard that's the problem, rather how and where it's used. As far as I'm aware, it's currently unused on Apple hardware; Microsoft however require it for BitLocker in Vista.
If my bank demands "requirement x" in order to do business with them, they can damn well supply and maintain "requirement x" at their cost and inconvenience, else I'll open an account with their rivals instead.
I have no problem with getting my wages paid into an account from the National Bank of Elbonia (or whoever) instead, drawing cash from there and making purchases the old way.
To put it simply, any enterprise or individual that seeks to control what I do with my hard earned cash won't be seeing any of it. I don't believe I'm alone here...
I'd imagine the banks are well aware of this. If not, they don't deserve my business.
Yep, this applies also to the *AA, Microsoft, Apple, et al.
Unfortunately, the "reasonably expected to know" bit has never (AFAIK) been tested in court, so we don't have a legal definition of "reasonable".
So it could still be argued that if you have a password protected file or folder on your computer you should be "reasonably expected to know" the password. Forgetting that password could legally be construed as obstruction, and would constitute a jail term under this act.
I have sha-1 signed files in my backup documents from *years* ago, unused precisely because I can't remember the bloody pass phrases. I also have a binary dump from a "password keeper" type program for Windows from a company that are no longer producing the software. Without access to the contents of these files, I have no way to prove that these are, in fact, innocent files. My inability to unlock these files, when asked, could see me in jail.
I think that the answer to that question has just been announced at WWDC. iTV. Streaming hollywood studio content direct to your tv from your computer.
Microsoft desparately want to position themselves as content providers, as Apple are in the process of doing. But the studios backing MS naturally fear losing their monopolist grip on that market, and have probably been insisting on ever more draconian DRM regimes to protect their interests. In their rush to corner the market, Microsoft are possibly only too happy to bend over for the studios.
It'll be interesting to compare Apples DRM schemes with Microsofts, given that MS started down their path 6 years ago. Apple are still working out their studio tie-ins (the latest being Paramount), so they have the advantage that the studios have had a bit longer to see how the market was heading. I wouldn't be surprised to find a more relaxed attitude now from the studios.
Whether you put Windows back on or not, it's still a sale of yet another OS license for MS. If you format and reinstall from a previously purchased retail installation cd, that's 2 sales for MS - one for the cd you already had and one for the pc you just bought.
The thing is, Windows licenses are viral. When your pc dies and you buy a replacement you automatically get another Windows license (because it's generally bundled with your new pc), even though your old license is still valid. You just bought something you didn't need, and MS gets another statistic to crow about.
So you build a new pc from parts and are looking for an OS to stick on it. What do you choose? Well, you've already got a spare Windows license... might as well use it. This helps explain your 3rd paragraph;)
Hmmm, I just can't get my head round that logic I'm afraid ~:(
In scenario 1, a PC supplier (HP, Compaq, Dell, whatever) buys all their bits (hdds, mbs, cases, power supplies etc.) from a variety of manufacturers at cost x; buys Windows from MS at cost y; assembles, markets, factors in a profit margin and ships for cost z. The final cost to the punter is the sum of x + y + z.
In scenario 2, the same thing happens without cost y. The punter price is the sum of x + z.
How can scenario 1 logically be cheaper for the punter than #2, unless cost y is a negative number?
Don't you think he might call HP and say "My PC doesn't work!" ???
Why on earth would he do that if he'd just bought a pc from HP knowing it was supplied without an os?
Have you ever considered this; Most people want "Windows"
Do they fuck. *Most* people want a computer so they can type their resumes / swap baby photos / play games / email the grandkids / download music, or simply because everyone else has one and they feel they're missing out on something. Ask Pierre 2 litres what OS he's running and there's a fair chance he'll answer "Word" or "Internet Explorer". In fact, I'd wager it's a *minority* of people who actively want Windows.
Of course, we're having this discussion because *most* people simply don't have any other choice but to buy Windows...
Slashdot Mirror
There, fixed that for ya...
http://www.highrock.com/personal/WWJD/
heathen...
Hang on, if the guy set out to exploit Googles' rules of the time (I cannot do 'x', but 'y' and 'z' are open to interpretation) then he's perfectly entitled to use 'y' and 'z' to their fullest extent. At the time, they were not excluded.
If, sometime later, Google decide to blacklist methods 'y' and 'z' that's hardly the 'spammers' fault. It's simply that Google have moved the goal posts.
It's as if I set a new world bicycle land speed record at 320 kmh over 2 km, and you decided arbitrarily to set the rules for surpassing the record as 'measured in mph'..
I'm sympathetic and agree, but this really is off-topic to the original story and you shouldn't be surprised when you get modded as such.
Be careful with the phraseology citizen. Witness:
Don't confuse a lost opportunity for advertising revenue (which this is) with a budget shortfall (claimed) based on optimistically projected earnings from potential sales.
The difference is subtle, and the wording is similar, but the reality is nonetheless distinct.
Insightful? wtf?
It's quite evident you have no experience of avionics. After 9 years repairing aircraft radio, intercom and nav aids I can tell you with absolute authority that all airborne electronic equipment is securely grounded, from the copper braided sleeve running up the pilots' headset cord to the 8 inch copper straps between the ac generators and the airframe.
Hell, in our test bay we'd have banks of vhf radios in for repair or test, stacked up along a bench. Some would be on full 400w ssb transmit tests into dummy loads while those alongside would be hooked up to oscilloscopes measuring bfo drift, and there wouldn't be as much as a stray spike on the scope.
Aircraft electronics are *designed* to be robust, else they wouldn't get the damn accreditation in the first place.
If that's their main concern then I believe it's unfounded in reality. For the uninitiated, here's a quick resumé of how cell phones work...
When a cellphone connects to a tower to transmit a call it gets one of a couple of possible responses:
a) If the tower has no relay slots free for the call it sends a 'fail' response and your phone automatically tries another tower. If your phone gets above a certain number of 'fail' responses, it will just give up with a 'no service' error.
b) If the tower has a free slot the call is connected. In this case, the phone will either stay connected to that tower until the termination of the call, or until the signal drops below a certain threshold (range), whichever happens soonest. When the signal level drops below an acceptable level you'll get passed on to the tower with the 2nd strongest signal, etc, ad infinitum.
Now it's important to realise that your phone connects initially to the tower with the strongest signal, but that needn't necessarily be the closest tower. If you're flying at 30,000ft above a grid of towers, the tower you connect to will be decided not only on signal strength but also on available slots, so not everyone on the plane will connect to the same tower. If there are no relay slots available you simply will not connect. Fears of disconnecting other users by your sudden appearance on the network are unfounded, as slots are served on a 'first come, first served' basis. We already do this every day travelling by train, or by car on the interstate.
Logically though, a plane travelling through a cell with 300 passengers making calls at 500mph would be less disruptive than a train travelling through the same cell with 300 passengers making calls at 120mph, as their calls would get handed over to other towers sooner, freeing relay slots as it passes.
If there's any potential bottleneck, it's during 'registration', whereby every 7 seconds or so your phone sends 'hello, I'm phone $model $IME $serial_no belonging to $network, can I connect?' and waits for a response from the cell towers, but as this handshake takes mere milliseconds I cannot see even this presenting a problem.
Hmm...
I'm willing to bet that it's not at all statistically uncommon for 20 or 30 callers in a high user density area with good coverage to be equidistant from their surrounding towers on the ground at any one time.
In fact, as the system explicitly allows you to skip from tower to tower in search of the best signal, I'm also willing to bet that the system was, in fact, designed with this in mind and will simply queue your call.
This post illustrates why we need a "-1 Bored with this shite" mod option.
So is it a good idea to uninstall EasyUbuntu and/or Automatix before an upgrade?
Should I reset my machine to a default 6.10 installation before upgrading? How are customizations handled? For example, I removed Evolution because it was crap. Will this affect an upgrade?
Ubuntu noob here...
8) ...???
9) Profit!
Perhaps even more on topic for this site is the Slashdotter extension, which not only automatically adds the various cache links to article links, but tells you when you have mod points.
Does other cool stuff for slashbots too...
Source: http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/jobmarket/regional_unem
Fucking sassenach troll...
Or access shared iTunes music over DAAP.
Ok, this latter is Apples fault, but hey.
One company is buckling to industry pressure and including DRM, the other has a fricking Trusted Platform Module in every new computer it makes. The double standard is infuriating.
TPM isn't restricted to the Apple line, so there's no double standard. A quote from https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/faq/TPMFAQ/:
Are systems with TPMs available?
Desktop, notebook and tablet PCs with TPMs are available from Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Toshiba and others.
More here and here. In fact, it's becoming more difficult to find a manufacturer that *doesn't* implement a TPM.
Besides, it's not the addition of a chip on the motherboard that's the problem, rather how and where it's used. As far as I'm aware, it's currently unused on Apple hardware; Microsoft however require it for BitLocker in Vista.
If it's really as simple as "click and run", sure why not? You don't have to be technically gifted to install Weatherbug or Bonzai Buddy either...
So this is how this works:
If my bank demands "requirement x" in order to do business with them, they can damn well supply and maintain "requirement x" at their cost and inconvenience, else I'll open an account with their rivals instead.
I have no problem with getting my wages paid into an account from the National Bank of Elbonia (or whoever) instead, drawing cash from there and making purchases the old way.
To put it simply, any enterprise or individual that seeks to control what I do with my hard earned cash won't be seeing any of it. I don't believe I'm alone here...
I'd imagine the banks are well aware of this. If not, they don't deserve my business.
Yep, this applies also to the *AA, Microsoft, Apple, et al.
Unfortunately, the "reasonably expected to know" bit has never (AFAIK) been tested in court, so we don't have a legal definition of "reasonable".
So it could still be argued that if you have a password protected file or folder on your computer you should be "reasonably expected to know" the password. Forgetting that password could legally be construed as obstruction, and would constitute a jail term under this act.
I have sha-1 signed files in my backup documents from *years* ago, unused precisely because I can't remember the bloody pass phrases. I also have a binary dump from a "password keeper" type program for Windows from a company that are no longer producing the software. Without access to the contents of these files, I have no way to prove that these are, in fact, innocent files. My inability to unlock these files, when asked, could see me in jail.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a GNU.
someone else has seen into the heart of slashdot
I think that the answer to that question has just been announced at WWDC. iTV. Streaming hollywood studio content direct to your tv from your computer.
Microsoft desparately want to position themselves as content providers, as Apple are in the process of doing. But the studios backing MS naturally fear losing their monopolist grip on that market, and have probably been insisting on ever more draconian DRM regimes to protect their interests. In their rush to corner the market, Microsoft are possibly only too happy to bend over for the studios.
It'll be interesting to compare Apples DRM schemes with Microsofts, given that MS started down their path 6 years ago. Apple are still working out their studio tie-ins (the latest being Paramount), so they have the advantage that the studios have had a bit longer to see how the market was heading. I wouldn't be surprised to find a more relaxed attitude now from the studios.
Whether you put Windows back on or not, it's still a sale of yet another OS license for MS. If you format and reinstall from a previously purchased retail installation cd, that's 2 sales for MS - one for the cd you already had and one for the pc you just bought.
The thing is, Windows licenses are viral. When your pc dies and you buy a replacement you automatically get another Windows license (because it's generally bundled with your new pc), even though your old license is still valid. You just bought something you didn't need, and MS gets another statistic to crow about.
So you build a new pc from parts and are looking for an OS to stick on it. What do you choose? Well, you've already got a spare Windows license... might as well use it. This helps explain your 3rd paragraph ;)
Hmmm, I just can't get my head round that logic I'm afraid ~:(
In scenario 1, a PC supplier (HP, Compaq, Dell, whatever) buys all their bits (hdds, mbs, cases, power supplies etc.) from a variety of manufacturers at cost x; buys Windows from MS at cost y; assembles, markets, factors in a profit margin and ships for cost z. The final cost to the punter is the sum of x + y + z.
In scenario 2, the same thing happens without cost y. The punter price is the sum of x + z.
How can scenario 1 logically be cheaper for the punter than #2, unless cost y is a negative number?
Don't you think he might call HP and say "My PC doesn't work!" ???
Why on earth would he do that if he'd just bought a pc from HP knowing it was supplied without an os?
Have you ever considered this; Most people want "Windows"
Do they fuck. *Most* people want a computer so they can type their resumes / swap baby photos / play games / email the grandkids / download music, or simply because everyone else has one and they feel they're missing out on something. Ask Pierre 2 litres what OS he's running and there's a fair chance he'll answer "Word" or "Internet Explorer". In fact, I'd wager it's a *minority* of people who actively want Windows.
Of course, we're having this discussion because *most* people simply don't have any other choice but to buy Windows...
I happen to know that yahoo.co.uk and .fr still give free pop3 access. Maybe other countries do?