Why not install Windows Vista, iTunes and the game Spore. That way you don't even need to send an SMS, just wait until code is activated progressively making the computer useless.
The French Senate has already passed the law banning people from the Internet if they are caught sharing files with each other. It now just one final vote in the National Assembly before it becomes law.
The good games keep you coming back. Whereas in the 8-bit days games were cheap you could keep buying new ones, I was shopping yesterday and all the new PS3 releases were 60-70e (about $100). Probably ok value for money considering all the work that has gone into them but no longer in the realm where you can play for a couple of days and then forget about it. The retro games fill a good niche for a bit of variety in between the more 'serious' purchases. My favourite 8-bit game was Elite, and I recently discovered Oolite which was some very fun retro-gaming for me.
I'm not going to bother dusting off what were my state of the art X-Fi soundcards out of the garage. As with the copies of Windows I get bundled with the computers I buy, I won't bother giving them away or selling them as I refuse to inflict the damned things on anybody else. I'm not going to buy Creative again.
I don't know anybody that uses driver discs. People just automatically go to the manufacturer web site and download the latest drivers from there.
Also had the experience yesterday of plugging in a cheap bluetooth dongle into Ubuntu and it just worked immediately. I was most pleasantly surprised. We spent ages unsuccessfully trying to get it working under Windows.
Phillip.
Re:I haven't followed the whole Android business,
on
T-Mobile G1 Rooted
·
· Score: 1
Apple, in conjunction with their fanboys, rewrote the definition to put people off from trying to jailbreak the iPhone.
Reminds of the Derren Brown episode where he puts a wallet full of money down in the middle of a busy London shopping street and draws a chalk circle around it. He then shows a time-lapse video as hundreds of people walk around it but nobody attempts to pick it up.
I was just thinking the same thing about the Mayor of Nice. Jacques Medecin was racist, wanted to have abortion reclassified as manslaughter, tried to reinstate the death penalty, supported the apartheid government in South Africa, and embezzled money like there was no tomorrow. But the Nicois love him because of all the grand public projects he put in place which have made Nice what it is today. He got re-elected 5 times and was mayor for 37 years. Then fled the country, was eventually extradited back, and received four jail sentences before getting back to South America.
They started talking since the Irish economy took off and the IRA figured they could make more money through real-estate by paying off councilors than through running arms and drugs. It wasn't through some hippy breakthrough with government and terrorists smoking a joint together and proclaiming world peace. At the end of the day money talks. As it did with the US economy providing a radical shift towards Obama, as it did with prudish America not caring about Clinton's indiscretions as long as he kept improving the economy and increasing people's paychecks.
I think we can ignore Microsoft, as their embrace/extend/destroy philosophy has remained consistent for decades. If they join OpenID it is only to destroy it from within. But this story is a bit crap.
"As Google points out, this isn't OpenID. This is something that Google cooked up that resembles OpenID masquerading as OpenID"
So if Google says it isn't OpenID how is it masquerading as OpenID? It sounds like they like the OpenID architecture so have copied it for internal use. Why not? They want to lock in their users, same as they want to cripple Android, and feel they have the mind-share and marketing muscle to do it. From what I've been reading OpenID is over-complicated, lacks mind-share, and a number of people would rather not have a single pass at all.
Rather than embrace and extend, it sounds like Google are preparing for an embrace then possible fall-back. They pinch the best bits of OpenID and add their own, but if there is overwhelming demand for it then being 99% compatible then it should be easy to switch if necessary.
How many Slashdot readers have written to their favourite site demanding they support OpenID for their own convenience? My guess not many.
I remember the days when SMTP had the perfect anti-spam device. The student responsible would be given a roasting by the dean followed by threat of suspension. Unfortunately the security model changed once leaving the cloistered academic walls.
FTP is dying out due to being squeezed between plain HTTP downloads and people using torrents for larger files. sftp is still very useful though. HTTP took a leap in complexity between 1.0 and 1.1. The later has held up very well. Some protocols died due to being too complex, eg CORBA. Some seem to be good ideas but are failing to gather traction, eg CalDAV. DNS keeps stuttering forward, trying to force IPv6 adoption plus securing the regular security holes.
At the end of the day I am not unhappy with the robust protocols sitting on top of the scalable TCP/IP architecture we have, which have resisted being fragmented by commercial self-interests. We have a lot to thank Jon Postel for.
Here would be my plan: use an eePC as the hub, plug in a USB GSM modem, install asterisk, use Ethernet based independent controllers for hardware (like these), develop the control software as a MythTV plugin which will allow you to offer a more expensive "Multimedia solution" just by beefing up the PC and hard drive without changing anything else. Also offer iPhone/Blackberry/etc web front-ends so people can use their current phone without having to buy yours.
I was also thinking Openmoko Freerunner. Apple have the best hardware in the iPhone but an unacceptable level of lock-in. The Blackberry appears limited in what you can do, and the mostly poor apps you can download seems to confirm this. Android has good potential but certainly does not have the freedom of the Openmoko. The problem with the latter is that it appears to still have some low-level instability which means you will waste time messing around fixing or upgrading the phone when you should be developing your home automation app. Go the route so many others in this thread have suggested: make it web based. After all, I am sure a home with advanced home automation will have pretty much blanket wifi coverage.
Interesting first phrase "leave it to the law and democracy", it should be the other way around as democracy dictates policy which then gets implemented as law. Though we have a legal system going back hundreds of years, laws have evolved slowly yet have always necessarily lagged behind society. If people "fucked off and left it to the law and democracy" then here women still wouldn't have the vote.
There is a difference between a vigilante and somebody with a social conscience. A vigilante believes the system has failed, hence evolves their own moral code and gifts themselves the right to enforce it. Somebody with a social conscience believes they can change the system by leading by example. With the case of the aristocrat I would say the latter. He knows he can't personally stomp on every GM crop in the country and it was a symbolic gesture. It was good for cause X as it sent a warning to the GM industry that not matter how many strings they pull in Westminister the voices of the farmers living near these crops WILL be heard.
I am not condoning people breaking the law when they feel like it and agree with you that we want to minimise vigilante action. It is just that people often feel forced into vigilante action when they feel the law has failed them and that we should be looking at their motives as well as censuring their actions. If a lot of people are forced into such desperate measures then we should be examining the law and seeing if it needs to be changed.
It takes an element of bravery to break the law as it involves personal risk. What this kid did I agree was a vigilante action, but it had good intentions. He wasn't hacking credit card details from an ecommerce store, he was causing a nuisance to a criminal organisation that destroys hundreds of lives. Sure he made a mistake in the means he used, but he is an easily influenced 18 year old kid. That kind of passion should be channeled, not killed.
I think there an awful lot of readers on Slashdot who will tut and disapprove of his actions, but are secretly quite pleased at what he did. About PR and "cause X" I go back to my point there is NO actual group or organisation behind any attacks on Scientology, it is just that normal people know it is wrong and have an urge to help the victims and prevent more from becoming victims. It's a perfectly human thing.
"Maybe, but my point was about individual asshats, rather than about whether or not he can speak for a whole group. If that bothers you, you could replace "Jack The Ripper" or the Taliban instead of "Mao" there, and the point still stands."
I disagree with this. It's as irrational as hating all Muslims because one happened to set off a bomb. The point I wished to make is that it is an individual act and did not even try to pretend to represent any group or organisation. Some may try and label afterwards but that does not necessarily represent the reality.
Let's just say that between person X playing Warcraft and person Y doing vandalism and thus breaking the law... in my book X has the higher moral standing. Or Y has the lower one.
There are many that disagree. In the UK we have one case of an aristocrat blatantly causing criminal damage by trampling genetically modified crops, as he believes it could contaminate nearby farms. He believes he has a higher moral standing, despite doing vandalism and breaking the law. Presuming you are in the USA, you only have to look at the opinions and laws for abortion to see things are never quite black and white. In my book common sense trumps law and you have to look at the overall damage or benefits to society.
Well, no doubt there, but just because there are worse crimes, it doesn't excuse this one. And I'm sure that the "there are worse crimes" factor _has_ been taken into account when they gave him 1 to 1.5 years, instead of, say, 20 to life.
A year and a half when you are 18 is pretty serious, and by throwing somebody in jail instead of giving a token fine or a few hours community service will just provide fodder for the penal system to churn out yet another repeat offender. The punishment should fit the crime, and I don't think society needs to be physically protected from some kid that runs some stupid script he downloaded off the Internet. If he takes from society he should be made to give back to society, but spending taxpayers money to incarcerate him seems counterproductive to me (but am I happy to agree to disagree on this point if you wish).
The guy isn't a real-life Charles Bronson, it's some stupid kid that ran a computer program. I think fundamentally we both agree that what he did was silly. I just do not agree with your hardcore line that if you let your hard lines of law slip an inch then society will degenerate into anarchy, and that if any random transgressors are picked up they should be crucified as an example.
If a kid gets behind the wheel of a car drunk and runs down a child then I could understand your passion. I think that in this case with all the attention he has already probably had the fright of his life and the road to rehabilitation is probably short.
Bad analogy as Anon does not have a designated leader whereas Mao can be said to speak for the entire regime.
I am sure you would like this supposed gift of a moral high-ground, but Moraelin where were you when he and the others kicked off this mini-revolution? Playing Warcraft? The scripts I saw were not trojans, you had to consciously install and run them, so I doubt he was inconveniencing 'innocents' (I don't think we share the same definition of "actual harm" also). And there are worse crimes than minor vandalism befitting "an evil act".
It's an 18-year old kid causing mischief against a criminal organisation nobody likes. You obviously don't care about him, and probably not many people do. His life is ruined, and that's the end of the story for this case. Life goes on.
What are the results from my Bayesian troll filter: * lie, they "do not hurt anyone" - check * contradiction, they are a "group nobody pays attention to" but they have "grown in ridiculous numbers" - check * straw man argument, citing Heavens Gate and gang warfare - check * invoking Godwins Law by mentioning Nazis - check * mentioning vi or emacs - negative
I don't think you get it. The people doing the organised protests instead aren't Anonymous but a bunch of bandwagon jumpers with maybe a few Anon mixed in. If it wasn't for the initial attacks then the protests would never have happened. This kid is just some fall guy who is going have his life trashed whilst the real culprits will get away scott free. Plus I *really* don't think you want Anon to determine your moral high-ground:-/
You must be kidding. GM would rather pretend to support the electric car to siphon off government subsidies and then kill the whole idea when nobody is looking.
The world will be better off with Tesla and without GM. As for the hybrid Chevrolet Volt, yawn. We've had the Prius for years already. They both still run off gas.
You are indeed correct. Both from an investor point and a consumer point.
From an investor point getting the kinks out early and registering patents first just as billions are being poured into the industry could be a gold mine. Especially re: the battery technology. It should be one industry that holds up well during the crisis. I was at the Monaco Luxury Yacht show a couple of weeks ago and they had a record year. Those aiming at the middle classes will feel the pinch however as the tax burden is passed onto them. You can already see evidence of this in real estate and the high streets. At the luxury end products are flying off the shelves.
From a consumer point it makes sense as it's half the price of a Ferrari or Lambo, quicker with better handling (the former are heavy to drive), is still unique, and comes with impeccable green credentials (plus isn't subject to congestion charges or emissions tax).
This is really a pain for my friends. I don't miss having Flash on my machines, but I've been steadily eliminating Flash from all my friends machines and it's mostly better than fine as it gets rid of a lot of crappy ads despite occasionally breaking a navbar... but some of them complain about not being able to watch YouTube. The sooner Flash dies a natural death the better.
Which is why we no longer listen to BBC radio? I did for a while whilst they had the Ogg Vorbis stream but these days there are so many Internet radio stations I have no problem switching. Much like their Microsoft-only iPlayer service that pushes everybody towards downloading torrents instead.
That didn't even make sense. You say that expensive = good but then say your cheap 'hundai' is better than a more expensive BMW.
Vineyards near me date back to 10AD and a lot of the grapes are still hand-picked - hardly cutting edge - so I am not really sure what the point you are trying to make is?
The funny thing about the nice wines is that you want to recommend them and educate people about them, but you have to do so in the knowledge that if more people start buying it pushes up the prices and reduces availability for yourself. For some reason it reminds me of the Maestro in Seinfeld, and his villa in Tuscany:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Why not install Windows Vista, iTunes and the game Spore. That way you don't even need to send an SMS, just wait until code is activated progressively making the computer useless.
Phillip.
The French Senate has already passed the law banning people from the Internet if they are caught sharing files with each other. It now just one final vote in the National Assembly before it becomes law.
Phillip.
The good games keep you coming back. Whereas in the 8-bit days games were cheap you could keep buying new ones, I was shopping yesterday and all the new PS3 releases were 60-70e (about $100). Probably ok value for money considering all the work that has gone into them but no longer in the realm where you can play for a couple of days and then forget about it. The retro games fill a good niche for a bit of variety in between the more 'serious' purchases. My favourite 8-bit game was Elite, and I recently discovered Oolite which was some very fun retro-gaming for me.
Phillip.
I'm not going to bother dusting off what were my state of the art X-Fi soundcards out of the garage. As with the copies of Windows I get bundled with the computers I buy, I won't bother giving them away or selling them as I refuse to inflict the damned things on anybody else. I'm not going to buy Creative again.
Phillip.
I don't know anybody that uses driver discs. People just automatically go to the manufacturer web site and download the latest drivers from there.
Also had the experience yesterday of plugging in a cheap bluetooth dongle into Ubuntu and it just worked immediately. I was most pleasantly surprised. We spent ages unsuccessfully trying to get it working under Windows.
Phillip.
Apple, in conjunction with their fanboys, rewrote the definition to put people off from trying to jailbreak the iPhone.
Phillip.
Reminds of the Derren Brown episode where he puts a wallet full of money down in the middle of a busy London shopping street and draws a chalk circle around it. He then shows a time-lapse video as hundreds of people walk around it but nobody attempts to pick it up.
Phillip.
I was just thinking the same thing about the Mayor of Nice. Jacques Medecin was racist, wanted to have abortion reclassified as manslaughter, tried to reinstate the death penalty, supported the apartheid government in South Africa, and embezzled money like there was no tomorrow. But the Nicois love him because of all the grand public projects he put in place which have made Nice what it is today. He got re-elected 5 times and was mayor for 37 years. Then fled the country, was eventually extradited back, and received four jail sentences before getting back to South America.
Phillip.
They started talking since the Irish economy took off and the IRA figured they could make more money through real-estate by paying off councilors than through running arms and drugs. It wasn't through some hippy breakthrough with government and terrorists smoking a joint together and proclaiming world peace. At the end of the day money talks. As it did with the US economy providing a radical shift towards Obama, as it did with prudish America not caring about Clinton's indiscretions as long as he kept improving the economy and increasing people's paychecks.
Phillip.
I think we can ignore Microsoft, as their embrace/extend/destroy philosophy has remained consistent for decades. If they join OpenID it is only to destroy it from within. But this story is a bit crap.
"As Google points out, this isn't OpenID. This is something that Google cooked up that resembles OpenID masquerading as OpenID"
So if Google says it isn't OpenID how is it masquerading as OpenID? It sounds like they like the OpenID architecture so have copied it for internal use. Why not? They want to lock in their users, same as they want to cripple Android, and feel they have the mind-share and marketing muscle to do it. From what I've been reading OpenID is over-complicated, lacks mind-share, and a number of people would rather not have a single pass at all.
Rather than embrace and extend, it sounds like Google are preparing for an embrace then possible fall-back. They pinch the best bits of OpenID and add their own, but if there is overwhelming demand for it then being 99% compatible then it should be easy to switch if necessary.
How many Slashdot readers have written to their favourite site demanding they support OpenID for their own convenience? My guess not many.
Phillip.
I remember the days when SMTP had the perfect anti-spam device. The student responsible would be given a roasting by the dean followed by threat of suspension. Unfortunately the security model changed once leaving the cloistered academic walls.
FTP is dying out due to being squeezed between plain HTTP downloads and people using torrents for larger files. sftp is still very useful though. HTTP took a leap in complexity between 1.0 and 1.1. The later has held up very well. Some protocols died due to being too complex, eg CORBA. Some seem to be good ideas but are failing to gather traction, eg CalDAV. DNS keeps stuttering forward, trying to force IPv6 adoption plus securing the regular security holes.
At the end of the day I am not unhappy with the robust protocols sitting on top of the scalable TCP/IP architecture we have, which have resisted being fragmented by commercial self-interests. We have a lot to thank Jon Postel for.
Phillip.
Here would be my plan: use an eePC as the hub, plug in a USB GSM modem, install asterisk, use Ethernet based independent controllers for hardware (like these), develop the control software as a MythTV plugin which will allow you to offer a more expensive "Multimedia solution" just by beefing up the PC and hard drive without changing anything else. Also offer iPhone/Blackberry/etc web front-ends so people can use their current phone without having to buy yours.
Phillip.
I was also thinking Openmoko Freerunner. Apple have the best hardware in the iPhone but an unacceptable level of lock-in. The Blackberry appears limited in what you can do, and the mostly poor apps you can download seems to confirm this. Android has good potential but certainly does not have the freedom of the Openmoko. The problem with the latter is that it appears to still have some low-level instability which means you will waste time messing around fixing or upgrading the phone when you should be developing your home automation app. Go the route so many others in this thread have suggested: make it web based. After all, I am sure a home with advanced home automation will have pretty much blanket wifi coverage.
Phillip.
Interesting first phrase "leave it to the law and democracy", it should be the other way around as democracy dictates policy which then gets implemented as law. Though we have a legal system going back hundreds of years, laws have evolved slowly yet have always necessarily lagged behind society. If people "fucked off and left it to the law and democracy" then here women still wouldn't have the vote.
There is a difference between a vigilante and somebody with a social conscience. A vigilante believes the system has failed, hence evolves their own moral code and gifts themselves the right to enforce it. Somebody with a social conscience believes they can change the system by leading by example. With the case of the aristocrat I would say the latter. He knows he can't personally stomp on every GM crop in the country and it was a symbolic gesture. It was good for cause X as it sent a warning to the GM industry that not matter how many strings they pull in Westminister the voices of the farmers living near these crops WILL be heard.
I am not condoning people breaking the law when they feel like it and agree with you that we want to minimise vigilante action. It is just that people often feel forced into vigilante action when they feel the law has failed them and that we should be looking at their motives as well as censuring their actions. If a lot of people are forced into such desperate measures then we should be examining the law and seeing if it needs to be changed.
It takes an element of bravery to break the law as it involves personal risk. What this kid did I agree was a vigilante action, but it had good intentions. He wasn't hacking credit card details from an ecommerce store, he was causing a nuisance to a criminal organisation that destroys hundreds of lives. Sure he made a mistake in the means he used, but he is an easily influenced 18 year old kid. That kind of passion should be channeled, not killed.
I think there an awful lot of readers on Slashdot who will tut and disapprove of his actions, but are secretly quite pleased at what he did. About PR and "cause X" I go back to my point there is NO actual group or organisation behind any attacks on Scientology, it is just that normal people know it is wrong and have an urge to help the victims and prevent more from becoming victims. It's a perfectly human thing.
Phillip.
"Maybe, but my point was about individual asshats, rather than about whether or not he can speak for a whole group. If that bothers you, you could replace "Jack The Ripper" or the Taliban instead of "Mao" there, and the point still stands."
I disagree with this. It's as irrational as hating all Muslims because one happened to set off a bomb. The point I wished to make is that it is an individual act and did not even try to pretend to represent any group or organisation. Some may try and label afterwards but that does not necessarily represent the reality.
Let's just say that between person X playing Warcraft and person Y doing vandalism and thus breaking the law... in my book X has the higher moral standing. Or Y has the lower one.
There are many that disagree. In the UK we have one case of an aristocrat blatantly causing criminal damage by trampling genetically modified crops, as he believes it could contaminate nearby farms. He believes he has a higher moral standing, despite doing vandalism and breaking the law. Presuming you are in the USA, you only have to look at the opinions and laws for abortion to see things are never quite black and white. In my book common sense trumps law and you have to look at the overall damage or benefits to society.
Well, no doubt there, but just because there are worse crimes, it doesn't excuse this one. And I'm sure that the "there are worse crimes" factor _has_ been taken into account when they gave him 1 to 1.5 years, instead of, say, 20 to life.
A year and a half when you are 18 is pretty serious, and by throwing somebody in jail instead of giving a token fine or a few hours community service will just provide fodder for the penal system to churn out yet another repeat offender. The punishment should fit the crime, and I don't think society needs to be physically protected from some kid that runs some stupid script he downloaded off the Internet. If he takes from society he should be made to give back to society, but spending taxpayers money to incarcerate him seems counterproductive to me (but am I happy to agree to disagree on this point if you wish).
The guy isn't a real-life Charles Bronson, it's some stupid kid that ran a computer program. I think fundamentally we both agree that what he did was silly. I just do not agree with your hardcore line that if you let your hard lines of law slip an inch then society will degenerate into anarchy, and that if any random transgressors are picked up they should be crucified as an example.
If a kid gets behind the wheel of a car drunk and runs down a child then I could understand your passion. I think that in this case with all the attention he has already probably had the fright of his life and the road to rehabilitation is probably short.
Phillip.
Bad analogy as Anon does not have a designated leader whereas Mao can be said to speak for the entire regime.
I am sure you would like this supposed gift of a moral high-ground, but Moraelin where were you when he and the others kicked off this mini-revolution? Playing Warcraft? The scripts I saw were not trojans, you had to consciously install and run them, so I doubt he was inconveniencing 'innocents' (I don't think we share the same definition of "actual harm" also). And there are worse crimes than minor vandalism befitting "an evil act".
It's an 18-year old kid causing mischief against a criminal organisation nobody likes. You obviously don't care about him, and probably not many people do. His life is ruined, and that's the end of the story for this case. Life goes on.
Phillip.
What are the results from my Bayesian troll filter:
* lie, they "do not hurt anyone" - check
* contradiction, they are a "group nobody pays attention to" but they have "grown in ridiculous numbers" - check
* straw man argument, citing Heavens Gate and gang warfare - check
* invoking Godwins Law by mentioning Nazis - check
* mentioning vi or emacs - negative
Troll rating 4/5 - post rejected.
Phillip.
I don't think you get it. The people doing the organised protests instead aren't Anonymous but a bunch of bandwagon jumpers with maybe a few Anon mixed in. If it wasn't for the initial attacks then the protests would never have happened. This kid is just some fall guy who is going have his life trashed whilst the real culprits will get away scott free. Plus I *really* don't think you want Anon to determine your moral high-ground :-/
Phillip.
You must be kidding. GM would rather pretend to support the electric car to siphon off government subsidies and then kill the whole idea when nobody is looking.
The world will be better off with Tesla and without GM. As for the hybrid Chevrolet Volt, yawn. We've had the Prius for years already. They both still run off gas.
Phillip.
You are indeed correct. Both from an investor point and a consumer point.
From an investor point getting the kinks out early and registering patents first just as billions are being poured into the industry could be a gold mine. Especially re: the battery technology. It should be one industry that holds up well during the crisis. I was at the Monaco Luxury Yacht show a couple of weeks ago and they had a record year. Those aiming at the middle classes will feel the pinch however as the tax burden is passed onto them. You can already see evidence of this in real estate and the high streets. At the luxury end products are flying off the shelves.
From a consumer point it makes sense as it's half the price of a Ferrari or Lambo, quicker with better handling (the former are heavy to drive), is still unique, and comes with impeccable green credentials (plus isn't subject to congestion charges or emissions tax).
Phillip.
How? With what tools?
You can buy a GSM modem for a couple of bucks and control it via your computer.
Phillip.
This is really a pain for my friends. I don't miss having Flash on my machines, but I've been steadily eliminating Flash from all my friends machines and it's mostly better than fine as it gets rid of a lot of crappy ads despite occasionally breaking a navbar... but some of them complain about not being able to watch YouTube. The sooner Flash dies a natural death the better.
Phillip.
Which is why we no longer listen to BBC radio? I did for a while whilst they had the Ogg Vorbis stream but these days there are so many Internet radio stations I have no problem switching. Much like their Microsoft-only iPlayer service that pushes everybody towards downloading torrents instead.
Phillip.
That didn't even make sense. You say that expensive = good but then say your cheap 'hundai' is better than a more expensive BMW.
Vineyards near me date back to 10AD and a lot of the grapes are still hand-picked - hardly cutting edge - so I am not really sure what the point you are trying to make is?
Phillip.
The funny thing about the nice wines is that you want to recommend them and educate people about them, but you have to do so in the knowledge that if more people start buying it pushes up the prices and reduces availability for yourself. For some reason it reminds me of the Maestro in Seinfeld, and his villa in Tuscany :-)
Phillip.