For the record, you are NOT required to give them your SSN. They ask for it for account verification purposes, but in most states they are not classified as a utility service provider, and are not allowed to require your SSN. When I worked there, simply stating that you did not want to divulge your SSN was all I needed to hear before I moved along to the next item in setting up a new customer.
So you are blaming Comcast for not redefining standard precations while your landlord takes a vacation? The reason they do things like that is because if they didn't have measures like that in place, after you moved out - the next tenant could reconnect the cable in your name to either a) avoid paying install fees, or b) letting them rack up a few months of bills on your behalf.
Of course, your landlord's tan obviously supercedes all of those precautions, and it makes perfect sense that you would disavow your loyalty and eagerly wait to change providers. Perhaps you should make sure FIOS doesn't require authentication with credit card payments and that they use Post-It notes to record your personal identification information.
Then you shouldn't have bothered commenting at all. The documentary includes testimony from both victims, and former HMO officers/employees. He then shows examples of different styles of health care in foreign countries. He then explains how the public in those countries believe their health care is paid for. Etc, etc.
Re:A question for large print graphics designers..
on
The History of Photoshop
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"Are free programs such as the GIMP just not on par? I have used Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and GIMP but I don't really see why Photoshop is hallmarked as the best. That being said I am not a graphics expert so I was wondering if someone who is and used these programs for more then 5 minutes could give me a good answer."
Questions like this are just begging to create an argument, but I'm going to give you my perspective. The primary advantage of using photoshop for me is familiarization. I'm not going to complicate things by explaining layering and color mode compatabilities, there are solutions to those. The key here is that I am lazy. I don't want to search for tools and addons and plugins that offer features that exists elsewhere in a standard installation.
My other reason for preferring photoshop is that if you use any of Adobe's other quality design programs, it is all familiar and often easily interchangeable. Illustrator, Premier, or even just making funny little animated pictures with ImageReady, I feel better using software that I recognize as part of a family. Its probably the same reason I prefer MS Office. See item #1 about being lazy.
"The linux kernel team being one excellent example" and why don't you make your point with more than one example? It seems to me that your argument makes almost no sense when this single, isolated example is removed. The resources of a "traditional centralised software company" is nothing? What do you consider a software company? Microsoft? Google? Oracle?
And also, do *nix fanboys ever get tired of 'waiting' for their moment of glory to come?
"...the companies that embrace open standards will be the long term winners"
Can you cite an example of this having ever been this case, or is it just your opinion based on the way things should be?
Why was I cursed with being able to understand programming languages and the ability to fix a computer? In a past life, did I perhaps murder an innocent virgin during an orgy of indulgence? Is this my punishment?
Why could I have not been born with the ability to take apart a transmission blindfolder and tell you how the color of your car's interior paint will affect your engine performance?
Not to mention, people always expect me to be able to fix their computers, their printer, anything else with a cable and power supply. As a mechanic, people would at least expect me to overcharge them:( That would be cool....can you imagine if we had conditioned society to accept corrupt and pointless charges for mundane services?
"You want your cache cleaned and the spyware removed? Ok, you're going to have to leave your box in the shop, we'll call you when its ready."
72 hours later.....
"Well, we got it fixed up for you. While we were getting rid of the spyware we found a trojan and a cute little keylogger. We added it into the bill, that's gonna be $450."
Damn you linux geeks for telling everyone that fixing this shit is free. You've ruined my imaginary IT utopia. I hate you all:(
First choice, take a group of students in your social studies/current events class, and group them up into 'teams.' Charge them with the task of finding entries on Wikipedia that have become outdated due to modern changes in the real world. Have them cite how they found the entry, how they determined and proved that the information listed was outdated. Then have Those same teams present to the class their modified Wikipedia entry, again, citing where the new verified content originating, and giving due credit to those sources. They learn teamwork, research, how to present and identify the integrity of information, as well as contributing to the font of knowledge available to society as a whole.
Second choice, bar access to wikipedia and tell the children that god made the world in 7 days and abstinence before marriage is the only way to prevent cooties.
The blatant inanity of these entire debate just reinforces my contempt for the entire american educational system. No, I can't propose a better solution on how to educate the minds of our children, but you give me a fucking multibillion dollar budget and watch as I find ways to send you some answers.
Any system that educates citizens and sets them loose upon society with priorities so skewed as to consider the artificiality of Anna Nicole's breasts as more newsworthy than....well, jesus, ANYTHING is more important. Hypothosizing about what China will be doing with its trillion dollar cash surplus. Discuss the future of modern capitalism and democracy and the survival of one without the other. Why do monkeys sleep with two fingers in their anus? I don't know but for the love of google, EDUCATE YOURSELF, people.
Not splitting stock is a sign that google knows they are just a bubble waiting to burst? Really? So that means Warren Buffett's company is just a bubble waiting to pop as well? Of course, his company has been providing a 25% return for the last quarter century without a stock split as well. That's a big bubble.
Oh, and if you wanna buy Mr. Buffett's stock, it runs a bit over 150,000$ USD per share.
Re:Securing Open Source Code
on
Mitnick on OSS
·
· Score: 1
I would just like to point out the rather obvious fact that your premise is based on the assumption that programmers only sign on to big corporate jobs to become evil, money hungry, inept developers.
The fact is that there are people in this world who do not look at the desire for financial security to be an evil thing. Ask a software developer in another country why they would work for an american corporation, and I'll bet a significant percentage of your responses would be something like "because I can make a living for myself and my familiy doing what I love to do."
Open source is a wonder, utopian concept. So was communism. The simple fact is that in some cases, regulation and accountability are beneficial to the industry. Sometimes people will work harder with someone on their back pushing them to get things done. Some people work for a corporation because somewhere beneath the evil, scheming surface lies a noble goal, a positive intent, and a loftier ambition than a single person or group can achieve on his own. Open source assumes dedication without true incentive, something that can become fickle.
anyway, i think there are people who get paid very well to do what they love to do, and i wish them the best of luck as they provide me the tools i will be using throughout my life.
I've been an online gamer since the early 90's, originally playing MUD's such as Medievia, TorilMud or Duris. Saying that I played those games as an escape would be only partially true, but to say that I have played online games as a form of social interaction is absolutely true. I have made friends around the world that to this day I still call on, game related and otherwise. In my home I have 5 high-end computers and a massive library of games that my friends come over to enjoy. We don't play escape, and about 90% of the time we are all playing the same games, together. Battlefield 2, World of Warcraft, Counter Strike:Source, Unreal Tournament 2004, Civilization 4...We have a blast playing these games, and when we don't play with each other, we are playing with friends we have made online.
To say that social interaction is not a primary function of online gaming shows a seriously skewed perspective from the point of the 'analyst' quoted in the article. Perhaps he does play for the sake of escapism, but to assume that his personal experience accurately reflects the entire gaming demographic is just silly. Online gaming has evolved into a subculture of our generation, and one that is not a private obsession. 15 years ago, I might have kept my gemstone addiction to myself, but I've got no problems talking with clients and if it comes up, admitting candidly that on occasion, I too will join the other 5 million people in the world who play WoW.
It is a little bit silly to me that people still think gaming online is a social stigmata. X-box live is something that almost every user in the collegiate town I live in makes use of. We enjoy looking for friends, hopping into a ranked game of Halo 2, and talking trash to similar groups of young adults, children, and older gamers around the world. The online gaming world is evolving and changing, and I believe that microsoft will ultimately prevail by gambling on connecting their console to cyberia. The main thing I'm waiting on is more games that make use of this platform. (side note: please make the next elder scrolls game online, lol!)
There seems to be a lot of flack towards the author by the slashdot (holds his breath waiting for the collective gasp of surprise)community. In particular seems to be a lot of revulsion towards his use of the word 'elite'. What some have touched on, but people seem to overlook, is the fact that in a sense these people are very much the 'elite' of the information providing world.
Nearly the entire world has a collective distaste for the majority of the established media. However, A-list bloggers, as he describes them, provide an alternative and often informed opinion about specific subject matter. Do I care what ABC news says about the war in Iraq? Not at all. But that blog from a squad commander on the front line in Uzbekistan(sic) about the day to day life of the soldiers under his command and his struggles with his superior officers is damn sure getting a bookmark in my favorites. Maybe I don't care what CNN thinks is the next new gadget to buy. But I DO care what an MIT professor blogs about as exciting projects among his graduate class.
The ultimate difference is that blogging is journalism by the people, for the people. Much like the real media, it is saturated with non-accurate information, but it also has the occasional trade expert who can provide us an internal view on how things actually work, and THAT is elite. Hate the slang, hate the excess, but remember that those kids writing about their D&D games online now will be talking about their business start-up plans in 10 years. There is a lot of room to grow, a lot of room to tangentize, but simply put it is more than a fad. More than a trend. It is a way for people to connect with other people who actually care about something.
PS - I'm not perfect, my opinions are my own, but I share them with the community. Do with it what you will. I did.
Countries to whom "freedom" is just a word to be filtered. Countries where a constitution is just words on some expensive paper. Countries that care little for anything except maintaining their own power.
I think the above is pretty much why the rest of us are unconfortable with the current US administration being in control of the internet.
Then why don't you go out and spend billions upon billions of dollars and decades of research on your own communications infrastructure. Then, you can administer it however you want.
During the 1950s, several communications researchers realized that there was a need to allow general communication between users of various computers and communications networks. This led to research into decentralized networks, queuing theory, and packet switching. The subsequent creation of ARPANET in the United States in turn catalyzed a wave of technical developments that made it the basis for the development of the Internet.
This brings to mind the EU wanting access to the Global Position System - developed and deployed by the USDOD. Ultimately, the EU realized that they weren't going to get it, so they chose to develop their own GPS system. I'm not sure if that has come to realization yet, but the point remains. If the UN wants to control the DNS system, then they are going to have to develop their own 'internet' to do so. The United States developed the Internet, and just because the rest of the world uses it does *not* give them any rights to control or regulate it as such.
Remake X-Com Enemy Unknown, please. We miss it. (Note: 'miss' means still play on our PS2 with the scratched but readable X-Com PS1 Disc or the abandonia copy of x-com gold).
I played duris for years, I still log on there sometimes. To be honest, I could have listed great MUDs for days, and still not have satisfied everyone.
The primary reason for selecting those two games for the purpose of brevity was for the impact that those games had. Medievia is undoubtedly one of the most advanced gaming environments online, MMORPG included. As for TorilMud, it spawned Everquest, which was the breakout online experience that spawned almost every MMORPG since. (Yes, I know ultima online was pre-Everquest, but let's look at the current numbers, eh?:P)
Wow, at first I was going to laugh at AT&T...disgruntled former employee and all. Then I read the article...and wanted to clap. This is a meritous idea that hopefully will provide content to those of us who want more from this field.
By the time this story is an accepted submission, it will be 36+ hours past the deadline. All slashdotters should therefore direct their attention to criticizing the outcome pre-emptively in order to maintain an effective schedule.
The main reason for a lawsuit in a case like this is to attack the defendents perseverance. While the courts will ultimately uphold him in the long run, in the short term he has a lengthy and very expensive court battle in front of him. Even with recovery of costs at the end of a trial, it will severely damage his means in the short time. Unless he has a healthy savings account, the big guys are going to wear him down financially throughout the case, hoping he will give up or surrender without a fight.
I for one hope this guy gets some backing to put up a fight, and while we are at it, lets throw him some punitive damages from a corporation attempting to bully a guy using quasi-legal methodology.
I love slashdot. comparing this service to video.google.com or whatever...there should be a time-delay before posting is allowed.
The first and obvious benefit of this service is that it lays a very solid groundwork for any future public defense of the bit torrent protocol. However, my initial happy world is crushed as I wonder what limits will be used to prevent us from basically hijacking cable programming to rebroadcast to the world free of charge?
Quick, name the organization that is going to join the *IAA fight against piracy!
SPAM stands for Specially Processed Assorted Meat, the acronym chosen during the world wars when the original name was not popular enough.
The internet 'SPAM' as in unwanted content came from the Monty Python skit where they repeated 'spamspamspam' ad infinum, and generally annoyed everyone. You see the relevance?
Microsoft has always taken a beating among the open-source community for their 'closed' attitude, and I don't believe this act on their part is going to be taken as a gesture of anything positive here.
However, I imagine the people who actually develop tools and resources for the OSC will be quite happy to hear this news. Microsoft will *NOT* be giving them a working, polished product to sell and distribute, but not all of the people who enjoy development are in it for the money. Microsoft is handing you the keys to millions of dollars worth of R&D luxury, and I think it is going to be an enjoyable ride.
This technology will only go as far as the developers who pick it up can carry it, but it is an opportunity for a lot of talented people to look at the developmental stages of a Microsoft project, and take that knowledge to other useful platforms in the future.
I for one shall enjoy the wrath of/. as I say "Thanks."
Where to begin with this...
"Longhorn is a no-show--a real honest to goodness flop."
This is such a trollish comment that I can't even begin to look for ways to counter it. You obviously are banking on the -antiMS sentiments to get your writing modded up. It will probably work, but it's still a line of crap. I'm not sure offhand, but I'm almost positive that Longhorn isn't expected until early 2006...your definition of a no-show is great.
"someone at Microsoft blew it big time on their earnings projection."
Wow, I wish my boss would blow it big time, I mean a 5% growth for a company the size of Microsoft, especially given the current state of the stock market. I'm glad you take the headlines of slanderous business articles so seriously, I mean, at slashdot we all know the articles are actually optional reading, so thanks for extending that power to using misleading headlines to justify your arguments.
"their future OS is thoroughly unimpressive"
I'll bet you think that Tiger was an earth-shattering release, don't you? Do you get your longhorn data from slashdot headlines, too?
"I think Microsoft is in trouble..."
Amazing...Microsoft is in trouble, Y2K is going to cause society to crumble, and California is going to fall into the ocean, right? I'll bet you carry a fanny pack with you at all times full of essential things to help you survive the Communist Regime coming to overthrow America.
I would like to say I can't understand how your juvenile anti-microsoft tagalong comments about Microsoft's business got moderated up so high, but I already hit that nail in my reply.
I won't actually use facts in my analyzation, obviously non-factual information is rewarded here, and I will do my best to keep with that tradition.
Slashdot Mirror
For the record, you are NOT required to give them your SSN. They ask for it for account verification purposes, but in most states they are not classified as a utility service provider, and are not allowed to require your SSN. When I worked there, simply stating that you did not want to divulge your SSN was all I needed to hear before I moved along to the next item in setting up a new customer.
So you are blaming Comcast for not redefining standard precations while your landlord takes a vacation? The reason they do things like that is because if they didn't have measures like that in place, after you moved out - the next tenant could reconnect the cable in your name to either a) avoid paying install fees, or b) letting them rack up a few months of bills on your behalf.
Of course, your landlord's tan obviously supercedes all of those precautions, and it makes perfect sense that you would disavow your loyalty and eagerly wait to change providers. Perhaps you should make sure FIOS doesn't require authentication with credit card payments and that they use Post-It notes to record your personal identification information.
Then you shouldn't have bothered commenting at all. The documentary includes testimony from both victims, and former HMO officers/employees. He then shows examples of different styles of health care in foreign countries. He then explains how the public in those countries believe their health care is paid for. Etc, etc.
Questions like this are just begging to create an argument, but I'm going to give you my perspective. The primary advantage of using photoshop for me is familiarization. I'm not going to complicate things by explaining layering and color mode compatabilities, there are solutions to those. The key here is that I am lazy. I don't want to search for tools and addons and plugins that offer features that exists elsewhere in a standard installation.
My other reason for preferring photoshop is that if you use any of Adobe's other quality design programs, it is all familiar and often easily interchangeable. Illustrator, Premier, or even just making funny little animated pictures with ImageReady, I feel better using software that I recognize as part of a family. Its probably the same reason I prefer MS Office. See item #1 about being lazy.
"The linux kernel team being one excellent example" and why don't you make your point with more than one example? It seems to me that your argument makes almost no sense when this single, isolated example is removed. The resources of a "traditional centralised software company" is nothing? What do you consider a software company? Microsoft? Google? Oracle? And also, do *nix fanboys ever get tired of 'waiting' for their moment of glory to come?
"...the companies that embrace open standards will be the long term winners" Can you cite an example of this having ever been this case, or is it just your opinion based on the way things should be?
Why was I cursed with being able to understand programming languages and the ability to fix a computer? In a past life, did I perhaps murder an innocent virgin during an orgy of indulgence? Is this my punishment?
:( That would be cool....can you imagine if we had conditioned society to accept corrupt and pointless charges for mundane services?
:(
Why could I have not been born with the ability to take apart a transmission blindfolder and tell you how the color of your car's interior paint will affect your engine performance?
Not to mention, people always expect me to be able to fix their computers, their printer, anything else with a cable and power supply. As a mechanic, people would at least expect me to overcharge them
"You want your cache cleaned and the spyware removed? Ok, you're going to have to leave your box in the shop, we'll call you when its ready."
72 hours later.....
"Well, we got it fixed up for you. While we were getting rid of the spyware we found a trojan and a cute little keylogger. We added it into the bill, that's gonna be $450."
Damn you linux geeks for telling everyone that fixing this shit is free. You've ruined my imaginary IT utopia. I hate you all
each individual point made in your comment *was* proved wrong by another comment higher on the thread.
First choice, take a group of students in your social studies/current events class, and group them up into 'teams.' Charge them with the task of finding entries on Wikipedia that have become outdated due to modern changes in the real world. Have them cite how they found the entry, how they determined and proved that the information listed was outdated. Then have Those same teams present to the class their modified Wikipedia entry, again, citing where the new verified content originating, and giving due credit to those sources. They learn teamwork, research, how to present and identify the integrity of information, as well as contributing to the font of knowledge available to society as a whole.
Second choice, bar access to wikipedia and tell the children that god made the world in 7 days and abstinence before marriage is the only way to prevent cooties.
The blatant inanity of these entire debate just reinforces my contempt for the entire american educational system. No, I can't propose a better solution on how to educate the minds of our children, but you give me a fucking multibillion dollar budget and watch as I find ways to send you some answers.
Any system that educates citizens and sets them loose upon society with priorities so skewed as to consider the artificiality of Anna Nicole's breasts as more newsworthy than....well, jesus, ANYTHING is more important. Hypothosizing about what China will be doing with its trillion dollar cash surplus. Discuss the future of modern capitalism and democracy and the survival of one without the other. Why do monkeys sleep with two fingers in their anus? I don't know but for the love of google, EDUCATE YOURSELF, people.
Not splitting stock is a sign that google knows they are just a bubble waiting to burst? Really? So that means Warren Buffett's company is just a bubble waiting to pop as well? Of course, his company has been providing a 25% return for the last quarter century without a stock split as well. That's a big bubble.
Oh, and if you wanna buy Mr. Buffett's stock, it runs a bit over 150,000$ USD per share.
I would just like to point out the rather obvious fact that your premise is based on the assumption that programmers only sign on to big corporate jobs to become evil, money hungry, inept developers.
The fact is that there are people in this world who do not look at the desire for financial security to be an evil thing. Ask a software developer in another country why they would work for an american corporation, and I'll bet a significant percentage of your responses would be something like "because I can make a living for myself and my familiy doing what I love to do."
Open source is a wonder, utopian concept. So was communism. The simple fact is that in some cases, regulation and accountability are beneficial to the industry. Sometimes people will work harder with someone on their back pushing them to get things done. Some people work for a corporation because somewhere beneath the evil, scheming surface lies a noble goal, a positive intent, and a loftier ambition than a single person or group can achieve on his own. Open source assumes dedication without true incentive, something that can become fickle.
anyway, i think there are people who get paid very well to do what they love to do, and i wish them the best of luck as they provide me the tools i will be using throughout my life.
I've been an online gamer since the early 90's, originally playing MUD's such as Medievia, TorilMud or Duris. Saying that I played those games as an escape would be only partially true, but to say that I have played online games as a form of social interaction is absolutely true. I have made friends around the world that to this day I still call on, game related and otherwise. In my home I have 5 high-end computers and a massive library of games that my friends come over to enjoy. We don't play escape, and about 90% of the time we are all playing the same games, together. Battlefield 2, World of Warcraft, Counter Strike:Source, Unreal Tournament 2004, Civilization 4...We have a blast playing these games, and when we don't play with each other, we are playing with friends we have made online.
To say that social interaction is not a primary function of online gaming shows a seriously skewed perspective from the point of the 'analyst' quoted in the article. Perhaps he does play for the sake of escapism, but to assume that his personal experience accurately reflects the entire gaming demographic is just silly. Online gaming has evolved into a subculture of our generation, and one that is not a private obsession. 15 years ago, I might have kept my gemstone addiction to myself, but I've got no problems talking with clients and if it comes up, admitting candidly that on occasion, I too will join the other 5 million people in the world who play WoW.
It is a little bit silly to me that people still think gaming online is a social stigmata. X-box live is something that almost every user in the collegiate town I live in makes use of. We enjoy looking for friends, hopping into a ranked game of Halo 2, and talking trash to similar groups of young adults, children, and older gamers around the world. The online gaming world is evolving and changing, and I believe that microsoft will ultimately prevail by gambling on connecting their console to cyberia. The main thing I'm waiting on is more games that make use of this platform. (side note: please make the next elder scrolls game online, lol!)There seems to be a lot of flack towards the author by the slashdot (holds his breath waiting for the collective gasp of surprise)community. In particular seems to be a lot of revulsion towards his use of the word 'elite'. What some have touched on, but people seem to overlook, is the fact that in a sense these people are very much the 'elite' of the information providing world.
Nearly the entire world has a collective distaste for the majority of the established media. However, A-list bloggers, as he describes them, provide an alternative and often informed opinion about specific subject matter. Do I care what ABC news says about the war in Iraq? Not at all. But that blog from a squad commander on the front line in Uzbekistan(sic) about the day to day life of the soldiers under his command and his struggles with his superior officers is damn sure getting a bookmark in my favorites. Maybe I don't care what CNN thinks is the next new gadget to buy. But I DO care what an MIT professor blogs about as exciting projects among his graduate class.
The ultimate difference is that blogging is journalism by the people, for the people. Much like the real media, it is saturated with non-accurate information, but it also has the occasional trade expert who can provide us an internal view on how things actually work, and THAT is elite. Hate the slang, hate the excess, but remember that those kids writing about their D&D games online now will be talking about their business start-up plans in 10 years. There is a lot of room to grow, a lot of room to tangentize, but simply put it is more than a fad. More than a trend. It is a way for people to connect with other people who actually care about something.
PS - I'm not perfect, my opinions are my own, but I share them with the community. Do with it what you will. I did.
Then why don't you go out and spend billions upon billions of dollars and decades of research on your own communications infrastructure. Then, you can administer it however you want.
From the wiki:
During the 1950s, several communications researchers realized that there was a need to allow general communication between users of various computers and communications networks. This led to research into decentralized networks, queuing theory, and packet switching. The subsequent creation of ARPANET in the United States in turn catalyzed a wave of technical developments that made it the basis for the development of the Internet.
This brings to mind the EU wanting access to the Global Position System - developed and deployed by the USDOD. Ultimately, the EU realized that they weren't going to get it, so they chose to develop their own GPS system. I'm not sure if that has come to realization yet, but the point remains. If the UN wants to control the DNS system, then they are going to have to develop their own 'internet' to do so. The United States developed the Internet, and just because the rest of the world uses it does *not* give them any rights to control or regulate it as such.
Remake X-Com Enemy Unknown, please. We miss it. (Note: 'miss' means still play on our PS2 with the scratched but readable X-Com PS1 Disc or the abandonia copy of x-com gold).
Click Here for Memories.I played duris for years, I still log on there sometimes. To be honest, I could have listed great MUDs for days, and still not have satisfied everyone.
The primary reason for selecting those two games for the purpose of brevity was for the impact that those games had. Medievia is undoubtedly one of the most advanced gaming environments online, MMORPG included. As for TorilMud, it spawned Everquest, which was the breakout online experience that spawned almost every MMORPG since. (Yes, I know ultima online was pre-Everquest, but let's look at the current numbers, eh? :P)
canadians don't say "well?" - we all know they say "eh?"
Wow, at first I was going to laugh at AT&T...disgruntled former employee and all. Then I read the article...and wanted to clap. This is a meritous idea that hopefully will provide content to those of us who want more from this field.
Hopefully they won't outsource the reporting :P
By the time this story is an accepted submission, it will be 36+ hours past the deadline. All slashdotters should therefore direct their attention to criticizing the outcome pre-emptively in order to maintain an effective schedule.
Is she shareware?
The main reason for a lawsuit in a case like this is to attack the defendents perseverance. While the courts will ultimately uphold him in the long run, in the short term he has a lengthy and very expensive court battle in front of him. Even with recovery of costs at the end of a trial, it will severely damage his means in the short time. Unless he has a healthy savings account, the big guys are going to wear him down financially throughout the case, hoping he will give up or surrender without a fight.
I for one hope this guy gets some backing to put up a fight, and while we are at it, lets throw him some punitive damages from a corporation attempting to bully a guy using quasi-legal methodology.
I love slashdot. comparing this service to video.google.com or whatever...there should be a time-delay before posting is allowed.
The first and obvious benefit of this service is that it lays a very solid groundwork for any future public defense of the bit torrent protocol. However, my initial happy world is crushed as I wonder what limits will be used to prevent us from basically hijacking cable programming to rebroadcast to the world free of charge?
Quick, name the organization that is going to join the *IAA fight against piracy!
SPAM stands for Specially Processed Assorted Meat, the acronym chosen during the world wars when the original name was not popular enough.
The internet 'SPAM' as in unwanted content came from the Monty Python skit where they repeated 'spamspamspam' ad infinum, and generally annoyed everyone. You see the relevance?
Microsoft has always taken a beating among the open-source community for their 'closed' attitude, and I don't believe this act on their part is going to be taken as a gesture of anything positive here.
However, I imagine the people who actually develop tools and resources for the OSC will be quite happy to hear this news. Microsoft will *NOT* be giving them a working, polished product to sell and distribute, but not all of the people who enjoy development are in it for the money. Microsoft is handing you the keys to millions of dollars worth of R&D luxury, and I think it is going to be an enjoyable ride.
This technology will only go as far as the developers who pick it up can carry it, but it is an opportunity for a lot of talented people to look at the developmental stages of a Microsoft project, and take that knowledge to other useful platforms in the future.
I for one shall enjoy the wrath of /. as I say "Thanks."
Where to begin with this ...
"Longhorn is a no-show--a real honest to goodness flop."
This is such a trollish comment that I can't even begin to look for ways to counter it. You obviously are banking on the -antiMS sentiments to get your writing modded up. It will probably work, but it's still a line of crap. I'm not sure offhand, but I'm almost positive that Longhorn isn't expected until early 2006...your definition of a no-show is great.
"someone at Microsoft blew it big time on their earnings projection."
Wow, I wish my boss would blow it big time, I mean a 5% growth for a company the size of Microsoft, especially given the current state of the stock market. I'm glad you take the headlines of slanderous business articles so seriously, I mean, at slashdot we all know the articles are actually optional reading, so thanks for extending that power to using misleading headlines to justify your arguments.
"their future OS is thoroughly unimpressive"
I'll bet you think that Tiger was an earth-shattering release, don't you? Do you get your longhorn data from slashdot headlines, too?
"I think Microsoft is in trouble..."
Amazing...Microsoft is in trouble, Y2K is going to cause society to crumble, and California is going to fall into the ocean, right? I'll bet you carry a fanny pack with you at all times full of essential things to help you survive the Communist Regime coming to overthrow America.
I would like to say I can't understand how your juvenile anti-microsoft tagalong comments about Microsoft's business got moderated up so high, but I already hit that nail in my reply.
I won't actually use facts in my analyzation, obviously non-factual information is rewarded here, and I will do my best to keep with that tradition.