This isn't so much an amendment, as a plan to think about amending it. From the article:
"...plans to offer an amendment that would require a study of the impact of the ISP provisions in the bill before they are implemented. If the study found negative impacts, it's likely the ISP provision would be killed."
The above is pretty much all of the article which is not political filibustering, back patting or stating things which won't change (the payment freezing, and search engine stuff).
TL;DR version: they're thinking about maybe possibly backing down on one point.
Security is only as strong as it's weakest password recovery method.
This whole idea completely forgets that the whole purpose of your password might be to stop you little-brother/offspring/tech-illiterate-housemate (ie: anyone who lives with you) from screwing up your device.
Perhaps I'm not thinking hard enough, but this seems to me to be an development from one of the $InternetSocialMediaOverlords that doesn't seem creepy.
I mean, this is a nice feature that will save time and be useful; but it doesn't go revealing yet more personal information, or infact anything that you couldn't do yourself by browsing streetview a bit.
So yeah, a new shiny that doesn't yet make things worse or closer to 1984.
I guess it's quite telling of my geekiness that my first thought on this isn't anything to do with stereotypes or the tragedy of young women being given unrealistic aspirations, but rather how the technology could be improved upon and put to better use.
I mean, they have the tech to computer generate a human form over the top of a mannequin wearing clothes right? So why not parameterize it so that people can customize the look to be them, like an avatar in $your-favourite-mmorpg-here?
Sure it'd take some work to adapt the tech and build some generative models, but suddenly you go from evil marketing tool to handy way to pick out a wardrobe and see what looks good on you.
If you just need to destroy the data then why not write random garbage to the entirety of each drive several times?
That's more certain for not being able to recover the data than using some encryption, which still has some structure and so with the application of sufficient time and resources might be recoverable.
There must be some sort of government/military specification for data disposal along the "write random garbage" lines which would satisfy your clients.
News flash: turing-complete programming languages can be used to created anything. Why is it news when another random project is done in Javascript?
Ah, the old Turing-complete chestnut. Just because something is possible, does not mean it is feasible, practical, or easy. It's probably possible to code it in brainfuck, chef, lolcode or a bunch of rocks but no-one in their right mind would want to.
What's really interesting about this is that it now brings PGP to almost device with a browser - that is: those with browsers which have javascript support. This gives us such joys as iPhones with PGP that Apple can't suddenly decide they don't want people to have.
This is pretty much the way I run my Android phone: give google nothing.
The problem is that to do this I have to not use the market or the calendar system, since as I haven't set up a google account I can't access the former, and can't create an instance of the latter.
If anyone has found a good calendar app that works purely on the phone, with no cloud or server backing required I'd love to hear about it.
(The idea being that my phone would be my primary calendar host, and all else is just a backup).
Taking a quick scan over the Widget Access Request Policy, it sounds a lot like the android app permissions, or for that matter the old java applet security model.
Quite how Apple could patent something like that in the first place eludes me.
There should be some sort of (harsh) penalty for filing an invalid patent to stop companies just filing for every little thing.
Up until about 2010 games were considered sold since they weren't expected to be returned, and as such were subject to the first-sale doctrine. Of course then the US courts go and decide that it's all fine and dandy for EULAs to remove this right. *grumble grumble* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine]
In my day you had a disc, and that was your game. You could play it, lend it to a friend, sell it, turn it into a shuriken (though that was mostly done with AOL cds). I miss that.
Point taken, and yes, I agree it's incredibly difficult. However, my point about breaks abusing the poor defenceless concept of single-entry single-exit coding stands (until someone comes and knocks it over).
*shudders* In my opinion Break ranks up there with goto. It go against some of the base concepts of good code (strong cohesion and weak coupling), and have you ever tried to formally prove the correctness of an algorithm containing multiple exit while loops?
"Now: Big company tajes insurance and starts stealing open source code, because they feel there is no legal risk anymore."
I think you need to add a line in there between Now and In The End. something like this:
Next: Someone finally sues Big company over the infringement, and Big company finds that due to some small print they aren't covered. (ie: a clause saying they can't knowingly be involved in infringing activity)
Insurance companies will try to avoid any sort of payout, even^H^H^H^Hespecially if they know they are blatently in the wrong.
From the article it seems to me that they are mainly moving the servers to OpenBSD, not the actual workstations. From a user point of view this should be seamless, with their existing programs still working for the large part. As for the retraining cost; it seems the guys in charge already are fairly well versed in the OS, so retraining cost should be minimal.
Right, now thats said lets have no more of this "what about the hidden training costs?" and "will the programs still work" which seems to be the ususal comments for any switching to Open Source solutions.
I'd go with 42; since, as sucsessfully proven by the corporation that publish the hitchhikers guide to the galax, beauty is truth and I consider 42 to be more aestheticly pleasing.
Something Positive is done by R K Milholland, who made a offhand comment in response to some complaints about late updates to the effect of 'if you lot donate equal to my salary i'll quit and work on Something Positive solidly for a year'... and was shortly surprised to see that it happened.
Queen of Wands was done by Aeire, and is currently going through annotated reruns before she starts a new project.
*nods* I've got coeliac disease, and have been on a no gluten diet since I was wee tiny.
You might want to try looking at http://www.coeliac.co.uk/ for info, although that is a UK organisiation, so if you are from else where you may want to google for a more local site.
As for your friend, there are medical tests to determine if it is coeliac disease (most commonly an intestinal biopsy), so if you have a vaguely open minded doctor you could go see them about it. Otherwise - and this is what I might go for first - he could try cutting wheat, oats, rye, and barley out of his diet and see if he feels better for it. There's no harm done by avoiding glutenised foods... except maybe to your bank balance; gluten free stuff costs.
I would point you to the site for Dietary Specialists (who make gorgeous gluten free stuff) but I can't find it. Suffice it to say you can get their stuff at Sainsburys (UK supermarket).
Near the end, Slartibart fast informs Arthur that as the new Earth is so nearly complete they [the magratheans] are going to finish it anyway. He then asks if there are any changes Arthur wants made, or anything the earth could do without.
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't so much an amendment, as a plan to think about amending it. From the article:
"...plans to offer an amendment that would require a study of the impact of the ISP provisions in the bill before they are implemented. If the study found negative impacts, it's likely the ISP provision would be killed."
The above is pretty much all of the article which is not political filibustering, back patting or stating things which won't change (the payment freezing, and search engine stuff).
TL;DR version: they're thinking about maybe possibly backing down on one point.
Security is only as strong as it's weakest password recovery method.
This whole idea completely forgets that the whole purpose of your password might be to stop you little-brother/offspring/tech-illiterate-housemate (ie: anyone who lives with you) from screwing up your device.
Perhaps I'm not thinking hard enough, but this seems to me to be an development from one of the $InternetSocialMediaOverlords that doesn't seem creepy.
I mean, this is a nice feature that will save time and be useful; but it doesn't go revealing yet more personal information, or infact anything that you couldn't do yourself by browsing streetview a bit.
So yeah, a new shiny that doesn't yet make things worse or closer to 1984.
I guess it's quite telling of my geekiness that my first thought on this isn't anything to do with stereotypes or the tragedy of young women being given unrealistic aspirations, but rather how the technology could be improved upon and put to better use.
I mean, they have the tech to computer generate a human form over the top of a mannequin wearing clothes right? So why not parameterize it so that people can customize the look to be them, like an avatar in $your-favourite-mmorpg-here?
Sure it'd take some work to adapt the tech and build some generative models, but suddenly you go from evil marketing tool to handy way to pick out a wardrobe and see what looks good on you.
If you just need to destroy the data then why not write random garbage to the entirety of each drive several times?
That's more certain for not being able to recover the data than using some encryption, which still has some structure and so with the application of sufficient time and resources might be recoverable.
There must be some sort of government/military specification for data disposal along the "write random garbage" lines which would satisfy your clients.
News flash: turing-complete programming languages can be used to created anything. Why is it news when another random project is done in Javascript?
Ah, the old Turing-complete chestnut. Just because something is possible, does not mean it is feasible, practical, or easy. It's probably possible to code it in brainfuck, chef, lolcode or a bunch of rocks but no-one in their right mind would want to.
What's really interesting about this is that it now brings PGP to almost device with a browser - that is: those with browsers which have javascript support. This gives us such joys as iPhones with PGP that Apple can't suddenly decide they don't want people to have.
This is pretty much the way I run my Android phone: give google nothing.
The problem is that to do this I have to not use the market or the calendar system, since as I haven't set up a google account I can't access the former, and can't create an instance of the latter.
If anyone has found a good calendar app that works purely on the phone, with no cloud or server backing required I'd love to hear about it.
(The idea being that my phone would be my primary calendar host, and all else is just a backup).
Wait, that's way too obvious, even for the USA market. Let's make the password "SIDRAT".
But... everyone knows the password is Crimson Eleven Delight Petrichor.
It may be older than dart, but I think I'll stick with C. ;-)
Admittedly, most of my programming these days is number crunching rather than web apps.
or something like ActiveX control hell? All that interactivity has to come from embedding something.
They could sandbox it so that no item embedded within a document can modify anything outside the document.
Taking a quick scan over the Widget Access Request Policy, it sounds a lot like the android app permissions, or for that matter the old java applet security model.
Quite how Apple could patent something like that in the first place eludes me.
There should be some sort of (harsh) penalty for filing an invalid patent to stop companies just filing for every little thing.
Yet another stab at consumer rights.
Up until about 2010 games were considered sold since they weren't expected to be returned, and as such were subject to the first-sale doctrine. Of course then the US courts go and decide that it's all fine and dandy for EULAs to remove this right. *grumble grumble* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine]
In my day you had a disc, and that was your game. You could play it, lend it to a friend, sell it, turn it into a shuriken (though that was mostly done with AOL cds). I miss that.
I just checked, it's actually in the US Patent & Trademark Office's trademark database:
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=85353491
By the looks of it, it will be three months before it is assigned to an attourney for review.
I wonder if there is a fine for fraudulently claiming a trademark?
Point taken, and yes, I agree it's incredibly difficult. However, my point about breaks abusing the poor defenceless concept of single-entry single-exit coding stands (until someone comes and knocks it over).
*shudders* In my opinion Break ranks up there with goto. It go against some of the base concepts of good code (strong cohesion and weak coupling), and have you ever tried to formally prove the correctness of an algorithm containing multiple exit while loops?
"Now: Big company tajes insurance and starts stealing open source code, because they feel there is no legal risk anymore."
I think you need to add a line in there between Now and In The End. something like this:
Next: Someone finally sues Big company over the infringement, and Big company finds that due to some small print they aren't covered. (ie: a clause saying they can't knowingly be involved in infringing activity)
Insurance companies will try to avoid any sort of payout, even^H^H^H^Hespecially if they know they are blatently in the wrong.
(IANAL, but I was in insurance briefly)From the article it seems to me that they are mainly moving the servers to OpenBSD, not the actual workstations. From a user point of view this should be seamless, with their existing programs still working for the large part. As for the retraining cost; it seems the guys in charge already are fairly well versed in the OS, so retraining cost should be minimal.
Right, now thats said lets have no more of this "what about the hidden training costs?" and "will the programs still work" which seems to be the ususal comments for any switching to Open Source solutions.
They'll happily let you burn them until they realise what you're actually doing... http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030406& mode=classic
I'd go with 42; since, as sucsessfully proven by the corporation that publish the hitchhikers guide to the galax, beauty is truth and I consider 42 to be more aestheticly pleasing.
Something Positive is done by R K Milholland, who made a offhand comment in response to some complaints about late updates to the effect of 'if you lot donate equal to my salary i'll quit and work on Something Positive solidly for a year'... and was shortly surprised to see that it happened.
Queen of Wands was done by Aeire, and is currently going through annotated reruns before she starts a new project.
*nods* I've got coeliac disease, and have been on a no gluten diet since I was wee tiny.
You might want to try looking at http://www.coeliac.co.uk/ for info, although that is a UK organisiation, so if you are from else where you may want to google for a more local site.
As for your friend, there are medical tests to determine if it is coeliac disease (most commonly an intestinal biopsy), so if you have a vaguely open minded doctor you could go see them about it. Otherwise - and this is what I might go for first - he could try cutting wheat, oats, rye, and barley out of his diet and see if he feels better for it. There's no harm done by avoiding glutenised foods... except maybe to your bank balance; gluten free stuff costs.
If he does want to try gluten free then point him at the coeliac uk site, and also:
http://www.trufree.co.uk/
http://www.glutafin.co.uk/
http://www.schaer.com/
http://www.celiacsolutions.com/
I would point you to the site for Dietary Specialists (who make gorgeous gluten free stuff) but I can't find it. Suffice it to say you can get their stuff at Sainsburys (UK supermarket).
I wonder if I can make a version that is suitable for coeliacs...
it's not a torrent, and its not a mirror, but it's the best i could grab at the time:b c08599a3d844a47485bf1274714926a230d06c1d5d8c48f3e5 41f450d9474875fa80
http://download.filefront.com/3857087;2ee21ce8850
A Scene from the recent hitchikers film.
Near the end, Slartibart fast informs Arthur that as the new Earth is so nearly complete they [the magratheans] are going to finish it anyway. He then asks if there are any changes Arthur wants made, or anything the earth could do without.
Arthur responds: "yes, me."
Good point, and point taken.
"It's a bit harder to gain popularity, just due to the typical need for a modified console"
Out of interest, what exactly does this modification entail? is it hardware or software based?