> I wonder what the artists think of this? This price reduction has to impact their bottom line...
Artists probably won't care, as it has pretty much been the case for years that album prices do not have much of an impact on the income of an artist or group. The huge majority of profit (something like 90%, if I'm remembering correctly) from a CD goes to the recording company. Most artists will tend to make most of their profit from concert performances.
I used to think "fsck the record companies!" until I read an interesting interview with Ben Harper (sorry, no links, it was in print a few years back). He argued that record companies should continue to take in most of the profits from good record sales, because it is the record company that takes the risk to record, mix, produce, distribute, and market an album, and if that album sucks, who's gonna pay them back for their investment? Answer: nobody. Ben Harper's point was that record companies are constantly doing this, again and again, with band after band, so when the small minority of productions is actually "good" and people actually pay money for it, it makes sense for the record company to get most of the profit on that production. Sure, for the isolated incident it might seem unfair, but in the grand scheme the record company isn't raping and pillaging as much as everyone plays them to be.
I know there are a handful of artists here and there who do their own productions (Fugazi, Ani DiFranco) because record companies are "evil", but they don't get to do so for free. Replacing the role of a record company with your own label requires you to take on all of the responsibilities of making an album that were once done by other people.
they figure no one reads the EULAs anyway, so why bother even providing a copy?
This whole incident is a great example of an interesting progression of trends these days - zillions of home users have no idea that software licenses really mean anything, and now a huge vendor (Dell) doesn't even bother providing a copy of a license. But they're still forcing the user to agree to it before they can boot their new computer. What's the point then? What's the legality of forcing the user to agree to something that is actually impossible to agree to (given that it doesn't exist and can't be provided by the company)? When are we going to see an overhaul of the licensing patterns in this country, so that they're not so silly and empty? Next thing you know, SCO is going to try to get in on this Dell licensing issue somehow... Why not just say, "By clicking here, you agree that we can do whatever we want, whatever that may be, whether or not we inform you beforehand"? I can see the follow-up posts now... "they already do that"
having used AppleScript before, I don't see how anything other than a syntax reference would be too useful (and as previous posters have pointed out, such references are available online for free).
there must not be any good SCO stories for today...
The above poster is absolutely right. For instance, when comparing applications on one system to apps on another, that's an entirely different discussion from the user model of Windows vs. Unix/Linux. The Windows user model is pretty retarded and very insecure, allowing all kinds of bad things to effectively run as "root", something that doesn't happen on Unix without some level of user intervention. Another major problem is the level of component integration within Windows. Why on earth does an instant messenger client need system level access, like it has (or possibly used to have, if they've changed things, although this isn't likely) with MSN?
If somebody discovers a buffer overrun error on Unix, as has happened from time to time (like the ftp buffer problem discovered many years ago), it takes a lot of machine and architecture-specific information to do anything invasive. But on just about any Windows machine, you need to know much less in order to successfully exploit a buffer overrun.
I don't consider the security of Windows to be anywhere near that of Unix, and I think anyone who seriously tries to argue that (or even question whether they're possibly equivalent) has a lot to learn about operating systems.
Once Asimo arrived, he was telling jokes, greeting people, made a champagne toast, and then joked that he couldn't drink any himself because he's underage. Asimo also apparently speaks "perfect Czech", something I find interesting given that most robots kinda suck at talking. This article doesn't mention anything about Asimo's technical details, and while I've read stuff about Honda's robotics division before, I don't recall any mention of speech technology. Does anyone have any info on Asimo's verbal abilities?
I've noticed another interesting detail in the Asimo development path - didn't he used to be a lot taller? Like, 6 feet instead of 4? I recall seeing a video 3 or 4 years ago where an earlier Honda robot walking out of a subway tunnel during the day. As people passed by, you could plainly see that the robot was significantly taller than most folks. My guess is that making him smaller makes him less threatening.
My name is Mumfasa Thumbutu, and I am writing to you from Nigeria. I work for SCO, and here in my country, we have many SCO license fees to collect. But due to our bad government we cannot put our money in the bank like normal people. See, everyone in Nigeria is corrupt, except for me and my friends (and SCO, too).
So we need your bank account number, social security number, mother's maiden name, date of birth, keys to your car, wallet, and your computer so that we can put the sum of ONE BILLION DOLLARS into your account.
This is not a scam, you see, because we are working for a reputable company (SCO) who has a lot of money.
SINCERELY, MUMFASA THUMBUTU
(I tried posting this in all caps, but was thwarted by the lameness filter)
dude, 24 hours is, like, so ridiculously long that it doesn't even make a good joke. it's actually been 17 hours since the previos SCO story. that's 7 hours less, or nearly 30% sooner than 24!
sheesh, i suggest that you get your facts straight here. i mean come on, with the constant flow of SCO stories, we have no time to make jokes! in fact, i'd better get some work done right now so that i'll have time to read all about today's afternoon SCO story (and tomorrow morning's as well).
While leaving the infected machines alone would thus eliminate the expense of cleaning them, it would not prevent the virus from freaking out and continuing to flood everyone with junk mail, right? There may not be a tangible, hard number correlating to the expenditure of time and annoyance by everyone who is affected (and annoyed) by the email flood, but that doesn't mean it's worth living with just because you can't put a number on it.
Thanks for the link to the jdev archive. I found this url in one of the posts discussing the new msn 8/9 protocol. Looks interesting.
From the site's main page: "This website is intended to be an unofficial guide to the MSN Messenger protocol. It is written primarily for programmers that want to utilize the MSN Messenger protocol in software."
wtf? My post above was anything but redundant. In fact, most of the other posts in this discussion have been ranting about the invasion of privacy, rights, etc., without regard to the practical and pragmatic reasons behind tracking welfare recipients. How is it redundant to make a point that is in direct opposition to what the rest of the people are writing?
Not trying to be flamebait here, but... whoever modded my earlier post down ought to try objectively reading what I wrote (as well as re-evaluating the definition of the word "redundant"). I think it's both "interesting" and "informative" to point out that governments are actually trying to keep tabs on fraud, and not just invade people's privacy and freedoms. Oh wait! I forgot, this is/., land of "fsck authority, must put on logic blinders if the discussion involves privacy and/or rights...", etc...
The summary makes it seem like the government is just stalking homeless people to be annoying and intrusive. Whether the government does something stupid or not, you can bet they have a reason for doing it (even though the reason might also be stupid). But what's the reason to stalk and track "homeless people"? It's not just to be annoying and intrusive.
Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) are database systems intended to track recipients of benefits in order to assess the number of persons receiving care, and to improve efficiency of services to the poor.
I happen to work for a company that deals with electronifying benefits for people on welfare, and you can bet there is a LOT of time spent both by financial institutions, private companies and governments (both state and federal), and it's not just for fun. There is a huge problem with fraud, and whether you're homeless or not, you can count on the government wanting to continue their trend of knowing which welfare recipients are spending what, who doesn't spend any of it, and who's money is being spent but not by the intended recipient (aka, fraud).
Consider this: without fraud protection, monitoring, and investigation, each and every tax-paying citizen will be indirectly donating a portion of their hard-earned cash to fund a bunch of welfare thieves.
It really didn't concern me until one day when I was checking the logs on my Mac OS X box while developing a web app and discovered dozens of entries from all over the globe probing my box to see if it was an insecure IIS server.
I think that pretty much sums it up - IIS can easily be insecure, just like the rest of the Windows world. But why does that mean that the Mac's web server (Apache) should be a cause for concern?
I've been using OS X for about a year and a half, and I don't see how a "Mac specific" book on security is worth the cash outlay. Sure, there are pretty UI widgets to interface with things like Apache, ipfw, the ftp server, etc., and a how-to book might be useful for a novice. But I don't see why a book like this will distinguish itself given that most of the real security info is way more Unix-centric that it is Mac-centric.
From what I recall, most of the OS X system defaults were set to reasonable, fairly secure settings, unlike Windows where a basic install will leave a zillion services running on your machine, all of which are listening to the outside world, exposing some heinous portion of the OS to components that have no right messing with it in the first place.
- Check for Yahoo, AOL, IRC, etc. clients, as well as Jabber and Trillian, disable and cancel the user accounts, and re-enable with the new MSN client. Update registry so that system will no longer boot if MSN is tampered with.
- Check for the presence of Opera, Mozilla, other browsers, disable and delete them, then modify the registry so that their installers will no longer work, then reinstall Internet Explorer with fully idiotic preferences set as defaults, and provide support for a whole new set of web "standards" that only Microsoft will ever use.
- Filter through user's bookmarks and delete any bookmarks that match any of the following criteria: a) bookmark points to competitor's web site, b) bookmark points to web site that sell competitors products, c) bookmark points to site that mentions any competing product, or d) bookmark points to site that employs or otherwise associates with one or more individuals who currently, or have in the past, made use of or considered using a competing product.
- Remove all versions of email clients other Outlook. If user does not have Outlook or any other Office products currently installed, go ahead and continue removing other email clients, but after that's finished force the user to purchase a copy of Outlook because it's the only "safe" email client for Windows
- Check to see if user has updated their system prefs to show file extensions in the Explorer windows. If so, set it to false so that file extensions are no longer shown because that's really more "secure"
I'd be more worried about what I was supposed to eat for the entire trip. Lab grown food? Pre-packaged junk? And what about drinks? How do you get any kind of water source when you're, like, in the middle of space?
The European Beagle is expected to take about 6 months to arrive on Mars (should get there sometime near Christmas this year). Many details left out of the article above. And after reading it, I don't understand a) how anyone could voluntarily make that kind of journey in a tiny space ship, b) how the crew will be able to survive on the way there (and even after they've arrived) given needs for food and water, or c) how they're supposed to get back when they're ready to return to Earth (afaik, there aren't any launch pads with booster rockets sitting and waiting to fire the Russians back home).
guy: "you're using Microsoft products, right?" customer: "yes, that's correct" guy: "well that's a huge security hole!" customer: "no way! we have to keep this secret! come on Jeff, let's put this guy in jail before he tells anyone else!"
I agree, this technology is definitely not for the home user. The reason? You'll need to buy new hardware to install so you can use this wireless signal. That means you won't get to simply point your Linksys WAP out the window and hook into the wireless tower down the street. Instead, you're going to need to install some kind of receiver, possibly a dish mounted on the exterior of your home.
When I was living in Wellington, New Zealand last year, my wife and I looked into doing this (yes, there was an ISP that would provide home ISP over that wireless connection). Hi-tech geek factor: high. Cost: also high (installation, cost of dish). Fast? not really.
As home users, it just wasn't worth it. Even as a business customer, I don't see much of the appeal, as it's not going to be groundbreakingly fast.
why can't somebody release a worm that will gather pr0n from all over the web and store it in a huge repository on some publicly-readable, remote machine? that ought to save the/. community many, many hours of surfing time, thus freeing up more time to do other useful things, like posting here.
According to the Jaguar upgrade website, the latest available version of OS X is 10.2.5. But according to The Register, "All three systems will ship with Mac OS X 10.2.7, a 32-bit version of the operating system optimised for the new CPU".
Does anybody have any insights into what optimizations might be included? Are there any enhancements or features that aren't present in 10.2.5?
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> I wonder what the artists think of this? This price reduction has to impact their bottom line...
Artists probably won't care, as it has pretty much been the case for years that album prices do not have much of an impact on the income of an artist or group. The huge majority of profit (something like 90%, if I'm remembering correctly) from a CD goes to the recording company. Most artists will tend to make most of their profit from concert performances.
I used to think "fsck the record companies!" until I read an interesting interview with Ben Harper (sorry, no links, it was in print a few years back). He argued that record companies should continue to take in most of the profits from good record sales, because it is the record company that takes the risk to record, mix, produce, distribute, and market an album, and if that album sucks, who's gonna pay them back for their investment? Answer: nobody. Ben Harper's point was that record companies are constantly doing this, again and again, with band after band, so when the small minority of productions is actually "good" and people actually pay money for it, it makes sense for the record company to get most of the profit on that production. Sure, for the isolated incident it might seem unfair, but in the grand scheme the record company isn't raping and pillaging as much as everyone plays them to be.
I know there are a handful of artists here and there who do their own productions (Fugazi, Ani DiFranco) because record companies are "evil", but they don't get to do so for free. Replacing the role of a record company with your own label requires you to take on all of the responsibilities of making an album that were once done by other people.
From the article:
they figure no one reads the EULAs anyway, so why bother even providing a copy?
This whole incident is a great example of an interesting progression of trends these days - zillions of home users have no idea that software licenses really mean anything, and now a huge vendor (Dell) doesn't even bother providing a copy of a license. But they're still forcing the user to agree to it before they can boot their new computer. What's the point then? What's the legality of forcing the user to agree to something that is actually impossible to agree to (given that it doesn't exist and can't be provided by the company)? When are we going to see an overhaul of the licensing patterns in this country, so that they're not so silly and empty? Next thing you know, SCO is going to try to get in on this Dell licensing issue somehow... Why not just say, "By clicking here, you agree that we can do whatever we want, whatever that may be, whether or not we inform you beforehand"? I can see the follow-up posts now... "they already do that"
having used AppleScript before, I don't see how anything other than a syntax reference would be too useful (and as previous posters have pointed out, such references are available online for free).
there must not be any good SCO stories for today...
I thought you were going to say "yes, but can it run linux?"...
The above poster is absolutely right. For instance, when comparing applications on one system to apps on another, that's an entirely different discussion from the user model of Windows vs. Unix/Linux. The Windows user model is pretty retarded and very insecure, allowing all kinds of bad things to effectively run as "root", something that doesn't happen on Unix without some level of user intervention. Another major problem is the level of component integration within Windows. Why on earth does an instant messenger client need system level access, like it has (or possibly used to have, if they've changed things, although this isn't likely) with MSN?
If somebody discovers a buffer overrun error on Unix, as has happened from time to time (like the ftp buffer problem discovered many years ago), it takes a lot of machine and architecture-specific information to do anything invasive. But on just about any Windows machine, you need to know much less in order to successfully exploit a buffer overrun.
I don't consider the security of Windows to be anywhere near that of Unix, and I think anyone who seriously tries to argue that (or even question whether they're possibly equivalent) has a lot to learn about operating systems.
does this mean the flux capacitor isn't real?
CNN summary (details gleaned from here):
Once Asimo arrived, he was telling jokes, greeting people, made a champagne toast, and then joked that he couldn't drink any himself because he's underage. Asimo also apparently speaks "perfect Czech", something I find interesting given that most robots kinda suck at talking. This article doesn't mention anything about Asimo's technical details, and while I've read stuff about Honda's robotics division before, I don't recall any mention of speech technology. Does anyone have any info on Asimo's verbal abilities?
I've noticed another interesting detail in the Asimo development path - didn't he used to be a lot taller? Like, 6 feet instead of 4? I recall seeing a video 3 or 4 years ago where an earlier Honda robot walking out of a subway tunnel during the day. As people passed by, you could plainly see that the robot was significantly taller than most folks. My guess is that making him smaller makes him less threatening.
DEAR SIR...
My name is Mumfasa Thumbutu, and I am writing to you from Nigeria. I work for SCO, and here in my country, we have many SCO license fees to collect. But due to our bad government we cannot put our money in the bank like normal people. See, everyone in Nigeria is corrupt, except for me and my friends (and SCO, too).
So we need your bank account number, social security number, mother's maiden name, date of birth, keys to your car, wallet, and your computer so that we can put the sum of ONE BILLION DOLLARS into your account.
This is not a scam, you see, because we are working for a reputable company (SCO) who has a lot of money.
SINCERELY,
MUMFASA THUMBUTU
(I tried posting this in all caps, but was thwarted by the lameness filter)
dude, 24 hours is, like, so ridiculously long that it doesn't even make a good joke. it's actually been 17 hours since the previos SCO story. that's 7 hours less, or nearly 30% sooner than 24!
sheesh, i suggest that you get your facts straight here. i mean come on, with the constant flow of SCO stories, we have no time to make jokes! in fact, i'd better get some work done right now so that i'll have time to read all about today's afternoon SCO story (and tomorrow morning's as well).
read it here from the Google cache
While leaving the infected machines alone would thus eliminate the expense of cleaning them, it would not prevent the virus from freaking out and continuing to flood everyone with junk mail, right? There may not be a tangible, hard number correlating to the expenditure of time and annoyance by everyone who is affected (and annoyed) by the email flood, but that doesn't mean it's worth living with just because you can't put a number on it.
Thanks for the link to the jdev archive. I found this url in one of the posts discussing the new msn 8/9 protocol. Looks interesting.
From the site's main page: "This website is intended to be an unofficial guide to the MSN Messenger protocol. It is written primarily for programmers that want to utilize the MSN Messenger protocol in software."
wtf? My post above was anything but redundant. In fact, most of the other posts in this discussion have been ranting about the invasion of privacy, rights, etc., without regard to the practical and pragmatic reasons behind tracking welfare recipients. How is it redundant to make a point that is in direct opposition to what the rest of the people are writing?
/., land of "fsck authority, must put on logic blinders if the discussion involves privacy and/or rights...", etc...
Not trying to be flamebait here, but... whoever modded my earlier post down ought to try objectively reading what I wrote (as well as re-evaluating the definition of the word "redundant"). I think it's both "interesting" and "informative" to point out that governments are actually trying to keep tabs on fraud, and not just invade people's privacy and freedoms. Oh wait! I forgot, this is
The summary makes it seem like the government is just stalking homeless people to be annoying and intrusive. Whether the government does something stupid or not, you can bet they have a reason for doing it (even though the reason might also be stupid). But what's the reason to stalk and track "homeless people"? It's not just to be annoying and intrusive.
From the EPIC HMIS fact sheet (pdf):
Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) are database systems intended to track recipients of benefits in order to assess the number of persons receiving care, and to improve efficiency of services to the poor.
I happen to work for a company that deals with electronifying benefits for people on welfare, and you can bet there is a LOT of time spent both by financial institutions, private companies and governments (both state and federal), and it's not just for fun. There is a huge problem with fraud, and whether you're homeless or not, you can count on the government wanting to continue their trend of knowing which welfare recipients are spending what, who doesn't spend any of it, and who's money is being spent but not by the intended recipient (aka, fraud).
Consider this: without fraud protection, monitoring, and investigation, each and every tax-paying citizen will be indirectly donating a portion of their hard-earned cash to fund a bunch of welfare thieves.
just imagine a beowolf cluster of these...
From the origial post:
It really didn't concern me until one day when I was checking the logs on my Mac OS X box while developing a web app and discovered dozens of entries from all over the globe probing my box to see if it was an insecure IIS server.
I think that pretty much sums it up - IIS can easily be insecure, just like the rest of the Windows world. But why does that mean that the Mac's web server (Apache) should be a cause for concern?
I've been using OS X for about a year and a half, and I don't see how a "Mac specific" book on security is worth the cash outlay. Sure, there are pretty UI widgets to interface with things like Apache, ipfw, the ftp server, etc., and a how-to book might be useful for a novice. But I don't see why a book like this will distinguish itself given that most of the real security info is way more Unix-centric that it is Mac-centric.
From what I recall, most of the OS X system defaults were set to reasonable, fairly secure settings, unlike Windows where a basic install will leave a zillion services running on your machine, all of which are listening to the outside world, exposing some heinous portion of the OS to components that have no right messing with it in the first place.
ahem, I think you left a few off...
- Check for Yahoo, AOL, IRC, etc. clients, as well as Jabber and Trillian, disable and cancel the user accounts, and re-enable with the new MSN client. Update registry so that system will no longer boot if MSN is tampered with.
- Check for the presence of Opera, Mozilla, other browsers, disable and delete them, then modify the registry so that their installers will no longer work, then reinstall Internet Explorer with fully idiotic preferences set as defaults, and provide support for a whole new set of web "standards" that only Microsoft will ever use.
- Filter through user's bookmarks and delete any bookmarks that match any of the following criteria: a) bookmark points to competitor's web site, b) bookmark points to web site that sell competitors products, c) bookmark points to site that mentions any competing product, or d) bookmark points to site that employs or otherwise associates with one or more individuals who currently, or have in the past, made use of or considered using a competing product.
- Remove all versions of email clients other Outlook. If user does not have Outlook or any other Office products currently installed, go ahead and continue removing other email clients, but after that's finished force the user to purchase a copy of Outlook because it's the only "safe" email client for Windows
- Check to see if user has updated their system prefs to show file extensions in the Explorer windows. If so, set it to false so that file extensions are no longer shown because that's really more "secure"
Did I get them all?
I'd be more worried about what I was supposed to eat for the entire trip. Lab grown food? Pre-packaged junk? And what about drinks? How do you get any kind of water source when you're, like, in the middle of space?
The European Beagle is expected to take about 6 months to arrive on Mars (should get there sometime near Christmas this year). Many details left out of the article above. And after reading it, I don't understand a) how anyone could voluntarily make that kind of journey in a tiny space ship, b) how the crew will be able to survive on the way there (and even after they've arrived) given needs for food and water, or c) how they're supposed to get back when they're ready to return to Earth (afaik, there aren't any launch pads with booster rockets sitting and waiting to fire the Russians back home).
guy: "you're using Microsoft products, right?"
customer: "yes, that's correct"
guy: "well that's a huge security hole!"
customer: "no way! we have to keep this secret! come on Jeff, let's put this guy in jail before he tells anyone else!"
I agree, this technology is definitely not for the home user. The reason? You'll need to buy new hardware to install so you can use this wireless signal. That means you won't get to simply point your Linksys WAP out the window and hook into the wireless tower down the street. Instead, you're going to need to install some kind of receiver, possibly a dish mounted on the exterior of your home.
When I was living in Wellington, New Zealand last year, my wife and I looked into doing this (yes, there was an ISP that would provide home ISP over that wireless connection). Hi-tech geek factor: high. Cost: also high (installation, cost of dish). Fast? not really.
As home users, it just wasn't worth it. Even as a business customer, I don't see much of the appeal, as it's not going to be groundbreakingly fast.
here's a similar article titled "DNA basis for new generation of computers"
why can't somebody release a worm that will gather pr0n from all over the web and store it in a huge repository on some publicly-readable, remote machine? that ought to save the /. community many, many hours of surfing time, thus freeing up more time to do other useful things, like posting here.
According to the Jaguar upgrade website, the latest available version of OS X is 10.2.5. But according to The Register, "All three systems will ship with Mac OS X 10.2.7, a 32-bit version of the operating system optimised for the new CPU".
Does anybody have any insights into what optimizations might be included? Are there any enhancements or features that aren't present in 10.2.5?
from the Apple store:
$1,999.00
1.6GHz PowerPC G5
800MHz frontside bus
512K L2 cache
256MB DDR333 128-bit SDRAM
Expandable to 4GB SDRAM
80GB Serial ATA
SuperDrive
Three PCI Slots
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem
$2,399.00
1.8GHz PowerPC G5
900MHz frontside bus
512K L2 cache
512MB DDR400 128-bit SDRAM
Expandable to 8GB SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA
SuperDrive
Three PCI-X Slots
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem
first post?