No, no, no, you're doing it wrong, you fools! Petite Japanese girls in school uniforms demo futuristic tech products not large bearded Austrians (with three layers of clothing on, no less). And the demo messages shouldn't be "HELLO IT PRO" but instead something like "OH HAI, SUPER FANTASTIC HAPPY FRIENDS!" Jesus, haven't you ever been to E3?
What was that? When has a CG character ever been introduced in a live action movie? I don't know, maybe you can tell us, Jar Jar.
And yet the very CG character of Gollum in LotRs won critical acclaim (and rightfully so). And some movies have touched up actors to make them look younger so the movie can cover a larger time frame and make it look more natural. Our issue here, of course, is that there is no need for Jeff Bridges and it will be his image used in the movie. And I think some folks find that disgusting on the same level as Fred Astair hawking Dirt Devils and John Wayne slugging Coors Lights. Some folks might find it fun. Some folks might see it as a tribute. And others might say "Don't worry about it, after the generation that loves him is gone they won't be used in movies anymore." And maybe they're all correct in some way. But I believe Paul Newman didn't agree with it and made a clause in his will that it should not happen to his image. And good for him. I prefer my Paul Newman vintage Cool Hand Luke to remain vintage and I'd rather not suffer through Cool Hand Luke 2: Cooler Hander Luke, Cool Hand Luke 3: Luke's Mom's Revenge, Cool Hand Luke 4: Twenty Seven Eggs Later, etc.
I'm betting these models have parameters selected by the researchers. For instance, the Rachmaninoff plays Rachmaninoff sample would probably be coded to parametize the delay between notes in order to capture the similar pacings he put in other recordings. The loudness parameterized to implement similar crescendos, sforzandos, decrescendos, etc. How would Rachmaninoff play a rallentando? No matter, just take all recordings of him playing it, statistically analyze the appropriate parameters and apply it to the synthesized notes in the piece. Those synthesized notes have come a long way in the same manner. They used to sound like pure wavelengths produced by an oscillator. Because they were. But analyze the beginning and end of piano notes struck at various force and held for various durations and you can synthesize it by analyzing the statistical aberations in the wavelengths.
This will take you only so far, however, and for each artist parametized and 'reproduced' will require as much analysis and attention to detail on the researcher's part than had that researcher picked up their own instrument and created new music. The science will, effectively, become an art. Did it matter that Rachmaninoff's were freakishly large (sometimes looking as long as the keys themselves)? Will you be able to build the physics of those hands into your model and simulation?
In the future, it could be harder to make money playing guitar with all of the competition from dead or retired artists.
Oh, how humorously short sighted a statement that is. And I don't mean that as a Luddite, I mean that as a fan of the evolution of music. How would early David Bowie's growth to late David Bowie be modeled and reproduced? You'll hear guitar in both those songs. Good luck on that parameterization producing anything but garbage!
This will be a novelty and one I look forward to enjoying it as such. But nothing more. No more a replacement for music than grand pianos were replaced by early synthesizers. You might be able to convince me at some point it will suffice (like a live piano performance may employ an electric piano) but I dare say the parameters are far too many and far too complicated.
A law firm is already investigating 'potential breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law in connection with an alleged unfair takeover.' Basically seems to allege that should this deal go through, it would be unfair for current long time shareholders of Novell as Elliott's takeover would be underpaying and ripping them off. I'm not sure if this is standard operating procedure or not but one would think that the stock market would offer a good estimate of Novell's true worth. Apparently someone thinks 20%+ on top of that is unfairly low.
Operating a server with internet services is contrary to popular belief not for amateurs and basement dwelling guys of the "Hmmm. Lemme se how this works. Ooops!" persuasion. The internet is a global collaboration based on informal (and some not so informal) rules. It's not a testing ground for stuff you found on Google or software you downloaded from Sourceforge.
Wow! The internet is some serious shit! I thought I would just log on and, like, clear up the tubes and make a really wicked site, brah! So tell me, how do I get to be as fucking awesome as you if I can't tinker with hosting a real server with real internet services on the real internet?
Do you imagine that I am paying $70 a year to a web hosting company so that I can open all the ports on their servers, drop my pants, bend over and wait for the first botnet to have their way with me?
Contrary to your elitist belief system, web hosting companies exist that offer you servers and restrict your abilities to protect you and others from the horrors of the internet.
Now get off my lawn before I call the Internet Police.
The Internet Police!? Well, now I'm fucked. And all this time I thought it was the ma-and-pa Windows 9x machines out there that were part of the big bad botnets. Thank you for opening up my eyes, I realize now that I caused all internet cancer.
It provides a DNSBL-style service that "is not a blacklist and wasn't meant to be used for outright rejection of mail.
Which of course means that in a year or two us mail administrators will start encountering mail servers that have been setup to reject mail based soley on them being on this blacklist.
Yeah, I urge everyone to exercise caution here... I looked at the stats and was a little concerned about 123k domains (20%) being domains by proxy. I host a site as a hobby and enjoy tinkering with forums and the like on it. I also don't like the idea of someone looking up my home address via whois and showing up at my front door to complain about something someone said on one of these forums. As a result, I opt for my ISP to be my proxy on the registration of the domain. Now, I know you think that means I have something to hide but I just really don't want my address and name out there because all I would have to put there is my house address.
Granted, my domain's not no the list and I'm not using it as a mail server (yet), I sympathize with hobbyists, non-profitable sites and people who value privacy. Keep that in mind if you're going to utilize this site as an auto-reject authority.
Here is the official press release I received in an e-mail this morning:
First Quadrennial Childhood Obesity Awareness Day Goes Off Without a Hitch!
We'd like to thank all our gamers for observing our compulsory First Quadrennial Childhood Obesity Awareness Day that we had planned many years in advance back when we made our first consoles. We hope all the children took the time to get outside and exercise. As always, Sony endorses moderation in game play and we feel that this surprise holiday away from the Playstation Network will help today's youth become more healthy and social.
Should we decide to surprise you with a second Quadrennial Childhood Obesity Awareness Day, it could happen March 1st of 2012. See you in 2012 (maybe)! Until then, remember to get plenty of fresh air and exercise!
Totally in control of the situation,
Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf
Chief Sony Public Think of the Children Relations Officer
I'd be interested in a list of patent infringement lawsuits filed by MS. A friend of mine has argued that MS generally patents software for defensive purposes because they get sued over software patents so much, but that sounds naive. Show me some facts.
Apple and Microsoft are having different results. I assume both Apple and Microsoft approached their "infringers" and offered to settle. Obviously HTC and Nokia called Apple's bluff while Novell and Amazon probably negotiated something to make it more of a win/win for both parties but bad news for the industry. Right now I imagine it's not "if" Microsoft's Linux lawsuits start but "when." Probably not enough units shipped nor deep enough coffers to target for Ballmer to pick up his chair. Who knows? Maybe Microsoft is really good at patent negotiations? My biggest question: "Is this how the patent system is supposed to work?"
So, as the submitter, I saw a lot of similarities here. Basically when Microsoft entered the operating system market, they borrowed a lot of ideas and they innovated some as well. Then they patented as much software "methods" as they could. Now you see them demanding everyone to pay protection money who is using Linux.
Now, you have Apple entering the mobile phone market and borrowing ideas from around the industry and innovating some. Then they patent their software "methods" on these phones and wait for everyone to adopt them. How many tens of millions of units have they let HTC ship? And now they're basically suing Nokia (of all companies) and HTC.
The post immediately denigrates the validity of the litigation by linking it to something that it is not.
Considering the above, I'm not sure which case is more degenerative... but they're both pretty despicable in my opinion.
I am interested in your view of how these two cases are different. I don't think pointing out that someone may just be flexing their software patent portfolio against the industry is "editorializing" or "BS" when it appears this is exactly what both companies are doing with different results.
We only learned of Apple's actions based on your stories and Apple's press release. We have not been served yet so we are in no position to comment on the claims. We respect and value patent rights but we are committed to defending our own innovations. We have been innovating and patenting our own technology for 13 years.
Apparently some 700 pages were just filed and they aren't all in the court's record system yet. In addition some of the patents are pretty questionable. Crazy.
If your camera is going to record a vast amount of data only to throw away 90 percent of it when you compress, why not just save battery power and memory and record 90 percent less data in the first place?..
Because it's hard to know what is needed and what isn't to produce a photograph that still looks good to a human, and pushing that computing power down to the camera sensors where power is more limited than a computer is unlikely to save either time or power.
If you read the article, the rest of that quote makes a lot more sense. Here it is in context:
If your camera is going to record a vast amount of data only to throw away 90 percent of it when you compress, why not just save battery power and memory and record 90 percent less data in the first place? For digital snapshots of your kids, battery waste may not matter much; you just plug in and recharge. “But when the battery is orbiting Jupiter,” Candès says, “it’s a different story.” Ditto if you want your camera to snap a photo with a trillion pixels instead of a few million.
So, while this strategy might not be implemented in my Canon Powershot anytime soon, it sounds like a really great idea for exploration or just limited resources in general. I was thinking more along the lines of making really crappy resolution low power cameras that are very cheap but distributing them with this software that takes the images on your computer and processes them to make them highly defined images.
They were discussing about the deal with Yahoo and why it doesn't hurt the market or Google. It really makes sense too - Google gets many magnitudes more search query data than their rivals. Long-tail keyword phrases are invaluable data and give a huge advantage for Google to taylor their search results.
Over the past few months Microsoft, too, has met with the DOJ and the European Commission. The subject of our meetings has been the competition law review, now completed, of the search partnership between Yahoo! and Microsoft. As you might expect, the competition officials asked us a lot of questions about competition with Google--since that is the focus of the partnership. We told them what we know about how Google is doing business.
What does Google's method of doing business have to do with their Yahoo! merger? In addition to that:
In this instance, there has been no shortage of affected voices. A quick Internet search will surface the growing concerns that have been raised by upstart innovators such as Ciao (owned by Microsoft)...
Sounds to me like Microsoft has been complaining to the DoJ and EC.
Furthermore the post doesn't really focus on one thing and also brings up the Google Books deal for some odd reason. I mean, if they're complaining about it, that's fine. Just say what you think is wrong and be done with it. From that point on the DoJ or EC will take action if they need to. But I bet that won't be what will happen. I bet they'll bring this up over and over again and fun startups that died "because of Google" (like Ciao) to take legal action against the behemoth. Seems to be Microsoft's modus operandi.
It really makes sense too - Google gets many magnitudes more search query data than their rivals.
It makes sense alright. It makes sense that Microsoft is upset that Google is doing so well and so they've got to try to be the biggest thorn in Google's side as possible. The fact that Google is smart enough to use its own resources to be a better search engine is violating anti-trust laws? Please! Should I complain that auto manufacturers have access to huge factories and production lines and I have none so it's anti-trust that I cannot enter the automobile market? Should we demand that information technology companies hand over their infrastructure to their competitors in the name of the Sherman Act? Absurd.
I didn't see it linked in the article so for educational purposes I'll give you the link to the link to Dave Heiner's piece entitled Competition Authorities and Search. Which appears to be a legitimate Microsoft blog site.
I'm not a lawyer but the piece sounds surprisingly unlawyerlike in that he is all over the road and turns it into a "he said/she said" sort of fight:
Google’s public response to this growing regulatory concern has been to point elsewhere—at Microsoft. Google is telling reporters that antitrust concerns about search are not real because some of the complaints come from one of its last remaining search competitors.
Thank you. Now, will someone please mod the parent "informative" and my GP comment "overrated?" Thanking the mods in advance.
Understanding, thanks, salutations... delivered on Slashdot? With cordiality? Scanning for sarcasm, hatred, malice, discontent... clean?! Taking full claim of responsibility? Strange new feelings welling up inside me. Double checking URL... still Slashdot! No memes? Bizarre. How to appropriately respond?
"Uh... it's been a pleasure doing business with you?"
There’s just one legal problem: New York Times Co. , et. al. v. Jonathan Tasini et. al. Usually called the Tasini case, freelance writers sued the New York Times and other print publications for licensing individual articles to database companies without permission from the writers, who retained the copyright on the articles. One of the main turning points was that the publishers had explicit permission only to include the articles in the print publication. However, copyright law did not allow the publishers to break their publications up and make the articles accessible to readers out of the original context.
it potentially sends the company headlong into conflict with a famous Supreme Court ruling on media law.
They've already proved with the blatently illegal settlement on the book scanning deal that the law doesn't apply to them.
What is that famous ruling anyway? That sentence just calls for a link.
It's right there in the article:
There’s just one legal problem: New York Times Co. , et. al. v. Jonathan Tasini et. al. Usually called the Tasini case, freelance writers sued the New York Times and other print publications for licensing individual articles to database companies without permission from the writers, who retained the copyright on the articles. One of the main turning points was that the publishers had explicit permission only to include the articles in the print publication. However, copyright law did not allow the publishers to break their publications up and make the articles accessible to readers out of the original context.
It's amazing how far this has gone. I saw a 'live' rick roll on some Macy's parade on the internet and I've even seen really ingenious Rick Rolls that I must admit have been humorous. But I'm a little disappointed we've been stuck on one video as there are so many others to Rick Roll people with.
Tommy Wiseau's The Room was shown on Adult Swim as an April Fool's day joke and if you think Rick Astley is cheesy you should check out the acting in this film. Be very careful and prepare yourself if you plan on watching the Rifftrax of it. I was in very serious physical pain from laughing so hard.
In short, cyberwarfare won't work for the exact same reasons that censorship won't work, there's too many people working against the attackers who can communicate too quickly and too effectively.
Quiet, you fool! Imagine if they can convince the United States government that part of its defense budget should go to increasing cyber security! We already know the DoD uses Linux and wants more. Just think what a very tiny fraction of the US Defense budget could do for security in Linux and its subsequent adoption for corporations!
And for those of you that argue the enemy will then use Linux: who cares? Bullet proof protection on both sides would prevent any attempt of an offensive from ever sparking a war. In light of recent economic ups and downs, I would argue at this point it's more important to make the corporations feel 100% safe and secure -- unlike Google in China.
to comment (4 or 5 months ago) that IDG news is a biased, paid up, propagandist, political mouthpiece. I was modded as a troll, back then.
I'll bite. I skimmed through your comments looking for this -1, Troll claim that you have made and was unable to find it. According to Google (not an authoritative source) I can only find one comment in which you name IDG and it's not modded Troll, it's modded Offtopic. Nor does it rest at -1, merely at 0. There's an important difference between the two. You may have had a legitimate point it just had no place on that article for Slashdot. I suspect that if you had compiled a list of examples that would conclusively lead the reader to agree with you, you might have even gotten a +2 Interesting.
I've noticed unfortunately that, when you do cite sources, it appears as though you're trying to pound a square block into a round hole. Be careful not to look for things to prove you're right but instead to read many things about the subject before concluding that there is evidence from reliable sources or maybe your viewpoint needs adjustment.
I have several friends from India, they have never complained of the mediabashing India. I cannot say I've noticed this beyond jokes about outsourcing and telemarketing... but who should be the ones laughing in those situations? Probably the people who are employed.
On top of that, you throw out the sporadic groundless conspiracy which can hurt your message:
No popular Indian newspaper reported anything like that. I'm pretty sure that this news has been created by the manipulation wing of CIA and published by its media partners. Those filthy bastards don't like to be idle. Now that they've exhausted all the crap they can publish about China, they've turned towards India. Please don't believe them.
Listen, if you have a message to get out, that's fine. But a short post with such large conspiracy claim is often outright dismissed.
My biggest advice to you is to add more meat to your comments and don't get in little pissing matches with long back-and-forths between you and another poster. People don't enjoy reading ping-pong matches. Think out your argument or claim ahead of time and account for all viewpoints from the get-go. That's my advice. You rarely see me post more than one or two comments per article and it's not because I don't read the responses, it's because I come here to say something, I say it and then I'm done. Anything I missed was an error on my part and I deserve the valid rebuttal.
I know this post looks like a direct criticism or attack on you but it's not. It's meant to be constructive criticism because you have some real gems in your posts but every so often get really careless or resort to name calling or make outrageous claims with no proof. If someone had convinced me that this Randall C. Kennedy guy was a complete bullshitter months ago, I would have loved to have known ahead of time.
It's a lengthy piece, you can probably skip the parts about Intel and Wall Street (although some of you may be convinced that becoming such a spinster/shill/whore/liar requires years of training). But What I found most interesting:
And implode it did. After publishing a particularly alarming set of findings – which I still stand behind while continuing to evaluate new data – the internet became engulfed in controversy. As the furor grew, and as more and more media outlets questioned just who this Craig Barth fellow really was and what made DMS tick, the house of cards came crumbling down. The persona of Craig Barth was exposed as one Randall C. Kennedy, and the entire web of half-truths and misdirection was exposed as the ruse that it was.
(Emphasis mine.) It seems like he has a reasonably technical background. What has he found that cannot be explained by SuperFetch (high memory usage) and Native Command Queuing (backlogged disk I/O queue)? Those were the two big percentage differences and apparently explainable if not desirable for the average user.
So, what next? For starters, neither the exo.performance.network or Devil Mountain Software, Inc., are going anywhere anytime soon.
Surely he must realize that open sourcing everything about exo.performance.network is the only thing he can do at this point. I mean, no one's going to trust him again if he has any way to manipulate the data/results without subject to complete inspection. The only option I see is to open source the software client and post the raw data alongside his own analysis. Without that I'm not stupid enough to trust an adoption rate quoted from this guy let alone average disk I/O queue on Windows 7. Without this kind of auditing, I'm sure those numbers will turn up to be just enough to make my eyes widen and my finger click his link. I am saddened that people will probably continue to run his client without knowing this whole story of how they were manipulated by a particularly crafty scam artist.
I remember running into something like this a long time ago when I was in New York City. There was this small piece of metal in the card slot. Needless to say I didn't insert my debit card in to find out what it was.
How do I protect myself from a skimmer inside a gas pump?
Step 1: Assume they're compromised.
Step 2: Pull out the concealed Glock that every freedom loving American carries around and fire wildly into them.
Step 3: If the machine is rendered out of order, move onto the next machine and go to Step 1. If someone tries to stop you, go to Step 1.
But in all seriousness I think you could pick up a "preferred customer card" at some grocery store and carry that around with you. When you approach the pump, put that card in first. A compromised machine might feel weird and will most likely not respond to you inserting a card. An uncompromised machine will swipe easily and also think for a second and then ask you to reswipe your card. While not flawless, this is the best thing I can think of aside from prepaying at the attendant in the store or something really crazy like demanding to borrow a passerby's card to see if it works before you put yours in. It's also probably your best option if you buy gas after hours like I do. The unfortunate side effect is it wastes time and makes it look like you're flipping through maxed/stolen cards.
NSW Lawyer: You allege that the Sydney Morning Herald sent repeatedly sent liscivious requests to you, is that correct? NSW Server: *nods solemnly* NSW Lawyer: I see... and just exactly how many times were you violated? NSW Server: *pauses and swallows loudly* Three... three thousand seven hudred and twenty seven. *crowd gasps* NSW Lawyer: I see. Now, I know this is hard for you but could you please point to where, exactly, on this anatomically correct server doll the Sydney Morning Herald accessed you from. NSW Server: *turns the server doll over and motions to the ports* Here on the back, in my ethernet port. *sounds of disgust ripple through the crowd* NSW Lawyer: And what did he say to you when this was happening? NSW Server: GET. NSW Lawyer: 'GET' what? NSW Server: He just kept saying GET, GET, GET! GET this document. GET that document. NSW Lawyer: And did you get it for him? NSW Server: No it didn't exist! They just weren't there! NSW Lawyer: And what did you say exactly! NSW Server: 404! 404, goddammit, 404... *breaks down sobbing* I didn't know what he wanted from me until it was too late!!! NSW Lawyer: There there. There there, it's okay. You're safe now. *turns to the judge* Can we let this sort of gross injustice go unpunished in today's society? How long before this happens to your server? Or... your child's server?! Huh? NSW Judge: *nods approvingly* NSW Lawyer: I rest my case.
But this is the problem. We've got these top secret negotations that are clearly secret, because there will be massive opposition to them, (else there'd be no reason to keep them secret)
I don't quite agree with you there. People have all sorts of different reasons for keeping legislation secret until it is proposed ranging from strategically hiding it from your opposition thereby reducing their reaction time to simply not having a solid foundation built yet. If you've got a shaky idea of what all the players want out of this deal, you shouldn't be publishing the initial draft of the documentation. This leads to confusion and gives opponents fodder. Let's say the countries that came to the table eventually reject the international three strikes rule but later have problems passing a better version of ACTA that actually tries to achieve a solution without invading privacy. Even the opinion piece acknowledges a need for a solution:
The EDPS acknowledges that the cross-border trade in counterfeit and pirate goods is a growing concern that often involves organized criminal networks, which calls for the adoption of appropriate cooperation mechanisms at international level in order to fight against this form of criminality.
No matter how good that amended solution may be, you and I aren't going to care. We're only going to remember the stories on Slashdot and know that ACTA = EVIL. So with this early exposure, the thing is dead before it can be reformed and amended.
On top of that, how do you get all the big players to the table if the documentation is floating around that angers the hell out of their constituents. "If so and so goes to that summit, I'm never voting for her/him again" is what one might say.
I mean, the leaked documentation is damning but you have to consider that bills proposed here in the USA always have flaws that get worked over and over before it's passed. To claim otherwise is a bit disingenuous.
Slashdot Mirror
No, no, no, you're doing it wrong, you fools! Petite Japanese girls in school uniforms demo futuristic tech products not large bearded Austrians (with three layers of clothing on, no less). And the demo messages shouldn't be "HELLO IT PRO" but instead something like "OH HAI, SUPER FANTASTIC HAPPY FRIENDS!" Jesus, haven't you ever been to E3?
What was that? When has a CG character ever been introduced in a live action movie? I don't know, maybe you can tell us, Jar Jar.
And yet the very CG character of Gollum in LotRs won critical acclaim (and rightfully so). And some movies have touched up actors to make them look younger so the movie can cover a larger time frame and make it look more natural. Our issue here, of course, is that there is no need for Jeff Bridges and it will be his image used in the movie. And I think some folks find that disgusting on the same level as Fred Astair hawking Dirt Devils and John Wayne slugging Coors Lights. Some folks might find it fun. Some folks might see it as a tribute. And others might say "Don't worry about it, after the generation that loves him is gone they won't be used in movies anymore." And maybe they're all correct in some way. But I believe Paul Newman didn't agree with it and made a clause in his will that it should not happen to his image. And good for him. I prefer my Paul Newman vintage Cool Hand Luke to remain vintage and I'd rather not suffer through Cool Hand Luke 2: Cooler Hander Luke, Cool Hand Luke 3: Luke's Mom's Revenge, Cool Hand Luke 4: Twenty Seven Eggs Later, etc.
This will take you only so far, however, and for each artist parametized and 'reproduced' will require as much analysis and attention to detail on the researcher's part than had that researcher picked up their own instrument and created new music. The science will, effectively, become an art. Did it matter that Rachmaninoff's were freakishly large (sometimes looking as long as the keys themselves)? Will you be able to build the physics of those hands into your model and simulation?
In the future, it could be harder to make money playing guitar with all of the competition from dead or retired artists.
Oh, how humorously short sighted a statement that is. And I don't mean that as a Luddite, I mean that as a fan of the evolution of music. How would early David Bowie's growth to late David Bowie be modeled and reproduced? You'll hear guitar in both those songs. Good luck on that parameterization producing anything but garbage!
This will be a novelty and one I look forward to enjoying it as such. But nothing more. No more a replacement for music than grand pianos were replaced by early synthesizers. You might be able to convince me at some point it will suffice (like a live piano performance may employ an electric piano) but I dare say the parameters are far too many and far too complicated.
A law firm is already investigating 'potential breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law in connection with an alleged unfair takeover.' Basically seems to allege that should this deal go through, it would be unfair for current long time shareholders of Novell as Elliott's takeover would be underpaying and ripping them off. I'm not sure if this is standard operating procedure or not but one would think that the stock market would offer a good estimate of Novell's true worth. Apparently someone thinks 20%+ on top of that is unfairly low.
Operating a server with internet services is contrary to popular belief not for amateurs and basement dwelling guys of the "Hmmm. Lemme se how this works. Ooops!" persuasion. The internet is a global collaboration based on informal (and some not so informal) rules. It's not a testing ground for stuff you found on Google or software you downloaded from Sourceforge.
Wow! The internet is some serious shit! I thought I would just log on and, like, clear up the tubes and make a really wicked site, brah! So tell me, how do I get to be as fucking awesome as you if I can't tinker with hosting a real server with real internet services on the real internet?
Do you imagine that I am paying $70 a year to a web hosting company so that I can open all the ports on their servers, drop my pants, bend over and wait for the first botnet to have their way with me?
Contrary to your elitist belief system, web hosting companies exist that offer you servers and restrict your abilities to protect you and others from the horrors of the internet.
Now get off my lawn before I call the Internet Police.
The Internet Police!? Well, now I'm fucked. And all this time I thought it was the ma-and-pa Windows 9x machines out there that were part of the big bad botnets. Thank you for opening up my eyes, I realize now that I caused all internet cancer.
It provides a DNSBL-style service that "is not a blacklist and wasn't meant to be used for outright rejection of mail.
Which of course means that in a year or two us mail administrators will start encountering mail servers that have been setup to reject mail based soley on them being on this blacklist.
Yeah, I urge everyone to exercise caution here ... I looked at the stats and was a little concerned about 123k domains (20%) being domains by proxy. I host a site as a hobby and enjoy tinkering with forums and the like on it. I also don't like the idea of someone looking up my home address via whois and showing up at my front door to complain about something someone said on one of these forums. As a result, I opt for my ISP to be my proxy on the registration of the domain. Now, I know you think that means I have something to hide but I just really don't want my address and name out there because all I would have to put there is my house address.
Granted, my domain's not no the list and I'm not using it as a mail server (yet), I sympathize with hobbyists, non-profitable sites and people who value privacy. Keep that in mind if you're going to utilize this site as an auto-reject authority.
First Quadrennial Childhood Obesity Awareness Day Goes Off Without a Hitch!
We'd like to thank all our gamers for observing our compulsory First Quadrennial Childhood Obesity Awareness Day that we had planned many years in advance back when we made our first consoles. We hope all the children took the time to get outside and exercise. As always, Sony endorses moderation in game play and we feel that this surprise holiday away from the Playstation Network will help today's youth become more healthy and social.
Should we decide to surprise you with a second Quadrennial Childhood Obesity Awareness Day, it could happen March 1st of 2012. See you in 2012 (maybe)! Until then, remember to get plenty of fresh air and exercise!
Totally in control of the situation,
Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf
Chief Sony Public Think of the Children Relations Officer
I'd be interested in a list of patent infringement lawsuits filed by MS. A friend of mine has argued that MS generally patents software for defensive purposes because they get sued over software patents so much, but that sounds naive. Show me some facts.
There's one famous one and that's about it: TomTom. You'll note I didn't say they went after people. They don't have a reason to. Instead people have started paying them for reasons I don't know (and it's more widespread than you think). Maybe they're scared? Closed door negotiations don't leave me much but my imagination. It doesn't help when they say "we have so many patents Linux infringes on we don't have time to count them."
Apple and Microsoft are having different results. I assume both Apple and Microsoft approached their "infringers" and offered to settle. Obviously HTC and Nokia called Apple's bluff while Novell and Amazon probably negotiated something to make it more of a win/win for both parties but bad news for the industry. Right now I imagine it's not "if" Microsoft's Linux lawsuits start but "when." Probably not enough units shipped nor deep enough coffers to target for Ballmer to pick up his chair. Who knows? Maybe Microsoft is really good at patent negotiations? My biggest question: "Is this how the patent system is supposed to work?"
The lawsuit is not "similar to Microsoft's" patents over Linux functionality.
Well, the Apple patents are basically software patents in relation to phones.
So, as the submitter, I saw a lot of similarities here. Basically when Microsoft entered the operating system market, they borrowed a lot of ideas and they innovated some as well. Then they patented as much software "methods" as they could. Now you see them demanding everyone to pay protection money who is using Linux.
Now, you have Apple entering the mobile phone market and borrowing ideas from around the industry and innovating some. Then they patent their software "methods" on these phones and wait for everyone to adopt them. How many tens of millions of units have they let HTC ship? And now they're basically suing Nokia (of all companies) and HTC.
The post immediately denigrates the validity of the litigation by linking it to something that it is not.
Considering the above, I'm not sure which case is more degenerative ... but they're both pretty despicable in my opinion.
I am interested in your view of how these two cases are different. I don't think pointing out that someone may just be flexing their software patent portfolio against the industry is "editorializing" or "BS" when it appears this is exactly what both companies are doing with different results.
We only learned of Apple's actions based on your stories and Apple's press release. We have not been served yet so we are in no position to comment on the claims. We respect and value patent rights but we are committed to defending our own innovations. We have been innovating and patenting our own technology for 13 years.
Apparently some 700 pages were just filed and they aren't all in the court's record system yet. In addition some of the patents are pretty questionable. Crazy.
Because it's hard to know what is needed and what isn't to produce a photograph that still looks good to a human, and pushing that computing power down to the camera sensors where power is more limited than a computer is unlikely to save either time or power.
If you read the article, the rest of that quote makes a lot more sense. Here it is in context:
If your camera is going to record a vast amount of data only to throw away 90 percent of it when you compress, why not just save battery power and memory and record 90 percent less data in the first place? For digital snapshots of your kids, battery waste may not matter much; you just plug in and recharge. “But when the battery is orbiting Jupiter,” Candès says, “it’s a different story.” Ditto if you want your camera to snap a photo with a trillion pixels instead of a few million.
So, while this strategy might not be implemented in my Canon Powershot anytime soon, it sounds like a really great idea for exploration or just limited resources in general. I was thinking more along the lines of making really crappy resolution low power cameras that are very cheap but distributing them with this software that takes the images on your computer and processes them to make them highly defined images.
They were discussing about the deal with Yahoo and why it doesn't hurt the market or Google. It really makes sense too - Google gets many magnitudes more search query data than their rivals. Long-tail keyword phrases are invaluable data and give a huge advantage for Google to taylor their search results.
Huh, that's odd. From the original blog post:
Over the past few months Microsoft, too, has met with the DOJ and the European Commission. The subject of our meetings has been the competition law review, now completed, of the search partnership between Yahoo! and Microsoft. As you might expect, the competition officials asked us a lot of questions about competition with Google--since that is the focus of the partnership. We told them what we know about how Google is doing business.
What does Google's method of doing business have to do with their Yahoo! merger? In addition to that:
In this instance, there has been no shortage of affected voices. A quick Internet search will surface the growing concerns that have been raised by upstart innovators such as Ciao (owned by Microsoft) ...
Sounds to me like Microsoft has been complaining to the DoJ and EC.
Furthermore the post doesn't really focus on one thing and also brings up the Google Books deal for some odd reason. I mean, if they're complaining about it, that's fine. Just say what you think is wrong and be done with it. From that point on the DoJ or EC will take action if they need to. But I bet that won't be what will happen. I bet they'll bring this up over and over again and fun startups that died "because of Google" (like Ciao) to take legal action against the behemoth. Seems to be Microsoft's modus operandi.
It really makes sense too - Google gets many magnitudes more search query data than their rivals.
It makes sense alright. It makes sense that Microsoft is upset that Google is doing so well and so they've got to try to be the biggest thorn in Google's side as possible. The fact that Google is smart enough to use its own resources to be a better search engine is violating anti-trust laws? Please! Should I complain that auto manufacturers have access to huge factories and production lines and I have none so it's anti-trust that I cannot enter the automobile market? Should we demand that information technology companies hand over their infrastructure to their competitors in the name of the Sherman Act? Absurd.
I'm not a lawyer but the piece sounds surprisingly unlawyerlike in that he is all over the road and turns it into a "he said/she said" sort of fight:
Google’s public response to this growing regulatory concern has been to point elsewhere—at Microsoft. Google is telling reporters that antitrust concerns about search are not real because some of the complaints come from one of its last remaining search competitors.
Time to get the popcorn ...
Link is to an article that does not name who did the "survey." For all we know the whole thing was made up.
I believe the Science journal Nature did the survey. Here's the original article and a breakdown of the survey. Sample size looked to be 784.
Thank you. Now, will someone please mod the parent "informative" and my GP comment "overrated?" Thanking the mods in advance.
Understanding, thanks, salutations ... delivered on Slashdot? With cordiality? Scanning for sarcasm, hatred, malice, discontent ... clean?! Taking full claim of responsibility? Strange new feelings welling up inside me. Double checking URL ... still Slashdot! No memes? Bizarre. How to appropriately respond?
... it's been a pleasure doing business with you?"
"Uh
There’s just one legal problem: New York Times Co. , et. al. v. Jonathan Tasini et. al. Usually called the Tasini case, freelance writers sued the New York Times and other print publications for licensing individual articles to database companies without permission from the writers, who retained the copyright on the articles. One of the main turning points was that the publishers had explicit permission only to include the articles in the print publication. However, copyright law did not allow the publishers to break their publications up and make the articles accessible to readers out of the original context.
Obligatory Wikipedia link.
it potentially sends the company headlong into conflict with a famous Supreme Court ruling on media law.
They've already proved with the blatently illegal settlement on the book scanning deal that the law doesn't apply to them.
What is that famous ruling anyway? That sentence just calls for a link.
It's right there in the article:
There’s just one legal problem: New York Times Co. , et. al. v. Jonathan Tasini et. al. Usually called the Tasini case, freelance writers sued the New York Times and other print publications for licensing individual articles to database companies without permission from the writers, who retained the copyright on the articles. One of the main turning points was that the publishers had explicit permission only to include the articles in the print publication. However, copyright law did not allow the publishers to break their publications up and make the articles accessible to readers out of the original context.
It's amazing how far this has gone. I saw a 'live' rick roll on some Macy's parade on the internet and I've even seen really ingenious Rick Rolls that I must admit have been humorous. But I'm a little disappointed we've been stuck on one video as there are so many others to Rick Roll people with.
Tommy Wiseau's The Room was shown on Adult Swim as an April Fool's day joke and if you think Rick Astley is cheesy you should check out the acting in this film. Be very careful and prepare yourself if you plan on watching the Rifftrax of it. I was in very serious physical pain from laughing so hard.
"Oh, hai Slashdot!"
In short, cyberwarfare won't work for the exact same reasons that censorship won't work, there's too many people working against the attackers who can communicate too quickly and too effectively.
Quiet, you fool! Imagine if they can convince the United States government that part of its defense budget should go to increasing cyber security! We already know the DoD uses Linux and wants more. Just think what a very tiny fraction of the US Defense budget could do for security in Linux and its subsequent adoption for corporations!
And for those of you that argue the enemy will then use Linux: who cares? Bullet proof protection on both sides would prevent any attempt of an offensive from ever sparking a war. In light of recent economic ups and downs, I would argue at this point it's more important to make the corporations feel 100% safe and secure -- unlike Google in China.
to comment (4 or 5 months ago) that IDG news is a biased, paid up, propagandist, political mouthpiece. I was modded as a troll, back then.
I'll bite. I skimmed through your comments looking for this -1, Troll claim that you have made and was unable to find it. According to Google (not an authoritative source) I can only find one comment in which you name IDG and it's not modded Troll, it's modded Offtopic. Nor does it rest at -1, merely at 0. There's an important difference between the two. You may have had a legitimate point it just had no place on that article for Slashdot. I suspect that if you had compiled a list of examples that would conclusively lead the reader to agree with you, you might have even gotten a +2 Interesting.
... but who should be the ones laughing in those situations? Probably the people who are employed.
I've noticed unfortunately that, when you do cite sources, it appears as though you're trying to pound a square block into a round hole. Be careful not to look for things to prove you're right but instead to read many things about the subject before concluding that there is evidence from reliable sources or maybe your viewpoint needs adjustment.
I have several friends from India, they have never complained of the media bashing India. I cannot say I've noticed this beyond jokes about outsourcing and telemarketing
On top of that, you throw out the sporadic groundless conspiracy which can hurt your message:
No popular Indian newspaper reported anything like that. I'm pretty sure that this news has been created by the manipulation wing of CIA and published by its media partners. Those filthy bastards don't like to be idle. Now that they've exhausted all the crap they can publish about China, they've turned towards India. Please don't believe them.
Listen, if you have a message to get out, that's fine. But a short post with such large conspiracy claim is often outright dismissed.
Your comments are often curt and therefore don't have a lot of content. This results in you lashing out at your reader which violates the know-your-audience rule of writing and often brings nothing new to the discussion.
My biggest advice to you is to add more meat to your comments and don't get in little pissing matches with long back-and-forths between you and another poster. People don't enjoy reading ping-pong matches. Think out your argument or claim ahead of time and account for all viewpoints from the get-go. That's my advice. You rarely see me post more than one or two comments per article and it's not because I don't read the responses, it's because I come here to say something, I say it and then I'm done. Anything I missed was an error on my part and I deserve the valid rebuttal.
I know this post looks like a direct criticism or attack on you but it's not. It's meant to be constructive criticism because you have some real gems in your posts but every so often get really careless or resort to name calling or make outrageous claims with no proof. If someone had convinced me that this Randall C. Kennedy guy was a complete bullshitter months ago, I would have loved to have known ahead of time.
And implode it did. After publishing a particularly alarming set of findings – which I still stand behind while continuing to evaluate new data – the internet became engulfed in controversy. As the furor grew, and as more and more media outlets questioned just who this Craig Barth fellow really was and what made DMS tick, the house of cards came crumbling down. The persona of Craig Barth was exposed as one Randall C. Kennedy, and the entire web of half-truths and misdirection was exposed as the ruse that it was.
(Emphasis mine.) It seems like he has a reasonably technical background. What has he found that cannot be explained by SuperFetch (high memory usage) and Native Command Queuing (backlogged disk I/O queue)? Those were the two big percentage differences and apparently explainable if not desirable for the average user.
So, what next? For starters, neither the exo.performance.network or Devil Mountain Software, Inc., are going anywhere anytime soon.
Surely he must realize that open sourcing everything about exo.performance.network is the only thing he can do at this point. I mean, no one's going to trust him again if he has any way to manipulate the data/results without subject to complete inspection. The only option I see is to open source the software client and post the raw data alongside his own analysis. Without that I'm not stupid enough to trust an adoption rate quoted from this guy let alone average disk I/O queue on Windows 7. Without this kind of auditing, I'm sure those numbers will turn up to be just enough to make my eyes widen and my finger click his link. I am saddened that people will probably continue to run his client without knowing this whole story of how they were manipulated by a particularly crafty scam artist.
I remember running into something like this a long time ago when I was in New York City. There was this small piece of metal in the card slot. Needless to say I didn't insert my debit card in to find out what it was.
How do I protect myself from a skimmer inside a gas pump?
Step 1: Assume they're compromised.
Step 2: Pull out the concealed Glock that every freedom loving American carries around and fire wildly into them.
Step 3: If the machine is rendered out of order, move onto the next machine and go to Step 1. If someone tries to stop you, go to Step 1.
But in all seriousness I think you could pick up a "preferred customer card" at some grocery store and carry that around with you. When you approach the pump, put that card in first. A compromised machine might feel weird and will most likely not respond to you inserting a card. An uncompromised machine will swipe easily and also think for a second and then ask you to reswipe your card. While not flawless, this is the best thing I can think of aside from prepaying at the attendant in the store or something really crazy like demanding to borrow a passerby's card to see if it works before you put yours in. It's also probably your best option if you buy gas after hours like I do. The unfortunate side effect is it wastes time and makes it look like you're flipping through maxed/stolen cards.
NSW Lawyer: You allege that the Sydney Morning Herald sent repeatedly sent liscivious requests to you, is that correct? ... and just exactly how many times were you violated? ... three thousand seven hudred and twenty seven. ... *breaks down sobbing* I didn't know what he wanted from me until it was too late!!! ... your child's server?! Huh?
NSW Server: *nods solemnly*
NSW Lawyer: I see
NSW Server: *pauses and swallows loudly* Three
*crowd gasps*
NSW Lawyer: I see. Now, I know this is hard for you but could you please point to where, exactly, on this anatomically correct server doll the Sydney Morning Herald accessed you from.
NSW Server: *turns the server doll over and motions to the ports* Here on the back, in my ethernet port.
*sounds of disgust ripple through the crowd*
NSW Lawyer: And what did he say to you when this was happening?
NSW Server: GET.
NSW Lawyer: 'GET' what?
NSW Server: He just kept saying GET, GET, GET! GET this document. GET that document.
NSW Lawyer: And did you get it for him?
NSW Server: No it didn't exist! They just weren't there!
NSW Lawyer: And what did you say exactly!
NSW Server: 404! 404, goddammit, 404
NSW Lawyer: There there. There there, it's okay. You're safe now. *turns to the judge* Can we let this sort of gross injustice go unpunished in today's society? How long before this happens to your server? Or
NSW Judge: *nods approvingly*
NSW Lawyer: I rest my case.
But this is the problem. We've got these top secret negotations that are clearly secret, because there will be massive opposition to them, (else there'd be no reason to keep them secret)
I don't quite agree with you there. People have all sorts of different reasons for keeping legislation secret until it is proposed ranging from strategically hiding it from your opposition thereby reducing their reaction time to simply not having a solid foundation built yet. If you've got a shaky idea of what all the players want out of this deal, you shouldn't be publishing the initial draft of the documentation. This leads to confusion and gives opponents fodder. Let's say the countries that came to the table eventually reject the international three strikes rule but later have problems passing a better version of ACTA that actually tries to achieve a solution without invading privacy. Even the opinion piece acknowledges a need for a solution:
The EDPS acknowledges that the cross-border trade in counterfeit and pirate goods is a growing concern that often involves organized criminal networks, which calls for the adoption of appropriate cooperation mechanisms at international level in order to fight against this form of criminality.
No matter how good that amended solution may be, you and I aren't going to care. We're only going to remember the stories on Slashdot and know that ACTA = EVIL. So with this early exposure, the thing is dead before it can be reformed and amended.
On top of that, how do you get all the big players to the table if the documentation is floating around that angers the hell out of their constituents. "If so and so goes to that summit, I'm never voting for her/him again" is what one might say.
I mean, the leaked documentation is damning but you have to consider that bills proposed here in the USA always have flaws that get worked over and over before it's passed. To claim otherwise is a bit disingenuous.
The agreement provides each company with access to the other’s patent portfolio and covers a broad range of products and technology ...
Now Microsoft will be able to sell all its products with just one click!
.lit format in favor of Kindle's .azw? Will Amazon push out and offer Azure on EC2?
But seriously where does this end? Will we see the death of Microsoft's