>DOS is *not* another form of free speech. A DOS is more like me taping your mouth shut. > If you were actually intelligent, you'd come up with a better argument than this.
So let's try a counter-example: if you caught some guy raping a child to make a porn film, would you resort to violence to make him stop?
Sometimes the ends justify the means. And if you can't refute *that* assertion, then do us all a favor & either shut up or don't breed.
I'm glad to see someone else here has read this book -- & that it is available on this side of the Atlantic! (I bought my copy in Duesseldorf back in 1997.) It explains how the movie was created, much of the work that went into the creating the world of _Blade_Runner_, & the various releases of the film.
If you are interested in the movie, it is a *must* read.
As for the question whether Deckard is a replicant, I think it has to be answered by each viewer. An ambiguity similar to the one in the television series, ``The Prisoner": who was responsible for The Village? The protagonist's employers or the other side?
> You know, I'd been thinking a lot about the bogus e-mails that the spambots pick up, and I keep thinking "wouldn't it be fun to put >someone's e-mail that I don't like in my message, to get them spammed to oblivion?"
I had the same idea many years ago, & used ``cyberpromo" as a munge string.
I never heard how well it worked (except for getting a terse note from my ISP telling me to stop that), & Sandford Wallace doesn't spam any more . . .
First, from reading about SeaLand, I got the impression that the Cayman Islands is making a bid to extend their corporate business secrecy laws to the Internet. Which has good applications (e.g. are you a human rights' organization in an oppressive nation who needs a safe place to store your information?) & bad applications (e.g. are you a drug smuggling ring who needs a safe place to store your information?)
But looking at the web site, it seems amazingly bland, almost to the point of parody. Amazing amount of corporatespeak. (Reading it, I was reminded of The Tubes' Sell Out album liner notes.)
Hrmf. Another mystery on the Internet, a land of countless mysteries.
>At 37, I'm starting to feel old while reading Slashdot. I'm a very young "baby boomer", but still a "baby boomer". My Dad (not my >grandfather) was a WW2 veteran. My Grandfather was a WW1 veteran! Anyway, there seems to be concern here, that as you >grow older and get to the advanced age of 35, your skills and knowledge will become marginalized by the next generation of >techies who are 10 years younger.
Dude, I'm 42, & when I got my Bachelor's degree my college only offered 3 computer classes -- BASIC (which I didn't bother with because I taught myself about it out of a mincomputer manual, & ran thru the excercises on the mainframe), Fortran (which I took, but never used), & assembler (which I decided I woudl never need). otherwise, your story is the same as mine.
Having gone thru the routine, I can tell you why older folks tend to shun away from new experiences:
1) Lack of time. I doubt I can recall the number of occasions that I started on a computer problem, looked up after what I thought was a little more than an hour & found that it was after midnight. And I had to be at work at 8:00am the next morning. Or started on a project on a Saturday afternoon, only be interrupted every so often with a question from my wife (e.g., ``I saw this on t.v." or ``When do you want dinner?"). Or have to put off a computer project because the yard needed attention. And if I had kids, the distractions would be even worse . . .
I have a friend a little older than me who is currently unemployed. He is using his unemployment to teach himself how to create web pages -- & using his years of experience as a graphic artist to give him an edge. Damn, I envy the fact he has the time to immerse himself!
2) Worries. Most people 15-30 don't think much beyond the next paycheck. If a job sucks, just leave it & you'll find another one in a couple of weeks.
Unfortunately, by the time you reach 35-45, you have gotten a ways up the greased pole of success. You just can't drop everything to hare after something because it looks interesting. You have to prioritize your interests, be flexible to deal with emergencies, & then when it seems to be a quiet moment you can tackle the problem.
3) Bad habits. Face it, if someone's means for solving technical problems is to ask someone else the answer, she/he is not going to change at 35+. I, for one, have always read the instructions, played with the software to see how I could break it, & always take the time to watch over the shoulder how someone solves problems. (This very practice taught me a new Unix command last week!) Too many people leave high school with a fear of RTFMing, & spend the rest of their lives finding workarounds for this.
And a last note here: Anybody who tells you all of the reasons why they can't accomplish something (especially if she or he numbers those reasons) is probably just lazy, & doesn't want to admit the fact. My stepmother -- for example -- spent my teenage years complaining that she never had any time to herself. But she never said what she would do with this time if she had any. It really got old. Thank God no one in my life does the same thing.;-)
Actually, it's not hard to find a geek wife. You just have to remember, that most of the math-savvy ones end up going into accounting. My wife worked for several years at a woman-run accounting firm. And most bookkeepers I have met have been female.
Which bring me to another question, since she passed the CPA test (on the first try, nonetheless! A feat worthy of passing the CCIE on the first try), she has decided public accounting is not for her. But she is good with computers & networking (she decided the cable guy didn't do a good job of connecting our television to the cable lines, & tore it apart & redid it herself without looking at any manuals), how do I convince her to work towards a good job in the Computer Industy.
I have to ask for advice on this point, since I started by working at Stream -- & I wouldn't inflict this on anyone I loved.
Well, as one of the old farts who frequent here . . . (pant, pant, gotta smoke a doobie before I can down my Geritol), lemme say that I see what's gonna happen next.
At the birth of the Web, everybody talked about cyberspace & how cool it would be -- including me. Then came talk about ol' Max Headroom (& I still have a crush on Amanda Pays). Then folks saw _The_Matrix_, & almost evrybody wanted to have the login of ``Neo" (yeah, there was a few wierdos who wanted to be known as ``BOFH").
Now Ol' Bottlenose talks about his ``Lifehouse" album. Who's got *that* domain. (Hrm. Type whois, grumble. Grumble about NSI. Ah, heerweego.)
Registrant: Christian Life Center (LIFEHOUSE3-DOM) 2020 Vista Street Belle Fourche, SD 57717 US
Domain Name: LIFEHOUSE.COM
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact: Manna, Mike (MM14730) mmanna@MATO.COM Christian Life Center 2020 Vista Street Belle Fourche,, SD 57717 605-892-4767 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Shafto, John (JS446) jwshafto@MATO.COM Altaire Enterprises, Inc. 144 East Grant Spearfish, SD 57783 (605) 642-1400
Record last updated on 18-Jun-1998. Record expires on 18-Jun-2000. Record created on 18-Jun-1998. Database last updated on 2-Jul-2000 18:52:58 EDT.
I likewise fail to recall any major products coming out of MS between their BASIC for the Altair & MS-DOS several years later. In fact, until MS-DOS, MS was just another manufacturer of programming languages. And considered an also-ran in that catagory.
When the matter is important, the SC can move quickly & decisively: witness their decision on the Watergate tapes in 1974, & made unanimously.
My guess is that they will consider just how much time this will take, & whether they can clear their docket to hear it in 12 months or less. If they can't hear the case quickly, they'll kick it back to the Appellate Court.
What'll be particularly interesting is if it is referred back with one or two dissents. These dissents will provide some clue of how the SC is thinking, & a wise lawyer will read them carefully to see how to proceed. I'm sure the Appellate Court will study them, since these statements will suggest to them how any decision they make will be upheld or overturned.
Whether or not MS's lawyers study these dissents is an open question. So far they have not shown the insight to pick up on hints like these from the bench.
I got only a few pages into this, when I realized that I wasn't going to learn anything from Ol' Jack. The reasons were simple:
1) He claimed to have a 102 degree fever (which meant he should have been in bed, & they should have resceduled the deposition for another day), &
2) His lawyer early on scored the point that everything he knows about this case is protected by lawyer-client confidentiality. (Sorta like a Mafia hitman getting his orders from the local priest in the confessional. Only the Mafia never thought of that trick.) As a result, he could only report on discussions & information that did NOT come from his lawyer. And, amazing to relate, the man could not recall exactly what he hadn't heard from his laywer, & thus got away with playing dumb.
>Everyone seems to think MS wants to drag things out for as long as possible, but I'm not so sure.
MS's strategy has always appeared to be ``control the momentum".
BillG hears that the GUI interface is the wave of the future? Find one, market the hell out of it, & run all of the competitors into the ground.
BillG hears that the Internet is the wave of the future? Find a means to access it, market the hell out of it, & run all of the competitors into the ground.
(Then again, this has not worked in every case: take Artificial Intelligence. BillG heard about it back in the early 1990's when it was regaining some life, & decided it was the wave of the future. So what did MS give us? MS Bob, & later that obnoxious paperclip. As a result AI has gone to the Buzzword Graveyard along with multimedia & fast-track development.)
So the legal momentum is now against MS? Slow the momentum down to a halt, & try to reverse it. And even if they can't reverse it, every day doom is delayed is another day for a miracle to come & rescue them.
Heh. One of my favorite comments comes from the Lynx source:
/* * here's where we do all the work * mainloop is basically just a big switch dependent on the users input * I have tried to offload most of the work done here to procedures to * make it more modular, but this procedure still does alot of variable * manipulation. This need some work to make it neater. */
Lou Montoulli wrote that back in 1994 -- if not earlier. It explains -- in 25 words or less how every browser works. It has been in LYmain.c ever since. And prolly in the source code to both Netscape & IE (well, next to ``Netscape coders are weenies.")
Food for thought, huh?
(And I'm ignoring the chance to comment on how he ended up marrying the bosses daughter.)
>Another datapoint: on the site there is a list of "anti-spammers that they won't send spam to".
I took a look at this list. A number of the names are obvious spam-blocks, abuse@*, etc.
And I found my own name. Four times, different variations. Wow, & I haven't complained about spam in years. (Could it be that I'm just a cheap SOB who won't buy anything advertised in email? Naw.)
But I'm saddened that they didn't include my favorite spamblock of all time -- the one where I used ``cyberpromo".
Geoff
Re:Who else thinks Rodona Garst is cute?
on
Taking On A Spammer
·
· Score: 4
Oh boy, just what we need: a new way to discourage Spammers. I can see it now.
Spammer's phone rings. ``Hello?" ``Yeah, hi! Is this $SPAMMMER?" ``Why?" ``I got a copy of your spam, the one about the web site that promises ``Real Time Lezbo S&M Action". I gave it to a nerd buddy, who tracked you down. I decided to come on over & see you perform." ``If you come over here, I'm gonna call the police on you." ``I already talked to the chief of police in your town. He's pissed that you sent his child a spam advertising that web site about ``Old MacDonald & His Cow", so he's coming over too. In fact, that's his car sitting in the driveway. If you perform well with Mistress Domme, he's willing to drop the charges. Be sure to ice down the beer!"
Jeez, I'm about to blow all of my karma on this one sick joke.
Years ago, I did phone support for Netscape. In the.9 & 1.x versions the help pages *were* web-based. And since Windows did not have a winsock.dll file natively, one couldn't even read the HTML documents offline.
Not all of the old days were good.
And yes, this stuff eventually got fixed in later releases.
IANAL, just a basically honest guy, so what puzzles me about the whole contraversy is how the laws of Virginia affect an interstate (or in some cases, international) commercial transaction?
I figure that if Federal Law (or the laws of another sovereign nation) say that a domain name is the IP of the registered party, then this pre-empts anything NSI attempts to assert.
It's fascinating to consider how corporations cry & wail over the theft of their IP, while at the same time they are stealing it from other people . . .
>One last thingy that I noticed. There is no digital signature appended to the message, not any other way to identify the writer of this e-mail.
Hmm. Reminds me of the Helena Korbin days on a.r.s.
ItooANAL, but sending legal notice to people tends to be done on paper by registered post. An email could come from anyone -- a lawyer at Microsoft, a troll wanting to get MS in trouble, or the legal staff at Andover wanting to run up the billable hours &/or get some overtime.
State law here in OR is that you have to send legal notices by snail mail. Prolly is the case in Michigan, where/. is located. In WA it just might be whatever Gates & Ballinger say on a given day -- or then again, the exact opposite.
I say ignore this communication, until soemthing arrives from Redmond that would be acceptible to a 19th century court of law. Like a snail mail or a live human being.
>If you are unable to make a copy of music you own personally, I seriously doubt it legal for you to obtain a copy from someone else's copy.
Why not? Libraries do this frequently to replace missing or damaged pages in books or periodicals.
Or, for example, you ask a friend to make a copy of a CD you own to tape, but you & your friend find it hard to meet to hand your copy over for copying. ``No problem," says the friend, ``I'll just make a copy of my CD & give it to you next time I see you."
I'd say that there are enough plausible reasons for sharing MP3s over Napster that do not violate copyright -- & indeed require the bottom fish^W^Wsuits at RIAA to provide proof that their rights are being infringed upon -- & to convince a jury or impartial judge.
>It is hard to find really good Software Architects.
I figure that SW Architects are a bit like the other kind of Architect (those who design buildings), so it might be worth mentioning one kind of architect: those who Want To Be Artists, but decided they like a steady paycheck, don't want to starve to death in a garret, so they get a degree in architecture.
These architects are the most disorganized pains in the ass, always working to the last moment when they decide ``'we have to stop & leave the mistakes in", thus throwing off the timetable for deliverables & making the rest of the group pissed off. And they usually don't deliver very good work, either.
I figure there are numeorus members of this school of architecture working in Redmond right now.
>Since the Library of Congress has such a vast collection, a person who wants to have access >to the most information would do best to access the library stacks. But not everyone can afford to go to where the books are [...]
Good point, but you need some confirming details. Allow me to supply them.
At one time, *anyone* could access the records in the Library of Congress. IIRC, until the late 1940's high school students in DC or the surrounding areas could go there & do their homework. But due to lack of space, & demand on services, the LoC has had to gradually limit access to only members of Congress & to serious researchers.
I'm not sure how the LoC determines who is a ``serious researcher", but when I used the British Library 16 years ago (when it was still housed within the British Museum), the requirement for a pass was a letter from a professor, teacher or minister. I assume the LoC would require an equivalent set of references -- which would be something of a barrier for the average asocial geek who might not know anyone with those credentials.
But remember, limiting access is not always a bad thing. Books & other documents get stolen, damaged or lost -- although in the case of the LoC, the two cases that I remember off the top of my head were by recognized, credentialed authorities. And the rule of thumb for public libraries is that the average book will last 20 check-outs before it is so worn that it must either be rebound or replaced.
Now compare these costs & limits of physical access to having an electronic copy -- either plain ascii test, or a standard, cross-platform format like JPEG or PNG -- available for use either online or for the token cost of copying to media. Mr Billington is clearly myopic about how digitizing his collection will make his job easier & more effective.
David, I'm glad you shared your thoughts about Jenni here. Especially after seeing all of these posters who seem to have a madonna/slut attitude towards women.
I remember her from the early days of the Web, when everyone was trying to figure out how to use this new medium. Lots of the ideas were clearly crap, but there were a few that got lost in the corporate rush into the 'Net.
Jenni came up with a simple & obvious idea (which Bezos & Co. would have patented), which in the spirit of the time was more cinema verite than voyeurism. It was a peek into someone else's world -- which was what the Internet was all about then. Yes, she was doing it in part for the sexual turn-on, but we are all sexual creatures -- at least in part.
Now instead of people talking to each other & learning about each other, the trendy thing to do with the Internet is to make money -- in any new way one can think of. Maybe the posters who think she runs a pay-for-a-peek site are right in a way: that's all anyone expect you to do with a web cam anymore.
A little innocence has been lost.
Geoff
Re:Offtopic, but Useful Information for Nerds
on
Battlefield Earth
·
· Score: 2
>If someone is pissing you off, and you want to return the compliment, then a very fine way to do so is to walk into one of the Church of >Scientology's offices, take the free IQ test, and sound interested and enthusiastic. Chances are, you will be offered a personality test, also >free of charge. > >Fill in the details of your adversary.
Oh you forgot the part about if he uses Linux, break into his house or apartment, reformat his hard drives & install W2K on his computer. But not if he uses one of the *BSDs -- those guys will track you down & beat the crap outta you for that.
Sheesh. What did your Dad ever do to you to deserve that kind of mistreatment?
In another life, I worked for a contruction consulting/management company. Our customers included Intel, AMD, Fujitsu, & Cypress.
I remember one of the engineers referring to the hazardous chemicals used by these companies as the ``Oh" gasses. ``Oh" as in if you smelled one of these hazardous materials, you'd be dead before you could say the second syllable of ``Oh shit."
The smarter companies that handled these things took extreme care in keeping them under control: they knew that if an accident happened with one of these chemicals, it would make Bhopal look as serioius as a fart in church.
However, I know of one company that has been playing loose with the laws -- not one I mentioned above. This company has several buildings constructed that were never approved by the county inspectors, wherein they store this nasty stuff -- at least when I heard about it around 1990. And if they never bothered to clear it with the county, I wonder if they bothered to verify that the construction was right, & the buildings *are* safe enough to store the stuff in. Unofrtuantley, there is only one way we'll ever find out . . .
I wonder when the day will come that a disgruntled employee -- or ex-employee -- of this copany takes a map of the campus, checks the building records at the county against it, & blows the whistle.
It would be a lot more fun as payback than suing for harassment or lost wages.
Slashdot Mirror
>DOS is *not* another form of free speech. A DOS is more like me taping your mouth shut.
>
If you were actually intelligent, you'd come up with a better argument than this.
So let's try a counter-example: if you caught some guy raping a child to make a porn film, would you resort to violence to make him stop?
Sometimes the ends justify the means. And if you can't refute *that* assertion, then do us all a favor & either shut up or don't breed.
>Y'all need to pull your head out of your ass.
Mote & beam, dude. Pot, kettle, black.
Geoff
I'm glad to see someone else here has read this book -- & that it is available on this side of the Atlantic! (I bought my copy in Duesseldorf back in 1997.) It explains how the movie was created, much of the work that went into the creating the world of _Blade_Runner_, & the various releases of the film.
If you are interested in the movie, it is a *must* read.
As for the question whether Deckard is a replicant, I think it has to be answered by each viewer. An ambiguity similar to the one in the television series, ``The Prisoner": who was responsible for The Village? The protagonist's employers or the other side?
Be seeing you,
Geoff
> You know, I'd been thinking a lot about the bogus e-mails that the spambots pick up, and I keep thinking "wouldn't it be fun to put
>someone's e-mail that I don't like in my message, to get them spammed to oblivion?"
I had the same idea many years ago, & used ``cyberpromo" as a munge string.
I never heard how well it worked (except for getting a terse note from my ISP telling me to stop that), & Sandford Wallace doesn't spam any more . . .
Geoff
First, from reading about SeaLand, I got the impression that the Cayman Islands is making a bid to extend their corporate business secrecy laws to the Internet. Which has good applications (e.g. are you a human rights' organization in an oppressive nation who needs a safe place to store your information?) & bad applications (e.g. are you a drug smuggling ring who needs a safe place to store your information?)
But looking at the web site, it seems amazingly bland, almost to the point of parody. Amazing amount of corporatespeak. (Reading it, I was reminded of The Tubes' Sell Out album liner notes.)
Hrmf. Another mystery on the Internet, a land of countless mysteries.
Geoff
>At 37, I'm starting to feel old while reading Slashdot. I'm a very young "baby boomer", but still a "baby boomer". My Dad (not my
;-)
>grandfather) was a WW2 veteran. My Grandfather was a WW1 veteran! Anyway, there seems to be concern here, that as you
>grow older and get to the advanced age of 35, your skills and knowledge will become marginalized by the next generation of
>techies who are 10 years younger.
Dude, I'm 42, & when I got my Bachelor's degree my college only offered 3 computer classes -- BASIC (which I didn't bother with because I taught myself about it out of a mincomputer manual, & ran thru the excercises on the mainframe), Fortran (which I took, but never used), & assembler (which I decided I woudl never need). otherwise, your story is the same as mine.
Having gone thru the routine, I can tell you why older folks tend to shun away from new experiences:
1) Lack of time. I doubt I can recall the number of occasions that I started on a computer problem, looked up after what I thought was a little more than an hour & found that it was after midnight. And I had to be at work at 8:00am the next morning. Or started on a project on a Saturday afternoon, only be interrupted every so often with a question from my wife (e.g., ``I saw this on t.v." or ``When do you want dinner?"). Or have to put off a computer project because the yard needed attention. And if I had kids, the distractions would be even worse . . .
I have a friend a little older than me who is currently unemployed. He is using his unemployment to teach himself how to create web pages -- & using his years of experience as a graphic artist to give him an edge. Damn, I envy the fact he has the time to immerse himself!
2) Worries. Most people 15-30 don't think much beyond the next paycheck. If a job sucks, just leave it & you'll find another one in a couple of weeks.
Unfortunately, by the time you reach 35-45, you have gotten a ways up the greased pole of success. You just can't drop everything to hare after something because it looks interesting. You have to prioritize your interests, be flexible to deal with emergencies, & then when it seems to be a quiet moment you can tackle the problem.
3) Bad habits. Face it, if someone's means for solving technical problems is to ask someone else the answer, she/he is not going to change at 35+. I, for one, have always read the instructions, played with the software to see how I could break it, & always take the time to watch over the shoulder how someone solves problems. (This very practice taught me a new Unix command last week!) Too many people leave high school with a fear of RTFMing, & spend the rest of their lives finding workarounds for this.
And a last note here: Anybody who tells you all of the reasons why they can't accomplish something (especially if she or he numbers those reasons) is probably just lazy, & doesn't want to admit the fact. My stepmother -- for example -- spent my teenage years complaining that she never had any time to herself. But she never said what she would do with this time if she had any. It really got old. Thank God no one in my life does the same thing.
Geoff
Actually, it's not hard to find a geek wife. You just have to remember, that most of the math-savvy ones end up going into accounting. My wife worked for several years at a woman-run accounting firm. And most bookkeepers I have met have been female.
Which bring me to another question, since she passed the CPA test (on the first try, nonetheless! A feat worthy of passing the CCIE on the first try), she has decided public accounting is not for her. But she is good with computers & networking (she decided the cable guy didn't do a good job of connecting our television to the cable lines, & tore it apart & redid it herself without looking at any manuals), how do I convince her to work towards a good job in the Computer Industy.
I have to ask for advice on this point, since I started by working at Stream -- & I wouldn't inflict this on anyone I loved.
Geoff
Well, as one of the old farts who frequent here . . . (pant, pant, gotta smoke a doobie before I can down my Geritol), lemme say that I see what's gonna happen next.
At the birth of the Web, everybody talked about cyberspace & how cool it would be -- including me. Then came talk about ol' Max Headroom (& I still have a crush on Amanda Pays). Then folks saw _The_Matrix_, & almost evrybody wanted to have the login of ``Neo" (yeah, there was a few wierdos who wanted to be known as ``BOFH").
Now Ol' Bottlenose talks about his ``Lifehouse" album. Who's got *that* domain. (Hrm. Type whois, grumble. Grumble about NSI. Ah, heerweego.)
Registrant:
Christian Life Center (LIFEHOUSE3-DOM)
2020 Vista Street
Belle Fourche, SD 57717
US
Domain Name: LIFEHOUSE.COM
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Manna, Mike (MM14730) mmanna@MATO.COM
Christian Life Center
2020 Vista Street
Belle Fourche,, SD 57717
605-892-4767
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Shafto, John (JS446) jwshafto@MATO.COM
Altaire Enterprises, Inc.
144 East Grant
Spearfish, SD 57783
(605) 642-1400
Record last updated on 18-Jun-1998.
Record expires on 18-Jun-2000.
Record created on 18-Jun-1998.
Database last updated on 2-Jul-2000 18:52:58 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MATO.COM 199.240.78.3
NS2.MATO.COM 199.240.78.2
Hey, look, they forgot to send their check in! Now which 3I337 4aXoR is gonna send in their $35 & take it away from these lamer Fundies?
Ya know, when ya get old, your mind wanders? Gawd I hope sumone reads this.
Geoff
Nicely put, Sv0f.
I likewise fail to recall any major products coming out of MS between their BASIC for the Altair & MS-DOS several years later. In fact, until MS-DOS, MS was just another manufacturer of programming languages. And considered an also-ran in that catagory.
Amazing how far Gates played out one lucky break.
Geoff
include disclaimer.h:
#I am not a lawyer
When the matter is important, the SC can move quickly & decisively: witness their decision on the Watergate tapes in 1974, & made unanimously.
My guess is that they will consider just how much time this will take, & whether they can clear their docket to hear it in 12 months or less. If they can't hear the case quickly, they'll kick it back to the Appellate Court.
What'll be particularly interesting is if it is referred back with one or two dissents. These dissents will provide some clue of how the SC is thinking, & a wise lawyer will read them carefully to see how to proceed. I'm sure the Appellate Court will study them, since these statements will suggest to them how any decision they make will be upheld or overturned.
Whether or not MS's lawyers study these dissents is an open question. So far they have not shown the insight to pick up on hints like these from the bench.
Geoff
I got only a few pages into this, when I realized that I wasn't going to learn anything from Ol' Jack. The reasons were simple:
1) He claimed to have a 102 degree fever (which meant he should have been in bed, & they should have resceduled the deposition for another day), &
2) His lawyer early on scored the point that everything he knows about this case is protected by lawyer-client confidentiality. (Sorta like a Mafia hitman getting his orders from the local priest in the confessional. Only the Mafia never thought of that trick.) As a result, he could only report on discussions & information that did NOT come from his lawyer. And, amazing to relate, the man could not recall exactly what he hadn't heard from his laywer, & thus got away with playing dumb.
Geoff
>Everyone seems to think MS wants to drag things out for as long as possible, but I'm not so sure.
MS's strategy has always appeared to be ``control the momentum".
BillG hears that the GUI interface is the wave of the future? Find one, market the hell out of it, & run all of the competitors into the ground.
BillG hears that the Internet is the wave of the future? Find a means to access it, market the hell out of it, & run all of the competitors into the ground.
(Then again, this has not worked in every case: take Artificial Intelligence. BillG heard about it back in the early 1990's when it was regaining some life, & decided it was the wave of the future. So what did MS give us? MS Bob, & later that obnoxious paperclip. As a result AI has gone to the Buzzword Graveyard along with multimedia & fast-track development.)
So the legal momentum is now against MS? Slow the momentum down to a halt, & try to reverse it. And even if they can't reverse it, every day doom is delayed is another day for a miracle to come & rescue them.
Geoff
Heh. One of my favorite comments comes from the Lynx source:
/*
* here's where we do all the work
* mainloop is basically just a big switch dependent on the users input
* I have tried to offload most of the work done here to procedures to
* make it more modular, but this procedure still does alot of variable
* manipulation. This need some work to make it neater.
*/
Lou Montoulli wrote that back in 1994 -- if not earlier. It explains -- in 25 words or less how every browser works. It has been in LYmain.c ever since. And prolly in the source code to both Netscape & IE (well, next to ``Netscape coders are weenies.")
Food for thought, huh?
(And I'm ignoring the chance to comment on how he ended up marrying the bosses daughter.)
Geoff
>Another datapoint: on the site there is a list of "anti-spammers that they won't send spam to".
I took a look at this list. A number of the names are obvious spam-blocks, abuse@*, etc.
And I found my own name. Four times, different variations. Wow, & I haven't complained about spam in years. (Could it be that I'm just a cheap SOB who won't buy anything advertised in email? Naw.)
But I'm saddened that they didn't include my favorite spamblock of all time -- the one where I used ``cyberpromo".
Geoff
Oh boy, just what we need: a new way to discourage Spammers. I can see it now.
Spammer's phone rings.
``Hello?"
``Yeah, hi! Is this $SPAMMMER?"
``Why?"
``I got a copy of your spam, the one about the web site that promises ``Real Time Lezbo S&M Action". I gave it to a nerd buddy, who tracked you down. I decided to come on over & see you perform."
``If you come over here, I'm gonna call the police on you."
``I already talked to the chief of police in your town. He's pissed that you sent his child a spam advertising that web site about ``Old MacDonald & His Cow", so he's coming over too. In fact, that's his car sitting in the driveway. If you perform well with Mistress Domme, he's willing to drop the charges. Be sure to ice down the beer!"
Jeez, I'm about to blow all of my karma on this one sick joke.
Geoff
>I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce a praiseworthy game?
I like this -- it sums up the high tech industry trends of the last few years. May I snarf this?
>You can tell how desperate they are by counting the number of times they say "innovate" in their press releases.
Use a word enough times, & people will forget what it actually means.
Geoff
Years ago, I did phone support for Netscape. In the .9 & 1.x versions the help pages *were* web-based. And since Windows did not have a winsock.dll file natively, one couldn't even read the HTML documents offline.
Not all of the old days were good.
And yes, this stuff eventually got fixed in later releases.
Geoff
>sue them and win.
IANAL, just a basically honest guy, so what puzzles me about the whole contraversy is how the laws of Virginia affect an interstate (or in some cases, international) commercial transaction?
I figure that if Federal Law (or the laws of another sovereign nation) say that a domain name is the IP of the registered party, then this pre-empts anything NSI attempts to assert.
It's fascinating to consider how corporations cry & wail over the theft of their IP, while at the same time they are stealing it from other people . . .
Geoff
>One last thingy that I noticed. There is no digital signature appended to the message, not any other way to identify the writer of this e-mail.
/. is located. In WA it just might be whatever Gates & Ballinger say on a given day -- or then again, the exact opposite.
Hmm. Reminds me of the Helena Korbin days on a.r.s.
ItooANAL, but sending legal notice to people tends to be done on paper by registered post. An email could come from anyone -- a lawyer at Microsoft, a troll wanting to get MS in trouble, or the legal staff at Andover wanting to run up the billable hours &/or get some overtime.
State law here in OR is that you have to send legal notices by snail mail. Prolly is the case in Michigan, where
I say ignore this communication, until soemthing arrives from Redmond that would be acceptible to a 19th century court of law. Like a snail mail or a live human being.
Geoff
>If you are unable to make a copy of music you own personally, I seriously doubt it legal for you to obtain a copy from someone else's copy.
Why not? Libraries do this frequently to replace missing or damaged pages in books or periodicals.
Or, for example, you ask a friend to make a copy of a CD you own to tape, but you & your friend find it hard to meet to hand your copy over for copying. ``No problem," says the friend, ``I'll just make a copy of my CD & give it to you next time I see you."
I'd say that there are enough plausible reasons for sharing MP3s over Napster that do not violate copyright -- & indeed require the bottom fish^W^Wsuits at RIAA to provide proof that their rights are being infringed upon -- & to convince a jury or impartial judge.
Geoff
>It is hard to find really good Software Architects.
I figure that SW Architects are a bit like the other kind of Architect (those who design buildings), so it might be worth mentioning one kind of architect: those who Want To Be Artists, but decided they like a steady paycheck, don't want to starve to death in a garret, so they get a degree in architecture.
These architects are the most disorganized pains in the ass, always working to the last moment when they decide ``'we have to stop & leave the mistakes in", thus throwing off the timetable for deliverables & making the rest of the group pissed off. And they usually don't deliver very good work, either.
I figure there are numeorus members of this school of architecture working in Redmond right now.
Geoff
>The fact that the idea of killing al lthe idiots has two upticks for "insightful" scares me a hell of a lot more than Microsoft does...
Yes. And what was your user name again, please?
BOFH^HGeoff
>Since the Library of Congress has such a vast collection, a person who wants to have access
>to the most information would do best to access the library stacks. But not everyone can afford to go to where the books are [...]
Good point, but you need some confirming details. Allow me to supply them.
At one time, *anyone* could access the records in the Library of Congress. IIRC, until the late 1940's high school students in DC or the surrounding areas could go there & do their homework. But due to lack of space, & demand on services, the LoC has had to gradually limit access to only members of Congress & to serious researchers.
I'm not sure how the LoC determines who is a ``serious researcher", but when I used the British Library 16 years ago (when it was still housed within the British Museum), the requirement for a pass was a letter from a professor, teacher or minister. I assume the LoC would require an equivalent set of references -- which would be something of a barrier for the average asocial geek who might not know anyone with those credentials.
But remember, limiting access is not always a bad thing. Books & other documents get stolen, damaged or lost -- although in the case of the LoC, the two cases that I remember off the top of my head were by recognized, credentialed authorities. And the rule of thumb for public libraries is that the average book will last 20 check-outs before it is so worn that it must either be rebound or replaced.
Now compare these costs & limits of physical access to having an electronic copy -- either plain ascii test, or a standard, cross-platform format like JPEG or PNG -- available for use either online or for the token cost of copying to media. Mr Billington is clearly myopic about how digitizing his collection will make his job easier & more effective.
Geoff
David, I'm glad you shared your thoughts about Jenni here. Especially after seeing all of these posters who seem to have a madonna/slut attitude towards women.
I remember her from the early days of the Web, when everyone was trying to figure out how to use this new medium. Lots of the ideas were clearly crap, but there were a few that got lost in the corporate rush into the 'Net.
Jenni came up with a simple & obvious idea (which Bezos & Co. would have patented), which in the spirit of the time was more cinema verite than voyeurism. It was a peek into someone else's world -- which was what the Internet was all about then. Yes, she was doing it in part for the sexual turn-on, but we are all sexual creatures -- at least in part.
Now instead of people talking to each other & learning about each other, the trendy thing to do with the Internet is to make money -- in any new way one can think of. Maybe the posters who think she runs a pay-for-a-peek site are right in a way: that's all anyone expect you to do with a web cam anymore.
A little innocence has been lost.
Geoff
>If someone is pissing you off, and you want to return the compliment, then a very fine way to do so is to walk into one of the Church of
>Scientology's offices, take the free IQ test, and sound interested and enthusiastic. Chances are, you will be offered a personality test, also
>free of charge.
>
>Fill in the details of your adversary.
Oh you forgot the part about if he uses Linux, break into his house or apartment, reformat his hard drives & install W2K on his computer. But not if he uses one of the *BSDs -- those guys will track you down & beat the crap outta you for that.
Sheesh. What did your Dad ever do to you to deserve that kind of mistreatment?
Geoff
In another life, I worked for a contruction consulting/management company. Our customers included Intel, AMD, Fujitsu, & Cypress.
I remember one of the engineers referring to the hazardous chemicals used by these companies as the ``Oh" gasses. ``Oh" as in if you smelled one of these hazardous materials, you'd be dead before you could say the second syllable of ``Oh shit."
The smarter companies that handled these things took extreme care in keeping them under control: they knew that if an accident happened with one of these chemicals, it would make Bhopal look as serioius as a fart in church.
However, I know of one company that has been playing loose with the laws -- not one I mentioned above. This company has several buildings constructed that were never approved by the county inspectors, wherein they store this nasty stuff -- at least when I heard about it around 1990. And if they never bothered to clear it with the county, I wonder if they bothered to verify that the construction was right, & the buildings *are* safe enough to store the stuff in. Unofrtuantley, there is only one way we'll ever find out . . .
I wonder when the day will come that a disgruntled employee -- or ex-employee -- of this copany takes a map of the campus, checks the building records at the county against it, & blows the whistle.
It would be a lot more fun as payback than suing for harassment or lost wages.
Geoff