Well, IE officially fell behind again. I mean, it sounded like that new beta was competition for Seamonkey/Firefox, but ten minutes after that's out, Mozilla obsoletes it. Was this scheduled?
They forgot to say "Thank you sir, may I have another" to the "protection agencies". I mean, the nerve of people nowadays, wanting things to work, and wanting their rights! I swear, people who complain that companies are screwing up their games can stop using them, and return them for no refund whatsoever, because if they try to get a refund, they're obviously pirates.
$3-$4/month for file sharing? fuck yes.
$3/$4 per month per RIGHTS holder? Fuck no.
There it is. They're talking only about one label. Assuming all the labels went for this, it'd be a pretty penny for the 4-5 big ones, and then a lesser sum for the smaller ones.
That's one of the main advantages of piracy, as I see it. Pirates can get all the content in one place, and as we've seen with TV stuff, it's almost more work to track down which network is with which service, and getting an iTMS and Google Video account, and have to manage 4-5 accounts. If the content industries united behind 2-3 stores that had all the content, it'd help them fight piracy a lot.
The problem, as I see it, is that big industries are beginning to just assume that people have to buy their stuff. They seem to feel that it's their system still. Like Blizzard and the Warden, like all this DRM nonsense, like all the crap the music and film industries are throwing out there. Big Companies can't accept the idea that their industry as a whole can shrink. They assume that there is no way their industry could shrink, and no one else is allowed to enter their market. Both of which assumptions are completely anti-capitalist.
As I see it, this will allow people to do research on things that would have been blocked by patents otherwise. But doesn't that make products related to that research completely poisoned? I mean, it'd be fine for anyone doing the research for the sake of the research, but you'd have major IP issues if you tried to market something derived from the research, right?
No, Universities often do research to get grants. They don't do research to directly make products, they aim to do basic research. They use successful research programs to win grants to do more research. Otherwise you'd see UNC or Berkley or Harvard branded products.
From the Full Article: Under the new agreement, VeriSign will seize control of all expiring domains and will be entitled to sell them through its own system - keeping 10 percent of the proceeds. CFIT is, naturally, furious about its business model being blown out the water.
So how many of the complaints against ICANN and VeriSign represent actual concerns about the Internet as a whole, and how many are about domain-squatters losing their effectiveness?
It's funny that this is happening at the same time as the whole Abramoff thing and both parties promising to clean house. I don't expect actual change, but it's sort of funny that they're picking now to establish themselves.
Bono is actually friends with both of them, as I understand it. He bought a penthouse in New York off of Steve Jobs. That's where Time did their Man of the Year interview with him if I recall right.
Archive.org is safer than Google's cache, since it doesn't get as up-to-date stuff. Google's cache is at most like a week or two out of date, right? And it's cache of major sites is updated like hourly or better. It is possible to see the full functionality of slowly updating sites on Google cache, allowing me to get all their content without visiting the site.
1) Hire someone. 2) Get them to find/make a tiny censorship loophole. 3) Publicize it, and set the guy to fixing it. 4) Take an amazingly long time to fix it, like Microsoft levels. 5) "fire" the guy, giving him $20,000 severance and a glowing recommendation in the process.
This is OT. I'm a Democrat because there's nothing better right now. Ideally, I'd like to change that. Just like I use a Mac not because it is perfect to my needs, but because it is best suited to them.
It seems to me that a politician's blog is the ideal target for the other side's (both sides have them) stupid teenagers. I mean, if/. gets trolled, imagine the White House blog!
What we need is something dedicated solely to security. I would love to see the government hire people to try to break various corporate securities, like for a job. It'd help us identify vulnerabilities in Linux and Windows, it'd let us nail lazy companies that can put on a good 5-minute show for the Sarb-Ox guys, and it'd be training CIA/NSA people.
'As part of its agreement with the FTC, ChoicePoint will also have to submit to comprehensive security audits every two years for the next 20 years.'
Every company should undergo a comprehensive security audit every two years. I mean, security in Jan 2004 is rather different from security in Jan 2002, and both are way different from security today. A system that might have been thought to be secure 2 years ago isn't so hot right now. If I ran a huge, profitable company, I would assign a few people to try to break into my company full-time.
Blackcomb is the real next-gen OS. It's supposed to be largely rebuilt. If it was coming out now, it'd be very seriously dominant. But by 2011, it'll be where Vista is now: trying to sprint to get within sight of it's competitors.
What are they going to do, finish games for 3rd party developers for them?
Starting on another console and doubling how much work they have to do to secure games developer committments is going to hurt them heavily. I know they don't make the games, but they have to go out there and sell the 360 vs. the PS3. And if the 360 is tied to HD-DVD, which will fail, that could be hard.
OS X's kernel is modified BSD, yes, but at least Apple took a look at everything they were putting in, and rewrote most of it. I mean, there's only so many patches you can put on something before it's more patch than cloth. Superficial changes like in Vista are a good first step, but I want to see seriously broken things thrown out if they can't be easily fixed. I hope OS X is drastically changed for OS 11 (OS XI?). I don't think it needs a re-write, but there's a difference between upgrades and feature creep, IMO.
Microsoft already has too much on it's plate (in order of ideal importance):
1) Windows XP SP3 2) Windows Vista 3) Getting a decent Xbox 360 library developed 4) Body Vests for staff that are specced to survive a Ballmer rant 5) Windows Blackcomb this decade.
If MS enters a new market, it's going to fall apart. MS is having to go all out to get Vista off this late, they'll have to push harder to get Blackcomb out this decade. And neither the Xbox 360 or Vista seem to be offering all that much as an incentive to upgrade. MS has too much other stuff they need to fix first.
Neither NT, XP, or Vista were the eventual expected ground-up rewrite. We're expecting that in Blackcomb (which may have been renamed "Vienna"). Blackcomb is what Longhorn was supposed to originially be: a total rewrite from the ground up. Blackcomb will be out sometime around 2010 or 2011, assuming you trust MS timetables. Vista is basically a holdover that implements a lot of modern features without the modern underpinnings. To get the modular, severable, and expandable features that are the building blocks of Linux and OS X, we're still waiting 4-5 years.
I don't want to seem too anti-MS (I'm obviously not a fan), but Vista is designed to play catch-up to Tiger, so that MS will be on the same playing field as Leopard and whatever follows.
Slashdot Mirror
The wiretaps were "authorized" by the Office of Legal Council, an arm of the Justice Department full of appointed judges, appointed by. . .Guess who?
Santa?
If memory serves, you can use profiles for passwords based on user profiles on the Mac.
Well, IE officially fell behind again. I mean, it sounded like that new beta was competition for Seamonkey/Firefox, but ten minutes after that's out, Mozilla obsoletes it. Was this scheduled?
What am I missing?
They forgot to say "Thank you sir, may I have another" to the "protection agencies". I mean, the nerve of people nowadays, wanting things to work, and wanting their rights! I swear, people who complain that companies are screwing up their games can stop using them, and return them for no refund whatsoever, because if they try to get a refund, they're obviously pirates.
$3-$4/month for file sharing? fuck yes.
$3/$4 per month per RIGHTS holder? Fuck no.
There it is. They're talking only about one label. Assuming all the labels went for this, it'd be a pretty penny for the 4-5 big ones, and then a lesser sum for the smaller ones.
That's one of the main advantages of piracy, as I see it. Pirates can get all the content in one place, and as we've seen with TV stuff, it's almost more work to track down which network is with which service, and getting an iTMS and Google Video account, and have to manage 4-5 accounts. If the content industries united behind 2-3 stores that had all the content, it'd help them fight piracy a lot.
Speaking as a shareholder, I want to see what happens if the board gives him two airplanes! ;-)
Speaking as a US citizen, I want to see what happens if Congress gives him a space shuttle.
The problem, as I see it, is that big industries are beginning to just assume that people have to buy their stuff. They seem to feel that it's their system still. Like Blizzard and the Warden, like all this DRM nonsense, like all the crap the music and film industries are throwing out there. Big Companies can't accept the idea that their industry as a whole can shrink. They assume that there is no way their industry could shrink, and no one else is allowed to enter their market. Both of which assumptions are completely anti-capitalist.
As I see it, this will allow people to do research on things that would have been blocked by patents otherwise. But doesn't that make products related to that research completely poisoned? I mean, it'd be fine for anyone doing the research for the sake of the research, but you'd have major IP issues if you tried to market something derived from the research, right?
No, Universities often do research to get grants. They don't do research to directly make products, they aim to do basic research. They use successful research programs to win grants to do more research. Otherwise you'd see UNC or Berkley or Harvard branded products.
From the Full Article:
Under the new agreement, VeriSign will seize control of all expiring domains and will be entitled to sell them through its own system - keeping 10 percent of the proceeds. CFIT is, naturally, furious about its business model being blown out the water.
So how many of the complaints against ICANN and VeriSign represent actual concerns about the Internet as a whole, and how many are about domain-squatters losing their effectiveness?
It's funny that this is happening at the same time as the whole Abramoff thing and both parties promising to clean house. I don't expect actual change, but it's sort of funny that they're picking now to establish themselves.
Bono is actually friends with both of them, as I understand it. He bought a penthouse in New York off of Steve Jobs. That's where Time did their Man of the Year interview with him if I recall right.
Archive.org is safer than Google's cache, since it doesn't get as up-to-date stuff. Google's cache is at most like a week or two out of date, right? And it's cache of major sites is updated like hourly or better. It is possible to see the full functionality of slowly updating sites on Google cache, allowing me to get all their content without visiting the site.
1) Hire someone.
2) Get them to find/make a tiny censorship loophole.
3) Publicize it, and set the guy to fixing it.
4) Take an amazingly long time to fix it, like Microsoft levels.
5) "fire" the guy, giving him $20,000 severance and a glowing recommendation in the process.
This is OT. I'm a Democrat because there's nothing better right now. Ideally, I'd like to change that. Just like I use a Mac not because it is perfect to my needs, but because it is best suited to them.
It seems to me that a politician's blog is the ideal target for the other side's (both sides have them) stupid teenagers. I mean, if /. gets trolled, imagine the White House blog!
Well, at least no one should have to get pissy about "RTFA"
What we need is something dedicated solely to security. I would love to see the government hire people to try to break various corporate securities, like for a job. It'd help us identify vulnerabilities in Linux and Windows, it'd let us nail lazy companies that can put on a good 5-minute show for the Sarb-Ox guys, and it'd be training CIA/NSA people.
'As part of its agreement with the FTC, ChoicePoint will also have to submit to comprehensive security audits every two years for the next 20 years.'
Every company should undergo a comprehensive security audit every two years. I mean, security in Jan 2004 is rather different from security in Jan 2002, and both are way different from security today. A system that might have been thought to be secure 2 years ago isn't so hot right now. If I ran a huge, profitable company, I would assign a few people to try to break into my company full-time.
Blackcomb is the real next-gen OS. It's supposed to be largely rebuilt. If it was coming out now, it'd be very seriously dominant. But by 2011, it'll be where Vista is now: trying to sprint to get within sight of it's competitors.
What are they going to do, finish games for 3rd party developers for them?
Starting on another console and doubling how much work they have to do to secure games developer committments is going to hurt them heavily. I know they don't make the games, but they have to go out there and sell the 360 vs. the PS3. And if the 360 is tied to HD-DVD, which will fail, that could be hard.
OS X's kernel is modified BSD, yes, but at least Apple took a look at everything they were putting in, and rewrote most of it. I mean, there's only so many patches you can put on something before it's more patch than cloth. Superficial changes like in Vista are a good first step, but I want to see seriously broken things thrown out if they can't be easily fixed. I hope OS X is drastically changed for OS 11 (OS XI?). I don't think it needs a re-write, but there's a difference between upgrades and feature creep, IMO.
Microsoft already has too much on it's plate (in order of ideal importance):
1) Windows XP SP3
2) Windows Vista
3) Getting a decent Xbox 360 library developed
4) Body Vests for staff that are specced to survive a Ballmer rant
5) Windows Blackcomb this decade.
If MS enters a new market, it's going to fall apart. MS is having to go all out to get Vista off this late, they'll have to push harder to get Blackcomb out this decade. And neither the Xbox 360 or Vista seem to be offering all that much as an incentive to upgrade. MS has too much other stuff they need to fix first.
Neither NT, XP, or Vista were the eventual expected ground-up rewrite. We're expecting that in Blackcomb (which may have been renamed "Vienna"). Blackcomb is what Longhorn was supposed to originially be: a total rewrite from the ground up. Blackcomb will be out sometime around 2010 or 2011, assuming you trust MS timetables. Vista is basically a holdover that implements a lot of modern features without the modern underpinnings. To get the modular, severable, and expandable features that are the building blocks of Linux and OS X, we're still waiting 4-5 years.
I don't want to seem too anti-MS (I'm obviously not a fan), but Vista is designed to play catch-up to Tiger, so that MS will be on the same playing field as Leopard and whatever follows.
That's when XP came out. Obviously everyone cool had it by 9:15 am, and even the old grandmas should have had it by noon.