We use Buzzcards here at Georgia Tech. It's been the experience of me and most people I know that the cards are only used for laundry, dining hall meals, and admission to athletic events and facilities. This is the first I've heard of any flaws in the reader system, but to be honest I don't think it affects people too much. There doesn't seem to be many places for students to put money on a Buzzcard, and when someone does, it's usually just enough to do wash their clothes this week and maybe get some snacks from the food court. I just don't see it as being a big issue.
That being said, I don't think that threatening these folks with the DMCA and acting like the situation doesn't exist is the best possible way to make things safer. Hopefully situations like this can help get part or all of that legislation thrown out.
artists make the choice, either by themselves or via their labels, to put music on the radio, right? It's reasonable to expect that their songs will be taped. And I don't think they care too much since anyone who enjoys the FM-quality song will most likely pony up for the CD-quality version (ideally). But when people can freely acquire a near-perfect-quality version of a song that the artist has not authorized for sharing (and that the downloader is not allowed to possess since they don't have the CD it came from), I think there's legitimate cause for complaint.
I don't think Congress should be regulating the Internet at all; besides the fact that any American laws have little to no effect outside of the US, letting Congress decide what information can flow freely seems like the start of a slippery slope.
What I think we should do instead is get rid of SMTP and replace it with something that provides a little more identification in email headers. It would require cooperation between email client and mail server programmers, but think of how it could be done.
If the Outlook, Eudora, and Sendmail/Postfix/whoever guys supported this (possibly by supporting SMTP and this new protocol simultaneously and gradually migrating people to the new protocol), they could advertise this as a new feature: use our upgraded product and cut down on spam. Eventually if everyone had mail servers that only supported the new, secure protocol, then spammers could actually be identified and dealt with.
This is a technological problem; let's find a technological, not political, solution.
Um, buy it and test it? Go get a demo version? Go read product reviews? All these things allow one to test the effectiveness of a product (software or otherwise) without having access to the internals. The product isn't any more immune to review or criticism than anything else subject to black-box testing. I guess my point is that there are other valid ways to test this software without reverse-engineering it. Don't get me wrong, I think the DMCA is a terrible piece of legislation, but I don't think this is the right way to go about challenging it.
couldn't find the answer anywhere, so I figured I'd ask here... if I already have a mozilla window open, and I click on a link in GNOME or gaim or whatever, mozilla asks me to select an alternate profile. Is there any way to turn this off?
I think this is a good idea, but I don't really think it'll happen. First of all, as most posts have already mentioned, there's no way the oil companies will allow this to happen; they have too much at stake to want to change the way things work.
Secondly, and maybe more importantly, is public perception of these types of vehicles. I know just about nothing about the workings of hydrogen-powered cars, which lumps me in with (I'd wager) over 95% of the rest of the country. When people like me hear the term 'alternative-energy automobiles,' we think 'expensive and underpowered.' And what does the average consumer look for in a vehicle? A low price and lots of horsepower.
I'm not saying that hydrogen-powered (or solar-powered or whatever) vehicles are incapable of costing little or being able to tow your boat; I'm just claiming that the average American thinks along those lines, and as long as this perception exists then there will be no demand for alternative-fuel cars.
What I think we need is a huge marketing campaign which essentially hammers people over the head, and beats into them the advantages of hydrogen power. There are economic advantages, environmental advantages, and even simply the coolness that can come from owning something the neighbors don't. It could even be explained that their views of hydrogen-fuelled vechicles are wrong, and that they really can have the horsepower and cost in addition to an environmentally-friendly car. A huge marketing blitz could be undertaken relatively cheaply and have the effect of greatly boosting demand, which in turn would cause corporations to invest capital and make this actually happen. That, along with tax credits or some sort of incentive program, would generate demand with consumers and put the whole alternative-fuel concept on the right path.
The point is not that we'll turn to more worthwhile activities than watching TV (something with which I agree, BTW). The point is that this collection of companies wants to do to broadcast TV what they tried to do with DVDs: geographic viewing restrictions, and playback only on authorized devices. Whether or not you think TV is a good thing, I hope you agree when I say this proposal can seriously infringe on everyone's fair-use rights.
There is no such thing as 'closing the analog hole.' No matter what scheme you use to protect your content, it *has* to be decrypted somewhere. And then some enterprising team will take apart the decryption mechanism, figure out how it works, and build a stand-alone decryption box.
It needs to be done, if only because people have been spending thousands and thousands of dollars on flat-panel TVs, HDTVs, etc. and they're all loath to buy another one anytime soon.
I had a point but I forgot what it was, so I'd better stop now.
Re:One thing the report forgot to mention ...
on
Open Source Studies
·
· Score: 1
This is all well and good, and you have many valid points, but why are you wasting your time posting this here?
I'm sure by now that everyone on/. realizes the benefits of OSS. This is simply a case of preaching to the choir. Instead, go write a letter to your newspaper or (non-nerd) discussion forum of your choice. Go get in touch with a local LUG and maybe help other people get acquainted with OSS. This is exactly the rational, well-thought-out type of message that can help convince people to use alternatives to closed-source software. But posting here only gets you karma; taking action somewhere else gets you results.
terrorism is always "just," from the point of view of the terrorist. I'm sure if, after you did this to the RIAA, you'd scream bloody murder if they turned around and did it to you.
This (at the time of my writing) is modded up to 4? His entire argument is "the acronym sounds scary! It's gonna be impossible to use this tool!" Now, I don't really support Microsoft at all (except for their hardware- nice stuff) but this is ridiculous. I know I'm asking a whole lot when I say I'd like to see intelligent commentary on Slashdot, but it *would* be nice. This is not intelligent. This is mindless Microsoft-bashing.
I remember doing this sometime last year... took a few songs from the Boston-area grindcore band An*l C*nt (heh, great stuff- 39 songs totaling ~35 minutes) and relabeled them to things like "Britney Spears- I Love You (early demo)" and "Christina Aguilera- Be Mine (rare!!)" and sat back as people lapped em up. I wonder what they thought...
Sure, webchats may be a great thing, but I'm unclear as to what you think they're the solution for. The problem the article discusses is selling someone else's personal information over IRC, not using IRC to steal that information.
The only real solution that I can think of involves universal encryption and a good dose of common sense (and we all know the percentage of people possessing just one of those qualities, never mind both).
I humbly request for you to remove or replace your.sig line. It is a danger to me and all others who browse Slashdot instead of paying attention in class, laugh out loud upon reading it, and then get kicked out by the professor. Thank you for your cooperation.
Describing the state of computing today as unstable and unreliable, [Richard Purcell] said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates "is really annoyed by the incredible pain we put everyone through in computing."
Then he should probably think about shutting down the IIS and Outlook projects...
It seems to me you're claiming that software (and music) companies do not in fact lose money when people keep pirated copies of their work. This is utterly wrong. By the argument above, a company selling a million copies of a title would make *the same amount of money* as if only one person had bought the title and let everyone else pirate it.
It's real simple. If you regularly use a piece of software without paying for it, you deprive the publisher of money it should have received from you for that title. No amount of rationalizing will change that fact. The "myth" that software publishers are losing money is actually a reality.
The concept of the "digital hub" Jobs kept hitting on is a good one I think, but Apple's implementation of it is doomed to failure without some serious work.
From my understanding, Jobs is betting that consumers want a computer which seamlessly interacts with all manner of peripherals, while other computer companies are shying away from the PC as the center of the electronic household (as evidenced by PDAs, convergence boxes, etc.)
But right now, the target market for the new iMac is the subset of Mac owners who own at least one digital camera, DV camcorder, or whatever. Now I'm a pretty rabid Mac advocate but even I'll admit that this is a very small number of people. The way I see it, to make this concept more appealing to the wider (i.e., Windows-using) market, Apple has to ally with one or more makers of popular peripherals.
Right now, this digital hub strategy has the hub but not the accessories. Until far more peripherals have Macintosh drivers available (written either by Apple through reverse- engineering or licensing of IP; or by the makers of the hardware, possibly with some persuasion from Apple), Jobs' concept is going to fail.
Apple makes great hardware; now it's time to get the accessories to go along with it. Only after that, I think, will they be able to succeed.
I was watching some entertainment show on TV tonight and this story came on. Evidently, Lucas' daughters asked their dad to put N'Sync in the movie, and he agreed to a cameo role for them as extras in a huge scene with lots of people. No need to freak; it's not like they're gonna have real parts in the film.
To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with the movie. It wasn't terribly realistic, the plot was a little weak, every character except the pilot was too one-dimensional, and the cinematography nearly made me sick (really).
Did anyone notice how the Serbian Adidas guy at the end got shot like five times by the pilot, and still had enough strength to shoot his sniper rifle, shoot his pistol, and get into a fistfight with our hero? Or how the pilot ran across a snow- and ice-covered lake not once but three times while being shot at by a company of soldiers and a few tanks (and slid on his ass the last thirty feet back to his ejection seat, which was completely ridiculous) without getting touched? Or the real-time six-inch-resolution infrared satellite the admiral was able to commandeer?
The plot didn't have any major mistakes like the ones listed above. It was a good story, but it could have been so much better. In particular, the director could have focused more on the people on the ground fighting the war. Make the movie maybe fifteen minutes longer, have the pilot talk longer to more people, and get us to be sympathetic with (or at least better informed about) one side in the conflict or another.
Excluding the pilot (and maybe Hackman's character), I thought everyone was one-dimensional. Who's the guy dressed in civvies with the big rifle? Just a sniper. Who's the evil admiral that comes in and shuts down the rescue mission? Oh, just some evil admiral. There wasn't any explanation as to why some people were doing what they were doing, just that it was happening. Or if there was an explanation, maybe i was too busy being sick to notice.
Honestly. The director was in love with the hand-carried shaky camera effect and circling the camera around a point of interest (dramatic for a pilot sitting on top of a mountain, but for people standing still having a conversation?). Let me tell you, neither of these are very good for you if you've just eaten an 18-oz. steak and you're sitting in the second row of the theater (big group, opening night, got there late). He was evidently a big fan of the Snatch-style "speed-up, stop, and go" camera shot as well. This was just irritating, as it took away the sense of continuity in the scene.
Wow, this got long quick. Ok, this movie had a chance to be great. Instead, it was marred by an unfulfilling plot and unrealistic effects. I wouldn't say it was a waste of my seven bucks, but I'd suggest waiting until it's out on DVD and renting it.
Slashdot Mirror
Next thing you know, someone's gonna say the Pope wears a funny hat.
Quick, this guy's poor, can't even feed himself or afford a graphics card made after the Stone Age; let's slashdot his website! muahaha
We use Buzzcards here at Georgia Tech. It's been the experience of me and most people I know that the cards are only used for laundry, dining hall meals, and admission to athletic events and facilities. This is the first I've heard of any flaws in the reader system, but to be honest I don't think it affects people too much. There doesn't seem to be many places for students to put money on a Buzzcard, and when someone does, it's usually just enough to do wash their clothes this week and maybe get some snacks from the food court. I just don't see it as being a big issue.
That being said, I don't think that threatening these folks with the DMCA and acting like the situation doesn't exist is the best possible way to make things safer. Hopefully situations like this can help get part or all of that legislation thrown out.
artists make the choice, either by themselves or via their labels, to put music on the radio, right? It's reasonable to expect that their songs will be taped. And I don't think they care too much since anyone who enjoys the FM-quality song will most likely pony up for the CD-quality version (ideally). But when people can freely acquire a near-perfect-quality version of a song that the artist has not authorized for sharing (and that the downloader is not allowed to possess since they don't have the CD it came from), I think there's legitimate cause for complaint.
I don't think Congress should be regulating the Internet at all; besides the fact that any American laws have little to no effect outside of the US, letting Congress decide what information can flow freely seems like the start of a slippery slope.
What I think we should do instead is get rid of SMTP and replace it with something that provides a little more identification in email headers. It would require cooperation between email client and mail server programmers, but think of how it could be done.
If the Outlook, Eudora, and Sendmail/Postfix/whoever guys supported this (possibly by supporting SMTP and this new protocol simultaneously and gradually migrating people to the new protocol), they could advertise this as a new feature: use our upgraded product and cut down on spam. Eventually if everyone had mail servers that only supported the new, secure protocol, then spammers could actually be identified and dealt with.
This is a technological problem; let's find a technological, not political, solution.
Um, buy it and test it? Go get a demo version? Go read product reviews? All these things allow one to test the effectiveness of a product (software or otherwise) without having access to the internals. The product isn't any more immune to review or criticism than anything else subject to black-box testing. I guess my point is that there are other valid ways to test this software without reverse-engineering it.
Don't get me wrong, I think the DMCA is a terrible piece of legislation, but I don't think this is the right way to go about challenging it.
"The optical brightness of this gamma ray burst is about 100 times more intense than anything we've ever seen before."
Aren't gamma rays by definition not optical (i.e. not in the visible spectrum)?
couldn't find the answer anywhere, so I figured I'd ask here... if I already have a mozilla window open, and I click on a link in GNOME or gaim or whatever, mozilla asks me to select an alternate profile. Is there any way to turn this off?
I think this is a good idea, but I don't really think it'll happen. First of all, as most posts have already mentioned, there's no way the oil companies will allow this to happen; they have too much at stake to want to change the way things work.
Secondly, and maybe more importantly, is public perception of these types of vehicles. I know just about nothing about the workings of hydrogen-powered cars, which lumps me in with (I'd wager) over 95% of the rest of the country. When people like me hear the term 'alternative-energy automobiles,' we think 'expensive and underpowered.' And what does the average consumer look for in a vehicle? A low price and lots of horsepower.
I'm not saying that hydrogen-powered (or solar-powered or whatever) vehicles are incapable of costing little or being able to tow your boat; I'm just claiming that the average American thinks along those lines, and as long as this perception exists then there will be no demand for alternative-fuel cars.
What I think we need is a huge marketing campaign which essentially hammers people over the head, and beats into them the advantages of hydrogen power. There are economic advantages, environmental advantages, and even simply the coolness that can come from owning something the neighbors don't. It could even be explained that their views of hydrogen-fuelled vechicles are wrong, and that they really can have the horsepower and cost in addition to an environmentally-friendly car. A huge marketing blitz could be undertaken relatively cheaply and have the effect of greatly boosting demand, which in turn would cause corporations to invest capital and make this actually happen. That, along with tax credits or some sort of incentive program, would generate demand with consumers and put the whole alternative-fuel concept on the right path.
The point is not that we'll turn to more worthwhile activities than watching TV (something with which I agree, BTW). The point is that this collection of companies wants to do to broadcast TV what they tried to do with DVDs: geographic viewing restrictions, and playback only on authorized devices. Whether or not you think TV is a good thing, I hope you agree when I say this proposal can seriously infringe on everyone's fair-use rights.
There is no such thing as 'closing the analog hole.' No matter what scheme you use to protect your content, it *has* to be decrypted somewhere. And then some enterprising team will take apart the decryption mechanism, figure out how it works, and build a stand-alone decryption box.
It needs to be done, if only because people have been spending thousands and thousands of dollars on flat-panel TVs, HDTVs, etc. and they're all loath to buy another one anytime soon.
I had a point but I forgot what it was, so I'd better stop now.
I'm sure by now that everyone on /. realizes the benefits of OSS. This is simply a case of preaching to the choir. Instead, go write a letter to your newspaper or (non-nerd) discussion forum of your choice. Go get in touch with a local LUG and maybe help other people get acquainted with OSS. This is exactly the rational, well-thought-out type of message that can help convince people to use alternatives to closed-source software. But posting here only gets you karma; taking action somewhere else gets you results.
[ -1, incoherent rambling ]
terrorism is always "just," from the point of view of the terrorist. I'm sure if, after you did this to the RIAA, you'd scream bloody murder if they turned around and did it to you.
This (at the time of my writing) is modded up to 4? His entire argument is "the acronym sounds scary! It's gonna be impossible to use this tool!" Now, I don't really support Microsoft at all (except for their hardware- nice stuff) but this is ridiculous. I know I'm asking a whole lot when I say I'd like to see intelligent commentary on Slashdot, but it *would* be nice. This is not intelligent. This is mindless Microsoft-bashing.
Am I the only one who read that guy's name as "Simon and Garfunkel?"
I can't even take this writeup right after waking up, never mind the article itself... it sounds way too much like the timecube guy for me...
I remember doing this sometime last year... took a few songs from the Boston-area grindcore band An*l C*nt (heh, great stuff- 39 songs totaling ~35 minutes) and relabeled them to things like "Britney Spears- I Love You (early demo)" and "Christina Aguilera- Be Mine (rare!!)" and sat back as people lapped em up. I wonder what they thought...
Sure, webchats may be a great thing, but I'm unclear as to what you think they're the solution for. The problem the article discusses is selling someone else's personal information over IRC, not using IRC to steal that information.
The only real solution that I can think of involves universal encryption and a good dose of common sense (and we all know the percentage of people possessing just one of those qualities, never mind both).
Dear Sir or Madam:
.sig line. It is a danger to me and all others who browse Slashdot instead of paying attention in class, laugh out loud upon reading it, and then get kicked out by the professor. Thank you for your cooperation.
I humbly request for you to remove or replace your
-Dan
Describing the state of computing today as unstable and unreliable, [Richard Purcell] said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates "is really annoyed by the incredible pain we put everyone through in computing."
Then he should probably think about shutting down the IIS and Outlook projects...
It seems to me you're claiming that software (and music) companies do not in fact lose money when people keep pirated copies of their work. This is utterly wrong. By the argument above, a company selling a million copies of a title would make *the same amount of money* as if only one person had bought the title and let everyone else pirate it.
It's real simple. If you regularly use a piece of software without paying for it, you deprive the publisher of money it should have received from you for that title. No amount of rationalizing will change that fact. The "myth" that software publishers are losing money is actually a reality.
From my understanding, Jobs is betting that consumers want a computer which seamlessly interacts with all manner of peripherals, while other computer companies are shying away from the PC as the center of the electronic household (as evidenced by PDAs, convergence boxes, etc.)
But right now, the target market for the new iMac is the subset of Mac owners who own at least one digital camera, DV camcorder, or whatever. Now I'm a pretty rabid Mac advocate but even I'll admit that this is a very small number of people. The way I see it, to make this concept more appealing to the wider (i.e., Windows-using) market, Apple has to ally with one or more makers of popular peripherals.
Right now, this digital hub strategy has the hub but not the accessories. Until far more peripherals have Macintosh drivers available (written either by Apple through reverse- engineering or licensing of IP; or by the makers of the hardware, possibly with some persuasion from Apple), Jobs' concept is going to fail.
Apple makes great hardware; now it's time to get the accessories to go along with it. Only after that, I think, will they be able to succeed.
I was watching some entertainment show on TV tonight and this story came on. Evidently, Lucas' daughters asked their dad to put N'Sync in the movie, and he agreed to a cameo role for them as extras in a huge scene with lots of people. No need to freak; it's not like they're gonna have real parts in the film.
To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with the movie. It wasn't terribly realistic, the plot was a little weak, every character except the pilot was too one-dimensional, and the cinematography nearly made me sick (really).
Did anyone notice how the Serbian Adidas guy at the end got shot like five times by the pilot, and still had enough strength to shoot his sniper rifle, shoot his pistol, and get into a fistfight with our hero? Or how the pilot ran across a snow- and ice-covered lake not once but three times while being shot at by a company of soldiers and a few tanks (and slid on his ass the last thirty feet back to his ejection seat, which was completely ridiculous) without getting touched? Or the real-time six-inch-resolution infrared satellite the admiral was able to commandeer?
The plot didn't have any major mistakes like the ones listed above. It was a good story, but it could have been so much better. In particular, the director could have focused more on the people on the ground fighting the war. Make the movie maybe fifteen minutes longer, have the pilot talk longer to more people, and get us to be sympathetic with (or at least better informed about) one side in the conflict or another.
Excluding the pilot (and maybe Hackman's character), I thought everyone was one-dimensional. Who's the guy dressed in civvies with the big rifle? Just a sniper. Who's the evil admiral that comes in and shuts down the rescue mission? Oh, just some evil admiral. There wasn't any explanation as to why some people were doing what they were doing, just that it was happening. Or if there was an explanation, maybe i was too busy being sick to notice.
Honestly. The director was in love with the hand-carried shaky camera effect and circling the camera around a point of interest (dramatic for a pilot sitting on top of a mountain, but for people standing still having a conversation?). Let me tell you, neither of these are very good for you if you've just eaten an 18-oz. steak and you're sitting in the second row of the theater (big group, opening night, got there late). He was evidently a big fan of the Snatch-style "speed-up, stop, and go" camera shot as well. This was just irritating, as it took away the sense of continuity in the scene.
Wow, this got long quick. Ok, this movie had a chance to be great. Instead, it was marred by an unfulfilling plot and unrealistic effects. I wouldn't say it was a waste of my seven bucks, but I'd suggest waiting until it's out on DVD and renting it.