As publishers notice "dang - there's lots of money to be made with science fiction", you can expect a flurry of studies, marketing strategies - imagine the N'Sync of sci-fi, as one evil example.....I'm also worried about what the sudden press of "marketing studies" will do, or the effects of making sci-fi "mainstream" to try and get a greater public hooked.
Perhaps France could have that capability too, and could sue websites that sell illegal Nazi memorabilia even if the website is based outside of the country.
The crux of your argument if that if a company does something wrong outside the country while doing business, then they should be able to be punished inside their home country for those practices.
Maybe Japan should be allowed to have a male-dominated factory in the US because that is how Japanese factories are run. If a US division of Honda promotes a woman to an executive position, then the promoter could be laid off for violating corporate policy. Maybe a Saudi company could ban women altogether from the workplace. Discrimination? Nope, just following the policy of the home country.
Legislating US behavior outside the country will not solve the problem. While in your case it might help this sweatshop problem, but it introduces a dangerous precident of helping to reduce a nation soverignty(sp?)when the host country's policy is different than you might like.
I am a landlord, and I own a two-family house. Recently online I found a guide written by a lawyer on how to be a landlord in my state. It is very well written, and one of the ideas that I got was this,
If you say that something is the law, and it isn't, the tenant can sue you for treble damages.
If you don't de-lead your house, and you let children under six live there, and you say to the tenant, "Oh, I'm exempt from de-leading because of this special provision / grandfather clause", then the tenant can sue you for misrepresenting the law.
So, I'm tempted to wonder if Microsoft can legally dole out legal advise that is prima facie incorrect and misleading. I would suggest the Microsoft's legal department take a look at the FUD for liability purposes.
If it can happen to me, it should be able to happen to Microsoft.
When I stayed up three days straight to try to cram an entire semester's worth of material into my brain, I attended my science class.
The professor wrote a word on the board. I forget which word, but it had a 'w' and an 'l' in it.
I was so out of it, I saw a fork and a knife on the board, layed out like a table setting. I reached out slowly to grab the fork and knife, but then I felt an immeasureable sadness come over me: there was no spoon.
I snapped out of it to see the woman behind me saying, "What the hell are you doing", since my hands were reching out towards the blackboard.
Call it.prn,.xxx, or whatever, it just won't work.
You have a site that has pictures that you think people would give you money for. The more viewers, the more money for you. Would you move your website to a domain that can be easily globally blocked from websurfers?
Let's say that you do. Now, some of your competition with the exact same pictures is now racking in money with a.com domain. Not fair? Oops.
Should a pictoral of a breast exam go under breastexam.prn? Should a gynocological exam or a sexual guide for intimacy go under sexuality.prn? At one swipe, all material that seems too racy would be mandated to be under a new url, which can then be easily banned.
While some things can easily be branded as porn, some others may not. Who do you want making those decisions, the web-filter software designers? Congress? White middle-aged Christians from the South?
Imagine that you have a viewpoint on society. You use the internet to tell as many people about a "secret conspiracy" that you think is valid. Now, the law can be used by those that you think are conspiring against you to place you in a.prn domain, or punish you in however the law would say. Some organizations that want their massage to be heard won't categorize themselves that way, if just because that means they are limiting their audience.
Think that might not happen?
Imagine that the "secret conspiracy" is that Pat Robertson is using church-related "tax-exempt" monies to fund political action committees. You publish it on a web-site, and now some people consider you "hate-speech" against Christians.
Perhaps the "secret conspiracy" is Scientology. You all ought to know what I mean by that. Now xenu.net can be hate speech, and placed in a.prn where little Johnny will never find it.
Now, what if that the "secret conspiracy" is the Jews trying to take over the world (I don't believe that, but follow me). Would you set up your message to be banned by the very powers that "control" the Internet? Not hardly. You'd place it anywhere else, and move it around until the law is repealed.
There is too much room for governmental, private, and public-action committees to arbitraily censor material under a.prn domain. It is a quick attempt to segregate all the "bad" of the Internet into one neat package. It would be like saying, "Let's have a 'no-crack' zone on the Internet" where hackers/crackers don't go, and where we can have our family-fun websites and dance with posies.
I have many times heard a song I liked on the radio, and gone to good lengths to identify that song and the artist. I live in MA, and I called a "urban" gospel radio station in SC to get a song title when I could only sing a lyric or two of it (Thanks, guys).
The algorithm for getting a single in the last five years was this. 1) Hear song on radio. Like it. Get info. 2) Go to record store. Search for single. Find R&B, hip-hop, ghetto-blastaz; all songs from very recently. 3) Ask person behind counter for single. 4) Listen to how they only recieved a handful of the singles, they are sold out, and the companies that release the single only produce a small amount anyway and Never Makes Them Again. 5) Go to other record store. Rinse. Repeat.
I can buy singles at Walgreen's (pharmacy), but nothing near what I want. My musical tastes are all over the map (hence the gospel music), but I also listen to top-40 and other popular music.
Here's an idea. The CD singles, when priced at about $3.99 to $5.99, weren't too attractive compared to a $11-$13 CD, back a few years ago. For double the price, I get five to ten times the songs. So I could see that the singles may not have been very popular.
Now, CD's go for $15-$20, and I would think that a $1.99-$2.99 CD single would sell well. But the RIAA sees not a customer that bought $2.99, but a sale that they lost of $20. In that perspective, no wonder they only made a few, and then stopped entirely.
Considering that P2P downloading is about getting the "singles" (How many people have downloaded an entirely album, every song? Be honest.), and that I would download a song and burn it myself at 25 to 50 cents a pop, it just seems like the RIAA has become inflexible.
Different businesses have different business models. Some businesses adapt to change and make it work. Some create new markets ("Why would someone make a shipping company? Isn't that what the Post Office is for?"), and some change markets.
The RIAA is trying to stick with what worked in the past. Too bad it has a virtual monopoly on music in the US, otherwise another company could make a new market and make the marketplace better.
For the curious, I have tried those anti-noise machines and noise-cancelling headphones, but they don't take care of 99% of the problem for me: bass
Yeah, the guy in the next cubicle has the "Billy the Big-Mouthed Bass". He has it on motion-detection, and nothing is more annoying that a fish that jumps out and sings when I go to the bathroom.
I've had my TiVo for two years, and I have already made up the diference in cash (24 x $10 month vs. $199 life).
I have a friend that bought his a year before mine, and he originally went month to month. After a year and a half, he went to lifetime too. Soon, he will make up the difference.
Incidently, this same friend has spent over $1000 on his TiVo between the memory upgrades, the dual hard drive upgrades, the ethernet card, and the additional TiVo (DirecTiVo) he just got for free from DirectTV. He still loves his unit and would spend that money again.
No, "lifetime" is relative to the product, but if you want to subscribe for more than a year and a half, lifetime service is a no-brainer.
Think of GCC being the Toyota of compilers, and KCC being the Lexus of compilers.
I just think it's worth knowing that Toyota makes the Lexus brand of cars. In Japan, where they care more about quality, the same cars are sold under the Toyota logo as "higher end" lines. But here in status-conscious USA, we see Lexus and go, "Oooo...", not knowing its just a higher-end Toyota. "Lexus" goes to some lengths to obscure that fact, but inside the doors of the cars, it says "Toyota Corporation".
I brought that up because your statement was insightful in a way you may not have meant.
Actually, Ethernet is now being revised to provide power over two of Cat 5's four pairs. It's called 802.3af and you can find information about it here
Currently, Cisco is making wireless 802.11b hubs with Inline Power over the Ethernet cable. The wireless hub will need only one physical wire cable to provide both power and network connectivity.
I believe that main issue with GEthernet is that the FireWire protocol was meant to control devices and so does bus arbitration and such, and that the Ethernet protocol (with its CSMA/CD for dealing with collisions of packets, collisions being something you wouldn't want in FireWire) deals more with non-deterministic network access.
Now a token-based FireWire would be something else. Deterministic access that could scale. One of my favorite networking quotes is, "Ethernet works in practice, but not in theory"
"Lassie, what's wrong boy?"
"What's that?"
"Our mail server's heatsink just failed and the processors gonna blow up?"
"Thanks boy, you just saved the day."
"Whadyamean Timmy's in a well again? Serves him right for playing near that thing."
Of course, if its an AMD processor, then the thing is fried by the time Lassie hears it anyway...but you get the idea.
College (or universities, which are just many different colleges) didn't make much sense to me. I have a four year degree, and went into two different graduate programs at a different university. During that time I found out that there are some things about universities that don't make sense until you change your thinking about what universities are for.
Myth 1: Universities are taught by teachers.
Reality: In some schools, high school substitute teachers are required to take more education training than university professors. Professors are appointed to their positions because of their status in the field or because of their research and development, not because of their ability to teach. You are being taught by experts in the field, but not necessarily those that can teach or even care to do so.
Myth 2: Universities want you to be well-rounded.
Reality: Universities want you to have to take classes in departments that would otherwise dry up and die if people chose what they wanted as ciriculum. Maybe at one point being "well-rounded" was a priority. But right now, there are departments that if they relied solely on internal support, they would disappear.
I got my 4-year degree in Philosophy, and spent some graduate time in Philosophy as well. The department had 2 dozen graduate students, most on assistantship. The only way that Philosophy could keep its head above water was that two courses of theirs were essentially manditory if you did not want to take calculus. English, music, theater, and sports flocked to logic class because the alternative was derivatives and integrals. It was well known within the department that if the logic class was dropped as a manditory elective, hardly anyone would take it, and the Phil dept would disappear thru lack of funding.
Let's face it, there are some classes that you took that you would never have taken on your own that were a waste of time. There were probably others that you later enjoyed taking. But considering that adding on those electives can add 1-2 YEARS onto your course of study without them, and at $15,000 a year, that's a lot of money to spend on the possibility that some unconsidered course will be worthwhile. Why do you think that a bachelors takes four years, but a masters takes only two? Course padding.
If you doubt me, take a look at your core classes outside of your department. Chances are that those classes were in departments that don't do well on their own (don't have a large number of students). How many law classes did you have to take, or sports, or business perhaps? Those departments are well funded and don't want to be bothered with teaching core classes.
Myth 3: Well-rounded ciriculum exposes the student to different fields of study.
Reality: Often the "core" classes that are required have low standards and are not good introductions at all. Core classes are frequently taught by the adjunct faculty, grad students, or the "new" professors simply because no one else in the department wants to do it. Sometimes it is simply the professor's "turn" to teach that class. They draw the short straw, if you will. Such classes are usually very large because of its required nature. Those instructors are usually under a lot of pressure to pass students, especially sports players, so the class can become rather dumbed down. Some core classes are nothing more than student mills trying to get the most students thru as possible, so that the department can get it's funding.
That's all for now. I have to go get on another soapbox. Some of you will disagree with me, but I think if you privately asked some of your faculty what would happen if core classes were not enforced, some would says that they would lose their jobs.
He changed his comment without providing the usual "Update" note in the post. The original post said that he's buying CDs now that the Napster battle is over". The only meaning I see from that is that since Napster has been shut down, he needs to buy music since he can't get it for free.
One thing about/. editing lately has been changing their original posts when they make foolish comments without saying that they changed the comment. When people that haven't seen the original story see the original posted comments of others replying, they think these original posters have rabid squirrels in their pants. That is disappointing.
Instead, the editor is not boycotting the RIAA anymore because Napster has been shut down? Does that even make sense? It's a convenient boycott when you can get your music for free.
It's like saying that if Microsoft should come up with some (supposedly) uncrackable anti-piracy distribution of Windows, then he would end his "boycott" of MS products by actually buying the software instead of borrowing it from a friend. A boycott is a moral stance against some company or product because of some stance or issue they support. A boycott is not simply stealing things for free and saying it's for some moral reason.
I wonder how long it will take before the editors change the post again. It didn't used to be this way.
Wow. It seems that the carefully constructed arguments of those that say "No, we only use Napster for fair use only" have been undercut by a throw-away comment by a Slashdot editor.
There are people (I'm one of them) who ^might^ think that "hackers" are bad people like they are shown in the media. "Hackers" are the ones that come up with worms, virus toolkits, and remote exploits designed to make life miserable for others, and are generally dickheads. But after reading Slashdot for a few years, I realized that "hackers" can be legitamite people with legitamite concerns about copy protection, security holes, freedom of information, the centralization of power in one corporation in Redmond, the "fair use" provision in law, protecting the littlr guy against the big corporations, and other such issues.
These last few stories have shown your efforts in a new light.
We may think that lawyers are slimy because they sue for little reason hoping to fish for some settlement money. The reason the lawyer might give would be "I'm just protecting my rights", but under it all, it's for the money. It's disheartening to find out that the reason behind some supposed "civil rights" actions is merely greed in a socially acceptible form. It's frustrating to find out that the political party you support because they back a certain issue only back that issue so they can get more votes to promote a hidden agenda (Insert major party here). And it's frustrating to see a major player in the Linux news community admit in print that the reason they support "fair use" is to shield their illegal activity long enough to that they can get as many mp3s as they can.
Once you lose your credibility, it's hard to get back. Hardly anyone listens when it's said that Clinton pardoned Rich as a favor to Israel leader Barak, because they are used to seeing Clinton lie about other things. They assume the worst when it come to motive. Also, because the public feels that Condit has not been truthful and has been more concerned about reelection, he has already been tried in public opinion. Nothing he can say now will be seen on the context he may want it to be seen, even if it were sincere.
So what's the point of this comment?
Once you say, "Well, yeah, actually it was about getting music for free", when for MONTHS you have been saying otherwise, well, why should those who are not necessarily "hackers" see this site as anything but a fraud? Perhaps the real reason you want the DeCSS file propagated is as the first step to pirating DVDs? Perhaps the reason you want the DMCA overturned is because it stops people from cracking encryptions and giving away other people's material for free? You can say, "No, we want to view DVDs on Linux, and the DMCA is too broad", but it's hard to see your point of view when you admit that a previously held position was only held for greed.
I think that there is a good community here (then again, I browse at +2). I think that people here have things to say that don't get said many other places. And I think that for one of the admins to undercut one of your main messages just to put in an ad for CheapCD.com says a lot more about this board than one hundred well meaning posters can ever do.
This comment might be redundant, but only because it takes a while to type.
Now, the fact that the default password was used to get into the box is one issue.
Another issue is how the crackers managed to get root after the fact. They exploited known security holes.
Just something to reduce my karma, but since the code is open source, bugs are supposed to be found much more quickly and fixed within a few hours given the right channels. Yet, since the bugs are supposedly easier to find (looking through source code as opposed to trying various techniques to so what happens) than in closed binaries (that is one of the main arguments for open source), we have our lesson for today.
Which is:
If you use open source products, patch early and patch often. If you reinstall an old version, plan to spend a significant amount of time applying patches. Otherwise, those well known and easily-researchable bugs will come back to haunt you in sequential order.
Having been a computer instructor for a year and a half, I have found that there is good news when an authority screws up publicly. First, it shows than no one is an authority on everything. More importantly, when a mistake is made, sometimes students can learn more by finding out how to fix something than how to do it correctly in the first place. This event will have more admins thinking about security today than a dozen security articles would have.
All my programs have but one purpose. They take the contents of RAM and place those contents into a file called 'core'
Our treaty with Panama that allowed the US to build the Panama Canal and essentially have soverignity over a strip of land that cuts the country in two, also says that the US can intervene in Panama in case of "national security" issues. Bush just extended the meaning a little. Either way, we have no such treaty with Serbia, and if we wanted to, we could storm the beaches of Guam because they also are a protectorate.
You know, this is your company, your capital, and your ass on the line. If some 'smartass' is going to put keywords into his.sig to annoy you, this same 'smartass' could sabotage you in other ways ("He wants me to make another cup of coffee for him, who does he think I am? I'll show him."). If your employees have an issue with their e-mail being read and their web usage tracked. you can remind them of some facts:
1) They can have all the e-mail and web surfing at home that they want. Even for free.
2) You paid for the computers and the internet connection. You get to dictate terms of use. If they want to "represent" the company they need to abide by your rules.
3) If they screw up and get you sued, you can fire them. You, however, can lose your business. Being the one to put your neck and reputation on the line by starting a business means you take more risks and can get more rewards. Don't let someone take that away from you because they wanted to "show you".
Overall, if they are adults, they should realize the responsibility that they have to their place of work. If they want to violate your policy and expose you to risk, then someone else can hire them and take the risk. Or, they can become self-employed. Then they can see what it is like to have themselves exposed to risk.
All my programs have a purpose. This one, for example, takes the contents of RAM and places it in a file called 'core'.
I love how Microsoft makes it seem that when they stop piracy, they are protecting the consumer and not their profits.
One recent poster from their piracy division said, (paraphrased) "How would you feel if you took your new car in for service according to your warranty, and you discovered that your warranty was a fraud ? That you had been duped into buying a fraudulent new car, and that your meticulous records were now worthless ?" The idea is that if the copy is fraudulent, then you get no guarantees for good service. If the copy is exactly the same (except for who burnt the cd-rom), then any problems with the software comes from the original source (MS). If you bought the shrink-wrapped version of the software, try getting a warranty from Microsoft to fix bugs or replace lost business from downtime. You won't get it. The analogy falls flat, but sounds convincing if you don't think about it or are not computer industry savvy. It's a similar argument to MS anti-trust argument that the government was essentially trying to tell Ford that they had to use other companies engines, to use the same logic for unbundling (oops, uninnovating) IE with Windows. It's a misleading argument by those that know it, but corporate arguments are not necessarily about truth but about getting your share price stable or rising.
Ever get Microsoft anti-piracy e-mail? It sounds like propaganda from the front,
"Today fearless government agents, under expert leadership from BillG himself, stormed a factory dedicated to the eradication of the American Way! G-men conficated tens of burnt cds intended solely for weakening the red, white and blue; mom; and apple pie; by depriving Microsoft of up to $4,000 in lost war-bonds. Citizens, you must be vigilant and stop this Red Menace before they sell your children to the sex trade! If your money isn't going directly to Microsoft, then your money is going to overturn the Statue of Liberty. (rousing chorus of "One God, one faith, one OS")
It's about the principle. As others have said, perhaps if Katz had informed (or made it more clear) that he would take the collected comments and produce a book, then posters could say if this was a good idea. Yes, the book is a good idea. Yes, this book may help people learn about such pain that others have. Yes, the best way to explain the issue is to use the words of posters. Yet, see it this way. 1) Microsoft says they want user feedback on Win 2k. Posters submit their views plus or minus. Then Microsoft places a full page ad in NYT with user quotes saying only positive things, without changing the program. Despite MS pleas to the contrary, it would be viewed harshly as a betrayal of what feedback is for. Pro-MS might see it as good (they are genuine quotes) for the PC business, while others would say that perhaps this was done under one guise but for another, profit-guided reason. If you are suspicious, or an MS hater, guess where you might fall without even having to think about it. 2) At a rape-counselling center, you finally summon the courage to come to grips with what happened to you years ago. In an environment of support, you state in painful detail to an understanding audience the traumatic events that led to your low self-esteem, your sense of victimhood, and your feelings of uncleanliness. As others tell their stories, you feel more empowered, knowing that you are not alone, and that others are understanding. Yes, it was public, but only to a subset of the pop that would understand your pain, and has probably been there before. Then, two months later, you learn that your story has been published by the parent company of the trauma center. Oh, your name has been removed, but the story is still yours, and now it is available to those who don't care about you, who might make fun of you. Even without credit, you feel humiliated, because "public" in a support group is different than "public" in front of tv cameras. Now the book is available in B&N for $15. If your comments were not to leave the room ("comments owned by poster"), and now they are available for money, I think you might feel betrayed too. It's not about the money, it's about the fact that Slashdot is a community, and some did not want community comments released into the public for profit when some notice could have been appreciated.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, you mean like Star Wars Episode 1?
Perhaps France could have that capability too, and could sue websites that sell illegal Nazi memorabilia even if the website is based outside of the country.
The crux of your argument if that if a company does something wrong outside the country while doing business, then they should be able to be punished inside their home country for those practices.
Maybe Japan should be allowed to have a male-dominated factory in the US because that is how Japanese factories are run. If a US division of Honda promotes a woman to an executive position, then the promoter could be laid off for violating corporate policy. Maybe a Saudi company could ban women altogether from the workplace. Discrimination? Nope, just following the policy of the home country.
Legislating US behavior outside the country will not solve the problem. While in your case it might help this sweatshop problem, but it introduces a dangerous precident of helping to reduce a nation soverignty(sp?)when the host country's policy is different than you might like.
I am a landlord, and I own a two-family house. Recently online I found a guide written by a lawyer on how to be a landlord in my state. It is very well written, and one of the ideas that I got was this,
If you say that something is the law, and it isn't, the tenant can sue you for treble damages.
If you don't de-lead your house, and you let children under six live there, and you say to the tenant, "Oh, I'm exempt from de-leading because of this special provision / grandfather clause", then the tenant can sue you for misrepresenting the law.
So, I'm tempted to wonder if Microsoft can legally dole out legal advise that is prima facie incorrect and misleading. I would suggest the Microsoft's legal department take a look at the FUD for liability purposes.
If it can happen to me, it should be able to happen to Microsoft.
When I stayed up three days straight to try to cram an entire semester's worth of material into my brain, I attended my science class.
The professor wrote a word on the board. I forget which word, but it had a 'w' and an 'l' in it.
I was so out of it, I saw a fork and a knife on the board, layed out like a table setting. I reached out slowly to grab the fork and knife, but then I felt an immeasureable sadness come over me: there was no spoon.
I snapped out of it to see the woman behind me saying, "What the hell are you doing", since my hands were reching out towards the blackboard.
I slept for eighteen hours after that.
Call it .prn, .xxx, or whatever, it just won't work.
.com domain. Not fair? Oops.
.prn domain, or punish you in however the law would say. Some organizations that want their massage to be heard won't categorize themselves that way, if just because that means they are limiting their audience.
.prn where little Johnny will never find it.
.prn domain. It is a quick attempt to segregate all the "bad" of the Internet into one neat package. It would be like saying, "Let's have a 'no-crack' zone on the Internet" where hackers/crackers don't go, and where we can have our family-fun websites and dance with posies.
You have a site that has pictures that you think people would give you money for. The more viewers, the more money for you. Would you move your website to a domain that can be easily globally blocked from websurfers?
Let's say that you do. Now, some of your competition with the exact same pictures is now racking in money with a
Should a pictoral of a breast exam go under breastexam.prn? Should a gynocological exam or a sexual guide for intimacy go under sexuality.prn? At one swipe, all material that seems too racy would be mandated to be under a new url, which can then be easily banned.
While some things can easily be branded as porn, some others may not. Who do you want making those decisions, the web-filter software designers? Congress? White middle-aged Christians from the South?
Imagine that you have a viewpoint on society. You use the internet to tell as many people about a "secret conspiracy" that you think is valid. Now, the law can be used by those that you think are conspiring against you to place you in a
Think that might not happen?
Imagine that the "secret conspiracy" is that Pat Robertson is using church-related "tax-exempt" monies to fund political action committees. You publish it on a web-site, and now some people consider you "hate-speech" against Christians.
Perhaps the "secret conspiracy" is Scientology. You all ought to know what I mean by that. Now xenu.net can be hate speech, and placed in a
Now, what if that the "secret conspiracy" is the Jews trying to take over the world (I don't believe that, but follow me). Would you set up your message to be banned by the very powers that "control" the Internet? Not hardly. You'd place it anywhere else, and move it around until the law is repealed.
There is too much room for governmental, private, and public-action committees to arbitraily censor material under a
Probably not going to happen.
Bravo.
I have many times heard a song I liked on the radio, and gone to good lengths to identify that song and the artist. I live in MA, and I called a "urban" gospel radio station in SC to get a song title when I could only sing a lyric or two of it (Thanks, guys).
The algorithm for getting a single in the last five years was this.
1) Hear song on radio. Like it. Get info.
2) Go to record store. Search for single. Find R&B, hip-hop, ghetto-blastaz; all songs from very recently.
3) Ask person behind counter for single.
4) Listen to how they only recieved a handful of the singles, they are sold out, and the companies that release the single only produce a small amount anyway and Never Makes Them Again.
5) Go to other record store. Rinse. Repeat.
I can buy singles at Walgreen's (pharmacy), but nothing near what I want. My musical tastes are all over the map (hence the gospel music), but I also listen to top-40 and other popular music.
Here's an idea. The CD singles, when priced at about $3.99 to $5.99, weren't too attractive compared to a $11-$13 CD, back a few years ago. For double the price, I get five to ten times the songs. So I could see that the singles may not have been very popular.
Now, CD's go for $15-$20, and I would think that a $1.99-$2.99 CD single would sell well. But the RIAA sees not a customer that bought $2.99, but a sale that they lost of $20. In that perspective, no wonder they only made a few, and then stopped entirely.
Considering that P2P downloading is about getting the "singles" (How many people have downloaded an entirely album, every song? Be honest.), and that I would download a song and burn it myself at 25 to 50 cents a pop, it just seems like the RIAA has become inflexible.
Different businesses have different business models. Some businesses adapt to change and make it work. Some create new markets ("Why would someone make a shipping company? Isn't that what the Post Office is for?"), and some change markets.
The RIAA is trying to stick with what worked in the past. Too bad it has a virtual monopoly on music in the US, otherwise another company could make a new market and make the marketplace better.
I read the headline as "ASCII white detonated the first E-bomb"
Wait... ASCII, dumb terminals, email bombs, endless buzzers...it's all coming back to me now.
Isn't this out of date? Next will be "Mainframe successfully runs up to ten users on terminals"
Oh, wait, nuclear bombs simulations. Ok. Never mind. Sorry.
Yeah, the guy in the next cubicle has the "Billy the Big-Mouthed Bass". He has it on motion-detection, and nothing is more annoying that a fish that jumps out and sings when I go to the bathroom.
The Slashdot blackout is in April, not in March. Your sig says that the blackout is 3/21-3/27, instead of 4/21-4/27.
Amazon (deep breathing): This is your destiny, search your feelings, you know it to be true.
B&N: No, I'll never join you.
Amazon: Join me, and with one-click purchasing and patent enforcement, together we can rule online book sales as Father and Son.
B&N: Well.........OK. But we have to keep our settlement secret, all right? I'd hate to have my friends know about our little meeting.
Amazon: I'll have my stormtrooper-lawyers work on our non-disclosure agreement.
B&N: Oh, and could you help me find my hand?
I've had my TiVo for two years, and I have already made up the diference in cash (24 x $10 month vs. $199 life).
I have a friend that bought his a year before mine, and he originally went month to month. After a year and a half, he went to lifetime too. Soon, he will make up the difference.
Incidently, this same friend has spent over $1000 on his TiVo between the memory upgrades, the dual hard drive upgrades, the ethernet card, and the additional TiVo (DirecTiVo) he just got for free from DirectTV. He still loves his unit and would spend that money again.
No, "lifetime" is relative to the product, but if you want to subscribe for more than a year and a half, lifetime service is a no-brainer.
I just think it's worth knowing that Toyota makes the Lexus brand of cars. In Japan, where they care more about quality, the same cars are sold under the Toyota logo as "higher end" lines. But here in status-conscious USA, we see Lexus and go, "Oooo...", not knowing its just a higher-end Toyota. "Lexus" goes to some lengths to obscure that fact, but inside the doors of the cars, it says "Toyota Corporation".
I brought that up because your statement was insightful in a way you may not have meant.
Actually, Ethernet is now being revised to provide power over two of Cat 5's four pairs. It's called 802.3af and you can find information about it here
Currently, Cisco is making wireless 802.11b hubs with Inline Power over the Ethernet cable. The wireless hub will need only one physical wire cable to provide both power and network connectivity.
I believe that main issue with GEthernet is that the FireWire protocol was meant to control devices and so does bus arbitration and such, and that the Ethernet protocol (with its CSMA/CD for dealing with collisions of packets, collisions being something you wouldn't want in FireWire) deals more with non-deterministic network access.
Now a token-based FireWire would be something else. Deterministic access that could scale. One of my favorite networking quotes is, "Ethernet works in practice, but not in theory"
Maybe if you renamed all your game executables to 'quake.exe', that would fix it.
Oh wait, that's the Pentium chip...
If I have to start paying for downloads, I can't wait for the day some script k1dd1e can do a DDOS on my wallet.
"Lassie, what's wrong boy?"
"What's that?"
"Our mail server's heatsink just failed and the processors gonna blow up?"
"Thanks boy, you just saved the day."
"Whadyamean Timmy's in a well again? Serves him right for playing near that thing."
Of course, if its an AMD processor, then the thing is fried by the time Lassie hears it anyway...but you get the idea.
College (or universities, which are just many different colleges) didn't make much sense to me. I have a four year degree, and went into two different graduate programs at a different university. During that time I found out that there are some things about universities that don't make sense until you change your thinking about what universities are for.
Myth 1: Universities are taught by teachers.
Reality: In some schools, high school substitute teachers are required to take more education training than university professors. Professors are appointed to their positions because of their status in the field or because of their research and development, not because of their ability to teach. You are being taught by experts in the field, but not necessarily those that can teach or even care to do so.
Myth 2: Universities want you to be well-rounded.
Reality: Universities want you to have to take classes in departments that would otherwise dry up and die if people chose what they wanted as ciriculum. Maybe at one point being "well-rounded" was a priority. But right now, there are departments that if they relied solely on internal support, they would disappear.
I got my 4-year degree in Philosophy, and spent some graduate time in Philosophy as well. The department had 2 dozen graduate students, most on assistantship. The only way that Philosophy could keep its head above water was that two courses of theirs were essentially manditory if you did not want to take calculus. English, music, theater, and sports flocked to logic class because the alternative was derivatives and integrals. It was well known within the department that if the logic class was dropped as a manditory elective, hardly anyone would take it, and the Phil dept would disappear thru lack of funding.
Let's face it, there are some classes that you took that you would never have taken on your own that were a waste of time. There were probably others that you later enjoyed taking. But considering that adding on those electives can add 1-2 YEARS onto your course of study without them, and at $15,000 a year, that's a lot of money to spend on the possibility that some unconsidered course will be worthwhile. Why do you think that a bachelors takes four years, but a masters takes only two? Course padding.
If you doubt me, take a look at your core classes outside of your department. Chances are that those classes were in departments that don't do well on their own (don't have a large number of students). How many law classes did you have to take, or sports, or business perhaps? Those departments are well funded and don't want to be bothered with teaching core classes.
Myth 3: Well-rounded ciriculum exposes the student to different fields of study.
Reality: Often the "core" classes that are required have low standards and are not good introductions at all. Core classes are frequently taught by the adjunct faculty, grad students, or the "new" professors simply because no one else in the department wants to do it. Sometimes it is simply the professor's "turn" to teach that class. They draw the short straw, if you will. Such classes are usually very large because of its required nature. Those instructors are usually under a lot of pressure to pass students, especially sports players, so the class can become rather dumbed down. Some core classes are nothing more than student mills trying to get the most students thru as possible, so that the department can get it's funding.
That's all for now. I have to go get on another soapbox. Some of you will disagree with me, but I think if you privately asked some of your faculty what would happen if core classes were not enforced, some would says that they would lose their jobs.
He changed his comment without providing the usual "Update" note in the post. The original post said that he's buying CDs now that the Napster battle is over". The only meaning I see from that is that since Napster has been shut down, he needs to buy music since he can't get it for free.
/. editing lately has been changing their original posts when they make foolish comments without saying that they changed the comment. When people that haven't seen the original story see the original posted comments of others replying, they think these original posters have rabid squirrels in their pants. That is disappointing.
One thing about
Instead, the editor is not boycotting the RIAA anymore because Napster has been shut down? Does that even make sense? It's a convenient boycott when you can get your music for free.
It's like saying that if Microsoft should come up with some (supposedly) uncrackable anti-piracy distribution of Windows, then he would end his "boycott" of MS products by actually buying the software instead of borrowing it from a friend. A boycott is a moral stance against some company or product because of some stance or issue they support. A boycott is not simply stealing things for free and saying it's for some moral reason.
I wonder how long it will take before the editors change the post again. It didn't used to be this way.
Wow. It seems that the carefully constructed arguments of those that say "No, we only use Napster for fair use only" have been undercut by a throw-away comment by a Slashdot editor.
There are people (I'm one of them) who ^might^ think that "hackers" are bad people like they are shown in the media. "Hackers" are the ones that come up with worms, virus toolkits, and remote exploits designed to make life miserable for others, and are generally dickheads. But after reading Slashdot for a few years, I realized that "hackers" can be legitamite people with legitamite concerns about copy protection, security holes, freedom of information, the centralization of power in one corporation in Redmond, the "fair use" provision in law, protecting the littlr guy against the big corporations, and other such issues.
These last few stories have shown your efforts in a new light.
We may think that lawyers are slimy because they sue for little reason hoping to fish for some settlement money. The reason the lawyer might give would be "I'm just protecting my rights", but under it all, it's for the money. It's disheartening to find out that the reason behind some supposed "civil rights" actions is merely greed in a socially acceptible form. It's frustrating to find out that the political party you support because they back a certain issue only back that issue so they can get more votes to promote a hidden agenda (Insert major party here). And it's frustrating to see a major player in the Linux news community admit in print that the reason they support "fair use" is to shield their illegal activity long enough to that they can get as many mp3s as they can.
Once you lose your credibility, it's hard to get back. Hardly anyone listens when it's said that Clinton pardoned Rich as a favor to Israel leader Barak, because they are used to seeing Clinton lie about other things. They assume the worst when it come to motive. Also, because the public feels that Condit has not been truthful and has been more concerned about reelection, he has already been tried in public opinion. Nothing he can say now will be seen on the context he may want it to be seen, even if it were sincere.
So what's the point of this comment?
Once you say, "Well, yeah, actually it was about getting music for free", when for MONTHS you have been saying otherwise, well, why should those who are not necessarily "hackers" see this site as anything but a fraud? Perhaps the real reason you want the DeCSS file propagated is as the first step to pirating DVDs? Perhaps the reason you want the DMCA overturned is because it stops people from cracking encryptions and giving away other people's material for free? You can say, "No, we want to view DVDs on Linux, and the DMCA is too broad", but it's hard to see your point of view when you admit that a previously held position was only held for greed.
I think that there is a good community here (then again, I browse at +2). I think that people here have things to say that don't get said many other places. And I think that for one of the admins to undercut one of your main messages just to put in an ad for CheapCD.com says a lot more about this board than one hundred well meaning posters can ever do.
This comment might be redundant, but only because it takes a while to type.
Now, the fact that the default password was used to get into the box is one issue.
Another issue is how the crackers managed to get root after the fact. They exploited known security holes.
Just something to reduce my karma, but since the code is open source, bugs are supposed to be found much more quickly and fixed within a few hours given the right channels. Yet, since the bugs are supposedly easier to find (looking through source code as opposed to trying various techniques to so what happens) than in closed binaries (that is one of the main arguments for open source), we have our lesson for today.
Which is:
If you use open source products, patch early and patch often. If you reinstall an old version, plan to spend a significant amount of time applying patches. Otherwise, those well known and easily-researchable bugs will come back to haunt you in sequential order.
Having been a computer instructor for a year and a half, I have found that there is good news when an authority screws up publicly. First, it shows than no one is an authority on everything. More importantly, when a mistake is made, sometimes students can learn more by finding out how to fix something than how to do it correctly in the first place. This event will have more admins thinking about security today than a dozen security articles would have.
All my programs have but one purpose. They take the contents of RAM and place those contents into a file called 'core'
Since the picture came from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), would it be fair to say that the picture was JPL'ed ?
Is this license compatible with the GPL?
How would RMS view this?
All my programs have their uses. This one, for example, takes the entire contents of RAM and places it in a file called 'core'
Our treaty with Panama that allowed the US to build the Panama Canal and essentially have soverignity over a strip of land that cuts the country in two, also says that the US can intervene in Panama in case of "national security" issues. Bush just extended the meaning a little. Either way, we have no such treaty with Serbia, and if we wanted to, we could storm the beaches of Guam because they also are a protectorate.
1) They can have all the e-mail and web surfing at home that they want. Even for free.
2) You paid for the computers and the internet connection. You get to dictate terms of use. If they want to "represent" the company they need to abide by your rules.
3) If they screw up and get you sued, you can fire them. You, however, can lose your business. Being the one to put your neck and reputation on the line by starting a business means you take more risks and can get more rewards. Don't let someone take that away from you because they wanted to "show you".
Overall, if they are adults, they should realize the responsibility that they have to their place of work. If they want to violate your policy and expose you to risk, then someone else can hire them and take the risk. Or, they can become self-employed. Then they can see what it is like to have themselves exposed to risk.
All my programs have a purpose. This one, for example, takes the contents of RAM and places it in a file called 'core'.
I love how Microsoft makes it seem that when they stop piracy, they are protecting the consumer and not their profits.
One recent poster from their piracy division said, (paraphrased) "How would you feel if you took your new car in for service according to your warranty, and you discovered that your warranty was a fraud ? That you had been duped into buying a fraudulent new car, and that your meticulous records were now worthless ?"
The idea is that if the copy is fraudulent, then you get no guarantees for good service. If the copy is exactly the same (except for who burnt the cd-rom), then any problems with the software comes from the original source (MS). If you bought the shrink-wrapped version of the software, try getting a warranty from Microsoft to fix bugs or replace lost business from downtime. You won't get it. The analogy falls flat, but sounds convincing if you don't think about it or are not computer industry savvy. It's a similar argument to MS anti-trust argument that the government was essentially trying to tell Ford that they had to use other companies engines, to use the same logic for unbundling (oops, uninnovating) IE with Windows. It's a misleading argument by those that know it, but corporate arguments are not necessarily about truth but about getting your share price stable or rising.
Ever get Microsoft anti-piracy e-mail? It sounds like propaganda from the front,
"Today fearless government agents, under expert leadership from BillG himself, stormed a factory dedicated to the eradication of the American Way! G-men conficated tens of burnt cds intended solely for weakening the red, white and blue; mom; and apple pie; by depriving Microsoft of up to $4,000 in lost war-bonds. Citizens, you must be vigilant and stop this Red Menace before they sell your children to the sex trade! If your money isn't going directly to Microsoft, then your money is going to overturn the Statue of Liberty.
(rousing chorus of "One God, one faith, one OS")
End Rant;
return 0;
legal disclaimer - Don't copy cds, ever.
It's about the principle. As others have said, perhaps if Katz had informed (or made it more clear) that he would take the collected comments and produce a book, then posters could say if this was a good idea. Yes, the book is a good idea. Yes, this book may help people learn about such pain that others have. Yes, the best way to explain the issue is to use the words of posters. Yet, see it this way. 1) Microsoft says they want user feedback on Win 2k. Posters submit their views plus or minus. Then Microsoft places a full page ad in NYT with user quotes saying only positive things, without changing the program. Despite MS pleas to the contrary, it would be viewed harshly as a betrayal of what feedback is for. Pro-MS might see it as good (they are genuine quotes) for the PC business, while others would say that perhaps this was done under one guise but for another, profit-guided reason. If you are suspicious, or an MS hater, guess where you might fall without even having to think about it. 2) At a rape-counselling center, you finally summon the courage to come to grips with what happened to you years ago. In an environment of support, you state in painful detail to an understanding audience the traumatic events that led to your low self-esteem, your sense of victimhood, and your feelings of uncleanliness. As others tell their stories, you feel more empowered, knowing that you are not alone, and that others are understanding. Yes, it was public, but only to a subset of the pop that would understand your pain, and has probably been there before. Then, two months later, you learn that your story has been published by the parent company of the trauma center. Oh, your name has been removed, but the story is still yours, and now it is available to those who don't care about you, who might make fun of you. Even without credit, you feel humiliated, because "public" in a support group is different than "public" in front of tv cameras. Now the book is available in B&N for $15. If your comments were not to leave the room ("comments owned by poster"), and now they are available for money, I think you might feel betrayed too. It's not about the money, it's about the fact that Slashdot is a community, and some did not want community comments released into the public for profit when some notice could have been appreciated.