If I am hiring someone I may well include in my hiring criteria that having worked for SCO (or Microsoft or Starbuck or the US Government or Pizza Hut) is a liability. And I think I may even consider that anyone who has worked for those companies are unfit to work in my company. How can this be illegal?
So they mislead you into buying a defective, non-standard product and it is up to you to make them do it right? No, I don't think so. You bought the CD, now download the whole dammed thing out of wherever and let them prove your MP3s were not made by you from your legally purchased CD.
And I speak from personal experience here. Buying all music you want for whatever price "they" want you to pay is far cheaper than having a 12-year-old doing your file-sharing. If I have bought music with all money I have already spent with my 12-year-old downloader to date I would probably have one of the largest CD collections around. If you take into account all money yet to be invested until he is out of college (at least ), I could probably have my very own a small recording company.
My first thought was how the hell VB fits into such a low level task, but re-reading the post I guess it doesn't. The rs232 bit is probably done by the component that lost them their day, which in turn will be a C++ COM component. VB then must be only the front-end.
With IPv6 we may simply use an IP number only once (for one machine, one service, even one connection if this is desirable). As the topmost poster points, when we run out of IPv6 numbers we may well start over, since most old numbers will have been used in another Galaxy, in planetary systems whose stars had long gone Nova, so whatever contamination they suffered probably died too.
The farther you let junk travel into the system, the worst your problem is. Bayesian is hard to apply at the network level, you must leave it to the individual users, causing a twofold problem: you keep letting the scum of Earth parasite your network (if you are an ISP) and you expand the processing needs of the end user (ever saw Mozilla Mail "think" for a couple of minutes after you mark one or two email as junk?). This is undesirable.
Lists work pretty well. They ocasionally piss people off, but the cost-benefit ratio is still largely on their side.
In many countries reverse engineering is expressly allowed. In many more the law neither allows nor forbids it.
Gaim has a plugin archtecture, making it possible for a Russian, Brazilian or Australian group to release a MSN connection plugin without breaking any law. The only doubt would be if American users would be able to use it legally.
It is about a big blue whale slowly turning to take notice of the small shark who has been trying to byte its tail and whose mess is scaring the krill away. For a second, while the big blue whale takes a moment to look directly into the little shark's eyes, the little shark has its last chance to flee. We know a second is a very small ammount of time. Does the little shark know?
It was already slow as a three-legged turtle with just us regulars trying to post and vote. A direct link in Slashdot front page will surely keep it down at least until it (the comment) scrolls away...
False positives happen, but from my recent experience (I've migrated to Mozilla Mail some months ago) they are very rare and far between. I haven't had any yet - many false negatives though, I believe Mozilla filters are configured well on the safe side.
But the problem at hand is not email. In a P2P network you can not only setup filters, you can let peers vote on filters conclusions. A client wouldn't make a blocking decisons based upon its solitary experience, it would have all other clients experiences to tap from.
Obviously this is not without obstacles. The target (RIAA servers, for instance) can setup its own "wall of confidence", a number of clients voting together. This can be countered (besides increasing their "price to play"). A number of clients setup for protecting a single client will usually have a negative fingerprint (they will not search or download anything, just vote for their "friend"). Filters see that. Active clients protecting each other will all search for known RIAA strings, marking them up for blocking. And the vote of confidence itself is information. A wall of confidence fall apart when only one or two of its bricks comes down. Eventually the number of different active clients with original searches needed to protect each other rises to a number too large to be practical.
I believe it would be at least a nice developemnt trip...
Yet again with with apologies to Paul Graham, I wrote it before: implement colaborative bayesian filters in all major P2P clients. Train the filters to reject RIAA known search strings, RIAA known IP numbers, RIAA known nicknames. Iterate this across all participants. Let the filters learn while RIAA try to beat themt. Go back to step 1.
And not even that is certain. Noticed the EULA: "YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY. Microsoft's and its suppliers' entire liability and your exclusive remedy shall be, at Microsoft's option from time to time, (a) return of the price paid (if any) for the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, or (b) repair or replacement of, the SOFTWARE PRODUCT that does not meet this Limited Warranty and that is returned to Microsoft with a copy of your receipt. You will receive the remedy elected by Microsoft without charge, except that you are responsible for any expenses you may incur (e.g. cost of shipping the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to Microsoft). This Limited Warranty is void if failure of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT has resulted from accident, abuse, misapplication, abnormal use or a virus." (bold added by me)
In Windows ME case, the lamest excuse for a Windows version ever to leave HellMouth, trying to use may well constitute "abuse, misapplication or abnormal use"...
I agree with almost all you said. Some applications (image/processor intensive like Premiere or Photoshop) and games (3D Shooters, for instance) need all power a processor can give you and more.
To give one concrete example (we have more of those) of what I am talking about, we are currently developing an educational software (a "text exploring" software, based upon a particular methodology - it has basic text processing capabilities plus a host of text oriented features). The client absolutely needed it for Mac and Windows and found it very pleasing to have it for Linux too. One thing you must notice that bellow a certain amount of time, the user won't note any difference - and Java is enough for this: no fancy annimation, no intensive processor task and a nice user interface. We are entering beta now and have not found any performance problems.
So, I am talking about a custom app, but it is not exactly a business one. It will be used by thousands of users (mainly students).
PS: the 220 to 1 sec was a mistake correction (I can't think of anything that needs 220 seconds too...:). Remember, I was talking about Java performance pitfalls. If you use a String instead a of an StringBuffer for a string that will be modified, you suffer a great time penalty in Java - in this particular case the program needed to interact through the text and change it completely twice (hence the 220 sec - it was also an n^2 algorithm - junior programmers sometimes just can't help it...:))
First, you wouldn't even know you needed jvm to run. If needed, it would be installed along with the application.
Second, Java slow performance in the desktop is now more a myth than a fact: we tested applications with complex (Swing) GUIs in machines from Windows95/K6/32MB RAM up to new shinny XP/P4/256 MB. Its performance was more than acceptable at the low end, indistinguishible from anything else at the high end. When I say acceptable I don't mean "acceptable for us Linux geeks ifyouhavewindowsyoumustlikeitslow", I mean acceptable for our (large) clients. The point is that if you pay attention to the performance pitfalls you will be fine (for instance, recently I was able to accelerate a routine by an order of magnitude or more - from 220 sec to 1 sec or less - because the programmer forgot the ancient String/StringBuffer pitfall).
Third, it may be hard for Windows-only developers (who necessarily listen to a lot of MS marketing speechs) to believe, but it is actually a selling point to tell the client you can deliver his application for the three major platforms (Windows/Mac/Linux) at the same time without any additional cost. Specially for clients with a large Mac base or with a "inclusive" marketing strategy.
From the article:The free government registry for blocking telephone sales pitches has grown to more than 28 million numbers since it was opened June 27...
Even if we consider this a novelty effect and cuts the monthly growth by half, it will take very little time for everybody (or everybody who does not want to be called) to be on the list. And I think that their business model would fail well before the 100% figure. It is not only a matter of calling, one must eventually sell. I doubt 10 or 20% of the phones would be enough to keep most current players in this industry.
"Hell has expanded its ongoing legal challenge to religion and is suing yet another church over the concept of salvation, which Hell claims is devastating its business and will cost millions minimum-wage demons their jobs."
It is as easy as that. Build a business on annoying people and then, when the annoyed people react, cry "But won't anyone think of the children (of our employees)?". The point is they shouldn't exist in the first place (the employees, not their children). It should not be everybody else's problem if you have a business model based upon a service no one wants (because if everybody wanted it we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?).
First, why can't I use voice chat at work? And even gaming is not forbidden after hours in most healthy companies.
Second, I have 6 computers in my house, but I have to use a gateway because the ISP will only give me one external address. And then I have to make holes in the firewall because my son wants to play online.
Slashdot Mirror
If I am hiring someone I may well include in my hiring criteria that having worked for SCO (or Microsoft or Starbuck or the US Government or Pizza Hut) is a liability. And I think I may even consider that anyone who has worked for those companies are unfit to work in my company. How can this be illegal?
So they mislead you into buying a defective, non-standard product and it is up to you to make them do it right? No, I don't think so. You bought the CD, now download the whole dammed thing out of wherever and let them prove your MP3s were not made by you from your legally purchased CD.
Because by the time she's old enough to have "some high paying technical job" those will only be available in India, Bangladesh, Somalia and Cambodja.
And I speak from personal experience here. Buying all music you want for whatever price "they" want you to pay is far cheaper than having a 12-year-old doing your file-sharing. If I have bought music with all money I have already spent with my 12-year-old downloader to date I would probably have one of the largest CD collections around. If you take into account all money yet to be invested until he is out of college (at least ), I could probably have my very own a small recording company.
My first thought was how the hell VB fits into such a low level task, but re-reading the post I guess it doesn't. The rs232 bit is probably done by the component that lost them their day, which in turn will be a C++ COM component. VB then must be only the front-end.
It is the only logical explanation for such an advanced civilization being oblivious to family planning and gentler population control methods.
With IPv6 we may simply use an IP number only once (for one machine, one service, even one connection if this is desirable). As the topmost poster points, when we run out of IPv6 numbers we may well start over, since most old numbers will have been used in another Galaxy, in planetary systems whose stars had long gone Nova, so whatever contamination they suffered probably died too.
The farther you let junk travel into the system, the worst your problem is. Bayesian is hard to apply at the network level, you must leave it to the individual users, causing a twofold problem: you keep letting the scum of Earth parasite your network (if you are an ISP) and you expand the processing needs of the end user (ever saw Mozilla Mail "think" for a couple of minutes after you mark one or two email as junk?). This is undesirable.
Lists work pretty well. They ocasionally piss people off, but the cost-benefit ratio is still largely on their side.
In many countries reverse engineering is expressly allowed. In many more the law neither allows nor forbids it.
Gaim has a plugin archtecture, making it possible for a Russian, Brazilian or Australian group to release a MSN connection plugin without breaking any law. The only doubt would be if American users would be able to use it legally.
When someone boldly states "I know what I am talking about" and then points to the URLs that prove it. Nice post. :)
It is about a big blue whale slowly turning to take notice of the small shark who has been trying to byte its tail and whose mess is scaring the krill away. For a second, while the big blue whale takes a moment to look directly into the little shark's eyes, the little shark has its last chance to flee. We know a second is a very small ammount of time. Does the little shark know?
It was already slow as a three-legged turtle with just us regulars trying to post and vote. A direct link in Slashdot front page will surely keep it down at least until it (the comment) scrolls away...
False positives happen, but from my recent experience (I've migrated to Mozilla Mail some months ago) they are very rare and far between. I haven't had any yet - many false negatives though, I believe Mozilla filters are configured well on the safe side.
But the problem at hand is not email. In a P2P network you can not only setup filters, you can let peers vote on filters conclusions. A client wouldn't make a blocking decisons based upon its solitary experience, it would have all other clients experiences to tap from.
Obviously this is not without obstacles. The target (RIAA servers, for instance) can setup its own "wall of confidence", a number of clients voting together. This can be countered (besides increasing their "price to play"). A number of clients setup for protecting a single client will usually have a negative fingerprint (they will not search or download anything, just vote for their "friend"). Filters see that. Active clients protecting each other will all search for known RIAA strings, marking them up for blocking. And the vote of confidence itself is information. A wall of confidence fall apart when only one or two of its bricks comes down. Eventually the number of different active clients with original searches needed to protect each other rises to a number too large to be practical.
I believe it would be at least a nice developemnt trip...
Some of us just don't dig Office.
And in the wise words of my own father 20 or so years ago, what a load of crap kids listen to this days...
Yet again with with apologies to Paul Graham, I wrote it before: implement colaborative bayesian filters in all major P2P clients. Train the filters to reject RIAA known search strings, RIAA known IP numbers, RIAA known nicknames. Iterate this across all participants. Let the filters learn while RIAA try to beat themt. Go back to step 1.
And not even that is certain. Noticed the EULA:
"YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY. Microsoft's and its suppliers' entire liability and your exclusive remedy shall be, at Microsoft's option from time to time, (a) return of the price paid (if any) for the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, or (b) repair or replacement of, the SOFTWARE PRODUCT that does not meet this Limited Warranty and that is returned to Microsoft with a copy of your receipt. You will receive the remedy elected by Microsoft without charge, except that you are responsible for any expenses you may incur (e.g. cost of shipping the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to Microsoft). This Limited Warranty is void if failure of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT has resulted from accident, abuse, misapplication, abnormal use or a virus." (bold added by me)
In Windows ME case, the lamest excuse for a Windows version ever to leave HellMouth, trying to use may well constitute "abuse, misapplication or abnormal use"...
I agree with almost all you said. Some applications (image/processor intensive like Premiere or Photoshop) and games (3D Shooters, for instance) need all power a processor can give you and more.
To give one concrete example (we have more of those) of what I am talking about, we are currently developing an educational software (a "text exploring" software, based upon a particular methodology - it has basic text processing capabilities plus a host of text oriented features). The client absolutely needed it for Mac and Windows and found it very pleasing to have it for Linux too. One thing you must notice that bellow a certain amount of time, the user won't note any difference - and Java is enough for this: no fancy annimation, no intensive processor task and a nice user interface. We are entering beta now and have not found any performance problems.
So, I am talking about a custom app, but it is not exactly a business one. It will be used by thousands of users (mainly students).
PS: the 220 to 1 sec was a mistake correction (I can't think of anything that needs 220 seconds too...:). Remember, I was talking about Java performance pitfalls. If you use a String instead a of an StringBuffer for a string that will be modified, you suffer a great time penalty in Java - in this particular case the program needed to interact through the text and change it completely twice (hence the 220 sec - it was also an n^2 algorithm - junior programmers sometimes just can't help it...:))
First, you wouldn't even know you needed jvm to run. If needed, it would be installed along with the application.
Second, Java slow performance in the desktop is now more a myth than a fact: we tested applications with complex (Swing) GUIs in machines from Windows95/K6/32MB RAM up to new shinny XP/P4/256 MB. Its performance was more than acceptable at the low end, indistinguishible from anything else at the high end. When I say acceptable I don't mean "acceptable for us Linux geeks ifyouhavewindowsyoumustlikeitslow", I mean acceptable for our (large) clients. The point is that if you pay attention to the performance pitfalls you will be fine (for instance, recently I was able to accelerate a routine by an order of magnitude or more - from 220 sec to 1 sec or less - because the programmer forgot the ancient String/StringBuffer pitfall).
Third, it may be hard for Windows-only developers (who necessarily listen to a lot of MS marketing speechs) to believe, but it is actually a selling point to tell the client you can deliver his application for the three major platforms (Windows/Mac/Linux) at the same time without any additional cost. Specially for clients with a large Mac base or with a "inclusive" marketing strategy.
From the article:The free government registry for blocking telephone sales pitches has grown to more than 28 million numbers since it was opened June 27...
Even if we consider this a novelty effect and cuts the monthly growth by half, it will take very little time for everybody (or everybody who does not want to be called) to be on the list. And I think that their business model would fail well before the 100% figure. It is not only a matter of calling, one must eventually sell. I doubt 10 or 20% of the phones would be enough to keep most current players in this industry.
I was answering to the AC above who implied voice chat is not an acceptable work application....
"Hell has expanded its ongoing legal challenge to religion and is suing yet another church over the concept of salvation, which Hell claims is devastating its business and will cost millions minimum-wage demons their jobs."
It is as easy as that. Build a business on annoying people and then, when the annoyed people react, cry "But won't anyone think of the children (of our employees)?". The point is they shouldn't exist in the first place (the employees, not their children). It should not be everybody else's problem if you have a business model based upon a service no one wants (because if everybody wanted it we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?).
So it is a pain in the ass. Every new game or new online application wants a new port and a new redirection.
First, why can't I use voice chat at work? And even gaming is not forbidden after hours in most healthy companies.
Second, I have 6 computers in my house, but I have to use a gateway because the ISP will only give me one external address. And then I have to make holes in the firewall because my son wants to play online.
"We couldn't care less about you other countries" seems to be the US motto nowadays.