Completely offftopic but it appears I type too fast, as slashdot said "you have 1 new messages" so I clicked. I saw your comment and typed "I'll probably go back to dialup...", hit "enter", and slashdot says "slow down cowboy! It's been fifteen seconds since you hit reply!
I swear, some of the bots slashdot cooks up are fucking brain dead. I should NEVER EVER get a "slowdown cowboy" when responding from the "messages" page! Who coded this kludge anyway? From a useability standpoint this is incredibly shitty design. Someone please fix this! kthxbye
Look at the firehose; I just sbmitted a New Scientist storyUS and UK rival China for government surveillance.
The US, the UK, China and Russia are "endemic surveillance societies", according to a recent study examining privacy protection around the world that gave the four nations the lowest possible rating.
I wrote a K5 article a few years ago, Liberty? What liberty? where I pointed out that the Supreme Court has gutted the Bill of Rights. From the Bill of Rights:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Apparently your laptop, like your car, isn't an effect and its contents aren't documents.
Next thing you know they'll be demanding you give army soldiers quarter in your home and the SCOTUS will agree to it, just like they agreed that twice your lifespan is "limited" when dealing with copyright.
I fear the only way to get "our" coiuntry back is by armed revolution, which I do NOT want to see. Start the revolution after I'm dead, ok?
Did the RIAA start suing song downloaders while I was too busy reading election news? Because last I checked, they were only suing song uploaders (the infringing content providers).
To the non-nerd there isn't any difference. They have no clue, they install the app and go with the defaults, which are usually "sheare verey media file on the computer, and share what I've downloaded".
And since the RIAA shills continually talk about "stealing music" when they talk of copyright infringement, comparing actual stealing with copyright infringement is, indeed, fair.
And I disagree that "it causes greater damages against the 'victim'." In fact I would argue that it doesn't damage the "victim" at all, but helps helps him. Where it hurts him is when his independant competetion gets downloaded; he has radio to get his music out. Indoes only have the internet.
Studies show that "pirates" spend more money on music than non-infringers. No study except the one paid by the RIAA has shown any loss to the "victims" whatever.
Most people uploading don't even know they're uploading; the PO2P app scanned their drives for media files and automatically added them, and adds your download folder to the "share" list unless you explicitly say NOT to.
So for most people (non-nerds) downloading is the "crime". They don't even know they're uploading!
The issue is "stealin music" which is what the MAFIAA defenders call copyright infringement. If they want to tralk about "stealing music" fine, I'll talk about STEALING music, which garners a far lower penalty than "downloading" (which to most is what they're trying to do when they inadvertantly upload).
That's so, but most people (none of whom are here of course) don't even know they're uploading. And besides, that lying-through-their-teeth RIAA never mentions uploading, only downloading as if downloading is illegal (which it isn't in the US)
...you have a choice of paying a small misdemeanor fine... Where is that?
In the US. Shoplifting is a misdemeanor in (AFAIK) every state, with a few hondred dollars fine as penalty. My ex wife got caught shoplifting about thirty years ago, it cost me $100. If you can't pay the fine you get community service, if you don't do the community service you go to jail.
She pleaded guilty, and there seems to be no record of her ever having been convicted of a crime. And if you are a minor the case is kept secret, keep your nose clean until age 21 and there's no record.
In come Muslim countries you can lose a hand for shoplifting.
They were saying that about fifteen years or so ago, too; everyone predicted the "thin client" when networks became common. It hasn't happened, and I don't see it happening, at least not any time soon.
Someone needs to reset passwords, set up mail accounts, and more importantly diagnose what's gone wrong when something goes wrong. In a networked environment, the mac or PC is only one part of the IT infrastructure. Is it your server or router that's gone down? Who's changing the backup tapes? Who's doing the patching? Everyone who's been using Microsoft knows you should NEVER apply a patch without testing.
I just don't see it happeneing unless the IT landscape changes drastically, and I don't see it changing drastically in the near future. Ten years from now maybe, if there are drastic changes, but not this year.
And yes, I did once leave my PC on for a wek trying to download one album.
That illustrates something I've been trying to say here for a long time, and that is that downloading isn't that damned convinient. Pirate Bay or Morpheus are good for indie music, but if you're looking for the top 40 the easiest, cheapest, and still legal way is to plug your radio's headphone jack into your sound card, sample a top-40 station and spend five minutes showing EAC where to make the cuts.
If you live in St Louis you can have seven rock albums every Sunday night. Sure, they're FM quality rather than CD quality but if you're ripping to MP3 it doesn't matter anyway.
You're right. Nobody I know in meatspace knew about it, and when I mentioned a "rootkit" the answer was "huh?" I had to explain what a rootkit was. I finally gave up.
Not every country has the ridiculous fine/damage levels as the US. This means that in some countries, you could get caught without being indebted for the rest of your life.
What annoys and at the same time greatly amuses me is that if you walk into a store and steal a CD and get caught, you have a choice of paying a small misdemeanor fine or can demand a criminal trial where you are presumed innocent until found guilty of a misdemeanor and pay a relatively small fine.
But if you infringe copyright by downloading you will be offered to pay a several thousand dollar settlement or go to civil court where you are presumed giolty and have to pay up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
If we didn't have the best legislators money could buy would our laws be so brain-dead? I've said it before, when they start writing respectable laws I'll start respecting the law.
That hooker I paid last night really sucked (journal coming soon). But she didn't suck as much as Sony.
the vast majority of the world doesn't recognize this odd concept of "imaginary property".
There, fixed that for ya.
From the summary:
To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card's covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears' "Blackout" and Barry Manilow's "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies."'"
They're going to pay me $12.95 to scratch off a code and download Britney Spears and Barry Manilow? Well, ok, so long as I don't actually have to LISTEN to them. Bill Gates doesn't have enough money to pay me to do that!
They predicted the death of the IT department twenty years ago when the PC became widespread. It didn't happen, and it won't now.
Back then it actually looked like it might. Now it doesn't. Who's going to replace that hardware router when it fails? Upgrade the equipment?
Perhaps the "IT department" will become for most companies what the post office is to the mail department; i.e. hired out to a specialty firm. But that hardly matters to the geeks in the IT department, they'll still get their paychecks. Their checks will just have a different company's name on them, that's all.
Good luck offshoring hardware replacement, or doing more than a script-based "help" desk.
The VCR didn't kill anything; in fact, it made the hollywood whores a lot of cash! Now, there is an entity that IS to Hollywood what Jack the Ripper was to British whores - the slut who gives herself away because she likes sex. That slut is appropriately called "Star Wreck". I'm sure you've heard of it since you're here. If you haven't seen In The Pirkinning, do so, it's worth your while. It's well made and hilarious, and should have Hollywood shaking in its boots.
Blizzard's World of Warcraft installs monitors and phones home
I don't run WoW. Now that you 've pointed that it does this evil shit I surely won't.
Microsoft's OS installs updates without telling you and God knows what else.
Which is one reason my machine is dual-boot and I've disabled networking on the Windows side. If you've seen many of my comments at slashdot you know I'm no fan of Microsoft.
Pretty much all PC games have some sort of insidious copyright protection
I haven't been into PC gaming for quite some time, and this is one reason why.
Why don't you vent against the state of DRM?
I vent against DRM's very existance. More than that, I ridicule it and the morons who believe in it.
Against proprietary software?
I have nothing against proprietary software. I do have lots against much proprietary software if it's poorly designed, buggy, and I'm forced to use it (like, say, the Microsoft crap I have to use at work).
Or are you just an anti-Sony only astroturfer?
Sony's evil shit affected ME PERSONALLY. Any other company tha fucke me over like they did will get the same treatment.
And BTW, Mr. Anonymous Sony executive, YOU are the astroturfer. "Astroturf" is fake grass; an "astroturfer" is a company employee touting that company's wares, or defending that company while pretending to be its customer; a shill. My employer is not Sony's competetitor, and I keep my employer's business out of slashdot discussions and journals anyway.
And unlike you, Mr Asstroturf, I am not anonymous. The only three reasons I can think of that you would want to make that post snonymously when you obviously have a user account (you should have checked the "no karma bonus box, your "score 1 gave you away) is you fear that slashdotters in general know that Sony is evil; I'm not the only one that God damned roiotkit bit, or you work for them, or you're just trolling.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry but what was that again? Sorry, I was working on a program to perform millions of random whois searches via NSI and wasn't paying attention.
What?
I could swear I saw something about this http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/28/1458247">somewhere before....
It wasn't in the firehose this morning, now where could I have seen it...
Racist? What have YOU been smoking, son?
Completely offftopic but it appears I type too fast, as slashdot said "you have 1 new messages" so I clicked. I saw your comment and typed "I'll probably go back to dialup...", hit "enter", and slashdot says "slow down cowboy! It's been fifteen seconds since you hit reply!
I swear, some of the bots slashdot cooks up are fucking brain dead. I should NEVER EVER get a "slowdown cowboy" when responding from the "messages" page! Who coded this kludge anyway? From a useability standpoint this is incredibly shitty design. Someone please fix this! kthxbye
IMO any time anyone fails at the "first post" and mistypes to boot should get modded "funny". Unless they troll it liks so many do.
-mcgrew (latest journal)
Too bad we aren't going to see any speed close to that for personal use, at least not without forking over hefty sacks of bling.
Dude, you need to stay away from the east side of town!
The good news is that Comcast just bought out Insight, the cable company here in Springfield.
The bad news is that slashdot stories about Comcast are all full of horror stories with Comcast the monstrous villian. Yikes!
-mcgrew
Look at the firehose; I just sbmitted a New Scientist story US and UK rival China for government surveillance.I wrote a K5 article a few years ago, Liberty? What liberty? where I pointed out that the Supreme Court has gutted the Bill of Rights. From the Bill of Rights:Apparently your laptop, like your car, isn't an effect and its contents aren't documents.
Next thing you know they'll be demanding you give army soldiers quarter in your home and the SCOTUS will agree to it, just like they agreed that twice your lifespan is "limited" when dealing with copyright.
I fear the only way to get "our" coiuntry back is by armed revolution, which I do NOT want to see. Start the revolution after I'm dead, ok?
Did the RIAA start suing song downloaders while I was too busy reading election news? Because last I checked, they were only suing song uploaders (the infringing content providers).
To the non-nerd there isn't any difference. They have no clue, they install the app and go with the defaults, which are usually "sheare verey media file on the computer, and share what I've downloaded".
And since the RIAA shills continually talk about "stealing music" when they talk of copyright infringement, comparing actual stealing with copyright infringement is, indeed, fair.
And I disagree that "it causes greater damages against the 'victim'." In fact I would argue that it doesn't damage the "victim" at all, but helps helps him. Where it hurts him is when his independant competetion gets downloaded; he has radio to get his music out. Indoes only have the internet.
Studies show that "pirates" spend more money on music than non-infringers. No study except the one paid by the RIAA has shown any loss to the "victims" whatever.
Most people uploading don't even know they're uploading; the PO2P app scanned their drives for media files and automatically added them, and adds your download folder to the "share" list unless you explicitly say NOT to.
So for most people (non-nerds) downloading is the "crime". They don't even know they're uploading!
The issue is "stealin music" which is what the MAFIAA defenders call copyright infringement. If they want to tralk about "stealing music" fine, I'll talk about STEALING music, which garners a far lower penalty than "downloading" (which to most is what they're trying to do when they inadvertantly upload).
That's so, but most people (none of whom are here of course) don't even know they're uploading. And besides, that lying-through-their-teeth RIAA never mentions uploading, only downloading as if downloading is illegal (which it isn't in the US)
...you have a choice of paying a small misdemeanor fine...
Where is that?
In the US. Shoplifting is a misdemeanor in (AFAIK) every state, with a few hondred dollars fine as penalty. My ex wife got caught shoplifting about thirty years ago, it cost me $100. If you can't pay the fine you get community service, if you don't do the community service you go to jail.
She pleaded guilty, and there seems to be no record of her ever having been convicted of a crime. And if you are a minor the case is kept secret, keep your nose clean until age 21 and there's no record.
In come Muslim countries you can lose a hand for shoplifting.
That's exactly what I told them, and their eyes glazed over. So I said "hacker tools" and they started trembling.
We are not normal. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
I personally thought the mainframe would go away about the time networks became commopnplace. I was wrong; I don't see them going away any time soon.
They were saying that about fifteen years or so ago, too; everyone predicted the "thin client" when networks became common. It hasn't happened, and I don't see it happening, at least not any time soon.
Someone needs to reset passwords, set up mail accounts, and more importantly diagnose what's gone wrong when something goes wrong. In a networked environment, the mac or PC is only one part of the IT infrastructure. Is it your server or router that's gone down? Who's changing the backup tapes? Who's doing the patching? Everyone who's been using Microsoft knows you should NEVER apply a patch without testing.
I just don't see it happeneing unless the IT landscape changes drastically, and I don't see it changing drastically in the near future. Ten years from now maybe, if there are drastic changes, but not this year.
And yes, I did once leave my PC on for a wek trying to download one album.
That illustrates something I've been trying to say here for a long time, and that is that downloading isn't that damned convinient. Pirate Bay or Morpheus are good for indie music, but if you're looking for the top 40 the easiest, cheapest, and still legal way is to plug your radio's headphone jack into your sound card, sample a top-40 station and spend five minutes showing EAC where to make the cuts.
If you live in St Louis you can have seven rock albums every Sunday night. Sure, they're FM quality rather than CD quality but if you're ripping to MP3 it doesn't matter anyway.
-mcgrew
You're right. Nobody I know in meatspace knew about it, and when I mentioned a "rootkit" the answer was "huh?" I had to explain what a rootkit was. I finally gave up.
Not every country has the ridiculous fine/damage levels as the US. This means that in some countries, you could get caught without being indebted for the rest of your life.
What annoys and at the same time greatly amuses me is that if you walk into a store and steal a CD and get caught, you have a choice of paying a small misdemeanor fine or can demand a criminal trial where you are presumed innocent until found guilty of a misdemeanor and pay a relatively small fine.
But if you infringe copyright by downloading you will be offered to pay a several thousand dollar settlement or go to civil court where you are presumed giolty and have to pay up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
If we didn't have the best legislators money could buy would our laws be so brain-dead? I've said it before, when they start writing respectable laws I'll start respecting the law.
That hooker I paid last night really sucked (journal coming soon). But she didn't suck as much as Sony.
the vast majority of the world doesn't recognize this odd concept of "imaginary property".
There, fixed that for ya.
From the summary:
To obtain the Sony-BMG tracks, would-be listeners will first have to go to a retail store to buy a Platinum MusicPass, a card containing a secret code, for a suggested retail price of $12.99. Once they have scratched off the card's covering to expose the code, they will be able to download one of just 37 albums available through the service, including Britney Spears' "Blackout" and Barry Manilow's "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies."'"
They're going to pay me $12.95 to scratch off a code and download Britney Spears and Barry Manilow? Well, ok, so long as I don't actually have to LISTEN to them. Bill Gates doesn't have enough money to pay me to do that!
-mcgrew
Latest journal is titled Harry's Adult Day Care
They predicted the death of the IT department twenty years ago when the PC became widespread. It didn't happen, and it won't now.
Back then it actually looked like it might. Now it doesn't. Who's going to replace that hardware router when it fails? Upgrade the equipment?
Perhaps the "IT department" will become for most companies what the post office is to the mail department; i.e. hired out to a specialty firm. But that hardly matters to the geeks in the IT department, they'll still get their paychecks. Their checks will just have a different company's name on them, that's all.
Good luck offshoring hardware replacement, or doing more than a script-based "help" desk.
The VCR didn't kill anything; in fact, it made the hollywood whores a lot of cash! Now, there is an entity that IS to Hollywood what Jack the Ripper was to British whores - the slut who gives herself away because she likes sex. That slut is appropriately called "Star Wreck". I'm sure you've heard of it since you're here. If you haven't seen In The Pirkinning, do so, it's worth your while. It's well made and hilarious, and should have Hollywood shaking in its boots.
True, but that only reinforces my point.
Training businesses to do the right thing is like training a dog
If my dog bites me I don't train it, I have it euthaniuzed. RIAA companies need to be taken to the vet and put down.
Blizzard's World of Warcraft installs monitors and phones home
I don't run WoW. Now that you 've pointed that it does this evil shit I surely won't.
Microsoft's OS installs updates without telling you and God knows what else.
Which is one reason my machine is dual-boot and I've disabled networking on the Windows side. If you've seen many of my comments at slashdot you know I'm no fan of Microsoft.
Pretty much all PC games have some sort of insidious copyright protection
I haven't been into PC gaming for quite some time, and this is one reason why.
Why don't you vent against the state of DRM?
I vent against DRM's very existance. More than that, I ridicule it and the morons who believe in it.
Against proprietary software?
I have nothing against proprietary software. I do have lots against much proprietary software if it's poorly designed, buggy, and I'm forced to use it (like, say, the Microsoft crap I have to use at work).
Or are you just an anti-Sony only astroturfer?
Sony's evil shit affected ME PERSONALLY. Any other company tha fucke me over like they did will get the same treatment.
And BTW, Mr. Anonymous Sony executive, YOU are the astroturfer. "Astroturf" is fake grass; an "astroturfer" is a company employee touting that company's wares, or defending that company while pretending to be its customer; a shill. My employer is not Sony's competetitor, and I keep my employer's business out of slashdot discussions and journals anyway.
And unlike you, Mr Asstroturf, I am not anonymous. The only three reasons I can think of that you would want to make that post snonymously when you obviously have a user account (you should have checked the "no karma bonus box, your "score 1 gave you away) is you fear that slashdotters in general know that Sony is evil; I'm not the only one that God damned roiotkit bit, or you work for them, or you're just trolling.
Shame on you, whichever of the three it is.
I'd like to read the accounts if they're available.