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User: aziraphale

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  1. Re:Making Friends on Free as in Books? · · Score: 1

    Those greedy authors guild bastards are called 'authors'. If you want to enjoy the creative fruits of someone else's mind, you'd better consider respecting the people who create books in the first place. Calling them greedy bastards is not a very good way to go about showing your respect...

  2. Root certs on Information Valuation - The Most Buck for the Bits? · · Score: 1

    The private keys that Verisign uses to certify that people on the net are who they say they are are probably the most valuable sets of raw bits out there. As everybody else has said, most other strings of bytes just grant you access to other more valuable things, representing real assets like time and money. But the private keys that go with those root certs would be worth a fair bit of money; if you had them, you could break banks, impersonate financial institutions, distribute signed malware, and render e-commerce non-viable. That's a lot of power encompassed in a few thousand bits...

  3. Re:Good on them on Spoofing P2P Networks as Marketing Plot · · Score: 1

    YOU DON'T GET TO HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!

    You want your musiic to be sold to you, as a product. You want First Sale to apply. You don't want an EULA. You want your fair use copying rights. Fine. but for some reason, you also want to be able to use the thing you've bought beyond the life of the medium. I don't think that's how it works. If your car breaks down, you don't turn round to General Motors and say 'my car broke, I want a free one, exactly the same'. If you lose a copy of a book you bought, you don't gain the right to photocopy sommeone else's copy. You didn't agree to an EULA that might possibly grant you rights like that. You boght an item.

    Choose which side of the First Sale doctrine you're on, and stay there. Don't assume your rights are being infringed every time something you want to do infringes somebody else's rights.

  4. Re:Cell phone spamming on NY AG Sues MonsterHut Over Marketing Spam · · Score: 1

    You get charged to receive text messages?

    What kind of backwards communications hole do you live in?

    Text became a successful business model in Europe on the basis of sender-pays - what sort of lunacy would lead to someone setting up a network where you pay to receive text? Someone incapable of spotting a good business model and copying it?

  5. Just wait.. on X-45 Makes Debut Flight · · Score: 1

    what will people's reaction be when these things start coming back in bodybags?

  6. Re:Legos are expensive on LEGO Mindstorms: The Master's Technique · · Score: 4, Interesting

    LDRAW - or, more specifically, the fabulous MLCAD program - is exactly what you want. Unfortunately, doesn't handle working technic models, but it's still a helluvalot of fun.

    Wasn't there a project to create a data model for describing lego parts in terms of valid connections to other lego parts, so you could build virtual lego models with moving parts?

  7. Re:Salmon of Doubt on Hitchhiker's Guide, Salmon of Doubt · · Score: 1

    Douglas Adams is an interesting author, in this regard. He never finished any of his stories. The first draft of hitchhiker was the radio script. It became a book, then a TV series, then a computer game - each an iteration on the themes and stories he wanted to tell, but it tells me he was never staisfied or happy with what he'd written.

    Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a retelling of a story he first wrote for Doctor Who. Elements of it appear in other places he wrote in the past. He had a finite number of stories which he worked and recombined, but he never finished them.

    For that reason, I think Salmon of Doubt is in a fitting form to be published. doubtless if he had lived, the story would have evolved for another forty years, reforming and reappearing in numerous formats, but it doesn't diminish the value of his earliest drafts.

    If anything, the last minute rush drafts of episodes of the original radio series were some of DNA's finest work, so I wouldn't worry too much about his never having revisited and redrafted it.

  8. Re:drafts on The Myth of the Paperless Office · · Score: 1

    Ever worked with professional proofers? You can't do precise, formal proofing corrections in any electronic package at the speed and efficiency of a professional proofer with a red pen and a printout.

  9. Re:The US government has something like this on 1024-bit RSA keys In Danger Of Compromise? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The non-conspiracy argument that I've heard makes a lot of sense to me, at least. US government believes that E-Commerce is going to be big. US Government notes that US retailers can export lots of goods to other countries if e-commerce is enabled. US Government notes, exports==good. US Government realises, people outside the US need to be able to communicate securely with companies inside the states in order to perform such transactions. US Government allows export of strong crypto, giving US a world lead in e-commerce market.

    Money is almost always a better explanation for the actions of Americans than malice.

  10. Re:Don't forget about the random issue on Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us · · Score: 1

    Hey, if you think humans can generate random numbers, let's play paper-scissors-stone for cash some time. You have to promise to pick at random, though...

    Humans, when asked to pick random numbers, will pick numbers that feel more random. They'll pick numbers that don't have obvious factors (they'll tend not to pick even numbers, and certainly nothing ending in a zero). They'll pick numbers that don't remind them of anything. Human brains attach significance to anything - it's the only way we can make sense of the world.

    I've heard interviews with comedy writers who talk about trying to work out which number sounds 'funniest'. How could 37 be funnier than 36? Who knows - but there's something in human brains that means we can read things like that into simple integer values.

    'Thirty-seven nil. Lads? I'm hurt. But don't panic - it's only half-time.' - Rowan Atkinson

  11. Re:Shakespere was right... on Apple Cuts Off Under-18 Darwin Developer · · Score: 1

    Dunno about where you live, but where I come from there are these things called theatres, where we can go an 'watch' plays. Still, you carry on reading them.

    Have you read 'Star Wars'? I hear it's great...

  12. AsusTek on How Much Are You Paying For A Nameplate? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Got my laptop from Higrade, a UK based reseller of Asus boxes. Asus are well known for the mobos, but less so for their fully assembled products. Take a good look at the specs for the Higrade Notino 2200 (an Asus machine underneath). Basically, the spec is for a PC equivalent of an iBook, at a really competitive price.

  13. Guys, guys, guys... on Attack of the Clones Leaked · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Listen to yourselves. You really think Lucasfilm aren't aware that the majority of the fan community has decided this film will suck? That Lucasfilm doesn't care what the mass of fans thinks about this upcoming film? That Lucasfilm isn't terrified that they won't break box office records opening weekend?

    The ONLY way they can make the impact they want is to do everything in their power to make people see that the film isn't going to be crap. To that end - the latest trailer is an action packed monster that gives away the entire plot; they dragged Harry Knowles into a room and showed him a copy of the rough cut; they are willing to leak the entire plot if it will persuade the average Star Wars punter that he will see Star Wars regain its status as quality entertainment.

    And you know what - I bet it'll have some effect. I'm more inclined to go see the film after the last trailer than I was after 'Forbidden Love'. I'm even more inclined to go see it after reading Harry's review. I'm probably not alone.

    Why assume that Harry hasn't seen the film when it makes perfect sense for Lucasfilm to want him to see it? They just upped their box office receipts...

  14. Re:What I really want to see... on Professional Linux Programming · · Score: 1

    Well, I'm flicking through my copy of PLiP now, (although you could of course find this out by reading the Table of contents given above) - and I find that chapter 2 (that's chapter TWO) covers using CVS. The reason it's covered so early? This is a book about developing open source software. It talks about using make, and even covers issues like documentation and distribution builds. It's all about becoming an effective member of the development community.

  15. Re:The Constitution is not a suicide pact! on Libraries Asked To Destroy Reports, Databases · · Score: 1

    Yes you do. Especially if the theater's on fire. You probably have a moral obligation to tell them.

    Just because the government doesn't want the people sitting in the theater to know it's on fire (just carry on watching the movie, it'll all be okay), doesn't mean they can stop you from telling them. That's the whole point of the freedom of speech guarantees in the US constitution.

    Broader question: if the government knows the theater's on fire, does it have an obligation to tell the people?

  16. Oh, pay attention... on Microsoft Sets Tolls for .Net Developers · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is about the cost of becoming a corporate partner for use of My Services (that's what they now call HailStorm, if you weren't paying attention).

    The actual cost of developing for .NET? That'll be a big fat zero, over and above the cost of your Windows licence (although once the BSD port has happened, that'll wipe out that little overhead.

    Download the .NET platform SDK, and you'll find you get the CLR, the framework libraries, the compilers, and all the command line tools you need to play with .NET.

    And that'll cost you nothing. no-thing.

    Yeah, VS.NET will cost you hard earned cash. So will a Windows server licence or two for hosting. But even MS isn't stupid enough to create a barrier for entry so high that nobody jumps over it at all.

  17. Re:Ratings... on Digital TV Restrictions Coming Soon · · Score: 1
    Ask yourself, why do you want the ability to record what you want, when you want, and watch it however many times you want, and then ask yourself why any self respecting content provider should allow you to do this...

    You might want the ability to do this, but unless there's something in it for the person offering you the service, why should they let you?

  18. Re:Lowering the standards once again. on College Board AP CompSci Exam Will Be In Java · · Score: 1

    Good reason for the switch to Java - you don't have to spend the entire course talking about low level programming concepts - you do object orientation from the start, classes are fundamental from the beginning, and by the end you can program actual applications...

  19. Re:As harsh as this sounds... on Net Faces 10 -Year Olympic Shutout · · Score: 1

    If you make TV companies compete with the internet, then the Olympics wins, because they have more barganing power with the TV companies. But the Internet has to be able to compete - internet broadcasters need to be able to stump up the same kind of wad as TV networks. Thet's not going to be possible until they can pull in big hitting advertisers.

  20. Re:security... on Authentication Via Geographical Location? · · Score: 1

    This is a tad offtopic, but there's some interesting encryption functionality built into MacOS 9 that achieves this functionality on a file-by-file basis...

  21. Re:Impossible in the general case on Authentication Via Geographical Location? · · Score: 1

    You don't have to have it embedded in your skin - you simply have to provide a piece of information only you would know, such as your PGP/GPG private key...

  22. Re:I don't understand on UK Employers May Read Employees' Mail · · Score: 1
    Did it occur to you that it is very unlikely that your company cares.

    You have to give them reason to suspect something. Return from the toilets with a needle sticking out of your arm and see if the company doesn't take an interest in what you do in the toilet cubicles.

  23. Re:How is it different? on UK Employers May Read Employees' Mail · · Score: 1
    Suppose I post mail bombs during my lunch hour. Put my stamp on them, but put the sealed parcels in the company mail basket. Now there are company employees and equipment involved in committing a crime. Does the company have a privilege to stop me doing this? Oh, I think so.

    I would hope that the employees handling that mail were allowed to say 'hmm. This parcel's ticking. Maybe I really ought to tell someone about it'. The personal privacy argument is that it's none of their business, and I should be allowed to get on with it.

    If there's something you don't want your employer to know about, don't use the company's resources. Don't put your letters to the STD clinic in the company mailbasket. And don't use their computers for e-mails they wouldn't approve of.

  24. Re:PGP? on UK Employers May Read Employees' Mail · · Score: 1

    But this is PGP we're referring to - PUBLIC KEY crypto. I can't decrypt the things I encrypted - the person I'm sending them to can decrypt them. It's no good whatsoever coming to me and asking me to decrypt those messages I sent, since _I_ can't.

  25. Why go for ISPs? on BT To Enforce Patent On Hyperlinking? · · Score: 1

    Seems to me browser manufacturers are the ones providing terminal apparatus that takes two blocks of data across a public network, one representing the contents of the document and another containing data about how to display it and links to the location of other documents (we could call it metadata, or perhaps HTML tags), renders them to a screen and allows people to access other documents by using a button on a keyboard (often a two-keyed moving keyboard with a ball in it, which sits next to their alphanumeric one, but a keyboard nonetheless). Why aren't BT after M$ and Netscape (Sun/AOL) for licence fees? Because they have large legal departments?