Their crazy little world wouldn't normally have things like Autozone, but it's built on a foundation of pure press releases. Is Autozone running Linux? In the real world, who knows? Their press releases say they are, though, and the treasonous bastards probably stopped buying SCO licenses around the same time. That's good enough for Darl.
Can you be -absolutely certain- that your caching system is compatable with provisions 2, 3, 4, and 5? Or, more accurately, can you be certain that nobody out there will sue you because you they've decided on a different interpretation of the law?
In the US, bandwidth is cheap, and lawyers are expensive. Caching increases your administrative costs (someone has to set up and run the proxy), your technical support costs (because "bypass the proxy" becomes a step in troubleshooting) and your legal risks for marginal bandwidth cost savings.
If your business model depends on it (like Google), it's worth the legal pain. For a Mom & Pop ISP, why bother?
The FSF uses licenses which are openly available to read before you use the product, the RIAA uses legal mauvering and threats after the fact
First of all, remember that most people don't care about licenses. They just want to use what they've purchased in whatever way they see fit. The original poster's point was simply that both licenses try to restrict what a person might assume that they could do with the product.
How do I check the GPL while I'm standing in Best Buy trying to decide whether to buy the latest version of Windows or the latest version of SuSE? Once I open the product, the license is inside, but Best Buy (and most software shops) won't let me return opened software.
When I buy the CD, their software license comes up when I put the CD in my computer, and the store will (usually) take it back if I don't agree to the license terms.
Sure, the GPL is available on the internet IF you know what the GPL is and how to find it, but the music licenses are also on the internet if you know how to find them.
Re:Just irresponsible...
on
Borg Cube Case
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The problem is that in America, we have bullshit laws like the DMCA that make the status of proxies less certain. If you run a proxy and someone downloads illegal material from the web, are you liable for damages? It's an uncertain enough question that nobody wants to set themselves up to be the legal test case.
The problem is that you once saw the thing. I once saw one, too. It attached to ISA slots. I passed it up because I wanted one that used PCI. I've been searching for one ever since.
I think they've disappeared, though there's a rumor that you can extract the wireless card from some desktop wi-fi cards and re-use the adapter.
Also, it's been my experience that most wireless modems are -not- winmodems, but that may be changing.
I find that listening to audio books is just... different. Like most fast readers, I've developed techniques while reading to identify and ignore non-important parts of the story. Audiobooks simply take much longer to "read": you're not going to burn through one in an evening, even if you listen on fast forward. Fast-forwarding through the boring parts doesn't work: it's harder to identify where they end.
The trick is learning to listen differently. With an audio book, you learn to do stuff during the unimportant parts and pause for the important parts. You find yourself thinking "More character description. This is a good time to run the coffee grinder." and "Major confrontation approaching. Put down the Xacto knife and pay attention."
I find it very difficult to drive and listen at the same time unless I'm in rush hour 5MPH traffic.
At the university where I work, we've taken a multi-pronged approach:
-Education. We include a "sharing copyrighted stuff is bad, mmmkay" lecture for all incoming students, and we make anyone caught sharing illegal stuff sit through it again. We tell people about the spyware in most file-sharing apps. We also include "how to turn off uploading and be a leech" in our user documentation because we know they'll do it anyway.
-Per-user bandwidth limits of 1GB/day. We had to do this for other reasons, but it had a significant impact on file-sharing.
-We use a packet shaper to give popular file-sharing ports the lowest priority without setting a hard bandwidth limit. That strikes the users as reasonable (since there's no hard cap), and it keeps the network usable.
-We slap the users hard when an RIAA/MPAA/whoever copyright violation warning comes in. If we get a copyright violation notice, you lose network access for the rest of the semester (and next semester too if it's close to the end of the semester). You can still work from the public labs, but not from your dorm. We do this for one simple reason: the RIAA knows our policy and we have a reputation with them as hard-asses. This means that we can reply to their messages with "problem resolved" and they believe us without pushing the matter, demanding personal info, or taking students to court. The students don't like it until we explain the alternatives to them.
I've heard (FOAF) that in some parts of Mexico, peppers that are too hot for humans (and other mammals) to eat are called "bird peppers", because everything else leaves them alone and the birds happily eat them.
IIRC, birds don't have the type of nerve that processes capsicum oil as "hot".
I had a pet rabbit for a while, so I'm familiar with this problem.
The obvious answer is either "get rid of the cat" or "lock up the cat when you're not watching it".
Assuming you don't want to do that, make an effort to make cables unreachable. Use twist ties and adhesive hooks and loops to get rid of dangling cables or cables lying on the floor. Do your long cable runs along the upper edge of the wall. They make wire baskets that are designed for closet shelves. You can often use them (sometimes with re-bending) on desks to keep wires in a basket that's mostly out of the cat's reach. You can also use plastic containers (tupperware, rubbermaid, that sort of thing) with a few holes drilled in them to contain the rat's nest of cables. Just be sure to allow -some- air to escape.
As far as equipment, think hard about a laptop. There's only a power cable to worry about -- no keyboard, mouse, etc. cables.
Use those ugly cable protectors for everything that's left.
Easy: because he did something. It's easy to talk about "easy" or "uninteresting" projects. It's a lot harder to actually do the work. Linus had to put up with the same bullshit when he proposed extending Minix to work on the 386. Fortunately for all of us, he ignored the critics and got some work done.
He didn't give you all the details. It's actually "Free Tibet with the purchase of any chinese province. May not be combined with any other coupons or promotions."
Sweet! I tried UT 2k3 under Linux as soon as it was available. Got weird error messages that I quickly discovered were common among ATI card owners. More digging led me to discover that it was an X extension that was only available from the nVidia driver and the XiG X server (the higher-end one, at that). It was going to cost me $100+ to play under Linux no matter how I did it. At that point, I threw my hands up in disgust and installed it under Windows.
I'm really glad that they went to the trouble of fixing it. With most companies, they would have gone as far as labelling the port "nvidia card required" and then ignored the problem.
Does the linux version actually work on video cards that don't have the proprietary nVidia drivers?
UT2k3 relied on some X extensions that weren't available from XFree86. If you didn't have either one of the expensive versions of X or an nVidia card with the closed-source kernel module, you were out of luck.
Caution is never a bad thing, of course, but why worry about that? I've downloaded hundreds of gigs via bittorrent, and I have -never- participated in an illegal torrent, as far as I know. I -have- picked up a lot of game demos and linux distributions that I wouldn't have tried otherwise.
Like the article said, only an idiot would use BitTorrent for illegal stuff. Better to use something without a central tracker for anything questionable.
Okay, how many others saw the article, felt bad about never paying for BitTorrent (esp. when he talks about not being able to make ends meet for a while), and sent Bram a few bucks?
That has to be one of the lousiest sites I've seen in a while as far as clarity and self-advertising goes.
I've done remote videoconferencing, including mbone work with vic and vat. I've played a little bit with globus. I can tell that accessgrid uses both, but I can't tell what it -is-.
Their stated goal was to "find a way to prevent the reproduction of U.S. banknotes on home equipment without affecting the quality or the print speed of everything else."
They mentioned in the "recommendations" section of the article things that would very visibly mess up the picture (intentionally adding green banding), to "then either provide a 'selectively deteriorated' print or disable printing of that document completely."
I also saw no mention of page size. The "5 circles" EURion-detection algorithm used in most anti-counterfeiting software is specifically designed to work at any magnification. Google for "EURion" for details.
Those conditions that you neglected to mention make all the difference. From the page referenced above:
There are three main criteria included in the Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, Section 411 of Title 31 that permits color illustrations of U.S. currency. First, the illustration site must be less than three fourths or more than one-and-a-half times the size of the actual currency. The same holds true if you are printing just a part of an item. Secondly, the illustration must be one-sided. Finally, all negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices, and any other thing used in the making of the illustration must be destroyed and/or deleted after their final use. This policy permits the use of currency reproductions in commercial advertisements, provided they conform to the size restrictions.
So it's entirely legal for me to print out a one-sided 11"x17" picture of a $100 bill if I destroy the scan after use. If I use an HP product, though, I'll be stopped.
I don't think anyone's claiming that videophones won't ever be useful for anything. They're claiming that videophones won't be useful for most people most of the time.
There'll always be specialized applications where video technology is useful. Hell, it's probably true that -every- application is useful to someone, somewhere.
The question is whether it'll achieve mainstream acceptance. The answer to that one is probably "no".
What I find most annoying is the delay and spatial difference between eyes and camera with videophones.
Delay: You either have to sync audio with video, giving a half-second (or more) delay to EVERYTHING, or you have to push through a lagged video feed, so it's like watching a badly dubbed movie.
Spatial difference: I like to look people in the eye when I talk to them. Looking at the camera feels unnatural, and pretty much by definition, the camera has to be in a different location than the screen. So, since most people look at the screen, you either get the forehead shot (camera above monitor), the up-the-nose shot (camera below monitor), or occasionally, the cheek shot (camera beside monitor).
We tried a few different approaches. It turned out that the fastest approach was to send someone around with wireless card tools that showed SNR (signal to noise ration). In offices, the SNR at the most likely use location (e.g. the desk) for the "best" AP (access point) was measured. In classrooms, they broke big rooms into smaller chunks, then found the best SNR for each chunk.
An approach using GPS was tried, but it took longer to wait for the GPS to stabalize than it did to enter the data by hand.
An approach using pedometers was also tried, but again, it took longer to enter meta-info than it did to just enter point measurements.
Starbucks in the store goes for around $8 for a 12oz bag. Go to Costco and get 3lb for $8.
The stuff at Costco is "roasted by Starbucks". It's not the same blend of beans. Costco takes a (rather crappy, IMO) bean blend and sends it off to Starbucks for (over-) roasting. Starbucks has some good roasts and some bad roasts, but the Costco stuff is awful.
I can't take instant. At least, I don't like any brand I've tried so far. I take a thermos of coffee with me in the morning.
For the original poster: I'd suggest finding other ways of getting your fix. If you can't put a small coffee maker on your desk, consider bringing a press pot or even a 1-cup filter to place on top of your cup.
Slashdot Mirror
I've always said that we need less grammar nazis.
Their crazy little world wouldn't normally have things like Autozone, but it's built on a foundation of pure press releases. Is Autozone running Linux? In the real world, who knows? Their press releases say they are, though, and the treasonous bastards probably stopped buying SCO licenses around the same time. That's good enough for Darl.
Can you be -absolutely certain- that your caching system is compatable with provisions 2, 3, 4, and 5? Or, more accurately, can you be certain that nobody out there will sue you because you they've decided on a different interpretation of the law?
In the US, bandwidth is cheap, and lawyers are expensive. Caching increases your administrative costs (someone has to set up and run the proxy), your technical support costs (because "bypass the proxy" becomes a step in troubleshooting) and your legal risks for marginal bandwidth cost savings.
If your business model depends on it (like Google), it's worth the legal pain. For a Mom & Pop ISP, why bother?
First of all, remember that most people don't care about licenses. They just want to use what they've purchased in whatever way they see fit. The original poster's point was simply that both licenses try to restrict what a person might assume that they could do with the product.
How do I check the GPL while I'm standing in Best Buy trying to decide whether to buy the latest version of Windows or the latest version of SuSE? Once I open the product, the license is inside, but Best Buy (and most software shops) won't let me return opened software.
When I buy the CD, their software license comes up when I put the CD in my computer, and the store will (usually) take it back if I don't agree to the license terms.
Sure, the GPL is available on the internet IF you know what the GPL is and how to find it, but the music licenses are also on the internet if you know how to find them.
The problem is that in America, we have bullshit laws like the DMCA that make the status of proxies less certain. If you run a proxy and someone downloads illegal material from the web, are you liable for damages? It's an uncertain enough question that nobody wants to set themselves up to be the legal test case.
The problem is that you once saw the thing. I once saw one, too. It attached to ISA slots. I passed it up because I wanted one that used PCI. I've been searching for one ever since.
I think they've disappeared, though there's a rumor that you can extract the wireless card from some desktop wi-fi cards and re-use the adapter.
Also, it's been my experience that most wireless modems are -not- winmodems, but that may be changing.
I find that listening to audio books is just... different. Like most fast readers, I've developed techniques while reading to identify and ignore non-important parts of the story. Audiobooks simply take much longer to "read": you're not going to burn through one in an evening, even if you listen on fast forward. Fast-forwarding through the boring parts doesn't work: it's harder to identify where they end.
The trick is learning to listen differently. With an audio book, you learn to do stuff during the unimportant parts and pause for the important parts. You find yourself thinking "More character description. This is a good time to run the coffee grinder." and "Major confrontation approaching. Put down the Xacto knife and pay attention."
I find it very difficult to drive and listen at the same time unless I'm in rush hour 5MPH traffic.
At the university where I work, we've taken a multi-pronged approach:
-Education. We include a "sharing copyrighted stuff is bad, mmmkay" lecture for all incoming students, and we make anyone caught sharing illegal stuff sit through it again. We tell people about the spyware in most file-sharing apps. We also include "how to turn off uploading and be a leech" in our user documentation because we know they'll do it anyway.
-Per-user bandwidth limits of 1GB/day. We had to do this for other reasons, but it had a significant impact on file-sharing.
-We use a packet shaper to give popular file-sharing ports the lowest priority without setting a hard bandwidth limit. That strikes the users as reasonable (since there's no hard cap), and it keeps the network usable.
-We slap the users hard when an RIAA/MPAA/whoever copyright violation warning comes in. If we get a copyright violation notice, you lose network access for the rest of the semester (and next semester too if it's close to the end of the semester). You can still work from the public labs, but not from your dorm. We do this for one simple reason: the RIAA knows our policy and we have a reputation with them as hard-asses. This means that we can reply to their messages with "problem resolved" and they believe us without pushing the matter, demanding personal info, or taking students to court. The students don't like it until we explain the alternatives to them.
I've heard (FOAF) that in some parts of Mexico, peppers that are too hot for humans (and other mammals) to eat are called "bird peppers", because everything else leaves them alone and the birds happily eat them.
IIRC, birds don't have the type of nerve that processes capsicum oil as "hot".
My grandparents tried this with hot sauce and furniture legs to stop a problem dog. They ended up with a dog that liked hot sauce.
I had a pet rabbit for a while, so I'm familiar with this problem.
The obvious answer is either "get rid of the cat" or "lock up the cat when you're not watching it".
Assuming you don't want to do that, make an effort to make cables unreachable. Use twist ties and adhesive hooks and loops to get rid of dangling cables or cables lying on the floor. Do your long cable runs along the upper edge of the wall. They make wire baskets that are designed for closet shelves. You can often use them (sometimes with re-bending) on desks to keep wires in a basket that's mostly out of the cat's reach. You can also use plastic containers (tupperware, rubbermaid, that sort of thing) with a few holes drilled in them to contain the rat's nest of cables. Just be sure to allow -some- air to escape.
As far as equipment, think hard about a laptop. There's only a power cable to worry about -- no keyboard, mouse, etc. cables.
Use those ugly cable protectors for everything that's left.
The article was referring to Macintosh (or Mac) issues, and I'm wondering why you're capitalizing the word.
Easy: because he did something. It's easy to talk about "easy" or "uninteresting" projects. It's a lot harder to actually do the work. Linus had to put up with the same bullshit when he proposed extending Minix to work on the 386. Fortunately for all of us, he ignored the critics and got some work done.
He didn't give you all the details. It's actually "Free Tibet with the purchase of any chinese province. May not be combined with any other coupons or promotions."
Sweet! I tried UT 2k3 under Linux as soon as it was available. Got weird error messages that I quickly discovered were common among ATI card owners. More digging led me to discover that it was an X extension that was only available from the nVidia driver and the XiG X server (the higher-end one, at that). It was going to cost me $100+ to play under Linux no matter how I did it. At that point, I threw my hands up in disgust and installed it under Windows.
I'm really glad that they went to the trouble of fixing it. With most companies, they would have gone as far as labelling the port "nvidia card required" and then ignored the problem.
Does the linux version actually work on video cards that don't have the proprietary nVidia drivers?
UT2k3 relied on some X extensions that weren't available from XFree86. If you didn't have either one of the expensive versions of X or an nVidia card with the closed-source kernel module, you were out of luck.
Caution is never a bad thing, of course, but why worry about that? I've downloaded hundreds of gigs via bittorrent, and I have -never- participated in an illegal torrent, as far as I know. I -have- picked up a lot of game demos and linux distributions that I wouldn't have tried otherwise.
Like the article said, only an idiot would use BitTorrent for illegal stuff. Better to use something without a central tracker for anything questionable.
Okay, so what is it?
That has to be one of the lousiest sites I've seen in a while as far as clarity and self-advertising goes.
I've done remote videoconferencing, including mbone work with vic and vat. I've played a little bit with globus. I can tell that accessgrid uses both, but I can't tell what it -is-.
I'm curious: how do you figure that?
Their stated goal was to "find a way to prevent the reproduction of U.S. banknotes on home equipment without affecting the quality or the print speed of everything else."
They mentioned in the "recommendations" section of the article things that would very visibly mess up the picture (intentionally adding green banding), to "then either provide a 'selectively deteriorated' print or disable printing of that document completely."
I also saw no mention of page size. The "5 circles" EURion-detection algorithm used in most anti-counterfeiting software is specifically designed to work at any magnification. Google for "EURion" for details.
Those conditions that you neglected to mention make all the difference. From the page referenced above:
So it's entirely legal for me to print out a one-sided 11"x17" picture of a $100 bill if I destroy the scan after use. If I use an HP product, though, I'll be stopped.I don't think anyone's claiming that videophones won't ever be useful for anything. They're claiming that videophones won't be useful for most people most of the time.
There'll always be specialized applications where video technology is useful. Hell, it's probably true that -every- application is useful to someone, somewhere.
The question is whether it'll achieve mainstream acceptance. The answer to that one is probably "no".
What I find most annoying is the delay and spatial difference between eyes and camera with videophones.
Delay: You either have to sync audio with video, giving a half-second (or more) delay to EVERYTHING, or you have to push through a lagged video feed, so it's like watching a badly dubbed movie.
Spatial difference: I like to look people in the eye when I talk to them. Looking at the camera feels unnatural, and pretty much by definition, the camera has to be in a different location than the screen. So, since most people look at the screen, you either get the forehead shot (camera above monitor), the up-the-nose shot (camera below monitor), or occasionally, the cheek shot (camera beside monitor).
I work at a university that's done this.
We tried a few different approaches. It turned out that the fastest approach was to send someone around with wireless card tools that showed SNR (signal to noise ration). In offices, the SNR at the most likely use location (e.g. the desk) for the "best" AP (access point) was measured. In classrooms, they broke big rooms into smaller chunks, then found the best SNR for each chunk.
An approach using GPS was tried, but it took longer to wait for the GPS to stabalize than it did to enter the data by hand.
An approach using pedometers was also tried, but again, it took longer to enter meta-info than it did to just enter point measurements.
The stuff at Costco is "roasted by Starbucks". It's not the same blend of beans. Costco takes a (rather crappy, IMO) bean blend and sends it off to Starbucks for (over-) roasting. Starbucks has some good roasts and some bad roasts, but the Costco stuff is awful.
I can't take instant. At least, I don't like any brand I've tried so far. I take a thermos of coffee with me in the morning.
For the original poster: I'd suggest finding other ways of getting your fix. If you can't put a small coffee maker on your desk, consider bringing a press pot or even a 1-cup filter to place on top of your cup.