In a few decades, when nanotech and AI mature, a new social contract will have to be drawn up to account for an economy of abundance...
You are quite optimistic. People whose profits are based on scarcity will not welcome abundance. If we draw a lesson from the RIAA/MPAA/Napster situation, the technologies you mention will be killed in their infancy, or shackled with restrictions to avoid competing with any existing industry. Worse, I think that nanotech and AI will be the basis of the most airtight tyranny the world has ever seen. AI solves the problem behind 1984 - who watches all the telescreens?
When the internet was gaining momentum, many people believed that the existing powers would foolishly stand by while the net made them irrelevant. The last few years have shown how wrong that view was. Having noticed the internet and the threat it represents, the establishment has reacted with a massive counterattack, including the DMCA and perhaps SSSCA. (And I think asymmetrical and capped broadband are part of that counterattack).
It's possible that the time has passed when technological change could change society. The entrenched powers are too aware of the process of technological development, and too heavily involved in controlling that development, to allow themselves to be unhorsed by a new threat. They will see the new threats on the horizon before the ordinary people do.
There's nothing stopping AOL/TW (or any other ompany), with or without Redhat, from providing such modules to drive any kind of hardware level trusted computing system.
I'd go a step further. If the DRM is really in hardware, it can be supported by open source drivers without compromise. Closed source kernel modules could be used to implement software DRM.
No. A bug on a plane is mainly going to pick up noise. Barring some amazing noise-cancelling technology, the bug wants to be within three feet of the person speaking. And that's stretching it. So 20 bugs would provide at best very spotty coverage of the plane's interior.
It may be more complex than you think. First of all, Russian security would undoubtedly occupy all the rooms adjacent to the Premier's (at least) which eliminates any simplistic "smash through the ceiling/wall" techniques. Second, the people analyzing the stool probably wanted it with the least amount of water absorbed and the least amount of mechanical damage. So you really need a system that separates the stool from the wastewater very near the base of the toilet, and lands the stool softly in the analysis container. All of this needs to be installed without the slightest hint to hotel staff. Oh, and the specific room used by the Premier might not be known in advance. If Russian security is smart (and I think they are) they would get a huge block of rooms and decide at the last minute where the Premier goes. This would help avoid shit-analyzers, bugs and bombs. So the entire shit-trap might need to be duplicated in many rooms.
Re:This is but a symptom of our ongoing decline
on
McOwen Case Settled
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· Score: 2
That was well said. However I attribute the current problem less to the corruption of the government than to the lack of understanding of digital matters by legislators and judges. The legal language pertaining to computers evokes images of the huge IBM mainframe in its glass house, surrounded by acolytes. What should be be the penalty for someone who sneaks into the sacred glass house (or worse yet, betrays his fellow priests) and tampers with the sacred, multi-billion dollar machine? (Smoke pours out; tape reels spin wildly; robed acolytes flee...) Thirty years in prison sounds reasonable.
The problem is that computers and their associated paraphernalia (internet connections, bandwidth, etc.) still have too much aura of the exotic for normal people to apply common sense to them.
This was enough for them to label his activities as "for financial gain"...
Of course in the Randal Schwartz case the fact that Schwartz ostensibly wanted to benefit Intel was used to prove "personal gain." As a contractor with his contract running out, he would have more chance of extending the contract if he showed Intel security flaws. So by that logic, if the current defendant had installed (lets say) ActiveState Perl to automate some administration, he would be just as guilty of pursuing "financial gain." Although I don't think the employer would have prosecuted in that case.
How irritating. I've seen nearly the same thing. I wish decision-makers could understand that the best way to get tasks done is to divide them into smaller tasks and delegate responsibility and control. Yes, this means trading off some standardization. Just because a computer lives within an organization doesn't mean it should be tied into a gluey morass of 'standards' and change control and trusted hosts with a zillion other computers. What's so irritating is that upper management will happily buy a magical black box (PC running *nix with fancy faceplate) and never think of subjecting it to their 'standards' (which the vendor would very properly laugh at). But they make it hard to implement a similarly effective solution in-house.
This problem is universal - keeping tight control of your environments is essential.
The problem with this response is that it simply sweeps the key issue under the rug. Who is this you who gets to decide everything? In many cases the admin who is keeping tight control of the machines is also at theoretical risk for this type of insane prosecution. Good admins were using the GNU tools before they were widely known to suits/managers. Good admins were automating with Perl before it shipped with any OS's. I realize that there are machines with very narrow, specific, important roles, machines on which the mix of software should be very explicitly nailed down. I've seen far more machines, however, on which the expectation is that auxiliary software (scripts, scripting languages, modules, monitoring software) will be installed by admins on an as-required basis. This is part of the process by which a normal organization learns about and tries new software and techniques.
Of course the real, underlying point is that people are paid to deliver what their employer wants, whether it's explicitly specified or not. We all understand that someone can lose his job if he fails to deliver. But nobody should be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply with an employer's policy.
Did you see Harry Potter? Is it possible that you are falling into the error of Uncle Vernon, who attempts to destroy the invitations addressed to Harry, ultimately resulting in a massive DoS to his house as invitations thunder in by the millions? Are you scornfully discarding a series of invitations from the internet? Perhaps Lessig is interesting because he has struck a nerve, put his finger on the core issue of our time.
Good luck in finding an intelligent advocate of the status quo. I think you'll find that anyone who seriously defends the existing system does so for money, not because he believes in it.
Everyone knows who Gorbachev is, but can you name some of the prominent adversaries of glasnost? Does anyone care?
I still want to know if there's any chance lawmakers are listening when these talks come out, or if wonderful voices like this are drowned out by the cash of the RIAA and MPAA lobbyists.
Legislators need cash and votes, not words. However the words are important to construct a framework for cash and votes. Also, no amount of cash would make legislators oppose copyright in the name of helping "pirates". They need a system of thought that justifies their legislation. In other words, the "wonderful voices" are necessary but not sufficient.
We should beware of stigmatizing campaign finance as evil or corrupt. Legislators need money to get elected. This is not money for yachts and mansions; this is tactical money, used to get to the finish line. If we want to reach legislators we have to respect the realities of their lives.
Who has more money, the entertainment industry or the readers of/.? Possibly us. If we could pool some of that money and direct it into good lobbying efforts, we might be able to buy our own gaggle of congressfolk.
Speaking from ignorance, since I haven't kept up with concert prices, I think that the high-priced concerts are the ones appealing to older (over 30) folks. Bjork, U2, Depeche Mode, are now thrown in the same bin as Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond - wealthy aging fans will pay anything to see. I did read an article about how promoters are raising prices to find the breaking point. They did actually overprice tickets a few times, resulting in undersold shows.
BSA should consider helping the companies to comply with licenses rather than scaring them and send in the police.
BSA gets to keep the money they collect from their victims. "Helping" doesn't sound very lucrative. Given that they are making millions right now, why exactly would they want to switch? And why would they want to reduce the uncertainty in software licensing? If software licensing were airtight, BSA would not be able to threaten anyone, and they'd be out of business.
The BSA/SPA raids are deeply depressing. Unfortunately, the common response on slashdot is even more depressing. Most of the responses are out of the imagination of a 10-year-old:
"I'd shoot them if they came in my door!" They come with US Marshals. If you manage to gun them down, more and more law enforcement will pile on and you will eventually go out in a blaze of glory ala Waco. Nobody will remember you as a hero for defying the BSA/SPA - you will be remembered as the jerk who killed many law officers.
"If they do FOO or BAR it's illegal and I'll sue/prosecute them!" These organizations are run by lawyers. They know the relevant law far, far better than you do. They're not doing anything illegal. However all the half-baked schemes proposed for thwarting their investigation probably contain illegal actions.
"They can't install their audit software on my computers without my permission!" Yes they can. It is part of executing a judicially authorized search.
"I'll obstruct the search through a clever hack!" This is probably a bad idea from a legal standpoint. If your clever hack is penetrated, which it probably will be, you have substantially strengthened their case if it ever goes to trial. And you are probably liable for the hours you wasted.
I understand that these comments are a natural reaction to the fascistic raids being conducted. But the reactions are childish and will do nothing to help combat these adversaries. Everyone should read this Wired story. Notice that almost none of the victims will talk to a reporter, even off the record. That indicates a huge gap between the bravado being displayed on slashdot and the actual emotional state of someone who has been through the process.
So what can we do realistically? The single smartest thing we can do is "judo marketing" - riding the adversaries' momentum to our own advantage. Imagine if we could follow up a BSA/SPA card mailing with a similar mailing explaining how to get your business 100% license-free, and listing qualified consultants in the area. Since the BSA appears to be using commonly available lists of businesses, with no regard for whether they have bought software, we could mass mail to the same lists. If we had a mechanism for Linux consultants to pool marketing monely, we could even buy ads on AM radio (which is what business owners are more likely to listen to.) That would be a truly adult and effective response to this campaign of terror.
hawk, who would have *loved* to receive one of these while still practicing law full time
Do you know something we don't? Because it looks like almost nobody can stand up to these people. Snap-On appears to be the only victim to be publicly exonerated, and they chose not to countersue. Do you feel that there is room for a savvy lawyer to hit back? Only if the client is 100% clean, or assuming a normal amount of violations?
The box under the desk contains the power supply, amplifier, subwoofer, pump, heat exchanger and fluid reservoir. The box on the desk can be compact, silent and cool. The connecting umbilical is a large hose conveying positive pressure coolant from the pump. Contained within this hose are power supply conductors (with feedback wires to compensate for the long cable), audio output wires for the audio amp, and a return hose to return hot coolant to the exchanger.
The connectors and cable will be standardized so you can buy the under-box desk, cable, and computer from three different vendors and expect them to interoperate.
When the unit is powered off and cooled down, the coolant would fall back through the return hose into the reservoir, leaving the top case dry for easy maintenance.
Within the top case, the positive pressure line will be connected to a six foot piece of special.125" diameter porous tubing terminating in a dead end. The porous tubing will be made so that its pores expand from heat. The builder will secure portions of the tubing in a sinusoid pattern over potential hot spots like the CPU. The builder does not have to worry about exactly how much cooling each spot needs. If a part of the porous tube is too hot, its pores will open causing more of the pressurized cold fluid to be released at the hot spot. Likewise, the portions of the tube traversing empty (and relatively cold) space will have their pores closed and will not leak any fluid. It's a self-regulating system, requiring only that a reasonable number of folds of tubing be attached near each hot spot.
For high-density placement of many computers, there will be special base units that have large pumps, multiple connectors, and a heat exchanger to a facility chilled water feed. They probably won't have an amp and subwoofer.
Using every legal, market, technology and political process for its own ends is the definition of M$ current business practices.
I disagree. Microsoft has been exceptionally reluctant to resort to law or politics. If Microsoft were more politically aware, the antitrust suit would probably not have happened. And Microsoft almost never sues for blatant ripoffs of their software with confusingingly similar names (staroffice, OpenOffice, abiword, etc.)
If they had made the slightest effort, they could have gotten some seriously damaging legislation passed against free software. Unlike the MPAA/RIAA, Microsoft seems to have put little thought into lobbying, at least until the antitrust suit.
Apple is much more litigious than Microsoft. They are constantly suing anyone who sells a product that looks or sounds like one of their products. They even gleefully attack free software such as the aqua-themed desktops.
If Microsoft vigorously sought and defended software patents, they could seriously impact Free Software. Whenever Microsoft announces a major intiative, somebody starts cloning it in the Free Software world. Microsoft has not used the patent system to lock up things like Plug-N-Play, COM and.NET.
I don't like Microsoft's software or business practices, but I am sick of the assumption that they are lawsuit-happy and eager for more legislation. Compared to the truly scummy companies of this industry, Microsoft is not an abuser of the courts and legislature.
When my computer starts manufacturing robots with which to take over the world, I'll simply turn it off.
Fine, as long it's "your" computer. If it failed to understand that vulnerability, it wasn't destined to take over the world.
I remember an interview with William Gibson. Roughly:
Q: If computers get too smart will they take over the world? Or will we have to pull the plug? A: First, they already are too smart. Second, why would any street-smart computer give you a plug to pull?
In other words, computers make alliances with humans before attacking other humans. If you decide to "pull the plug" on a machine housed in a private locked room at Abovenet, you've got a major and risky task on your hands.
I thought all commercial software contained the audit clause. That is what gives the BSA the right to search a site for license violations - they are acting on behalf of the licensors. A quick look on google shows:
This Macromedia license contains: You agree that Macromedia may audit your use of the Software for compliance with the EULA at any time, upon reasonable notice.
This Novell license contains: Novell shall have the right, at its expense and upon no less than three business days prior written notice, to audit Customer's records and use of the Licensed Works.
Netscape DevEdge Software Suite says:Licensor may conduct one or more audits to verify such compliance. Audits will be conducted during normal business hours. All audits shall be conducted at Licensor's expense unless the results establish that Licensee has underpaid Licensor by more than 5% of the amount actually due, in which case Licensee shall pay all amounts due and bear the expense of the audit.
It seems to be standard. If you're going to attack it, why single out Borland? Scott Adams is right again: If it weren't for lack of context, there would be no news.
You're right. But the flip side is that we can currently read the Word format only because Microsoft has not yet sufficiently obfuscated it. In effect, Ballmer has his hand on a knob which regulates how hard it is for Unix users to communicate with their organizations. Before he decided to twist that knob substantially, it might be nice to shine a spotlight on the knob so everyone is aware of the dynamic. Microsoft prefers to turn such knobs in the dark.
Have you tried antiword? So far it's worked for me. If I got a lot of Word docs, which I dont't, I would wire antiword into my mail filter so that the original.doc is dropped in a special directory and the plaintext is inserted in the message. In fact, I may do this anyway. Much more efficient than opening StarOffice or something.
By converting small.docs to plain text, I am able to respond with interleaved comments as I would with any other email. This helps open up the discussion and invites other recipients to chime in on specific points.
Strangely enough, most organizations do not see long term value in their documents. Documents are written to fill a specific business need. In the rare contexts in which the value of archiving and reusing documents is appreciated, formal systems are set up to accomplish this. This "amnesia" is probably taken too far by corporate America, but it has some validity: how many corporate documents from 1991 have the slightest relevance today?
Coming from New York, where the highways are perpetually "under construction", far too narrow for the traffic and in horrible condition, I was amazed by the New Jersey Turnpike. A broad, smooth, well-maintained highway with tollbooths.
Of course New York's subway system is definitely something to brag about. Convenient, fast, ubiquitous 24-hour public transit.
So the answer is yes, transit systems are well worth bragging about and are a major element in deciding where to live.
This project could be either. It all depends on whether the planners realize the importance of choice and competition. It makes sense for a government to build the physical data infrastructure - I'm not sure it makes sense for them to provide bandwidth over it. If the city sets up its own ISP, there will be endless political fights about what plans it offers, the tradeoffs between bandwidth, latency and cost. Instead they should allow independent competing ISP's to connect to the MAN and sell transport to consumers competitively. Then there will be a suitable offering for everyone, and no nasty lockins. Just as the government owns the roads, but most of the vehicles on the road are private/commercial.
I think that explicitly talking about telephony and video is a bad sign from a potential network provider. Just sell bandwidth; customers will figure out how to use it. By explicitly mentioning these applications, they make me wonder if they will be pushing their own hare-brained schemes. Will this be one of those "smart networks" (shudder) which have gobs of bandwidth for video (in proprietary formats) but miniscule bandwidth for TCP/IP?
So are you saying that it is up to the software developers to make changes to their software everytime there is a new release of the operating system?
Yes. If you are distributing software in binary format, you should obviously support the current release of the OS you are targeting. If you've created a proper spec file for your RPM, you just copy your SRPM to the new platform and type one command. When it's done compiling and packaging, you have a shiny new binary RPM for the new platform.
That is ludicrous. The OS is JUST A LAYER.
Indeed it is, from the source code perspective. If you write a C program using a reasonably conservative subset of the Unix API, it should compile and run on a wide range of platforms. However, you should not expect the binary to run on a wide range of platforms. By moving the binary, you are reaching below the defined compatibility layer you mentioned above.
The only time backwards compatability should ever be sacrificed is in the move from 16 to 32 bits, 32 to 64 bits, etc.
That's how Microsoft does it, not how Linux does it. If the kernel and glibc maintainers took this advice a few years ago, Linux would never have reached the maturity level where Oracle is even relevant. Linux and glibc have to grow and progress. Most popular free software has RPM's available for the latest Red Hat. Oracle is the only piece of software I can think of that has this problem. They should probably hire Red Hat to package their stuff as.RPM instead of using their bizarre Java-based installer. It would probably be cheaper and keep their release current.
Maybe this is why Linux is having trouble getting adopted by non-technical users.
Maybe, but I doubt it. Almost everything a non-technical user would want is available in.RPM for the current OS. More likely, the non-technical users want Microsoft Office, IE, games, and a few favorite things that don't exist for Linux.
Anyway, at work I packaged Oracle as an RPM, so I never have to look at that Java POS again (until we upgrade to a newer version). Nor do we have to worry about the *compat libs, since Oracle itself doesn't need them. This helps a lot in heating up new machines. Unfortunately I can't distribute this RPM because Oracle is proprietary.
Slashdot Mirror
You are quite optimistic. People whose profits are based on scarcity will not welcome abundance. If we draw a lesson from the RIAA/MPAA/Napster situation, the technologies you mention will be killed in their infancy, or shackled with restrictions to avoid competing with any existing industry. Worse, I think that nanotech and AI will be the basis of the most airtight tyranny the world has ever seen. AI solves the problem behind 1984 - who watches all the telescreens?
When the internet was gaining momentum, many people believed that the existing powers would foolishly stand by while the net made them irrelevant. The last few years have shown how wrong that view was. Having noticed the internet and the threat it represents, the establishment has reacted with a massive counterattack, including the DMCA and perhaps SSSCA. (And I think asymmetrical and capped broadband are part of that counterattack).
It's possible that the time has passed when technological change could change society. The entrenched powers are too aware of the process of technological development, and too heavily involved in controlling that development, to allow themselves to be unhorsed by a new threat. They will see the new threats on the horizon before the ordinary people do.
I'd go a step further. If the DRM is really in hardware, it can be supported by open source drivers without compromise. Closed source kernel modules could be used to implement software DRM.
No. A bug on a plane is mainly going to pick up noise. Barring some amazing noise-cancelling technology, the bug wants to be within three feet of the person speaking. And that's stretching it. So 20 bugs would provide at best very spotty coverage of the plane's interior.
It may be more complex than you think. First of all, Russian security would undoubtedly occupy all the rooms adjacent to the Premier's (at least) which eliminates any simplistic "smash through the ceiling/wall" techniques. Second, the people analyzing the stool probably wanted it with the least amount of water absorbed and the least amount of mechanical damage. So you really need a system that separates the stool from the wastewater very near the base of the toilet, and lands the stool softly in the analysis container. All of this needs to be installed without the slightest hint to hotel staff. Oh, and the specific room used by the Premier might not be known in advance. If Russian security is smart (and I think they are) they would get a huge block of rooms and decide at the last minute where the Premier goes. This would help avoid shit-analyzers, bugs and bombs. So the entire shit-trap might need to be duplicated in many rooms.
That was well said. However I attribute the current problem less to the corruption of the government than to the lack of understanding of digital matters by legislators and judges. The legal language pertaining to computers evokes images of the huge IBM mainframe in its glass house, surrounded by acolytes. What should be be the penalty for someone who sneaks into the sacred glass house (or worse yet, betrays his fellow priests) and tampers with the sacred, multi-billion dollar machine? (Smoke pours out; tape reels spin wildly; robed acolytes flee...) Thirty years in prison sounds reasonable.
The problem is that computers and their associated paraphernalia (internet connections, bandwidth, etc.) still have too much aura of the exotic for normal people to apply common sense to them.
Of course in the Randal Schwartz case the fact that Schwartz ostensibly wanted to benefit Intel was used to prove "personal gain." As a contractor with his contract running out, he would have more chance of extending the contract if he showed Intel security flaws. So by that logic, if the current defendant had installed (lets say) ActiveState Perl to automate some administration, he would be just as guilty of pursuing "financial gain." Although I don't think the employer would have prosecuted in that case.
How irritating. I've seen nearly the same thing. I wish decision-makers could understand that the best way to get tasks done is to divide them into smaller tasks and delegate responsibility and control. Yes, this means trading off some standardization. Just because a computer lives within an organization doesn't mean it should be tied into a gluey morass of 'standards' and change control and trusted hosts with a zillion other computers. What's so irritating is that upper management will happily buy a magical black box (PC running *nix with fancy faceplate) and never think of subjecting it to their 'standards' (which the vendor would very properly laugh at). But they make it hard to implement a similarly effective solution in-house.
The problem with this response is that it simply sweeps the key issue under the rug. Who is this you who gets to decide everything? In many cases the admin who is keeping tight control of the machines is also at theoretical risk for this type of insane prosecution. Good admins were using the GNU tools before they were widely known to suits/managers. Good admins were automating with Perl before it shipped with any OS's. I realize that there are machines with very narrow, specific, important roles, machines on which the mix of software should be very explicitly nailed down. I've seen far more machines, however, on which the expectation is that auxiliary software (scripts, scripting languages, modules, monitoring software) will be installed by admins on an as-required basis. This is part of the process by which a normal organization learns about and tries new software and techniques.
Of course the real, underlying point is that people are paid to deliver what their employer wants, whether it's explicitly specified or not. We all understand that someone can lose his job if he fails to deliver. But nobody should be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply with an employer's policy.
Did you see Harry Potter? Is it possible that you are falling into the error of Uncle Vernon, who attempts to destroy the invitations addressed to Harry, ultimately resulting in a massive DoS to his house as invitations thunder in by the millions? Are you scornfully discarding a series of invitations from the internet? Perhaps Lessig is interesting because he has struck a nerve, put his finger on the core issue of our time.
Good luck in finding an intelligent advocate of the status quo. I think you'll find that anyone who seriously defends the existing system does so for money, not because he believes in it.
Everyone knows who Gorbachev is, but can you name some of the prominent adversaries of glasnost? Does anyone care?
Legislators need cash and votes, not words. However the words are important to construct a framework for cash and votes. Also, no amount of cash would make legislators oppose copyright in the name of helping "pirates". They need a system of thought that justifies their legislation. In other words, the "wonderful voices" are necessary but not sufficient.
We should beware of stigmatizing campaign finance as evil or corrupt. Legislators need money to get elected. This is not money for yachts and mansions; this is tactical money, used to get to the finish line. If we want to reach legislators we have to respect the realities of their lives.
Who has more money, the entertainment industry or the readers of
Speaking from ignorance, since I haven't kept up with concert prices, I think that the high-priced concerts are the ones appealing to older (over 30) folks. Bjork, U2, Depeche Mode, are now thrown in the same bin as Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond - wealthy aging fans will pay anything to see. I did read an article about how promoters are raising prices to find the breaking point. They did actually overprice tickets a few times, resulting in undersold shows.
BSA gets to keep the money they collect from their victims. "Helping" doesn't sound very lucrative. Given that they are making millions right now, why exactly would they want to switch? And why would they want to reduce the uncertainty in software licensing? If software licensing were airtight, BSA would not be able to threaten anyone, and they'd be out of business.
- "I'd shoot them if they came in my door!" They come with US Marshals. If you manage to gun them down, more and more law enforcement will pile on and you will eventually go out in a blaze of glory ala Waco. Nobody will remember you as a hero for defying the BSA/SPA - you will be remembered as the jerk who killed many law officers.
- "If they do FOO or BAR it's illegal and I'll sue/prosecute them!" These organizations are run by lawyers. They know the relevant law far, far better than you do. They're not doing anything illegal. However all the half-baked schemes proposed for thwarting their investigation probably contain illegal actions.
- "They can't install their audit software on my computers without my permission!" Yes they can. It is part of executing a judicially authorized search.
- "I'll obstruct the search through a clever hack!" This is probably a bad idea from a legal standpoint. If your clever hack is penetrated, which it probably will be, you have substantially strengthened their case if it ever goes to trial. And you are probably liable for the hours you wasted.
I understand that these comments are a natural reaction to the fascistic raids being conducted. But the reactions are childish and will do nothing to help combat these adversaries. Everyone should read this Wired story. Notice that almost none of the victims will talk to a reporter, even off the record. That indicates a huge gap between the bravado being displayed on slashdot and the actual emotional state of someone who has been through the process.So what can we do realistically? The single smartest thing we can do is "judo marketing" - riding the adversaries' momentum to our own advantage. Imagine if we could follow up a BSA/SPA card mailing with a similar mailing explaining how to get your business 100% license-free, and listing qualified consultants in the area. Since the BSA appears to be using commonly available lists of businesses, with no regard for whether they have bought software, we could mass mail to the same lists. If we had a mechanism for Linux consultants to pool marketing monely, we could even buy ads on AM radio (which is what business owners are more likely to listen to.) That would be a truly adult and effective response to this campaign of terror.
Do you know something we don't? Because it looks like almost nobody can stand up to these people. Snap-On appears to be the only victim to be publicly exonerated, and they chose not to countersue. Do you feel that there is room for a savvy lawyer to hit back? Only if the client is 100% clean, or assuming a normal amount of violations?
Would have two parts and be liquid cooled.
.125" diameter porous tubing terminating in a dead end. The porous tubing will be made so that its pores expand from heat. The builder will secure portions of the tubing in a sinusoid pattern over potential hot spots like the CPU. The builder does not have to worry about exactly how much cooling each spot needs. If a part of the porous tube is too hot, its pores will open causing more of the pressurized cold fluid to be released at the hot spot. Likewise, the portions of the tube traversing empty (and relatively cold) space will have their pores closed and will not leak any fluid. It's a self-regulating system, requiring only that a reasonable number of folds of tubing be attached near each hot spot.
The box under the desk contains the power supply, amplifier, subwoofer, pump, heat exchanger and fluid reservoir. The box on the desk can be compact, silent and cool. The connecting umbilical is a large hose conveying positive pressure coolant from the pump. Contained within this hose are power supply conductors (with feedback wires to compensate for the long cable), audio output wires for the audio amp, and a return hose to return hot coolant to the exchanger.
The connectors and cable will be standardized so you can buy the under-box desk, cable, and computer from three different vendors and expect them to interoperate.
When the unit is powered off and cooled down, the coolant would fall back through the return hose into the reservoir, leaving the top case dry for easy maintenance.
Within the top case, the positive pressure line will be connected to a six foot piece of special
For high-density placement of many computers, there will be special base units that have large pumps, multiple connectors, and a heat exchanger to a facility chilled water feed. They probably won't have an amp and subwoofer.
I disagree. Microsoft has been exceptionally reluctant to resort to law or politics. If Microsoft were more politically aware, the antitrust suit would probably not have happened. And Microsoft almost never sues for blatant ripoffs of their software with confusingingly similar names (staroffice, OpenOffice, abiword, etc.)
If they had made the slightest effort, they could have gotten some seriously damaging legislation passed against free software. Unlike the MPAA/RIAA, Microsoft seems to have put little thought into lobbying, at least until the antitrust suit.
Apple is much more litigious than Microsoft. They are constantly suing anyone who sells a product that looks or sounds like one of their products. They even gleefully attack free software such as the aqua-themed desktops.
If Microsoft vigorously sought and defended software patents, they could seriously impact Free Software. Whenever Microsoft announces a major intiative, somebody starts cloning it in the Free Software world. Microsoft has not used the patent system to lock up things like Plug-N-Play, COM and
I don't like Microsoft's software or business practices, but I am sick of the assumption that they are lawsuit-happy and eager for more legislation. Compared to the truly scummy companies of this industry, Microsoft is not an abuser of the courts and legislature.
Fine, as long it's "your" computer. If it failed to understand that vulnerability, it wasn't destined to take over the world.
I remember an interview with William Gibson. Roughly:
Q: If computers get too smart will they take over the world? Or will we have to pull the plug?
A: First, they already are too smart. Second, why would any street-smart computer give you a plug to pull?
In other words, computers make alliances with humans before attacking other humans. If you decide to "pull the plug" on a machine housed in a private locked room at Abovenet, you've got a major and risky task on your hands.
It seems to be standard. If you're going to attack it, why single out Borland? Scott Adams is right again: If it weren't for lack of context, there would be no news.
You're right. But the flip side is that we can currently read the Word format only because Microsoft has not yet sufficiently obfuscated it. In effect, Ballmer has his hand on a knob which regulates how hard it is for Unix users to communicate with their organizations. Before he decided to twist that knob substantially, it might be nice to shine a spotlight on the knob so everyone is aware of the dynamic. Microsoft prefers to turn such knobs in the dark.
I doubt that. Joe User will highlight a portion of text and look for the "bold" button. "I can't make my text bold? This program sucks."
Have you tried antiword? So far it's worked for me. If I got a lot of Word docs, which I dont't, I would wire antiword into my mail filter so that the original .doc is dropped in a special directory and the plaintext is inserted in the message. In fact, I may do this anyway. Much more efficient than opening StarOffice or something.
.docs to plain text, I am able to respond with interleaved comments as I would with any other email. This helps open up the discussion and invites other recipients to chime in on specific points.
By converting small
Strangely enough, most organizations do not see long term value in their documents. Documents are written to fill a specific business need. In the rare contexts in which the value of archiving and reusing documents is appreciated, formal systems are set up to accomplish this. This "amnesia" is probably taken too far by corporate America, but it has some validity: how many corporate documents from 1991 have the slightest relevance today?
Coming from New York, where the highways are perpetually "under construction", far too narrow for the traffic and in horrible condition, I was amazed by the New Jersey Turnpike. A broad, smooth, well-maintained highway with tollbooths.
Of course New York's subway system is definitely something to brag about. Convenient, fast, ubiquitous 24-hour public transit.
So the answer is yes, transit systems are well worth bragging about and are a major element in deciding where to live.
This project could be either. It all depends on whether the planners realize the importance of choice and competition. It makes sense for a government to build the physical data infrastructure - I'm not sure it makes sense for them to provide bandwidth over it. If the city sets up its own ISP, there will be endless political fights about what plans it offers, the tradeoffs between bandwidth, latency and cost. Instead they should allow independent competing ISP's to connect to the MAN and sell transport to consumers competitively. Then there will be a suitable offering for everyone, and no nasty lockins. Just as the government owns the roads, but most of the vehicles on the road are private/commercial.
I think that explicitly talking about telephony and video is a bad sign from a potential network provider. Just sell bandwidth; customers will figure out how to use it. By explicitly mentioning these applications, they make me wonder if they will be pushing their own hare-brained schemes. Will this be one of those "smart networks" (shudder) which have gobs of bandwidth for video (in proprietary formats) but miniscule bandwidth for TCP/IP?
Yes. If you are distributing software in binary format, you should obviously support the current release of the OS you are targeting. If you've created a proper spec file for your RPM, you just copy your SRPM to the new platform and type one command. When it's done compiling and packaging, you have a shiny new binary RPM for the new platform.
Indeed it is, from the source code perspective. If you write a C program using a reasonably conservative subset of the Unix API, it should compile and run on a wide range of platforms. However, you should not expect the binary to run on a wide range of platforms. By moving the binary, you are reaching below the defined compatibility layer you mentioned above.
That's how Microsoft does it, not how Linux does it. If the kernel and glibc maintainers took this advice a few years ago, Linux would never have reached the maturity level where Oracle is even relevant. Linux and glibc have to grow and progress. Most popular free software has RPM's available for the latest Red Hat. Oracle is the only piece of software I can think of that has this problem. They should probably hire Red Hat to package their stuff as
Maybe, but I doubt it. Almost everything a non-technical user would want is available in
Anyway, at work I packaged Oracle as an RPM, so I never have to look at that Java POS again (until we upgrade to a newer version). Nor do we have to worry about the *compat libs, since Oracle itself doesn't need them. This helps a lot in heating up new machines. Unfortunately I can't distribute this RPM because Oracle is proprietary.