On top of that, you have to set your privacy options for EACH RENTAL so that your friends and relatives can't see it, instead of being able to set private/public for your entire queue. So anyone who wants privacy has to go in and set each video they add to their queue to private, and it's public in the seconds/minutes it takes a user to do that (yes, some people still use modems, get disconnected, boss walks into the room, etc.)
Does anyone know if making your queue public by default is also a violation of this law? I can't remember if Netflix does this also.
I seriously, seriously tried to sit through that monstrosity the other day without alcohol. I seriously tried but I couldn't get through the Jefferson Starship performance. And are wookiees media junkies? They've gotta be worse than the average American in that respect.
So this is kinda like the about.com guides but with more features? It could be a good reference for the specific perspective of a respected author on a subject, but you can go to scholarly journals for that. I also think wiki-style group editing of one article is probably better than multiple, competing articles on the same subject. A few other cons of this "knol" project spring to mind:
1. I'm not sure about the monetary incentive and how that will work...don't scholars already have enough incentive to publish, publish, publish (whether it's a valuable contribution or not)?
2. I'm worried about the soon-to-accumulate articles on cryptozoology, intelligent design, 9/11 conspiracy, and postmodernism by "experts". At least Wikipedia has group editing to curb this a bit.
3. "knol" is obnoxious. It's bound to be worse than "meme". "Did you get that knol I sent you?", "That book is just packed with knol", "This article is knollerific!", and so on. At least whisper it to Ted Stevens so he can ruin it before it's taken seriously:
"They want to deliver vast amounts of knol over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump knol on. It's not a big knolbucket. It's a series of knoltubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your knol in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of knol, enormous amounts of knol."
Of course, if they actually cite it, they're freakin' insane and should go back and re-learn how to research.
Wonderful description of, and advice for, Thomas L. Friedman. But then again, I guess he didn't really cite it (instead beginning sentences with "according to Wikipedia"). And, if he actually did consult Wikipedia (not just use it to reveal his "Web 2.0 hipness"), he got basic facts wrong about something Wikipedia is very good at describing (F/OSS). Some gems from "The World Is Flat, Release 2.0" that I know/. readers will appreciate:
"In 1991, a student at the University of Helsinki named Linus Torvalds, building off of Stallman's initiative, posted his Linux operating system to compete with the Microsoft Windows operating system..." (p. 105)
"Much like Microsoft Windows, Linux offers a family of operating systems that can be adapted to run on the smallest desktop computers, laptops, PalmPilots, and even wristwatches, all the way up to the largest supercomputers and mainframes." (p. 106)
"Red Hat won't sell you Linux per se -- that's not allowed -- but for a fee it will provide support and customize Linux for your business." (p. 107)
...I won't even get into his analysis of the situation, or the pages he devotes to Microsoft's "perspective" on the topic.
Locking people into the file format is important, even if you only consider what's called "branding" these days ("Could you e-mail me that DOC?", "Now class, I want you to create a PowerPoint", "Is that an Acrobat file?").
Also, how many people do you know that would use OpenOffice even if it couldn't open.doc,.xls, and.ppt? Most of the.docs I get look the same in OpenOffice as MS Office because they haven't been altered by these "features" you mention (they just have some bold, italics, might contain a mix of fonts, maybe hyperlinks). But, every once in a while, I get something that doesn't look right in OpenOffice because it was saved in an MS Office format.
That kind of problem wouldn't occur if the files MS Office spit out were saved in a truly open format. Few people would care if they used OpenOffice or MS Office 2003, people might start preferring OpenOffice, and I doubt my university would be paying for MS Office licenses.
And you better believe a lot of businesses would love to move to OpenOffice if it had 100% compatibility with the Office 2003 formats (it's much easier to move John Q. User from MS Office 2003 --> OpenOffice than from MS Office 2003 --> MS Office 2007). They also wouldn't have to worry about Microsoft dropping an incompatible new format on them at some unknown date that only some people could open. I've already seen many cases of, "I can't open this attachment. What's a.*x file?" If a Microsoft lackey were in the room, his solution would be: "Upgrade to Office 2007!" And file formats don't keep users locked in?
Anyone have an idea how I can do this with MoBlock? I created a/etc/moblock/custom-blocklist.p2p file and threw facebook.com/beacon in there, but I don't think that's gonna work...all the other blocklists are using IP ranges and I don't want to block facebook entirely. Is there any reason to bother with this anyway if I only use Firefox as a web browser and set up AdBlock+?
...and if we're gonna talk about looks, who says Gnome or KDE have to be ugly? I can make my desktop environment look just like OSX or Vista if I want to (I don't), with way cooler effects via Compiz. We've even got stable dock apps now (e.g. avant window navigator).
You get pulled in by the police, if you're really not guilty, the only smart thing to do is cooperate.
Oh yeah, cuz no judicial system ever punishes innocent people or doles out cruel punishment or breaks its own laws. Gimme a break.
What do you even mean by "cooperate" here? The police and judicial system in any country do NOT have your best interests in mind and police WILL trick you if given the opportunity (in fact, are trained in this way to gather information/provoke responses from the accused). Why do you think it's important to have a good lawyer? I doubt whatever that dude did during interrogation accomplished anything, but I don't see anything wrong with it (perhaps it was unwise, but who knows).
Fortunately, there's a good manual on protecting your rights in the U.S. when you get arrested. It's written and backed by activists, who deal with police all the time.
I am absolutely amazed at the comments that seem to be proposing that Time Machine is a reasonable solution for this. As if a backup feature cancels out a bug that makes files go *poof*. If Ubuntu did this (or any large FOSS distro), they wouldn't be able to live it down. And if Microsoft did it, well...it'd be another Monday, I guess.
I fully back this appropriate action, taken in the name of National Security®. I also feel very strongly that all images of children playing with chemistry sets in TV shows, video games, and coloring books be banned or destroyed (by non-chemical means). Dexter, you're on notice.
I do say, my good fellow, you are a gentleman and a worthy adversary. Very worthy indeed! Though your status as a filthy Red is most unfortunate, perhaps a truce is in order on this grand anniversary of your triumph. To many more decades of splendid competition! [loud sip from teacup, pinky finger up]
...please, please, please. This flop was even worse than I expected, and makes my job much easier at work (slowly trying to get more free software in the office). I used to have to explain the advantages of good, free, open software. Nowadays I can just bring up Vista, and suddenly I've got a captive audience.
Slashdot Mirror
..it wasn't a very good joke in the first place, anyway. I mean, Gimli's not even in The Hobbit.
...you insensitive clod :)
On top of that, you have to set your privacy options for EACH RENTAL so that your friends and relatives can't see it, instead of being able to set private/public for your entire queue. So anyone who wants privacy has to go in and set each video they add to their queue to private, and it's public in the seconds/minutes it takes a user to do that (yes, some people still use modems, get disconnected, boss walks into the room, etc.)
Does anyone know if making your queue public by default is also a violation of this law? I can't remember if Netflix does this also.
I seriously, seriously tried to sit through that monstrosity the other day without alcohol. I seriously tried but I couldn't get through the Jefferson Starship performance. And are wookiees media junkies? They've gotta be worse than the average American in that respect.
So this is kinda like the about.com guides but with more features? It could be a good reference for the specific perspective of a respected author on a subject, but you can go to scholarly journals for that. I also think wiki-style group editing of one article is probably better than multiple, competing articles on the same subject. A few other cons of this "knol" project spring to mind:
1. I'm not sure about the monetary incentive and how that will work...don't scholars already have enough incentive to publish, publish, publish (whether it's a valuable contribution or not)?
2. I'm worried about the soon-to-accumulate articles on cryptozoology, intelligent design, 9/11 conspiracy, and postmodernism by "experts". At least Wikipedia has group editing to curb this a bit.
3. "knol" is obnoxious. It's bound to be worse than "meme". "Did you get that knol I sent you?", "That book is just packed with knol", "This article is knollerific!", and so on. At least whisper it to Ted Stevens so he can ruin it before it's taken seriously:
"They want to deliver vast amounts of knol over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump knol on. It's not a big knolbucket. It's a series of knoltubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your knol in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of knol, enormous amounts of knol."
Of course, if they actually cite it, they're freakin' insane and should go back and re-learn how to research.
/. readers will appreciate:
...I won't even get into his analysis of the situation, or the pages he devotes to Microsoft's "perspective" on the topic.
Wonderful description of, and advice for, Thomas L. Friedman. But then again, I guess he didn't really cite it (instead beginning sentences with "according to Wikipedia"). And, if he actually did consult Wikipedia (not just use it to reveal his "Web 2.0 hipness"), he got basic facts wrong about something Wikipedia is very good at describing (F/OSS). Some gems from "The World Is Flat, Release 2.0" that I know
"In 1991, a student at the University of Helsinki named Linus Torvalds, building off of Stallman's initiative, posted his Linux operating system to compete with the Microsoft Windows operating system..." (p. 105)
"Much like Microsoft Windows, Linux offers a family of operating systems that can be adapted to run on the smallest desktop computers, laptops, PalmPilots, and even wristwatches, all the way up to the largest supercomputers and mainframes." (p. 106)
"Red Hat won't sell you Linux per se -- that's not allowed -- but for a fee it will provide support and customize Linux for your business." (p. 107)
Locking people into the file format is important, even if you only consider what's called "branding" these days ("Could you e-mail me that DOC?", "Now class, I want you to create a PowerPoint", "Is that an Acrobat file?").
.doc, .xls, and .ppt? Most of the .docs I get look the same in OpenOffice as MS Office because they haven't been altered by these "features" you mention (they just have some bold, italics, might contain a mix of fonts, maybe hyperlinks). But, every once in a while, I get something that doesn't look right in OpenOffice because it was saved in an MS Office format.
.*x file?" If a Microsoft lackey were in the room, his solution would be: "Upgrade to Office 2007!" And file formats don't keep users locked in?
Also, how many people do you know that would use OpenOffice even if it couldn't open
That kind of problem wouldn't occur if the files MS Office spit out were saved in a truly open format. Few people would care if they used OpenOffice or MS Office 2003, people might start preferring OpenOffice, and I doubt my university would be paying for MS Office licenses.
And you better believe a lot of businesses would love to move to OpenOffice if it had 100% compatibility with the Office 2003 formats (it's much easier to move John Q. User from MS Office 2003 --> OpenOffice than from MS Office 2003 --> MS Office 2007). They also wouldn't have to worry about Microsoft dropping an incompatible new format on them at some unknown date that only some people could open. I've already seen many cases of, "I can't open this attachment. What's a
Anyone have an idea how I can do this with MoBlock? I created a /etc/moblock/custom-blocklist.p2p file and threw facebook.com/beacon in there, but I don't think that's gonna work...all the other blocklists are using IP ranges and I don't want to block facebook entirely. Is there any reason to bother with this anyway if I only use Firefox as a web browser and set up AdBlock+?
Well I happen to like dolphins and hate conquerors. I mean, if you wanna talk about genocide and attacking humans...
...and if we're gonna talk about looks, who says Gnome or KDE have to be ugly? I can make my desktop environment look just like OSX or Vista if I want to (I don't), with way cooler effects via Compiz. We've even got stable dock apps now (e.g. avant window navigator).
If it's more expensive and inferior then it'll be unsuccessful.
So that's why Windows is some fringe OS that nobody uses! Must be the invisible hand of the market...
...if any problems with Firefox 3 will find their way into Iceweasel 3 ;)
...since when do terrorist explosive devices have blinkenlights on them?
You get pulled in by the police, if you're really not guilty, the only smart thing to do is cooperate.
Oh yeah, cuz no judicial system ever punishes innocent people or doles out cruel punishment or breaks its own laws. Gimme a break.
What do you even mean by "cooperate" here? The police and judicial system in any country do NOT have your best interests in mind and police WILL trick you if given the opportunity (in fact, are trained in this way to gather information/provoke responses from the accused). Why do you think it's important to have a good lawyer? I doubt whatever that dude did during interrogation accomplished anything, but I don't see anything wrong with it (perhaps it was unwise, but who knows).
Fortunately, there's a good manual on protecting your rights in the U.S. when you get arrested. It's written and backed by activists, who deal with police all the time.
...the start of a beowulf cluster of robot theme parks.
Wow, I feel qualified to answer this one without even reading TFA summary (TFAS):
No. No it is not.
I am absolutely amazed at the comments that seem to be proposing that Time Machine is a reasonable solution for this. As if a backup feature cancels out a bug that makes files go *poof*. If Ubuntu did this (or any large FOSS distro), they wouldn't be able to live it down. And if Microsoft did it, well...it'd be another Monday, I guess.
I fully back this appropriate action, taken in the name of National Security®. I also feel very strongly that all images of children playing with chemistry sets in TV shows, video games, and coloring books be banned or destroyed (by non-chemical means). Dexter, you're on notice.
...welcome our FOSS-gobbling corporate overlords.
Exaile, anyone?
sudo apt-get a-life
I for one welcome our Gundam-loving, wiki-editing, Japanese Agricultural Ministry overlords.
...while wearing a monocle:
I do say, my good fellow, you are a gentleman and a worthy adversary. Very worthy indeed! Though your status as a filthy Red is most unfortunate, perhaps a truce is in order on this grand anniversary of your triumph. To many more decades of splendid competition! [loud sip from teacup, pinky finger up]
Try again. The letters l, i, n, u, and x are all in there, as well as g, n, u...
...please, please, please. This flop was even worse than I expected, and makes my job much easier at work (slowly trying to get more free software in the office). I used to have to explain the advantages of good, free, open software. Nowadays I can just bring up Vista, and suddenly I've got a captive audience.