This is the thing that bugs me about this type of "study"... They have two years (so they claim) worth of data that they ASSUME is due to the CRT, and nothing else... But my experience has been that people who look at a CRT all day also tend to have other things in common. They (generally) also sit all day. They (generally) sit in close proximity to a computer. Heck, they even (usually) work with those new-fangled devices, called a keyboard and a mouse.;) But none of those are to blame for what they've seen, it MUST be the CRT. But do they have "control" cases, where people are sitting at a desk, with a computer (and mouse and keyboard) that DOESN'T have a monitor (a CRT)? Not terribly likely.
This is the thing that bugs me about this type of "reader"... They have several minutes (so I assume) to read an article posted to Slashdot, and rather than actually do so, ASSUME the article is talking about what's in the summary only, and nothing else... But my experience has been that people who look at an article on/. and actually read it tend to know that it's got nothing to do with the summary.
"Every time you users download something, reconfigure something, whatever, you dick up your IP settings and make me spend $50 per customer service telephone call to fix it."
By loading this software, I ensure that my configuration will probably stay on top of all the nonsense you put in there, and I can actually have a clue what is going on when you manage to screw it up still.
The alternative is $500/month broadband (minimum...), or zero support
Umm, how does installing commonly-used software 'dick up IP settings'? Other than proxy settings, what are you protecting? Using software to insure that your settings stay on top is counter-competitive, as when/if the customer decides to switch to another provider, they may have a tough time of it. Think AOL, and how it keeps email and favorites separate from the system, so that when a user switches they have to figure out how to get their favorites that they made during AOL use to transfer across since those only show up if they've loaded the AOL software first. There's also a local phone company here that has a software disk which I loathe. Their software (which constantly resets "Always dial") will not uninstall unless the disk can be found and put in the drive, so it is not always possible to remove it since the disk has long since been lost. You can get around it if you know what to do, but that's the annoying part, you have to know what to do, and not simply do what should be obvious.
I install cable internet in people's homes, and there are only certain bits of software that we might install depending on the situation: If their IE is only version 4, I upgrade them to 5.5 SP2 (I don't believe they benefit from having 6), and throw on the latest cumulative patch behind it. I am to ensure that they have a workable version of Realplayer and Quicktime. I say 'ugh' to Realplayer but it's not my fault that so many misguided web operators choose to put their content in that format. When I install RP I make sure to disable their stupid tray icon. If I notice that gohip, CommonName, Netsetter, or other beasties are present, I remove them, and explain to the customer why this is happening. I do some other extras that are not required of me, like checking out their system for scary open ports (like 27374, etc), showing them windowsupdate.com, helping them install Zone Alarm if they are concerned about having a firewall, etc..
If I was required to install spyware/you're-staying-with-us-no-matter-whatware, I would disobey, or quit, or something. But that software would not get installed on any of my runs. We don't have such software, and do not seem to be in danger of having to charge $500/month. Plus our phone support is 24/7, hold times generally around 2 minutes. And each customer installed does not make the company any money till after about a month and a half of service because I get paid first.
Shaw does have the ability to track usage, down to a specific day, and they do in fact send emails to customers that exceed what they would expect from a business subscriber. The residential account does not have a limit per se, but the entry-level business package is 15GB down, 2GB up per month. My gf got one for sharing out all her music for a month, and generated 60GB of upstream! Nothing happened basically, they sent her an e-mail, reminded her of the AUP (respect thy neighbor) and asked her to stop sharing so much.
...but it would take this thing all day to vacuum my house which measures in at about 2000 sq. ft,
So, if you've got a nice big house you've got the bucks to buy several of them, and the invisible walls to keep them out of each others' territory. Of course when you come home there's these hubcaps scattered all over your house, but hey, the rest is pretty clean!
I would assume they're worried that it will set a precedent for people who sell any kind of mods in Australia. If the PS2 guy gets off, how can MS stop the evil guy who does it with their precious Xbox?;)
No, if I have a PS2, and can mod it to play XBox games, then I have no need to buy an XBox do I? That's what's got their panties in a bunch. If the XBox can be hacked to play PS2 games, that hurts Sony, not MS.
Actually, I tried Mandrake 8.2 on 2 machines, with the same mouse (MS Intellimouse Optical, 5 button), and got different results. Seems to be a motherboard issue.
1) On the PIII, ASUS CUSL2-C i815, the mouse would go crazy (and stay that way) regardless of scrolling the wheel or not. I had to do the install with the keyboard until passing that part, then the mouse would work just fine. IIRC I also had to choose a mouse driver that was not the obvious choice (can't remember which) for it to work.
2) On the Celery, motherboard manufacturer unknown, i440 chipset, the mouse would be fine, and I mean totally fine whether I scrolled first or moved first, and I could choose the correct profile for it.
Both of these machines got re-installed several times over the course of a week, and the mouse behaviour was consistant for both.
(Threat of leakage)..we all know this is what will happen. And it only has to happen once and then the cat is let out of the bag. Sad that is has to come to that, but...
>Wrong. What will happen is that Microsoft will claim that those Linux pirates stole the designs,
>and that all Open Source code is now tainted because the documents were made public illegally,
>and Samba will be shut down,
No, you're both right, the first WILL happen, and then MS will carry the ball from there and fuck everything up.
The thing is, whether you like Microsoft or not, if you are there competitor you know that this settlement and court case makes them weak so you batter them every chance you get. The settlement says that Microsoft can charge royalties for the protocols and they are doing that. The settlement did not say that Microsoft had to GPL the protocols.
I agree, though I don't understand why I must swear secrecy to read the LICENSE. The rest is all perfectly valid as far as I'm concerned.
But what bothers me the most is that this even has to happen. The fact that this information was not previously made available to developers on purpose should call for some big fines or something, shouldn't it? It's been going on for years.. I always had the theory that it would make sense for MS to have certain "special" ways to hook a program into Windoze that only they knew about. Now that it's proven, I think that just making them give up the goods is not enough punishment.
I've read a bunch of threads from people who talk about how dangerous it will be to have so many people flying around, and I am reminded of how when cars first appeared, they would be escorted in town by sentries waving red flags because it was thought that the cars would be so inherently dangerous.
They were, and still are. People drive them, you see, and that's the downfall of it all. Horses were less convenient, but much better at getting around safely than their human dependants. The reaction was not unreasonable, and should perhaps have persisted. We might have some valuable people still alive today.
Re:Easy prediction: It'll Never Happen.
on
The Coming Air Age
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· Score: 1
If you're going to bring the relative safety of cars into the discussion, you'll have to admit that there's a lot more room to dodge a collision in three dimensions than in two... and there's a lot less stuff to hit at 20,000 feet!
I'm thinking of traffic similar to (though perhaps safer than) what was shown in the Fifth Element. I doubt that you would do urban travel at 20,000 feet, though I could be wrong. And you don't necessarily have 3 dimensions to work with in a helicopter that has failed. Your primary dimension is DOWN. I mentioned failure of controls, how do you expect to dodge anything with controls that don't work?
>Horses work fine. Sure, the crap smells bad but can you imagine your neighbor pulling one of those loud things out of his house. Horses are fine for me where I don't have to worry about other cars coming at me at 70mph.
Well you know, stop and think about that for a moment. Maybe they were right. I've never heard of a head-on collision involving horses. If you get run-down by a horse it's most likely because the rider is trying to hurt you. If you fall asleep on a horse, worst thing to happen is you might fall off or get thrown, or wind up somewhere you didn't want to go. The horse will be just fine, and won't just go plowing into whomever is in his way.
Now of course cars are faster and far more comfortable, so I'm not giving up my vehicles any time soon, I love driving. But we've paid a fairly large price for this convenience, in the years since we've had it, haven't we? Today's discussion is about upping the ante, something I'm not sure I'm willing to support, however cool it might be.
Re:Easy prediction: It'll Never Happen.
on
The Coming Air Age
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· Score: 1
Not quite true. When the power goes in a helicopter, there's a lot of angular momentum stored in the rotor, and aerodynamic effects allow you to spin the rotor even faster by angling the blades appropriately as you, er, plummet.
As you approach the ground (probably a lot faster than you'd like), you angle the blades to bite into the air, trading lift for angular momentum. If you do this correctly, you may be able to save your butt.
I don't know much about helicopters, but doesn't this assume that it's only the engine that failed, and not the control mechanisms? If a car loses control, you may hit something, or you may not. If a chopper loses control, isn't that going to turn out very badly in most cases?
No Fifth Element for me thanks
on
The Coming Air Age
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I for one would be petrified to live in a city if everyone was flying. The average driver has enough trouble paying attention on the ground. And we may also assume that many of them barely squeaked by in their driver's exam. I shudder to think of personal flight units sailing all over the place, just waiting for the day I wake up to some asshole talking on his cellphone, crashing through my window. I don't believe that it is possible for this to be made properly safe. I will never trust computer navigation systems either, they're idiots too.
Ginger scares the shit out of me as well. I'd love to pilot one, sure, but I don't need idiots whipping all over the place on these things. In all the various vehicles I've driven, I've never had an accident, for I always drive with the assumption that everyone else on the road is a complete idiot. Ie: Don't trust turn signals, speed changes, etc, without other cues to determine what the hell is really going on in that tiny brain behind the wheel. It seems to have worked so far.
Personally, I agree that you don't/can't have any god-given right to take things simply because you cannot afford them.
However, I will put forth this: Music is unlike any other form of property. It has a wonderful effect on many/most species living on this planet, and I believe that over the centuries we humans have come to depend on it in some fashion. I believe that it is a tragedy for someone to not be able to have new music, whether the reason is loss of hearing or loss of income. Yes, you should pay for things that others have worked to make, so they get the reward they are owed, but at the same time there is still the deep need that must be satisfied. I'm not trying to justify theft, I'm instead wondering if the sharing of music actually ought to be considered theft. I'm thinking that the model of compensation is what is flawed. I haven't got an answer to fix this at this time, but I ask you to open your mind to this notion.
Don't suggest that radios are ubiquitous and "there's your free music", because it is still not on demand which is the true beauty of mp3/ogg.
Something just occurred to me. The RIAA has been reasonably ineffective at getting rid of P2P or slowing it down. The P2P programs are suddenly doing something obviously wrong and illegal, something that can really hurt them bad. Something that they would have had to have been complete idiots to ever think was a good idea. I believe in the possibility that the RIAA has planted infiltrators, to bring them down from the inside.
I'm tired of this rat race. I'm tired of every six months some hardware company telling me I'm obsolete. I'm sick of companies telling me to buy, buy, buy. Buy until it hurts! Buy until your wallet implodes!
I've always made the practice of putting up with what I have for a long time, waiting for enough better hardware to beat the stuff that already beat me, and do a nice splurge to get more power. What leads me to keep believing that I need more power? Because I always will. I like to work with audio, effects and multi-track mixing and the like. Some video editing and playing with 3d rendering now and then.. And I love games. Ultima IX is an awesome game that ran like crap on my 300MHz Celery with 32Mb. It ran pretty well on the 1.0GHz P3 512Mb, but it is only now, on the P4 2.5GHz with 1.5Gb that the game shines in full glory, with everything cranked including stuff in the ini file that is not settable through the game itself. And I'm enjoying the hell out of it this time around, the game is something like 4 years old by now and I've just caught up to its demands. My system is *sweeeeet* and you know what? It's still not fast enough.
Ya but how much longer are you going to be able to use that voodoo card? I have all sorts of friends with left over 3dfx cards and they have more problems then anyone I know, I know there are some people writing their own drivers for them now but these newer games seem to not be too friendly with the voodoo's.
Yes, I'm seeing an annoying trend of games that won't run on my Voodoo cards. Fortunately my primary system sports a GForce 4 Ti4600, but it sucks when I want to try a multiplayer game with a couple players on my LAN, and I can't because the other two machines are Voodoo-driven (a 3/2000 and a 5/5500). Army Ops and Battlefield 1942 are both games that I would really like to run a private game with myself on two machines, so I can practice flying, learn distances for sniping, experiments with grenades, etc, etc.. But I can't, because these games (and several others) will only run for my GForce. The common error message is that Hardware T&L support is needed. My Voodoo 5 still has plenty of gusto for what's out there in gameland, just missing an apparently critical feature that for some reason we cannot live without.
You are so cool for stealing your.sig from a thinkgeek T-Shirt.
1) He didn't. That one's been around already.
2) Wtf? Nobody can use a.sig that was already written/spoken by someone else? When did this rule come in? There's a lot of illegal.sigs out there if that's the case. You're just jealous because he started using it before you thought of doing so.
No, he said that "warchalking" is not theft. The article clearly has Nokia claiming "stealing" bandwidth is theft. warchalking != unauthorized use of bandwidth, it just helps people find where to get it.
The article clearly has Nokia claiming that both warchalking as well as actually using the revealed treasure is stealing. Both acts are referred to as theft in the article, both of them. Read it again.
First off, I'm not trying to justify using someone else's resources without their knowledge. My point was that you cannot blame someone for utilizing a resource they were never told they were not allowed to use.
About 12 years ago, I first got on the internet via a 'public' dialin at the local university. This number wasn't published, but was likely discovered by someone knowing somebody there, or perhaps by wardialing. Upon getting carrier you were presented with a banner saying nothing about restrictions, followed by a telnet prompt which you could use as you wished. Only certain people were supposed to know about this, and those of us that weren't supposed to know knew damn well to be careful sharing the information, since we knew we weren't supposed to be there. It didn't take a sign or anything to realize that it costs money to maintain a network connection, and that we were in no way contributing to its continued operation, had not been invited, etc, etc.. It was just obvious. The moral pang was easily overridden by the geek's desire to explore, of course.:) But it was still wrong. Just like you 'instinctively' know that you're not supposed to just walk into somebody's house if they've left the door open. It's basic human courtesy.
If someone comes to your door and asks if they can come in, and you say yes, then you'd be hard pushed to fault them for it.
Your analogy is flawed, because it implies that a human is answering the door and saying, "Uh, sure, come in." An unlocked door, and an unrestricted DHCP server are not capable of discriminating like a human. By your reasoning, the permission that you receive in the park with your laptop came from the sysadmin at that company, which it most certainly did not.
That's not how wireless works. Your house does not continually broadcast to the street and other areas "There's a house here! Here's how you get to the front door! You'll need a DHCP badge to get any service from the butler, here's one you can use...", etc, etc.
Yes it does, on all three points. Your house rebroadcasts visible light, clearly displaying it as a house to all who may pass by. Unless you've got some kind of cammoflauge setup your front door is clearly visible too. Everyone knows how to work a doorknob, and if the doorknob turns upon trying, there's your unrestricted DHCP badge. Now, the door being left unlocked does (should) not give the right to just anyone to walk in and use the services there. But if it happens, the affected party has only themselves to blame for not taking precautions. Warchalking, in the same analogy, is a neighborhood kid going down the block trying doors, and upon finding an unlocked one, opening it wide and moving on the the next house without going in. Now anyone passing by can see that the door is open. Including someone who might care enough to go try to warn the owner.
You're right, except that both the Slashdot title and the BBC title are wrong. Quote the BBC:
Now Nokia has joined the chorus of criticism by saying that anyone who sits outside an office and uses a company's wireless network to do their own web surfing is stealing. "This is theft, plain and simple," wrote Nokia in its advisory.
The company said that anyone using a company's bandwidth without permission is reducing the amount of a valuable resource available to the workers in that organisation.
K, so what about the part right at the beginning:
Phone maker Nokia has come down strongly against warchalking. It has condemned as theft the placing of chalk symbols on walls and pavements at places where people can use wireless net access.
Further, the user comments on the page seem to reflect that most people think Nokia is talking about chalking being the bad part, presumably because it is an enabler for those too lazy to scan, that want to just "get down to it".. They seem to be addressing both issues, one as a gateway to the other.
Why not cut the headphone lead and solder a suitable connector onto the Walkman end?
I thought of this too, but then I figured it wouldn't be impossible for DRM-enabled headphones to be developed that would prevent this exploit. It's only a matter of time...
Slashdot Mirror
This is the thing that bugs me about this type of "study"... They have two years (so they claim) worth of data that they ASSUME is due to the CRT, and nothing else... But my experience has been that people who look at a CRT all day also tend to have other things in common. They (generally) also sit all day. They (generally) sit in close proximity to a computer. Heck, they even (usually) work with those new-fangled devices, called a keyboard and a mouse. ;) But none of those are to blame for what they've seen, it MUST be the CRT. But do they have "control" cases, where people are sitting at a desk, with a computer (and mouse and keyboard) that DOESN'T have a monitor (a CRT)? Not terribly likely.
/. and actually read it tend to know that it's got nothing to do with the summary.
This is the thing that bugs me about this type of "reader"... They have several minutes (so I assume) to read an article posted to Slashdot, and rather than actually do so, ASSUME the article is talking about what's in the summary only, and nothing else... But my experience has been that people who look at an article on
"Every time you users download something, reconfigure something, whatever, you dick up your IP settings and make me spend $50 per customer service telephone call to fix it."
, I would disobey, or quit, or something. But that software would not get installed on any of my runs. We don't have such software, and do not seem to be in danger of having to charge $500/month. Plus our phone support is 24/7, hold times generally around 2 minutes. And each customer installed does not make the company any money till after about a month and a half of service because I get paid first.
By loading this software, I ensure that my configuration will probably stay on top of all the nonsense you put in there, and I can actually have a clue what is going on when you manage to screw it up still.
The alternative is $500/month broadband (minimum...), or zero support
Umm, how does installing commonly-used software 'dick up IP settings'? Other than proxy settings, what are you protecting? Using software to insure that your settings stay on top is counter-competitive, as when/if the customer decides to switch to another provider, they may have a tough time of it. Think AOL, and how it keeps email and favorites separate from the system, so that when a user switches they have to figure out how to get their favorites that they made during AOL use to transfer across since those only show up if they've loaded the AOL software first. There's also a local phone company here that has a software disk which I loathe. Their software (which constantly resets "Always dial") will not uninstall unless the disk can be found and put in the drive, so it is not always possible to remove it since the disk has long since been lost. You can get around it if you know what to do, but that's the annoying part, you have to know what to do, and not simply do what should be obvious.
I install cable internet in people's homes, and there are only certain bits of software that we might install depending on the situation: If their IE is only version 4, I upgrade them to 5.5 SP2 (I don't believe they benefit from having 6), and throw on the latest cumulative patch behind it. I am to ensure that they have a workable version of Realplayer and Quicktime. I say 'ugh' to Realplayer but it's not my fault that so many misguided web operators choose to put their content in that format. When I install RP I make sure to disable their stupid tray icon. If I notice that gohip, CommonName, Netsetter, or other beasties are present, I remove them, and explain to the customer why this is happening. I do some other extras that are not required of me, like checking out their system for scary open ports (like 27374, etc), showing them windowsupdate.com, helping them install Zone Alarm if they are concerned about having a firewall, etc..
If I was required to install spyware/you're-staying-with-us-no-matter-whatware
Shaw does have the ability to track usage, down to a specific day, and they do in fact send emails to customers that exceed what they would expect from a business subscriber. The residential account does not have a limit per se, but the entry-level business package is 15GB down, 2GB up per month. My gf got one for sharing out all her music for a month, and generated 60GB of upstream! Nothing happened basically, they sent her an e-mail, reminded her of the AUP (respect thy neighbor) and asked her to stop sharing so much.
...but it would take this thing all day to vacuum my house which measures in at about 2000 sq. ft,
So, if you've got a nice big house you've got the bucks to buy several of them, and the invisible walls to keep them out of each others' territory. Of course when you come home there's these hubcaps scattered all over your house, but hey, the rest is pretty clean!
I would assume they're worried that it will set a precedent for people who sell any kind of mods in Australia. If the PS2 guy gets off, how can MS stop the evil guy who does it with their precious Xbox? ;)
No, if I have a PS2, and can mod it to play XBox games, then I have no need to buy an XBox do I? That's what's got their panties in a bunch. If the XBox can be hacked to play PS2 games, that hurts Sony, not MS.
Actually, I tried Mandrake 8.2 on 2 machines, with the same mouse (MS Intellimouse Optical, 5 button), and got different results. Seems to be a motherboard issue.
1) On the PIII, ASUS CUSL2-C i815, the mouse would go crazy (and stay that way) regardless of scrolling the wheel or not. I had to do the install with the keyboard until passing that part, then the mouse would work just fine. IIRC I also had to choose a mouse driver that was not the obvious choice (can't remember which) for it to work.
2) On the Celery, motherboard manufacturer unknown, i440 chipset, the mouse would be fine, and I mean totally fine whether I scrolled first or moved first, and I could choose the correct profile for it.
Both of these machines got re-installed several times over the course of a week, and the mouse behaviour was consistant for both.
(Threat of leakage) ..we all know this is what will happen. And it only has to happen once and then the cat is let out of the bag. Sad that is has to come to that, but...
>Wrong. What will happen is that Microsoft will claim that those Linux pirates stole the designs,
>and that all Open Source code is now tainted because the documents were made public illegally,
>and Samba will be shut down,
No, you're both right, the first WILL happen, and then MS will carry the ball from there and fuck everything up.
The thing is, whether you like Microsoft or not, if you are there competitor you know that this settlement and court case makes them weak so you batter them every chance you get. The settlement says that Microsoft can charge royalties for the protocols and they are doing that. The settlement did not say that Microsoft had to GPL the protocols.
I agree, though I don't understand why I must swear secrecy to read the LICENSE. The rest is all perfectly valid as far as I'm concerned.
But what bothers me the most is that this even has to happen. The fact that this information was not previously made available to developers on purpose should call for some big fines or something, shouldn't it? It's been going on for years.. I always had the theory that it would make sense for MS to have certain "special" ways to hook a program into Windoze that only they knew about. Now that it's proven, I think that just making them give up the goods is not enough punishment.
I've read a bunch of threads from people who talk about how dangerous it will be to have so many people flying around, and I am reminded of how when cars first appeared, they would be escorted in town by sentries waving red flags because it was thought that the cars would be so inherently dangerous.
They were, and still are. People drive them, you see, and that's the downfall of it all. Horses were less convenient, but much better at getting around safely than their human dependants. The reaction was not unreasonable, and should perhaps have persisted. We might have some valuable people still alive today.
If you're going to bring the relative safety of cars into the discussion, you'll have to admit that there's a lot more room to dodge a collision in three dimensions than in two... and there's a lot less stuff to hit at 20,000 feet!
I'm thinking of traffic similar to (though perhaps safer than) what was shown in the Fifth Element. I doubt that you would do urban travel at 20,000 feet, though I could be wrong. And you don't necessarily have 3 dimensions to work with in a helicopter that has failed. Your primary dimension is DOWN. I mentioned failure of controls, how do you expect to dodge anything with controls that don't work?
>Yeah, and I'm sure plenty of people said...
>Horses work fine. Sure, the crap smells bad but can you imagine your neighbor pulling one of those loud things out of his house. Horses are fine for me where I don't have to worry about other cars coming at me at 70mph.
Well you know, stop and think about that for a moment. Maybe they were right. I've never heard of a head-on collision involving horses. If you get run-down by a horse it's most likely because the rider is trying to hurt you. If you fall asleep on a horse, worst thing to happen is you might fall off or get thrown, or wind up somewhere you didn't want to go. The horse will be just fine, and won't just go plowing into whomever is in his way.
Now of course cars are faster and far more comfortable, so I'm not giving up my vehicles any time soon, I love driving. But we've paid a fairly large price for this convenience, in the years since we've had it, haven't we? Today's discussion is about upping the ante, something I'm not sure I'm willing to support, however cool it might be.
Not quite true. When the power goes in a helicopter, there's a lot of angular momentum stored in the rotor, and aerodynamic effects allow you to spin the rotor even faster by angling the blades appropriately as you, er, plummet.
As you approach the ground (probably a lot faster than you'd like), you angle the blades to bite into the air, trading lift for angular momentum. If you do this correctly, you may be able to save your butt.
I don't know much about helicopters, but doesn't this assume that it's only the engine that failed, and not the control mechanisms? If a car loses control, you may hit something, or you may not. If a chopper loses control, isn't that going to turn out very badly in most cases?
I for one would be petrified to live in a city if everyone was flying. The average driver has enough trouble paying attention on the ground. And we may also assume that many of them barely squeaked by in their driver's exam. I shudder to think of personal flight units sailing all over the place, just waiting for the day I wake up to some asshole talking on his cellphone, crashing through my window. I don't believe that it is possible for this to be made properly safe. I will never trust computer navigation systems either, they're idiots too.
Ginger scares the shit out of me as well. I'd love to pilot one, sure, but I don't need idiots whipping all over the place on these things. In all the various vehicles I've driven, I've never had an accident, for I always drive with the assumption that everyone else on the road is a complete idiot. Ie: Don't trust turn signals, speed changes, etc, without other cues to determine what the hell is really going on in that tiny brain behind the wheel. It seems to have worked so far.
Personally, I agree that you don't/can't have any god-given right to take things simply because you cannot afford them.
However, I will put forth this: Music is unlike any other form of property. It has a wonderful effect on many/most species living on this planet, and I believe that over the centuries we humans have come to depend on it in some fashion. I believe that it is a tragedy for someone to not be able to have new music, whether the reason is loss of hearing or loss of income. Yes, you should pay for things that others have worked to make, so they get the reward they are owed, but at the same time there is still the deep need that must be satisfied. I'm not trying to justify theft, I'm instead wondering if the sharing of music actually ought to be considered theft. I'm thinking that the model of compensation is what is flawed. I haven't got an answer to fix this at this time, but I ask you to open your mind to this notion.
Don't suggest that radios are ubiquitous and "there's your free music", because it is still not on demand which is the true beauty of mp3/ogg.
Something just occurred to me. The RIAA has been reasonably ineffective at getting rid of P2P or slowing it down. The P2P programs are suddenly doing something obviously wrong and illegal, something that can really hurt them bad. Something that they would have had to have been complete idiots to ever think was a good idea. I believe in the possibility that the RIAA has planted infiltrators, to bring them down from the inside.
Just paranoid speculation perhaps...
I'm tired of this rat race. I'm tired of every six months some hardware company telling me I'm obsolete. I'm sick of companies telling me to buy, buy, buy. Buy until it hurts! Buy until your wallet implodes!
I've always made the practice of putting up with what I have for a long time, waiting for enough better hardware to beat the stuff that already beat me, and do a nice splurge to get more power. What leads me to keep believing that I need more power? Because I always will. I like to work with audio, effects and multi-track mixing and the like. Some video editing and playing with 3d rendering now and then.. And I love games. Ultima IX is an awesome game that ran like crap on my 300MHz Celery with 32Mb. It ran pretty well on the 1.0GHz P3 512Mb, but it is only now, on the P4 2.5GHz with 1.5Gb that the game shines in full glory, with everything cranked including stuff in the ini file that is not settable through the game itself. And I'm enjoying the hell out of it this time around, the game is something like 4 years old by now and I've just caught up to its demands. My system is *sweeeeet* and you know what? It's still not fast enough.
More! More! MORE!
Ya but how much longer are you going to be able to use that voodoo card? I have all sorts of friends with left over 3dfx cards and they have more problems then anyone I know, I know there are some people writing their own drivers for them now but these newer games seem to not be too friendly with the voodoo's.
Yes, I'm seeing an annoying trend of games that won't run on my Voodoo cards. Fortunately my primary system sports a GForce 4 Ti4600, but it sucks when I want to try a multiplayer game with a couple players on my LAN, and I can't because the other two machines are Voodoo-driven (a 3/2000 and a 5/5500). Army Ops and Battlefield 1942 are both games that I would really like to run a private game with myself on two machines, so I can practice flying, learn distances for sniping, experiments with grenades, etc, etc.. But I can't, because these games (and several others) will only run for my GForce. The common error message is that Hardware T&L support is needed. My Voodoo 5 still has plenty of gusto for what's out there in gameland, just missing an apparently critical feature that for some reason we cannot live without.
You are so cool for stealing your .sig from a thinkgeek T-Shirt.
.sig that was already written/spoken by someone else? When did this rule come in? There's a lot of illegal .sigs out there if that's the case. You're just jealous because he started using it before you thought of doing so.
1) He didn't. That one's been around already.
2) Wtf? Nobody can use a
No, he said that "warchalking" is not theft. The article clearly has Nokia claiming "stealing" bandwidth is theft. warchalking != unauthorized use of bandwidth, it just helps people find where to get it.
The article clearly has Nokia claiming that both warchalking as well as actually using the revealed treasure is stealing. Both acts are referred to as theft in the article, both of them. Read it again.
First off, I'm not trying to justify using someone else's resources without their knowledge. My point was that you cannot blame someone for utilizing a resource they were never told they were not allowed to use.
:) But it was still wrong.
About 12 years ago, I first got on the internet via a 'public' dialin at the local university. This number wasn't published, but was likely discovered by someone knowing somebody there, or perhaps by wardialing. Upon getting carrier you were presented with a banner saying nothing about restrictions, followed by a telnet prompt which you could use as you wished. Only certain people were supposed to know about this, and those of us that weren't supposed to know knew damn well to be careful sharing the information, since we knew we weren't supposed to be there. It didn't take a sign or anything to realize that it costs money to maintain a network connection, and that we were in no way contributing to its continued operation, had not been invited, etc, etc.. It was just obvious. The moral pang was easily overridden by the geek's desire to explore, of course.
Just like you 'instinctively' know that you're not supposed to just walk into somebody's house if they've left the door open. It's basic human courtesy.
If someone comes to your door and asks if they can come in, and you say yes, then you'd be hard pushed to fault them for it.
Your analogy is flawed, because it implies that a human is answering the door and saying, "Uh, sure, come in." An unlocked door, and an unrestricted DHCP server are not capable of discriminating like a human. By your reasoning, the permission that you receive in the park with your laptop came from the sysadmin at that company, which it most certainly did not.
That's not how wireless works. Your house does not continually broadcast to the street and other areas "There's a house here! Here's how you get to the front door! You'll need a DHCP badge to get any service from the butler, here's one you can use...", etc, etc.
Yes it does, on all three points. Your house rebroadcasts visible light, clearly displaying it as a house to all who may pass by. Unless you've got some kind of cammoflauge setup your front door is clearly visible too. Everyone knows how to work a doorknob, and if the doorknob turns upon trying, there's your unrestricted DHCP badge.
Now, the door being left unlocked does (should) not give the right to just anyone to walk in and use the services there. But if it happens, the affected party has only themselves to blame for not taking precautions.
Warchalking, in the same analogy, is a neighborhood kid going down the block trying doors, and upon finding an unlocked one, opening it wide and moving on the the next house without going in. Now anyone passing by can see that the door is open. Including someone who might care enough to go try to warn the owner.
You're right, except that both the Slashdot title and the BBC title are wrong. Quote the BBC:
Now Nokia has joined the chorus of criticism by saying that anyone who sits outside an office and uses a company's wireless network to do their own web surfing is stealing.
"This is theft, plain and simple," wrote Nokia in its advisory.
The company said that anyone using a company's bandwidth without permission is reducing the amount of a valuable resource available to the workers in that organisation.
K, so what about the part right at the beginning:
Phone maker Nokia has come down strongly against warchalking.
It has condemned as theft the placing of chalk symbols on walls and pavements at places where people can use wireless net access.
Further, the user comments on the page seem to reflect that most people think Nokia is talking about chalking being the bad part, presumably because it is an enabler for those too lazy to scan, that want to just "get down to it".. They seem to be addressing both issues, one as a gateway to the other.
Why not cut the headphone lead and solder a suitable connector onto the Walkman end?
I thought of this too, but then I figured it wouldn't be impossible for DRM-enabled headphones to be developed that would prevent this exploit. It's only a matter of time...
2 things:
:)
1) It's a cartoon,
and
2) It's a cartoon.
There is no location, ambiguous or not.