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Comment Re:The article's author is confused (Score 1) 712

The weasel word is that it depends on how you define complexity. It is true for all things.

A solar pumped electric grid would eliminate a number of nasty problems with current electricity production. One is pollution, of course. Another is a dependence on fuel that occurs in finite deposits that are becoming increasingly labor intensive to recover. (since we can only get so much energy from hydro, and nuclear power is currently MORE expensive than solar)

A bulldozer requires a society to build it and maintain it that is vastly more complex than a simple camp of fruit pickers.

Yes, a modern PC is radically different. There are MANY more layers of abstraction in the code you are running right now...from BIOS layers that are nearly as complex as DOS was in 1989, to the OS kernel, GUI, browser, and now virtual machines running in the browser that are as complex as whole applications were in 1989. The main block components may look the same, but there's a LOT more in that CPU than there was in 1989, and a lot more memory cells in the DRAM as well.

Comment You are clueless (Score 2, Insightful) 426

There is no such thing as "guaranteed" bandwidth on the internet. ALL bandwidth is shared, somewhere.

Your ISP does NOT have 40 megabits of bandwidth for every user. Do you know how much you would be paying if they did? Your connection would be hundres of dollars a month, not $60 or less.

If you want to bitch about the price of bandwidth, bitch to the big telcos that own most of the fiber in the US, and charge exorbitant fees to use it.

Comment Re:Its been done for years already (Score 2, Interesting) 711

So we've had a defined standard that was, arguably, not the easiest to understand. THEN harddrive manufacturers started their fraud. And THEN people started complaining. So what, and please think about this, would be the right decision here?

The "right" solution is that things dependent on the number of address lines (cache size, RAM size) are in units measured in 2^10, and things not dependent on the number address lines (network bandwidth, HDD/SSD size) are in units measured in 10^3. Files are interesting in that the base unit is a 512 byte sector but they don't depend on address lines, so they should be measured like floppy disks where 1kB is 1024 bytes, 1MB is 1000kB ,and 1GB is 1000MB etc -- but this is confusing, so they'll probably just consistently use steps of 1000.

Comment Re:Backwards (Score 0) 853

>>>It makes me angry that some feel they can use them for their own political purposes

We use the National Socialists of 1930s Germany because they are relevant. Adolf Hitler was actually a decent guy when he was elected, bringing restoration to his people and abundance in a once-failing economy, and even received praise from people like Churchill and FDR as an excellent leader. The German people loved him and were proud to call Hitler their leader (sound familiar?). The relevance is that a smiling happy politician can so quickly-and-easily turn into a tyrant.

If you don't like me using Hitler as example, I could use Napoleon instead. Or Henry the 8th. Or Nero. Or Julius Ceasar.

Pick your poison Socrates.

Comment Re:I actually saw one of these.... (Score 1) 205

Auto-execute seems pretty silly now, but back at the time it wasn't totally stupid. This was back in '95

The principle of not executing something arriving off host had only been established about a decade before. Shar (shell archives and the typical distribution format) was invented shortly after Usenet source groups were invented. Unshar was invented in the mid 1980s because everyone with half a brain was terrified of executing something coming from even the venerated and moderated `comp.sources.unix'.

We made our own mistakes http://www.regatta.cs.msu.su/doc/usr/share/man/info/ru_RU/a_doc_lib/cmds/aixcmds5/uux.htm but competent administrators had learned long before 1995 to disable uux.

Now, get off my lawn!

Comment Re:"successful" is a relative term (Score 1) 163

As a cast member in a web series (Break A Leg) we have been struggling not to gain an audience, respect, or critical acclaim since we have all of that. We just need money.

Having just looked at your website, I can't see anywhere that I could pay to get access to your episodes. I can't see anywhere I could pay to get a DVD.
Assuming that you're giving away your product for free (seriously? then complaining about cashflow?) I also can't see anywhere that I can pay to have an enhanced experience of some kind.

Have you considered actually... y'know... *CHARGING* for access to watch the shows? Like giving away eps 1-3 from a series for free, then charging $1 an episode after that? Or letting viewers watch the first X minutes of each episode then 50 cents for the rest? Or selling a DVD with added-value material that SERIOUS fans would appreciate like commentary, actor/cast bios, extra bits to flesh out personalities, "deleted scenes", extra scenes, mini-episodes fleshing out a real one etc?

If the first thought that enters your head is "people won't pay money to watch our series" then perhaps your series isn't compelling enough? But assuming it *is* compelling and appealing it seems to me that you need someone with a commercial brain to work out how best to monetize it... I bet you have some "experts" or talented and/or experienced people in their field for certain roles like costume, scriptwriting, make-up, camerawork, soundwork, editing.. acting etc... so why not someone talented/experienced in commercial aspects?

Comment Re:Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternativ (Score 1) 345

So what? That's completely useless and irrelevant because the only current devices that support cable cards are TiVos and the cableco's set top boxes themselves!

There are many TVs on the market that have cable card slots built in. I have no problem with a Tivo because I can buy one, and own it outright, and take it with me whenever I move and not have to rent a box.

Comment Re:Yes and no (Score 1) 408

I once lived in a small isolated town (population of about 10,000) that had its own natural gas wells, power plant, water system, and sewer system. The city did a great job of providing natural gas, electricity, sewer, water, and trash removal service at prices lower than in major cities in the state. I know that the city utilities did not lose or make money on the services, although there may have been some cross-subsidization.
Encryption

Finnish Appeals Court Rules Breaking CSS Illegal 165

Thomas Nybergh writes "Due to an appeal court decision from a couple of days back, breaking the not-very-effective CSS copy protection used on most commercial DVD-Video discs is now a criminal act in Finland (robo translated). The verdict is contrary to what a district court thought of the same case last year when two local electronic rights activists were declared not guilty after having framed themselves by spreading information on how to break CSS. Back then, it was to the activists' benefit has CSS been badly broken and inneffective ever since DeCSS came out."
Security

Submission + - Sears Web "Community" is a Spyware Install (ca.com)

Panaqqa writes: "After several weeks of security alerts from CA and denials by Sears, spyware security researcher Ben Edelman has joined the chorus accusing Sears of surreptitiously installing Comscore tracking software on the PCs of people who join the Sears "community". Kmart (owned by Sears) is apparently involved also. After installation, the software sends details of all online activities — including secure sites such as banking — directly to Comscore, despite the Sears website's assertion that it does not share collected data with anyone. Various technology blogs are likening this breach of online privacy to the recent Facebook Beacon fiasco."
Music

Submission + - RIAA Insanity-Suing People For Ripping CD's They P (fastsilicon.com) 2

mrneutron2003 writes: "With this past weeks announcement by Warner to release its entire catalog to Amazon in MP3 format with no Digital Rights Management, you would think that the organization that represents them, The Recording Industry Association of America , would begin changing its tune. However in an inane display of hubris and futility, the RIAA presses on in it's tirade against the very consumers its partners rely on buy (we're not making this up) suing individuals who merely rip CD's they've purchased legally.

The Washington Post reports on the case being fought by a Scottsdale Arizona man, Jeffrey Howell, who is being taken to task for ripping his own store bought CD's to his PC as a violation of copyright.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.
If the RIAA is successful here, it is safe to say that the overwhelming majority of American music consumers will soon be classified as criminals under the law for attempting to use media they've legally purchased in a manner they desire.
http://www.fastsilicon.com/off-the-wall/riaa-insanity-suing-people-for-ripping-cds-they-purchased.html"

The Courts

Submission + - RIAA attacks Fair use (washingtonpost.com)

cyberfunk2 writes: It seems the RIAA has finally decided to drink their own koolaid. It seems the aforementioned entity is attacking the what most people believe to be holy ground in a case against Jeffrey Howell. The Washington Post reports In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer. For his part, RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said in a statement that the industry "will continue to bring lawsuits" against those who "ignore years of warnings,". "It's not our first choice, but it's a necessary part of the equation. There are consequences for breaking the law." Fair use anyone ?
The Courts

Submission + - U. Maine legal clinic fights RIAA; 1st in country (blogspot.com) 2

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: ""A student law clinic is about to cause a revolution" says p2pnet. For the first time in the history of the RIAA's ex parte litigation campaign against college students, a university law school's legal aid clinic has taken up the fight against the RIAA in defense of the university's college students. Student attorneys at the University of Maine School of Law's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, under the supervision of law school prof Deirdre M. Smith, have moved to dismiss the RIAA's complaint in a Portland, Maine, case, Arista v. Does 1-27, on behalf of 2 University of Maine undergrads. Their recently filed reply brief (pdf) points to the US Supreme Court decision in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, and the subsequent California decision following Twombly, Interscope v. Rodriguez, which dismissed the RIAA's "making available" complaint as mere "conclusory", "boilerplate" "speculation". The 2 students represented by Cumberland join the 8 students represented by a prominent Portland law firm, bringing to 10 the number of University of Maine students fighting back in this case."
Privacy

Submission + - Linux based phonesystem phones home (trixbox.org) 1

An anonymous reader writes: Users of Trixbox, a PBX based on Asterisk, discovered that the software has been calling home with their usage and statistics.
From the article:
"I have just been made aware of a file '/var/adm/bin/registry.pl' that contain the following commented lines describing the program:

# This file is design to be executed regularly by an external controller such as cron.
# It retrieves a list of commands to be executed from the specified URI and executes them, saving the output
# and returning it to the webserver as an encrypted string."

Trixbox is owned by Fonality, which makes customised PBXs (again based on asterisk) for paying customers and this is not the first time that Fonality has been called out for their data collection.

See http://voxilla.com/component/option,...emid,107/p,27/

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