Skype is essentially running SIP under the hood (slight differences, but essentially the same). The supernodes aren't usually involved in signalling because NAT can be traversed using other methods. However, the supernodes will carry voice traffic. I have no idea what the initial poster means by "MiTM attack". Normally when you are talking about man in the middle, you are talking about spoofing one of the ends. I suspect that's not what they meant because why would you want to do that.... I suspect they simply meant that the voice conversation can be recorded, which is true.

But it's pretty tin-foil-hat for me anyway. Just because the pieces seem to fit doesn't mean it's true. You'd have to actually look for evidence.

Yeah. The main issue is that in many countries capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than salary. And while there are a lot of regulations regarding when an executive can sell options that they hold, I've noticed that there isn't usually a lot of scrutiny about when options are granted. What's astounding to me is that the information is all public, so it's easy for anyone to look at. You'll see options granted after large write offs, or you'll see companies over fill their sales channels (creating a higher than expected profit for a quarter) and then correct it later (creating a lower than expected profit for a quarter) right before they grant options to executives. And nobody calls them on it. It's easy to see if you follow high tech companies regularly (and actually read their reports). Anyway, it makes it relatively easy for companies to pay their executives on the backs of the shareholders while at the same time allowing them to avoid taxes.

I have mentioned this before, but not only is it easy to fall into a cultural ghetto, it's hard to get out. I'm also an expat in Japan. I used to hang out with other expats, but then slowly drifted over to hanging out with Japanese people. The expat community is kind of difficult sometimes because people come and go all the time. As my Japanese got better, I naturally spent more and more time with people who were going to be there for the long haul. Several people were angry with me and accused me of being a "Japan-o-phile" (wtf?) or of being someone I'm not (presumably Japanese...) When I finally got married to a Japanese woman, several of my expat "friends" dropped me for good.

It's sounds bizarre saying it so plainly because when you live through it it's not really obvious what's going on. But communities like this are often quite hostile to the native population and get really upset if you don't agree with their stance. If you "go native", it's like you are betraying your own kind. It's completely insane, but it exists and you have to deal with it. Eventually I just walked out. I don't hang out with a single non-Japanese person on a regular basis any more. Not everybody is able to do that, and so the ghetto grows.

No offense, but your argument boils down to, "I've never seen anything successful and therefore nothing successful can be done". 10 years ago "bounty systems like Kickstarter" were rare and those that were around were not successful. Even free to play games were rare because the idea of selling in-game items had not been tried. Who would think that someone would pay for a digital flower?

New business models require forward thinking people. Money people are not usually forward thinking. They like to copy the success of others. But just to get you thinking, imagine a multi-player game which has updates every 2 weeks. If you don't have the latest copy you can't play with others. An automatic update subscription costs $48 a year billable in increments. Yes you can wait a few days and find someone willing to give it to you for free, but wouldn't you rather pay for a subscription? Single player serialized content has similar potential if it is well made. Other ideas include sponsored development, where official clients and official downloads are paid by advertising. The sale of vanity items in multiplayer games can fund development. You can even write games whose only intent is to create a brand for selling merchandise (ala Hello Kitty in Japan)

There are lots of other possibilities. In my mind, a business model where you pay $30 million up front and "finish" building the game before you sell anything won't work in a free software world. But nobody says you have to do things that way.

Until the latest copyright change, Canada didn't have fair use -- it had fair dealing (similar, but different concepts).

The last copyright act specifically had a section about educational use which described how an educational institute had to do things. However, these educational institutes were restricted to universities. IIRC, other schools like high schools were not included. Looking at the copyright act, I would have bet my last dollar that photocopying in a high school was *not* allowed (not even under fair dealing), but that's why IANAL.

The one thing that confuses me about this whole story is that the copyright act just changed (like 2 weeks ago). Are these rulings based on the new act (it seems unlikely)? If they aren't, I suspect the ruling is moot. In fact, I'm confused why the supreme court even agreed to look at this given the proposed changes to the act.

I suspect this was the crux of the issue. A movie wants to use a song, so they get the rights to use it in their movie. Obviously this is going to be a lump sum payment. However, the rights holders of the recording may have been arguing that they should *also* get a cut of the ticket price (i.e. a percentage of gross revenue) for "performance rights". The movie industry isn't going to go for that. So this was likely a fight between two big media companies. It likely wouldn't have affected movie viewers in any way.

I haven't looked at the original case, so I don't know if that's really what it boils.

Just want to chip in a bit with respect to "it is not a crime". A lot of people think that because it is illegal it is a crime. But there is an important distinction. In a crime, the *state* charges you, takes you to court, etc. Also you can go to jail. Civil infractions like copyright infringement are pursued by the party that was damaged, not the state. Your punishment, should you lose the court case, is financial -- You won't go to jail and you won't have a criminal record. This is also why it is not "stealing" (which is a crime).

The wording is important. Many special interest groups would like to make copyright infringement a crime. That way the state would pay for following it up. There could be jail time involved. People could get a criminal record for it. These special interest groups would like it to be "stealing", which is why they are purposely using that term now. If they can get the general public to accept that copyright infringement is "stealing" and hence a crime, it will be much easier to change the law.

Personally, I don't like the way many copyright laws are written, but I support copyright. I think there are a lot of places where we can improve copyright law, but I believe that making it a crime is not a good idea. As civil law, if I break the law but the copyright holder doesn't suffer any damages as a result, there is little point in suing me. For example, in countries without fair use, I might want to rip a DVD and put it on my file server. It would be illegal, but it doesn't result in any damages, so nobody will sue me. That is a reasonable balance, IMHO. But if it were a crime, I may be charged even if what I'm doing isn't damaging anyone. Even worse, because the state pursues it, the copyright hold has no say in the matter and can't stop proceedings if the state decides to go ahead.

They also have no incentive to begin to understand the scientific method. Reports of amazing discoveries followed up by scandals and retractions leads to more sales than waiting to see if anyone is able to duplicate the results.

Having said that, there are occasional media figures who have a very solid grasp of science. It's unfair to paint everyone with the same brush. But the general state of affairs is somewhat grim and I don't see it getting much better.

Passion is important, but so is effectiveness. It seems obvious that the more time I spend doing something and the more attention I give to it, the more I will progress. However, this is not true. Programming is a task of the mind. If you are not alert, there will be things that slip by you. I'm not talking about bugs, I'm talking about missing the abstractions that make you a better programmer. Not only that, but the mind requires time to sift through the information you're giving it. You actually need time to forget what you are doing in order to reinforce it.

I highly recommend that you limit the time you spend at the keyboard. You will progress faster as a programmer. You need activities that allow your mind to wander. This will consolidate what you are doing. I actually quit my job as a programmer and now only spend about 2-3 hours a day (if that) programming. In the 5 years that I've done that my programming ability has improved at a much faster pace than when I was working 70 hour weeks. Because I have so little time, I'm focused and aware of what I am doing. Because I am not tired, my ability is much higher and I discover things faster. Because I give my brain time, the concepts coalesce faster.

Anyway, give it a try sometime. I think you'll be surprised.

Actually, it's a bit worse than you portray. If the boot loader is locked, you can't load load a new OS. Since they don't give you root access, you either have to hack the machine to install certain applications, or you can't install them. Not only that, but there are applications installed by default that you can't uninstall. One of the apps my carrier installed (an ebook buying service) has permissions set to allow it to turn on my GPS, track my location, self start, forbid me from stopping it and read my phone state, including contacts. I can't remove it without rooting the phone.

I got sick of all this crap. I'm buying a new phone in a few months and I will definitely make sure that it does not have a locked bootloader and it is supported by Cyanogenmod.

Mine is. I don't think it's an unusual situation. It's an ASUS motherboard (can't remember the model). It wasn't actually disabled, just #2 on the boot list, so unless the hard drive failed it would never boot from the CD. USB wasn't on the boot list at all. Easy to change, but I had to do it.

On the other hand, there are societal pressures which often encourage you to associate with people who appear to be like you (physically) even if you aren't like them culturally. I run into this frequently as I am an expat in Japan. I'm married to a Japanese woman and speak Japanese. I'm much more comfortable with my wife's family and with my Japanese friends than I am with the expat community. But that community (which exists by choice) is often critical of people who choose to leave it.

It's hard to explain, but people often don't understand your choices. Even though it's none of their business, they can take offense at your choices. I've had people say that I should stop trying to be something I'm not (presumably Japanese). This is my home now and I intend to settle permanently. I want to integrate. I have much less trouble having the Japanese community accept me than the expat community accepting that someone would want to live in a Japanese environment. Some see it as an insult.

I suspect it's also true of minority communities in other countries. Does a black man "sell out" if he decides to live like a white man in the US? It betrays my age, but I remember a lot of criticism about the Cosby Show and the Prince of Bel Air for just that reason -- the characters were too "white".

Anyway, in my experience, not all of the segregation is imposed.

I always find it interesting when I meet white people in Japan who think that Japan is really racist. From my perspective it's about the same as most countries. The only real difference is that white people from western countries have often never experienced being a visible minority before. It can be shocking. The really sad part about it is that these people often simply return home without realizing their privilege of being in a majority.

People are people and everyone has a bias, whether or not it is against a particular race or not. Those in the majority often have more power than those in the minority to effect positive change (by virtue of the fact that they are the majority). So whatever your ethnicity, if you are in the majority it's useful to be especially careful of bias.

This joke has come around in a number of forms. I've heard it about IBM parts, GM car parts, and a few others. So far I have no definitive answer as to whether or not it has a true beginning. I'd love to hear from someone who knows. I suspect it's untrue, but the idea of sending defective parts separately packaged because they were requested is so true to Japanese culture that I really hope it is true.

Actually, Japan's immigration rules are extremely relaxed. For "engineers" (programmers qualify), if you have a degree and a job offer, you're good to go. The new rules even allow a 5 year visa which doesn't necessarily terminate if your job does. If you are a native English speaker (you have to have 12 years of education in the English Language), have a university degree and a job offer, you can teach English. Other categories exist for business owners, etc.

I haven't looked at every country, but I think Japan is probably the easiest country to come and work in the G8. Why are there so few foreigners? Culturally it's hard if you are inflexible and you don't speak Japanese. Even though there are actually quite a few jobs available for English only speakers, Japanese culture is really linked to the language. I don't know how to explain it properly except that there is "inside" and there is "outside". If you only speak English (or Japanese poorly), you will always be "outside". Outside is sometimes kind of nice because nobody has any expectations of you. But similarly, you get few benefits. You're always the hanger on, never part of the in group.

Even without language issues, many people have difficulty because Japan is an intensely moral culture. There are things that are absolutely morally right and absolutely morally wrong. The problem is that these things are often quite different than what is morally right and wrong in the west (especially the US, which is also a very moral culture). People from some certain cultures seem to have a great deal of difficulty dealing with Japanese ways of doing things. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not great if you want to live in Japan :-)

Anyway, if you want to work in Japan, and have a university degree, you can do it. One last issue... The Japanese work system is really different. You get hired after university and you stay at your job forever. It's really hard to get a regular job if you aren't coming right out of school. It's nothing to do with immigration policies -- workers whose companies fold on them suffer too. This is why you get stuck in a "temp" job. It used to be that "temp" workers often got stuck with 1 year visas, which were renewed every march. If a company wanted to get rid of foreign workers, all they had to do was make it known that they didn't want to have the visas renewed and problem solved. But with the new system (starting next week, I think), they can no longer do that. Visas are 5 years and usually extend past the end of the job.

The major downside for having a "temp" job is that usually you don't get paid a quarterly bonus or certain benefits. If you are a programmer, you can often negotiate these details. If you are a teacher, you can't and you will end up getting paid about half of what regular teachers get paid. However, the responsibilities are *much* less, so personally, I can't complain about it.

Anyway, I live in Japan. I'm actually off abroad for a couple of years so that my wife can learn to speak English, but apart from that I'm here permanently. It's my home now. People here are friendly and welcoming of foreigners if you try hard to fit in.