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Businesses

Calling Video Professor a Scam 385

Posted by kdawson from the spade-a-spade dept.
palmerj3 writes in to give some wider attention to a piece on Techcrunch today in which Michael Arrington reacts to Video Professor's desperate attempts to shut him up after he called Video Professor a scam in a piece syndicated by the Washington Post. As described by Arrington, the ways the company's site operates (differently depending on where a visitor comes from) are strongly reminiscent of the practices a Senate committee recently condemned. (Here is a detailed example of another, similar scam, from a not-naive victim. Video Professor's tactics sound even more deceptive.) Video Professor seems to react with belligerence, not to mention legal threats, towards any hint of criticism. Please share any direct experiences you have with this outfit.

Comment Re:Technically... (Score 1) 554

by Gorbag (#30198576) Attached to: Is That Sushi Hazardous To Your Health?

Sushi, and other words, are defined by how people use them. And in the US that means rice and raw fish wrapped in seaweed for 99% of the population. Then english language, unlike C, does not have an ansi standard. It's all fluid.

Using words means rice and raw fish wrapped in seaweed? And after that English lost it's ANSI standard, but C didn't? If your sushi is fluid, I suggest Immodium. Meanwhile, best learn grammar you insensitive clod!

Comment Re:Why complain about choice? (Score 1) 222

by Gorbag (#30020886) Attached to: Lulu Introduces DRM

What if the objectionable thing B was using slave labor for a product you do not use or buy? Does it suddenly become okay to continue the business relationship?

And yet I maintain my citizenship, despite what the government or the rascals in Congress does.

Life is compromise.
OS X

Apple Blurs the Server Line With Mac Mini Server 557

Posted by kdawson from the so-easy-a-child-can-set-it-up dept.
Toe, The writes "Today Apple announced several new hardware offerings, including a new Mac mini, their (almost-literally) pint-sized desktop computer. In a bizarre twist, they are now also offering a Mac mini with Mac OS X Server bundled in, along with a two hard drives somehow stuffed into the tiny package. Undoubtedly, many in the IT community will scoff at the thought of calling such a device a 'server.' However, with the robust capabilities of Snow Leopard Server (a true, if highly GUI-fied, UNIX server), it seems likely to find a niche in small businesses and even enthusiasts' homes. The almost completely guided setup process means that people can set up relatively sophisticated services without the assistance of someone who actually knows what they are doing. What the results will be in terms of security, etc. will be... interesting to watch as they develop." El Reg has a good roundup article of the many announcements; the multi-touch Magic Mouse is right up there on the techno-lust-inspiration scale.

Comment Re:How about instructional difficulty? (Score 1) 404

by Gorbag (#29734581) Attached to: Should Computer Games Adapt To the Way You Play?
Back in the 70s I helped debug a program called "Wumpus Advisor" in the MIT AI lab that did just that - it inferred what rules of Wumpus you demonstrated you understood, then attempted to give you hints on those you hadn't demonstrated yet (e.g., when you picked to explore a cave that was not the least dangerous on the frontier).
The Courts

Fair Use Defense Dismissed In SONY V. Tenenbaum 517

Posted by kdawson from the calvary-needed-no-questions-asked dept.
Several readers sent us updates from the Boston courtroom where, mere hours before the start of trial, a federal judge ruled out fair use as a defense. Wired writes that "the outcome is already shaping up to resemble the only other file sharing trial," in which the RIAA got a $1.92M judgement against Jammie Thomas-Rassert. The defendant, Joel Tenenbaum, has already essentially admitted to sharing music files, and the entire defense put together by Harvard Prof. Charles Nesson and his students turned on the question of fair use. The judge wrote that the proposed defense would be "so broad it would swallow the copyright protections that Congress has created." Jury selection is complete and opening arguments will begin tomorrow morning. Here is the Twitter feed organized by Prof. Nesson's law students.

Comment Re:Obligatory Edsger Dijkstra (Score 1) 277

by Gorbag (#28422447) Attached to: Licensed C64 Emulator Rejected From App Store
I think you vastly overestimate the number of good/great programmers in the world. Think dozens, not tens of thousands of them, total. It's certainly possible that BASIC can be your first language and you get over it. FORTRAN was my first language and I got over that. But unless you happen to be lucky enough to start with a great language (e.g. LISP) , you will have to unlearn everything else first. Learning bad languages just means it takes longer for you to learn good programming paradigms.

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