Disqus - Latest Comments for dimitris

Re: FIFA 10 - Όταν είδα αυτό το ματσάκι Chelsea-Juventus στο...

dimitris — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:15:06 -0000

Καλά μιλάμε για απόλυτα φυσική κίνηση. Πανέξυπνο το 360 dribbling!

Re: So You Still Believe in Infrastructure Socialism?

dimitris — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 13:52:10 -0000

Last year, Verizon sent a team of contractors out to my neighborhood to dig up my front yard and lay the new lines. And then, for reasons I still can't quite understand, another team came back and dug up my yard again to install more stuff! My wife wasn't real happy about the mess this created (and all the grass that died as a result), but I just kept telling her that one day it would all be worth it.

And that day has arrived.

Glad it worked for you. Remember that it depended on your next door neighbors (and their neighbors, etc) also getting their yards dug up, whether they wanted it or not. If they resisted, uniformed men with guns would make them stop.

I guess it's only socialist when you don't agree with it.

Re: Note to TLF Readers: This Blog Has Nothing to Do With the Intelligent Design Debate

dimitris — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 02:41:31 -0000

There's nothing wrong with pluralism, and it's true that ID and technology issues are almost completely unrelated.

Besides, the ID issue has been settled already.

Re: New DMCA exemptions (plus iPhone rumors)

dimitris — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:31:13 -0000

The interesting thing to watch will be what happens when, a few years from now, operators start requiring Treacherous Computing devices for access to non-emergency network features.

How do you then take your Cingular-tethered mobile to T-Mobile, if Cingular won't unlock the master key in the TPM for you?

Ha, little subscriber, you thought you actually owned your equipment?

Re: Additional Concerns with the Skype-Wu Proposal

dimitris — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:58:26 -0000

Both sides of the discussion of "wireless net neutrality" are missing the core point. I believe the incumbent operators are doing so intentionally, forcing the neutrality camp, exemplified by Wu, to try to climb the hill on the steep and slippery side.

The real issue is the Soviet nature of spectrum allocation. The barrier to entry is very high: There seems to be no efficient market for spectrum. One needs to buy too large chunks of spectrum in order to play.

Why can't spectrum be traded so that, for example, a small(er) provider can bid for a small slice of spectrum in a dense metro area?

"True" network capacity (i.e. landline) cost is negligible compared to wireless capacity. For example, the only thing that prevents me from offering very low cost 2.5GHz (licensed band) service to my neighborhood is the fact that I can't obtain a small enough license. Even my ISP is happy for me to share my DSL line (yes, really: Speakeasy).

You may argue that it's not economically feasible to "allow such fragmentation", in part because ensuring RF compatibility with neighboring providers would make in uneconomical.

Perhaps. But without an efficient spectrum market, all we have to go on is the "informed opinion" of insiders - the operators and the FCC. Biased, therefore suspect.

Markets have successfully securitized all sorts of things like credit card debt and weather, but we can't do radio spectrum? That's bogus.

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » More on Skype’s Petition to Regulate Cellphone Carriers

dimitris — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:01:34 -0000

Sorry Hance, but I have to call BS

All of the leading cellphone carriers heavily subsidize cellphones, because up-to-date handsets utilize spectrum more efficiently.

Whatwhatwhat? OK, the shift from GSM to 3G (and equivalent shift out of IS-95 for Verizon and Sprint) certainly has an element of spectrum efficiency, but handset subsidy and lock in have featured in US carriers' plans for many years before the 3G networks became a reality.

By the way, what spectrum savings could be realized by T-Mobile US, who is not even operating a 3G network yet? And yet they do subsidize handsets.

Handset "subsidies" (which they aren't - try getting a discount on service if you bring your own handset to the table) are a lock-in feature, pure and simple. For an illustration, see Verizon's customers' adventures with Bluetooth.

If I were cynical I'd think I'm witnessing PR dollars flowing across Lake Washington...

Re: Capitalists, Entrepreneurs, and Peer Production

dimitris — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:19:37 -0000

Please allow me to suggest a powerpoint version:

Finance as an end - tail wags dog.

User value as an end - dog wags tail.

Financial returns and user value often correlate, but (increasingly, at this moment in history) not always.

Forcing this correlation to either side of the scale requires the illegitimate use of guns.

There exist apparent supporters of this illegitimate use of guns who also think Craigslist is a parasitic website.

Re: It’s Time to Liberalize International Air Travel

dimitris — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:53:13 -0000

Consumers would benefit if governments would get out of the way and allow the market to determine international routes

As long as Ryanair et al get their subsidies, I suppose?

the 1978 Act allowed the market to determine the number and frequency of domestic routes

Not so much lately.

Re: Poor Dave

dimitris — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:26:16 -0000

As an engineer, I can tell you that when many more visas started to be issued in the late 90’s, engineering salaries stagnated.

As an engineer on H-1B throughout the late 90s, may I please be the first to congratulate "Dave" on the quality of whatever it is that he has scored and is obviously enjoying?

My salary and the salary of several engineers I know went up in the 80-100% range through the mid-to-late 90s, and that's in some quite H-1B heavy shops too. I bet a lot of it was due to the tech bubble, but I don't see why bubble money would favor H-1Bs disproportionately. If you had a pulse and could code decent Java, approaching and even topping six figures wasn't fiction.

Do keep in mind that this was even before the portability changes which made it much easier to switch jobs, removing the "indentured servitude" stigma many associated with H-1B.

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » Explaining Our Knee-Jerk Opposition to Wireless Regulation

dimitris — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 12:44:02 -0000

A short-term but fun band-aid:

The FCC may or may not tell these telcos to knock it off.

In the meantime, you can send your not-so-favorite cell provider a nice churn present by invoking their arbitrary blocking of PSTN numbers in order to terminate your contract with them without paying the early termination fee.

The way I see it, deliberately breaking connectivity with useful parts of the PSTN is a permanent invitation to increased churn. So take it, and keep taking it :-)

Re: Writers, Programmers, and Patents

dimitris — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:49:15 -0000

I think it's fine to treat prose as special. In fact, prose may hold a key to highlighting the big software/business process patent bug, obviousness, to laypersons.

Non-programmers don't understand the problem in its original domain, so do what mathematicians do: Transform it to a different domain:

"Inventions" which can be communicated by prose that cannot reasonably claim copyright protection are inherently obvious:

Hey, how about storing a shopper's payment and shipping preferences as a cookie?

Even if I claim copyright on the above prose, you can get around my one-click shopping "invention" by phrasing it as:

At Tim's E-store, we let you store a standing "Our Reference:" in your electronic purchase orders on our system, using your browser's cookie system

There are virtually infinite different, non-copyright-infringing texts that convey the one-click idea with enough information for a practitioner in the art to duplicate. So it's obvious, as is, for example:

We'll ship a DVD to the customer, and the envelope will be reusable for the return trip. We'll charge a flat fee per month for unlimited DVD rentals.

(Ironically, it seems the latter "invention" precluded the "inventor" of the former from offering a competing service in the US. They did, in the UK, since the DVD business model patent was probably invalid. As was their one-click patent. Sweetness.)

On the other hand, I can't see how any prose that describes the IDEA encryption algorithm can be rephrased without producing a version that, for copyright purposes, is 100% derived. Neither I nor the lawyer are practitioners in the mathematical art, but we don't need to be to understand that the mathematics in the description is what makes the invention work

So, again, it's not algorithms versus prose. It can be attacked, however, as the copyright relationship between two pieces of prose.

Making the lawyers understand that is left as an exercise to the reader :-)

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » GPL 3.0: v. (for Vendetta)

dimitris — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 02:21:11 -0000

In case y'all have missed it, have a look at Bruce Perens' GPL3 FUD-clearing article over at linuxdevices.com.

One key de-FUDding argument seems to be:

And what about Novell-Microsoft? [...] if any entity that distributes the software arranges to protect a particular group from patents regarding that software, it must protect everyone.

Re: Net Neutrality and Piracy

dimitris — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 03:18:11 -0000

The issue at hand is not about packet rate. It's about packet type and packet destination. By all means, specify and enforce traffic volumes (and have your marketing people earn their money by selling that, instead of "unlimited" - separate discussion).

However, if my ISP decides to, for example, block or degrade my VoIP calls which are by no means "always on" and, when on, consume less than a third of my upstream bandwidth, I know they're only doing it to push their own more expensive VoIP service. In violation, I would claim, of their contractual obligation to make "reasonable efforts" to push my packets in return for my money.

The linked article is nothing but a rehashed "if X then the pirates/terrorists/child molsters win" strawman.

Re: Vonage: We Ain’t Got No Work-arounds

dimitris — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 15:12:43 -0000

I haven't followed the V vs V case closely enough, but does anyone know whether obvious prior art has been brought to the court's attention?

Re: Spectrum Collusion?

dimitris — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:20:10 -0000

In many cases, many larger carriers then dropped their bids after the smaller carriers were eliminated

Wow. I didn't realize the game was that rigged.

How about a percentage-in-escrow rule: Depositing a certain significant percentage of the bid amount in an escrow account is a prerequisite for even making the bid. If you win the auction but later back out, the spectrum becomes available again and you say bye bye to the escrow cash.

If these backing-off-after-pricing-out-the-competition shenanigans are indeed true, isn't there some attorney with a RICO itch to scratch?

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » “Second Window” Will Lead to More Uncertainty

dimitris — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:08:55 -0000

First, someone can challenge a patent anytime, throughout the patent’s life if they can show they are likely to suffer “significant economic harm” from the patent. This is extraordinary [...]

It isn't; rather, it fairly counterbalances the continuous threat presented by bogus patents throughout their term.

To use your crime analogy, a (threat of use of a) bogus patent is a crime that takes up to twenty years to perpetrate. A statute of limitations which limits action to the crime's end date is therefore only fair, and perhaps too lenient.

Re: Details on Visual Voicemail and Wireless Carterfone

dimitris — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:20:15 -0000

So, 30+ years after email and 15ish years after MIME, the masters of innovation also known as telcos master the audio attachment.

I wonder if this is one of the items of intellectual proper-taah that Jobs said would be vigorously defended during the iPhone unveiling.

Re: Details on Visual Voicemail and Wireless Carterfone

dimitris — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:54:12 -0000

I forgot to mention that the existing 3GPP/GSM standard on SMS contains all the (optional) protocol support needed for visual voicemail, namely the Enhanced Voice Mail Information record in the User Data section of a SMS packet.

It would be interesting to inspect a voicemail notification SMS on AT&T;'s network, both for an iPhone account and for a non-iPhone account, to see if they've enabled this on all accounts, just iPhone accounts, or if they rolled their own protocol.

Re: Details on Visual Voicemail and Wireless Carterfone

dimitris — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:15:20 -0000

gmahe: There's no way to fit audio inside an SMS: These go over the control channel of GSM networks; texting began life as something of a hack in the early days of GSM, it wasn't completely planned for. Thus the payload is limited to 140 ASCII-ish characters. You can chain up to - theoretically - 65536 PDUs to make one mega-message, but when thousands of these are being sent around it would probably cause severe control channel hoggage, which is bad.

If the Enhanced Voice Mail Information feature is being used, then what's probably happening is that the EVMI SMS is being used as the "push" notification that there is a voicemail state change. That contains the calling line ID of the voicemail sender (VM_MESSAGE_CALLING_LINE_IDENTITY), so you can match that to the contact database and drive the "visual voicemail" display.

EVMI also contains a VM_MESSAGE_ID field, so one can envision a "web service" (using the term loosely) API to the voicemail servers which takes that ID as a parameter. The iPhone can then invoke that API and retrieve the messages.

Of course the above is all a guess. But if one could examine the SMS PDU received by the iPhone when new voicemail is available, it might shed some light. Unfortunately that requires warranty-voiding surgery, as you have to remove the iPhone SIM and put it in a GSM device that gives you access to the PDUs (most of them do).

Hmm... Come to think of it, maybe, just maybe, the iPhone does too. I'd be surprised, but it's not impossible. One of these days I should go to the local Apple store and do some Bluetooth poking ;-)

The point is that this is hardly earth-shattering stuff, technically.

Re: Details on Visual Voicemail and Wireless Carterfone

dimitris — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 13:55:07 -0000

gmahe:

MMS also uses the same notify-with-pointer-to-real content delivery method. The "push" notification is still just a "special" SMS message. Without knowing anything about the internals of AT&T;'s network(*), the difference between implementing visual voicemail as MMS vs. EVMI doesn't seem that great: Either way, and only if you want voicemail delivery to the device without a voice call, you need a non-voice - probably HTTP - front end to the voicemail store. Doing it with MMS saves you from implementing EVMI in the voicemail/SMSC interface so maybe that's what they did.

(*) except observing as a user that their - or their international gateway's - SMSCs have issues with some non-english characters in the GSM alphabet and - as of some time ago - severe bugs with multi-PDU SMS

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » Mobile Market Snapshot: U.S. v. Europe

dimitris — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 13:16:19 -0000

Does Verizon allow you to transfer your pictures over Bluetooth these days or is it still verboten?

Oh and can I run things like truphone on their devices?

Re: New LECG Study Puts Cost of Unbundling at 30 Billion Euros

dimitris — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:05:01 -0000

Telcos: "Unbundling is baaaad, mmkay?"

Whatever. In unbundled Europe, I can still buy faster and cheaper DSL than what I can buy in the US. Here's a juicy example:

Greece: 10Mbit down/1Mbit up for EUR37.90/month, no volume limits, servers OK. Prices at bottom-left of page for the majority of non-Greek speakers reading this. The 29.90 number is for the non-LLU option, so there are extra telco racket fees in that case.

Oh, by the way this also includes two phone numbers, using fully PSTN-interconnected VoIP from the same provider. These come with unlimited nationwide calling and "unlimited" (probably some restriction in the fine print) calling to landlines in international destinations including US, Canada, UK etc.

I've also seen numbers like $20/month for 6Mbit DSL connections in Slovakia.

Of course I've seen second hand reports of many more such offers around Europe, but the above is what I remember off the top of my head at the moment.

So, the telcos say unbundling is bad? Puh-leeeeease.

PS As I write this, I'm trying to counter the second attempt by my local telco racket (Qwest) to mess up the CLEC installation for my new DSL line. Please allow me to be a little bitter, OK? Thanks.

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » Comcast and Freedom to Obtain Service Plan Information

dimitris — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:06:08 -0000

the consumer “shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other user’s use of the Service, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an overly large burden on the network.”

How can the user ensure that her behavior does not violate a standard which is set in the sole judgment of Comcast, unless Comcast publishes that standard?

Do I need a special law-school-exclusive brain implant to read Comcast contracts?

Thanks.

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » SMTP Blocking

dimitris — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:19:05 -0000

Oh, it gets even nicer. I've experienced a WiFi hotspot (T-Mobile) which was attempting to transparently proxy - i.e. spoof - outbound SMTP connections on port 25.

I'm also aware of at least one, non-US, residential DSL ISP which was (and still is, to the best of my knowledge) spoofing port 25 in the same way.

So far, I haven't come across any bit-pusher that has attempted to block port 587, and I only use SSL/TLS over that anyway. I also have access to a SMTP server with a custom port.

Re: Deregulation Used to Be a Liberal Idea

dimitris — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:10:27 -0000

A few years ago I read something in The Economist that resonates/dovetails with this article and the comments.

It basically said (I'm paraphrasing, it's all from memory) that the Bush administration and a lot of Republican senators/representatives had often confused support of free private enterprise with its subtle opposite, support of a private enterprise.

That same confusion makes appearances on TLF from time to time. CEI/AEI contibutors, that's you I'm looking at, for the most part.

Re: US Air’s Control Freakery

dimitris — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 15:33:47 -0000

Window shades: In case of evacuation, crew (and passengers seated in exit rows) need to be able to see whether there is fire that precludes the use of overwing exits.

Electronic devices: This does seem inconsistent. I can understand a prohibition of larger-than-handheld electronic devices, as they could conceivably get in the way during an evacuation. But then the rule should be about larger than handheld electronic devices, not things other than cellphones.

In fact allowing cellphones to be used after landing while taxiing seems inconsistent to me: If cellphones can interfere with communications equipment, that is a problem on the ground too, as pilots coordinate with the tower for active runway crossings. In fact one of the worst airline accidents ever was a ground collision where a radio communication problem was one of the chain of events. The "strict" thing to do would be to only allow handhelds other than cellphones.

Re: Should White Spaces be Unlicensed?

dimitris — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:46:31 -0000

To be sure, spectrum rights should be sold on the free market, with the federal government acting as a registrar of spectrum deeds. The real question is, should every last bit of the spectrum be licensed, or is there a valid case for setting aside a small portion of the airwaves for open, unlicensed, government-regulated use?

That statement contains assumptions that perpetuate the existing system's built-in barriers to entry.

Depending on a target area's population desity, and with software-defined radios becoming more common in commercial devices, you don't need a command-and-control decision about the size of the minimum biddable spectrum "quantum". The lack of the ability to bid on just a few MHz is simply incumbent-protecting market rigging.

There are business models which can work with very very thin slices of spectrum/bandwidth. Think texting/chat, or Twitter, or walkie-talkie functionality - where not only bandwidth requirements are low but latency - and therefore spectrum contention - tolerance is higher.

However, due to the aforementioned barriers to entry, the only way to gain access to this bandwidth now is to submit to the "big picture" business model of an incumbent. Of course no telco is going to offer feasible terms to what would, for them, be a "skimming" competitor.

Another way to put this is that Soviet-style setting of the minimum biddable chunk, to something much much bigger than what dictated by radio technology, prevents efficient margin price discovery. If Verizon really needs that last MHz in, say, Atlanta, well, they really should have to bid it quite high, shouldn't they?

Or, risk some wireless Twitter startup eating their ARPU. To which I'd say, yay for the invisible hand.

Re: Should White Spaces be Unlicensed?

dimitris — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:24:01 -0000

Ryan,

People won't just be able to buy the rights to airwaves from the government--they would be able to purchase comparatively small chunks from spectrum resellers.

My point is that there is no need for the additional friction/barrier of the resellers. The government actually has considerable experience working with the retail investor.

Furthermore, reselling is going on now. However, one of these days, take a look at the fine print in your (perhaps "unlimited") wireless data plan. You'll likely find some interesting language about how, in order to protect its business plan - excuse me, its network - the operator reserves the right to define any application it likes as "bad" for the network. In other words: Browsing is good, (competitive) messaging et al, bad. Your barrier at work.

Re: great piece on online behavioral marketing and privacy

dimitris — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:23:15 -0000

Unless my wife had never shopped in Nordstrom before, which would make it creepy.

Not unlike third-party cookies which, in my browser, result mostly in new AdBlock rules with liberal use of '*' in the regular expressions, like '*.googlesyndication.com/*'.

BTW, what happened to comments the preview button?

Re: Devastating Ubuntu Review

dimitris — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:31:40 -0000

Dammit, the linked site is no longer viewable, "exceeded its CPU quota". That's what completely free schedulers get you, you Linux commie traitors!

Re: George W. Bush’s Lost Emails

dimitris — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:17:02 -0000

The administration is either spectacularly incompetent or going out of its way to avoid complying with the law

Both?

Re: Is There an Openness-Bandwidth Trade-off?

dimitris — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:19:46 -0000

And so I wonder, how many folks would actually agree with Danny Weitzner’s statement that, “I’d rather have a more open Internet at lower speeds than a faster Internet that has all sorts of discrimination built in.” If that’s the trade-off that’s being forced upon us, then I will take the faster Internet, thank you very much.

Obviously it depends on the interpretation of "open", but your automatic preference for speed may be troubling. Have you compared terms of service? For example, Verizon FIOS is fast, however:

You also may not exceed the bandwidth usage limitations that Verizon may establish from time to time for the Service, or use the Service to host any type of server. Violation of this section may result in bandwidth restrictions on your Service or suspension or termination of your Service.

No remote Slingbox for you on FIOS then, but it's OK on (slower) Speakeasy:

Speakeasy believes in the right of the individual to publish information they feel is important to the world via the Internet. Unlike many ISP's, Speakeasy allows customers to run servers (web, mail, etc.) over their Internet connections, use hubs, and share networks in multiple locations.

Oh, and on FIOS, all your data are possibly belong to Verizon:

Content and Data Management by Verizon: We reserve the right to: (a) use, copy, display, store, transmit and reformat data transmitted over our network and to distribute such content to multiple Verizon servers for back-up and maintenance purposes;

Well, at least it's fast(er) :-)

Re: Is There an Openness-Bandwidth Trade-off?

dimitris — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:53:31 -0000

Ryan,

It's not about the giga/terabytes, at least not primarily. If use is not excessive and/or content is not HD, bandwidth might not even be that high. It's about the non-server policy, and the Slingbox, to be accessible remotely - its key selling point BTW - has to be a "server" under FIOS terms.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that, currently, Verizon may not do anything, even for servers. But how do you know that, in the quest for higher ARPU through some video-on-demand add-on, Verizon won't start enforcing the rules?

Anyway, agreeing to contracts on a nod-wink basis doesn't seem wise - or particularly libertarian, for that matter ;-)

Now, I agree with Wes that there's nothing wrong if one pays for the higher infrastructure costs of neutrality through higher prices/lower bandwidth. However, the persistently ignored elephant in the room is the (lack of) unbundling. If any Verizon can throw DSL competitors off its monopoly-era-sunk-costs infrastructure, arguing about "pricing" of neutrality seems pointless.

Re: Not One, Not Two, but THREE Competing Open Source Mobile Operating Systems

dimitris — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:51:20 -0000

Hold the Mozilla comparisons. Symbian apps have to be signed, and to do anything interesting - like, say, change the S60 telephony app behavior for least-cost-routing - something, incidentally, built in with the UIQ flavor telephony app - is impossible.

For the most part, Symbian Signed is there to make sure developers behave like good kiddies and don't mess with Ma Telco's business models. Can ou say, pocket tivoization?

If something similar was (somehow) present in Mozilla, what are the chances the most popular Mopzilla extension would have existed?

Symbian Signed will live on under the new foundation, so although opening the code will help with the currently average-to-occasionally-atrocious API documentation, it will still be a disruption-hostile platform.

Re: Russian Astro-spam?

dimitris — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:51:13 -0000

I think our Russian friend answered Tim's question.

Re: The Perils of Thinking of Broadband as a Public Utility

dimitris — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:34:40 -0000

A 1.5 megabit connection (T1) was an unimaginable luxury when I started in tech in the mid-90’s. It was for well-funded companies only. Today, it is a low-end consumer connection and costs around 80% less. Has your sewage service followed a similar trajectory?

Based on the fact that my sewage provider isn't considering putting me on a liquid-only diet, or limit how many/often guests I can have over I'd have to say no.

Re: Search Advertising Dropped 8% in 2008: Why Users Should Care

dimitris — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:19:39 -0000

If ad services have in fact consumed far more than their optimal "allocation" of capital, then a sustained drop in online advertising revenue should result in some beneficial reallocation of that capital to more worthy ends.

I mean we do believe in the invisible hand, don't we?

Re: Moglen’s Socialist Revolution

dimitris — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:34:28 -0000

I'd just like to post my objection to the use of the phrase "GNU/Linux operating system." This term is Stallman's attempt to take credit for something he did not in fact create, the Linux operating system, simply because it was compiled with the one thing that he did create, the GNU C compiler. It's an insult to Linus Torvalds to use this term, especially in a discussion of GPL and all that nonsense.

nonsense like the GCC didn't only let Torvalds create the original Linux kernel; it also provided thousands of people with a low-barrier-to-entry toolchain that allowed them to contribute. Hardly non-trivial.

There's other GPL nonsense that functionally makes up what we think of as the Linux OS. Little things like a standard library. Things like that.

Re: Liberty, Anarchism, and Eben Moglen

dimitris — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:38:49 -0000

being a libertarian means being pro-liberty, not necessarily pro-business.

Cannot agree more.

Another way to remember this is, to (mis)quote The Economist, "supporting Free Enterprise is decidedly not the same, and usually antithetical to, supporting A Specific Enterprise."

Therefore "free enterprise" must be treated as a red flag and cause for closer inspection when it comes up in arguments (or - couldn't resist - think tank names), as it can be supporting actions on either side of this bait-and-switch.

Re: Chris Sogohian’s Cool Opt-Out Plugin

dimitris — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 22:57:12 -0000

How is this, in a practical sense, "new" in the face of Adblock and its whitelisting feature?

Re: Chris Sogohian’s Cool Opt-Out Plugin

dimitris — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:27:08 -0000

Well, it may be splitting hairs, but for google posterity if nothing else:

My SOP for years now has been to set Firefox to always ask me what to do with cookies. With one or two work-related exceptions, the rest of the (web) world gets this treatment:

- The vast majority of cookies are persistently ("always do this for this site") denied.
- When needed, cookies are accepted only for the browser session.

This way, when advertising networks attempt to set tracking cookies, that serves as a trigger for me to enrich my AdBlock filters, before persistently denying the cookie.

So far I haven't seen any such third-party cookies which, being blocked, have interfered with my other use of a site.

Hence the "practical", if not exact, equivalence.

What would be excellent for a Firefox privacy add-on would be a feature to limit cookies to the particular tab's lifetime, similar to NoScript's temporary permission option.

Re: Nokia N82 Using Sportstracker At 10000 Meters Altitude

dimitris — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:48:38 -0000

Radio receivers also emit, or "leak", radio frequencies. So your GPS chip was likely emitting a - very low - signal. Since the frequency depends on the receiver architecture, there's no way to conclusively know that *all* receivers are safe to use in aircraft. That's the reason for the blanket prohibition of transmitters *and* receivers.

As to the EU regulation, if I remember correctly it is only supposed to be used with microcells installed on the plane which signal the mobile to transmit at its lowest setting. Plus, the frequencies are known/tested with the relevant avionics before they are allowed to be used on board.

So, Al, technically speaking, the Feds might want to have a word with you (not that I'd expect that to happen).

Re: Nokia N95 8GB Macro Pictures At Botanical Garden

dimitris — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:17:50 -0000

Mark,

How has your N95 been stability-wise?

We have two N95-4s, both updated to the 20.2.005 firmware. They both experience random shutdowns while idle.

This has happened both on the charger and on battery power (battery was charged). In all cases they were not in a pocket or similar, so it's not accidental key presses either. In fact in most cases it happened overnight while they were on a nightstand.

Googling around suggests that this has been going on for a while, with the N95-3 and with the original 8GB model.

Finally, these don't have any "strange" software installed that might cause this. They have Google Maps and Google Search, and I positively know that these were not running during many of the shutdowns.

One possibly related observation: Almost every time I handle either phone's BL-6F battery, for example to remove the SIM, I hear the characteristik crackle of static discharge. Bad/counterfeit batteries/phones?

All in all, with 2 out of 2 having this problem, and with a seemingly known history of problems that Nokia isn't able/willing to solve, I'm definitely unimpressed.

My E61i on the other hand has been rock solid. Perhaps N-series are simly to be avoided as just consumer-quality devices for not-too-demanding customers.

Re: Requesting Nokia Warranty Repair For My Nokia N95 8GB Day 1

dimitris — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:59:24 -0000

I had a N810 repaired recently (and, it turns out, unnecessarily - just needed a reflash but I didn't google diligently enough and Nokia's support site FAQs had zero relevance to tablets).

It went as smooth as it could possibly go, although I have also heard horror stories. Then again it was hardly a "repair".

As I posted in another thread earlier, I have two N95-4s with random shutdown issues, so I may be trying my luck with Nokia repair soon.

Good luck.

Re: Nokia Email Graduates Without HTML - Thanks But No Thanks

dimitris — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:34:10 -0000

This looked nice until I realized it's a *hosted* service. Give Nokia my email passwords and, after the "trial period" ends, even *pay* for this on top of data charges?

Thanks, but no thanks. Stay with Profimail.

Re: Want Instant Messaging on Nokia? Try Palringo

dimitris — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:56:23 -0000

Based on their FAQ, you need to give them your IM account password, in my case Google Talk. That won't fly for me.