As an artist who probably makes a substantial income from licensing his music, you might think Neil Young would frown on piracy and file-sharing, but that appears not to be the case, according to an interview he gave at the Dive Into Media conference in Los Angeles. Instead of railing against file-sharers, Young called piracy “the new radio” because it’s “how music gets around.” The musician’s comment puts a lot of the hysteria about copyright infringement into perspective — as we’ve pointed out before, file-sharing and monetization aren’t mutually exclusive, and in many cases a certain amount of so-called “piracy” can actually be good for business, as authors, musicians and even game developers have come to realize.

Comparing piracy to radio is a smart way of looking at the issue: in the early days of the music business, when live performances and record sales were the main revenue generator for artists and publishers, radio itself was seen as a form of piracy (as sheet music was before that). Musicians fulminated about radio stations playing their music for free, and some record labels made their acts sign waivers saying they would not appear on the radio. In the end, of course, radio became a huge revenue driver for music — although it did so in part because record labels and publishers pushed for licensing fees.

Essentially, the list of charges is that the near 1 million people who work for Foxconn (about 230,000 of whom produce products for Apple, the others assembling for Dell, HP, just about every electronics company in fact) have to work long hours for low pay in dangerous conditions.

Well, yes, they’re poor people living in a poor country. That’s what being poor means, having to work extremely hard to make very little. Yes, that is a harsh thing to say but then reality can indeed be harsh.

To show that it’s not just uncaring neoliberals like myself who say such things why not try reading Paul Krugman on the subject of sweatshops? Specifically, here, on what would happen if we were to try and stop the manufacturing being done in such poor places:

I wrote this thing on Twitter this morning about the MegaUpload shutdown, and it’s gotten some crazy traction on the old internet. In addition, I’ve just done a couple of interviews for NPR on the subject, and I think I may have said some crazy, provocative things. There are many comments and questions out there already with more to come, and rather than have a bunch of separate discussions on a bunch of different social media platforms, I thought I would put some of my thoughts here.

"I sold an old French violin to a buyer in Canada, and the buyer disputed the label.

This is not uncommon. In the violin market, labels often mean little and there is often disagreement over them. Some of the most expensive violins in the world have disputed labels, but they are works of art nonetheless.

Rather than have the violin returned to me, PayPal made the buyer DESTROY the violin in order to get his money back. They somehow deemed the violin as “counterfeit” even though there is no such thing in the violin world."

Current US law extends copyright protection for 70 years after the date of the author’s death. (Corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication.) But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years (an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years). Under those laws, works published in 1955 would be passing into the public domain on January 1, 2012.

One Sunday morning, January 6th, 2008 I was attending religious services when my cell phone vibrated. As discreetly as possible, I checked the phone and noticed that my phone said "Caller ID unknown". I choose to ignore.

After services, as I was walking to my car with my family, I checked my cell phone messages. The message left was from Steve Jobs. "Vic, can you call me at home? I have something urgent to discuss" it said.

Before I even reached my car, I called Steve Jobs back. I was responsible for all mobile applications at Google, and in that role, had regular dealings with Steve. It was one of the perks of the job.

"Hey Steve - this is Vic", I said. "I'm sorry I didn't answer your call earlier. I was in religious services, and the caller ID said unknown, so I didn't pick up".

Steve laughed. He said, "Vic, unless the Caller ID said 'GOD', you should never pick up during services".

I laughed nervously. After all, while it was customary for Steve to call during the week upset about something, it was unusual for him to call me on Sunday and ask me to call his home. I wondered what was so important?

"So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I've already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow" said Steve.

"I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?"

Of course this was okay with me. A few minutes later on that Sunday I received an email from Steve with the subject "Icon Ambulance". The email directed me to work with Greg Christie to fix the icon.

Since I was 11 years old and fell in love with an Apple II, I have dozens of stories to tell about Apple products. They have been a part of my life for decades. Even when I worked for 15 years for Bill Gates at Microsoft, I had a huge admiration for Steve and what Apple had produced.

But in the end, when I think about leadership, passion and attention to detail, I think back to the call I received from Steve Jobs on a Sunday morning in January. It was a lesson I'll never forget. CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday.

To one of the greatest leaders I've ever met, my prayers and hopes are with you Steve.

-Vic

One of the most interesting stories to catch my eyes in the last few months was this exposé from Chris Bennet at 97th Floor - Google, Your Honeymoon with Rip Off Report Has to Stop. Looking through Chris' detailed research into the practices of the website and perusing some of the appalling accusations made about the business and its founder, it's shocking that the domain continues to retain its authority.

Use bcrypt

Use bcrypt. Use bcrypt. Use bcrypt. Use bcrypt. Use bcrypt. Use bcrypt. Use bcrypt. Use bcrypt. Use bcrypt.

Why Not {MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA512, SHA-3, etc}?

These are all general purpose hash functions, designed to calculate a digest of huge amounts of data in as short a time as possible. This means that they are fantastic for ensuring the integrity of data and utterly rubbish for storing passwords.

Google made headlines when it went public with the fact that Chinese hackers had penetrated some of its services, such as Gmail, in a politically motivated attempt at intelligence gathering. The news here isn't that Chinese hackers engage in these activities or that their attempts are technically sophisticated -- we knew that already -- it's that the U.S. government inadvertently aided the hackers.

In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access.

Google's system isn't unique. Democratic governments around the world -- in Sweden, Canada and the UK, for example -- are rushing to pass laws giving their police new powers of Internet surveillance, in many cases requiring communications system providers to redesign products and services they sell.

Before studying the iPhone version, it was important for me to understand how Doom engine WAS performing rendition back in 1993. After all the OpenGL port must reuse the same data from the WAD archive. Here are my notes about Doom 1993 renderer, maybe it will help someone to dive in.

I mean i have been doing a few missions lately in wich i had to fight Caldari ships (i'm gallente). I was doing high quality level 1 missions, nothing too fancy but seen serious hits to my caldari standings. Well, that's to be expected, but on other hand, my Gallente one did not change at all. So if i understand it right, the only ways to improve standings is to do storyline missions and cosmos ones, and the storyline often involve worsening standing with someone else (especially now due to changes to Gallente storyline missions). Funny thing though, my corporate standings with corps in Caldari space did not change at all.

Isn't it a bit too biased into making players stick to a side and be barred from the rest of EVE?

A recent posting to the lkml requested help in porting the C++ Click Modular Router kernel module from the 2.4 stable kernel to the 2.6 stable kernel. The request was for ideas on fixing C++ related compilation errors, but the thread quickly turned into a lengthy debate on whether or not C++ had a place in the Linux kernel. The issue has been debated many times before, long ago earning its own entry in the lkml FAQ which offers numerous reasons why the kernel is not written in C++.

During the recent discussion, when it was suggested that perhaps the kernel is written in C simply because "we've always done it that way...", Linux creator Linus Torvalds joined in to explain:

"In fact, in Linux we did try C++ once already, back in 1992. It sucks. Trust me - writing kernel code in C++ is a BLOODY STUPID IDEA.

"The fact is, C++ compilers are not trustworthy. They were even worse in 1992, but some fundamental facts haven't changed: 1) the whole C++ exception handling thing is fundamentally broken. It's _especially_ broken for kernels. 2) any compiler or language that likes to hide things like memory allocations behind your back just isn't a good choice for a kernel. 3) you can write object-oriented code (useful for filesystems etc) in C, _without_ the crap that is C++."

There are plenty of JavaScript libraries out there for rendering your otherwise plain and boring numerical data into beautiful, interactive, and informative visualizations. The beauty of using JavaScript for data visualization is that, if created correctly, your data will be highly accessible (usually via HTML tables). A long time ago (2008), I wrote about JavaScript solutions for graphing and charting data and this article revisits the topic with twenty more JavaScript libraries that you can use to bring your data to life.

Trying to get some discourse going on ECM before the general whine on the EVE-O forums moves from nanoships to ECM. Not calling for a nerf of it either, but instead to look at the counter.

Sensor Dampeners are effectively countered by Sensor Boosters, which have a good use out of just countering them.

Tracking Disruptors are countered by Tracking Computers, although not too effectively, but they still have an all situational use just like Sensor Boosters.

ECCM does a very poor job of countering ECM and a full rack of them still leaves a specialized ECM ship a very good collective chance across all ECM to jam you. Furthuremore, ECCM provide no useful bonuses outside of 'countering' ECM unlike Sensor Dampeners and Tracking Computers.

Their effectiveness as either a counter or useful module should be improved fairly dramatically to make them a viable module to use in a midslot. Some ideas were simply increasing the amount of sensor strength provided percentage wise, or perhaps giving it another attribute such as lowering signature radius and having it utilize scripts.

Thoughts or suggestions on the matter?

Are there any other benefits to this module other than lock distance and +3 on max targets up to ship limit. It'd be great if it was able to lock and fire on each target at the same time (up to the number of launchers) but it doesn't do that, right? You still have to pick one and only one target at a time, or is that wrong too?

Been explaininig a few things far too often, lets make a thread that might help as a reference guide, while studying ofcourse Smile.. it turned out a bit big, but I had a lot to say..

Before I start I should probably mention i'm a drone purist, the only reason I have a laser on my domi is to aggro rats (and laser means no ammo, always useful) and I now have about 5.3M sp in drones (also I can't use fighters, so these are pure drone sp). Now that I have sounded arrogant enough to say I know a thing or two about drones:

In this two-part series, I look at some of EVE's biggest trade hubs, what can be found there and how to use them to your advantage as a trader. In today's first part I look at a few of the biggest Caldari and Minmatar trade hubs.