What's your computer?

[pyesetz]

(Copied from enteirah ← loganberry ← xuenay ← pwx who invented it and asked people to add additional questions to it.)

• Computer: IBM ThinkPad 600E (bought used).
• OS: RedHat 8. Will be upgrading to FC2 soon.
• Connection: 802.11b wireless to ~12 megabit/sec cable modem.
• Harddrive capacity: 10GB, minus two bad cylinders I've formatted around.
• Free harddrive space: 4GB. Would be more if I didn't have 2.3GB allocated to a harddrive copy of the RH8 installation CD's.
• RAM: 160MB.
• Processor: PII 400 Mhz.
• In your CD drive(s) right now: Nothing. CD is out of the drive bay, replaced by a 3-hour battery.
• Browser: Mozilla 1.0.1 (will be upgrading to FC2's version).
• Livejournal client: Mozilla. Who needs a special-purpose client?
• IRC client: none.
• FTP Client: ftp, lftp, vsftp, mozilla, Emacs!
• Email: kmail.
• Spyware remover: Linux.
• Virus detection: Linux.
• Instant Messenger: none.
• Mp3 player: None. Will probably get one for FC2.
• Graphics editor: GIMP.
• HTML editor: Mozilla, rarely Emacs.
• Movie player: None. Might get one for FC2.
• p2p: none.
• Text editor: Emacs!!!
• Game systems: Windows 98, Windows XP.
• What's inside each of them: Intel inside! Well, the XP has an Athlon. One of the others has a Celeron 400, the third has a PII-233.
• No, dummy, what game disk is inside! Oh. Why didn't you say so? I don't know what's in the PII right now. The Celeron is probably empty, but was last used to play "Toy Story". The Athlon probably has a copy of "Age of Mythology".
• On the TV (card): No card. I keep thinking I ought to get one before the US bans them next year. At the moment, all TV's in the house are off.
• In the CD Player: Home-made CD by Wifey, containing songs legally downloaded from the web because we already own LP's with the same recordings on them (that's my take, anyway -- I'm sure the RIAA disagrees).
• Printer: None. Celeron has an HP LaserJet III. Athlon has a Canon i550, chosen for its simple ink tanks. Do not buy printers from Lexmark!
• Scanner: None. Athlon has a UMax Astra 1220P, bought years ago because "it was just so cheap!" at BJ's.
• CD drives: 24x for DriveBay, rarely installed.
• Mouse: IBM TrackPoint.
• Firewall: NetGear CG814M Accesspoint/router/switch/firewall/cable modem.
• Windows folder size: What is this "Windows" you speak of? I have less than half the RedHat 8 packages installed. I keep all the others on disk but uninstalled in case I suddenly want them.
• Okay smartass, how about your home directory? 174 MB, mostly mail and Mozilla cache, I think.

Comments

[pyesetz]

Why on Earth would they do that?

As part of the take-over by plutocrats of the US government, which is usurping for itself the right to decide what you may and may not do with electronic equipment in the privacy of your own home. Most of the other parts of this plutocratic initiative have been stalled for now, such as the one that planned to ban any program (such as Emacs) that would copy a file that had a "do not copy" flag. Effectively, such a law would ban the copying of all files with "unknown" formats, since there would be no way to determine where the do-not-copy flag might be in such a file.

http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5103305.html
http://slate.msn.com/id/2091723
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,62619,00.html

[zi-mugudarina.livejournal.com]

I'm sure they'll create a provision for it, but he's right. One of my favorite CD-R burning utilities was discontinued because it was capable of writing in raw data format (ie: 0 for 0 and 1 for 1 exactly as it appeared on the CD) assuming you had a CD-R capable of doing so as well (which none of the new ones now do). The fact that such an obviously valuable tool would be banned simply because it may be used to copy something illegal is insane.
Especially when you consider that all encryption can be gotten around either way (Even the GameShark comes with software to bypass DVD region encryption (which should never have existed anyway)).
The fact that the US Government thinks it alright to copy TV broadcasts onto VHS but not into a digital format just because digital format is easier to pass around on the web (although VHS can also be transfered to a computer if a person is serious about it so it only stops lazy and unprofessional copyright infringers) is stupid.

Also, Pyesetz, under current copyright laws you only have a right to backup copies of data from your specific copy of the given media. So those mp3s must be ripped from your LPs themselves to be legal (same goes for rom-images of cartridge games which is the only reason I know it) ;)

[pyesetz]

under current copyright laws you only have a right to backup copies of data from your specific copy of the given media. So those mp3s must be ripped from your LPs themselves to be legal

The MP3 file itself doesn't indicate which copy it was made from. The only evidence that I didn't make my own copies is my public statements. That would seem to make me an unappealing target for the Forces of Evil.

Canadian law is much nicer, as usual. A tax on media is used as a bribe to buy off the Big Bad Guys, while allowing anyone to make personal copies from anyone's licensed copy of a song. Downloading an MP3 is clearly legal there. Unfortunately, downloading movies is not so clear, but give the Canucks time and they'll find a way to make voters happy while throwing money at the robber barons.

So is this the kind of "useless post" you wouldn't want as a comment in your journal?

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

I see. Well, as far as I know there's no such "flag" included in British broadcasts, and in any case mine's a basic analogue card, but even so... =:S