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As a town in Minnesota discovered, all you have to do is threaten to roll your own. Suddenly 50Mb/s for $50/month is available.

The problem isn't technology, population density or land area. The problem is that local government provide a monopoly (or oligopoly), so there is no incentive to truly cut margins and invest in infrastructure. Stop that, and companies will find a way to keep getting that check in the mail.

Even if they release source code, it is possible that the code they actually use in their voting machines is different than the code they release. It's entirely their choice which software is run on any given day, is that correct? They can do updates whenever they want. Their are apparently no dependable guarantees.

In the past, Sequoia Voting has not seemed especially knowledgeable: Sequoia e-voting machines disturbingly easy to hack. Quote: "Researchers from the Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy ... were able to trivially circumvent the machine's physical security mechanisms and plant a hacked ROM that undetectably doctored the voting results."

See this article, also, about a Sequoia AVC Advantage voting machine: Evidence of New Jersey Election Discrepancies.

Off topic: Be skeptical about flu reports. The reports about flu were so flawed I took the time to write my own, using information from The Atlantic magazine and CBS News, among other sources.

An amazingly common misconception. People don't actually buy things advertised by spam. Err, [citation needed]?

Here's mine: http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/07/12-of-e-mail-users-try-to-buy-stuff-from-spam-e-mail.ars

Slightly less than half (48 percent) said that they have never clicked on a spam e-mail. That's the good news, but that means the other half have clicked on or responded to spam. But why? The answers will undoubtedly horrify you. A full 12 percent said that they were interested in the product or service being offered—those erection drug and mail order bride ads do reach a certain market, it appears.

Seventeen percent said that they made a mistake when they did so—understandable—but another 13 percent said they simply had no idea why they did it; they just did. Another six percent "wanted to see what would happen."

The report on this this that I saw at ars technica said this is implemented using BD-Live. If that's right, then it means that any fully featured BluRay player could do it.

So Netflix will have effectively co-opted the next generation physical media installed base for their online distribution system. I think that's a pretty big deal compared semi-supporting one more console, don't you?

Relly? I did a quick Googlig too, and found nothing. There's certainly nothing of this sort to be found on their homepage, nor ARM's. I did a lengthy googling and found an Intel executive stating that it's ARM, but I also found an ArsTechnica article http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2007/08/MIT-startup-raises-multicore-bar-with-new-64-core-CPU.ars stating that it's a MIPS derived VLIW architecture. After MIPS revealed itself as a candidate it was easy to find more information, and MIPS it is.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/10/arm-fills-out-cpu-lineup-with-cortex-a5.ars

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/10/21/arm-announces-cortex-a5-for-the-next-15-billion-cellphones-and-mids.aspx

AFAIK, the current European copyright duration is "70 years post mortem auctoris". It's preposterous.
For example: J.K. Rowling is a European woman in the 21st century so let's suppose (and hope) she lives to put 90 candles on her birthday cake. That means that with current legislation, barring further ex-post-facto law changes, that Harry Potter is her publisher's monopoly right until anno domini 2125, or 116 years from now.
Publishing companies don't have eternal life either, so what are the odds that Bloomsbury Publishing (est. 1986) will still exist 116 years from now? And if it doesn't, *NOBODY* has the legal right to publish the adventures of the lightning-scarred pubescent until 2125. Not even Google :-)
I think that copyright should be the maximum of (the author's life , x years after production) where the mathematical optimum for x was something like 14 years? but even if it's 40 years that seems more reasonable.
X should be > 0 to prevent the following scenario: record company A "owns" wildly famous rock star B. competing record company C gets B killed, and can start production of B's records immediately as well as A, since B's dead and his music is now public domain.
However I consider the chance slim that someone kills Harry Mulisch to get "Wenken voor de Jongste Dag" (1967) into the public domain a few years sooner (sorry mr. Mulisch).

I did find this:

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2008/09/study-confirms-users-are-idiots.ars

I'm not sure if it's the study I was thinking of though.

If I were this developer I'd see about installing a heaping helping of malware onto their iPhone.

Yes, because as we all know it is impossible for a piracy detector to throw a false positive (i.e. flag a legitimate user as a pirate). Right? Right?

I'm sure Apple is planning something, OS X's file system is showing its age. Ars had a very good article about it here: From BFS to ZFS

"Are there exceptions? Of course there are, and the ways that the exceptions are put into practice will have a significant effect on US network design.

First, all six principles are subject to "reasonable network management." No one's sure what that means, but the FCC staff have now developed guidance that is far more helpful than the previous (nonexistent) guidance.

Network management is reasonable if it is used

* To manage congestion on networks

* To address harmful traffic (viruses, spam)

* To block unlawful content (child porn)

* To block unlawful transfers of content (copyright infringement)

* For "other reasonable network management practices"

The ambiguity of that last item is striking, and we'll have to see what sorts of things the FCC allows in practice before understanding just how wide this exemption really is.

The second exemption to the rules is for "managed services," another hazy area. FCC staff are defining managed services as offerings that are provided over the same networks as regular Internet access but that "differ from broadband Internet access service in ways that suggest a different policy approach." This includes things like voice services and telemedicine, but it's obviously a pretty broad category, and the FCC is asking for guidance on how to define it.

It appears that the agency is looking for ways to let telcos and cable companies offer additional, prioritized services over a single line, things like analog and digital voice, cable TV, and low-latency connections for medical use.

The rules apply to every Internet connection, wired and wireless, though what is "reasonable" may vary by connection type and even by network speed. As Commissioner Michael Copps put it in his supporting remarks, "What is reasonable today might be unreasonable tomorrow--and vice versa" as networks expand."

So, it isn't like this is truly in the best interest of the consumer only as it seems to be on surface.

While I want something to ensure that there IS net neutrality, I'm not sure if this is the way to do it. Nor am I sure that the FCC even HAS the authority to regulate the internet in this method? Wouldn't legislation be the more direct way to set the rules in stone? The FCC can change their mind and rules will be bent depending on who is in charge that year....we've seen it before.

It's not about Solaris. It's about MySQL

Activision is the same company that pulled LAN support from Starcraft II and Diablo III ("Blizzard: We're not supporting LAN play") only to re-add (limited) support for LAN play after the huge fan backlash.

Activision (at least Blizzard) has backpedaled on bad decisions before.

Because people have posted a bunch of fear-laden scenarios about what might happen, but have not actually come to pass?

What, like blocking users who download too much then refusing to admit it even after tools are produced to show that Comcast was generating spoofed RST packets? Oh no, that would never come to pass.

Anytime a major ISP has tried something fishy they have been slapped down hard by customers.

Last I heard, Sandvine is doing pretty good... oh wait, the people whose applications stop working aren't Sandvine's customers.

The reason this is going to happen is the same reason that health reform is happening: no matter how much FUD the opponents throw out there, their FUD can't hold a candle to the reality of how it is now. "Oh no, nobody will invest in teh terabitz intarwebs!" but hey, at least Comcast won't be able to block me from using Lotus Notes.

Sure, there are good reasons not to change the regulation on either, but the industries are trying their damnedest to make sure that everyone knows the reasons why we should. You'd think that with health care reform breathing down their necks, insurers would take a timeout on refusing coverage due to unrelated issues, but no, as far as I can tell, they're fanning the flames to ensure that they'll have the hottest funeral pyres around.

I stand corrected. I heard Lexmark was using the DMCA to shut down third-party suppliers. Didn't realise it blew up in their face:
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/02/4636.ars

To the other posters ranting about monopoly comments: was referring to Microsoft's Anti-trust suit. Never said they had a monopoly on games. Straw man called.

See this page on Ars Technica for an explanation: http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/12

Ars Technica has a great explanation on Grand Central Dispatch (GCD), and how LLVM and OpenCL fits into the grand scheme of things:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars

Note: all links from same article, which is 23 proper pages long (not 5 line jobs).

Ars Technica has a great explanation on Grand Central Dispatch (GCD), and how LLVM and OpenCL fits into the grand scheme of things:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars

Note: all links from same article, which is 23 proper pages long (not 5 line jobs).

Ars Technica has a great explanation on Grand Central Dispatch (GCD), and how LLVM and OpenCL fits into the grand scheme of things:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars

Note: all links from same article, which is 23 proper pages long (not 5 line jobs).

Ars Technica has a great explanation on Grand Central Dispatch (GCD), and how LLVM and OpenCL fits into the grand scheme of things:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars

Note: all links from same article, which is 23 proper pages long (not 5 line jobs).

Ars Technica has a great overview of what GCD is, and why it's important.

I haven't done much multithreaded programming in C, although this looks like an absolute godsend to those who do. Maybe someday we can actually have a modern desktop as responsive as BeOS was...

The article also contains a bit of information about Apple's compiler strategy and refinements to the C language itself. Most of these have been open-sourced under a permissive license, which is pretty damn cool.

The key here is the code behind grand central dispatch is not GPL compatible, so Linux will probably never get this code. This means MOST high performance computing centers will now be looking primarily at OS X (and maybe FreeBSD) for their future needs, rather than Linux. If you are a fan of TRULY FREE software, then this is great news. If you are Richard Stallman, then its time to go cry into your beer.

Actually, the FCC seems to be already preparing for that eventuality. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/fcc-to-investigate-gating-role-of-middle-mile-access.ars Crazy shit, all this govt making sensible decisions.

What? Sigh. Once again, all together now: Piracy is not stealing.

The Black Flag was flying over the Carribbean when "piracy" was first used to descrbe copyright infringement.

The connection was anchored then. High profile sites like "The Pirate Bay keep it anchored now.

This a not a battle the geek can win. He can't even hold the line on Slashdot.

"
But wait, there's one more oddity in the same sentence: "more money" - which assumes that money is made at all by piracy

The line can't even be held within a single post.

There is money to made in "pirated" IP of every sort: New wave of pirates has psoriasis, frat boy hair; no peglegs

But Ars Technica got one fact wrong. The DOJ will prosecute an individual who is not in the game for the money:

San Diego County Man Pleads Guilty In Movie Piracy Case for posting 'Slumdog Millionaire' On Internet

A word to the wise:

This was a guilty plea on a felony charge.

The Feds award the geek bonus points for the upload of a pre-release screener.

More at issue is not the fact that they have the patent, but that they're trying to suck money out of everyone by participating in the IEEE and not signing a Letter of Assurance. A Letter of Assurance doesn't mean that you won't make money or won't sue, just that you'll charge reasonable royalties (IEEE's all about co-operation). Their requested royalty rates are several dollars per sale, which is stupid when you're talking about a technology that should be used in the cheapest devices. They signed a letter of assurance for 802.11a but kept silent on g and n. Then they started suing when g was adopted.

i thought this stuff was handled by very fast computers looking for very small movements in very large data sets these days...

like say whats described here: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/-it-sounds-like-something.ars

Sure, one can jailbreak an iPhone or root an Android, but those are still limited frameworks.

The jailbreak iPhone community wouldn't get to be as big as the community making appstore apps over night.

Android could end up having quite a community, but since android is (mostly) open the huge Linux community can easily keep their systems Android compatible without locking the rest of the system up so much that they could not benefit from all the other good stuff going on around Linux.

So Nokia not committing to Android is a clever move in my eyes, because it opens up possibilities rather than limiting them.

Just my five cents...

Nokia's "open" strategy will pay off big time in the long run. At the moment, their major threat is the iPhone, which inherits all of apple's strengths (RDF, UI design) as well as it's weaknesses (software/hardware lockdown).

The next-gen Nokia phone on the other hand (successor to the N900) will get all the hardware features of the iPhone, but with the openness of a linux software stack. Want to make an app that downloads podcasts? Fine! Want to use your phone as a modem? No problem! In fact, no corporation enforcing their moral or business rules on how you use your phone, or alienation of talented developers!

Maemo and Qt being open source will ensure that the software features of the Maemo platform quickly eclipse those of the artificially limited iPhone platform. Maemo's based on Debian - so Nokia automatically gets just about every open-source software package in existence available on their platform.

I think this is the most serious threat that the turtleneck sweater brigade have yet seen.

Yes, it possibly would but Intel is still working on Moblin, its not ready for prime-time.

See this Ars article about the Ubuntu-remix version of Moblin (on the Dell mini v10)

But its getting there, and I hope to see more Moblin, and Maemo, devices when they're ready.

For fast-booting, they might as well put Splashtop in the bios instead, works wonderfully on my Asus desktop mobo.

In related news, Nemertes President Johna Till Johnson is still convinced that the internet will meet its end by 2010. Back in 2007 they claimed that the "exponential" growth in demand for bandwidth will butt up against the "linear" investment in networking technology causing brownouts and no internet by 2010. And as recently as May of 2009, they have been still saying this! Then in October 1st the same company claimed that Net Neutrality will end the internet (or at least as we know it). Which causes me to wonder ... what kind of business model is Nemertes running? Do they stand to profit from this FUD or establish themselves as expert prophets if one of these things happens?

Really, the biggest question is ... why would the WSJ throw their journalistic integrity on the line for this kind of news? What did they gain at the risk of look like Popular Mechanics who in 1951 speculated we would all have personal helicopters in our garage?

Amen.

iPhone - locked down to what Apple wants you to do.
Android - locked down to what Google wants you to do (ie Java/Dalvik development only with their own version of the app store and installation verification)

Maemo - pure, open, Linux loveliness.

(and then there's WebOS and Moblin too)

ArsTechnica has a little review about Nokia's plans and the N900. Its step 4 on their 5-step Linux/Maemo strategy. Certainly it will set the bar higher for the other players and possibly dominate the smartphone/tablet/MID marketplace just as Symbian did. given you can code any QT/GTK+ based application for Maemo, who'd want to tie themselves in to Android's development mandates?

Nokia wasn't reluctant to do this either, they've just been working on their Linux strategy for a while so probably took their eyes off the Symbian ball once it became apparent the Linux stuff woudl work beautifully.

Oh, and don't forget, while consumers may want iPhones, businesses have traditionally bought Nokia (and Blackberries, but their marketshare will wither once the newer smartphones come with the bells that made Blackberry so popular).

Amen.

iPhone - locked down to what Apple wants you to do.
Android - locked down to what Google wants you to do (ie Java/Dalvik development only with their own version of the app store and installation verification)

Maemo - pure, open, Linux loveliness.

(and then there's WebOS and Moblin too)

ArsTechnica has a little review about Nokia's plans and the N900. Its step 4 on their 5-step Linux/Maemo strategy. Certainly it will set the bar higher for the other players and possibly dominate the smartphone/tablet/MID marketplace just as Symbian did. given you can code any QT/GTK+ based application for Maemo, who'd want to tie themselves in to Android's development mandates?

Nokia wasn't reluctant to do this either, they've just been working on their Linux strategy for a while so probably took their eyes off the Symbian ball once it became apparent the Linux stuff woudl work beautifully.

Oh, and don't forget, while consumers may want iPhones, businesses have traditionally bought Nokia (and Blackberries, but their marketshare will wither once the newer smartphones come with the bells that made Blackberry so popular).

Don't forget 3DMark itself has also cheated to give Intel a higher score.

I did some searching and found the article you are probably referring to http://arstechnica.com/hardware/reviews/2008/07/atom-nano-review.ars/6

That may not be a very good idea either...

Add in an anti virus software that does the same X number of processes in the background plus Ad-Aware thats way more bogged down software than ever. Ad-Aware used to be simple, clean and sleek, now it's just bloated shovelware (how quickly did they move from Version X to SE, to Version X.1?)

Stick with Spybot, Malwarebytes, HijackThis and a decent backup like Nod32, Avast or AVG, imho.

Some good recommendations (I'd add Avira AntiVir Personal to your list), but I think Microsoft Security Essentials (released 2 weeks ago) is now worth considering for free, non-bloated virus/malware protection. The initial reviews seem pretty good.

That and it sucks.

The marketing firms working for M$ pull this shit every release: wait a while and then pretend the flop was a success. Remember XP SP2? XP?

"Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy."
French police: we saved millions of euros by adopting Ubuntu

That's only true if MS contributed the code and it would only be true for the specific code they contribute. However, the way I understood the article as well as articles on this in the past is that MS is not giving code, they are giving APIs and technology insight to the samba team so that they can implement it on their own. That wouldn't trigger the automatic patent license which leads to the vulnerability I mentioned.

Like I said, they need a firm commitment in writing from MS that denies such licensing changes or provisions in order for Samba to be safe. Without it, it actually could be a trap. But the trap is there already even if they didn't work with MS. All MS would have to do is patent it's authentication schemes, claim it's a defensive then issue an open but incompatible license for it and we are at the same situation with or without MS cooperating with the Samba team.

This is a real threat to be considered for any GPLv3 code. Until software patents are gone, any software that gets patented can destroy the GPLv3 code by the GPL's own wording. Take Gnome or KDE for instance, if they went GPLv3, they would have had to go backwards (unless they just ignore the GPLv3 terms) because someone patented icons and isn't licensing them.- Now I don't know if the patent has since been revoked or if it is still in force or whatever, the problem with the GPLv3 wording is that as soon as it's known, the software can't be distributed until a patent license allowing the rights as specified in the GPL is secured.

FYI Slashdot, one of this decade's genuine breakthroughs in science has been finally breaking the diffraction limit for visible light microscopy. The results in the past couple years alone have been nothing short of stunning. Specifically the techniques which are capable of doing this are confocal microscopy, near-field scanning microscopy, stimulated emission depletion microscopy, stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy and structured illumination microscopy. All of these techniques use visible light and can image at below the diffraction limit of ~250nm resolution, but most use complicated techniques using lasers etc. to do so. Except that last one, structured illumination. This technology is going to literally revolutionize microscopy and probably biology as a whole in the coming years. It is a very clever technique and produces unbefuckingleivably amazing images. With it, full 3D reconstructions of individual living cells with ~10 nanometer resolution, at frame rates in the several Hz range can be taken using a relatively simple LCD retrofit to a high quality transmission light microscope which is installed between the light source and the stage. Look at some of these movies taken of cell processes using the technique and try to keep your jaw off the floor. While the resolution may be higher, none of this is possible with SEM or TEMs due to the necessity of imaging in vacuo.

It's as much stealing as not paying your doctor or your plumber for work performed. Sure, you can claim "I didn't take anything physical from you, therefore, you aren't actually losing anything when I don't pay you", but work needs to be done, you want the benefits of that work, but you balk at paying for it.

The doctor and plumber's time is limited, number of copies of digital media isn't, so it's a bad analogy. Not to justify copyright infringement as I agree that copyrights are a good thing, but it isn't at all the same as stealing. Consider the situation with MS Windows. While they would prefer that people buy it instead of copy it, they prefer people to pirate windows than use a competing product. Can you think of any seller of a tangible product that would prefer you to steal their product than use a competitor's product? Stealing doesn't work like that.

While I agree with the concept of copyright, the constant extension of copyright terms, lobbying for draconian legislation, deliberate public misinformation programs and abuse of the court system by copyright holders is far worse than what the "pirates" are doing and was happening long before copyright infringement became commonplace. I oppose any measures in support of that industry until they demonstrate their willingness to clean up their own act first. Until then, if the pirates destroy their businesses I will be cheering from the sidelines. Vote for the pirate party.

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance."

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2007/04/ballmer-says-iphone-has-no-chance-to-gain-significant-market-share.ars

Personal Computer companies: Many
Enterprise Server companies: Many

Apple's share of 'Personal Computer' space: Around 8%
z/OS share of 'Enterprise Server' space: 9%

You can't compare some extremely broad class like 'Personal Computers' with an extremely narrow class like 'z/OS systems'. When you compare similar things you will find there is no difference at all. Look hard and you'll see that.

Here is a better link for the story: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/10/microsoft-mulling-128-bit-versions-of-windows-8-windows-9.ars/

here.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/-it-sounds-like-something.ars

I didn't think it affected me either until I put a new copy of debian on a machine and did an "apt-get install gnome" and found a copy of mono being installed on my machine. What I want to know is WTF was debian even thinking when they did that? It's obvious they weren't thinking very well since they back-pedaled and claimed that mono wasn't in the default install, by which they mean that it's only in the gnome metapackage and not the gnome-core or gnome-desktop. It's also equally obvious that anyone who wants to install gnome will first try apt-get install gnome rather than the non-intuitive gnome-core. The point is that Mono is creeping into distributions ...

As a fellow Debian user, I too am incensed that Debian developers, without consulting the user base have taken a monumental leap away from the projects original stated goals and ideals. You now have a team of cockroaches inside the bread box: Eduard Bloch (Zomb), Mirco Bauer (meebey), Mirco Bauer (meebey), Sebastian Dröge (slomo), Jo Shields (directhex), and David Paleino (hanska) somehow got into Debian and are spending their time to inject contaminate it with Microsoft imitations of legitimate technologies.

" What this means in real terms is that the pkg-cli-apps, pkg-cli-libs and pkg-mono teams now have a second person with upload rights..."

Again, if Miguel's time on earth is so precious short, WTF is he spending it encouraging people to reinvent the wheel using failed products? Mono needs to be removed from Debian. The mono team needs to be removed from Debian. If they want to continue their work, fine, but do it in Redmond far away from the from any Open Source or Free Software projects.

The whole fiasco also speaks volumes to how the trade journals have been whittled down, removed and controlled. Debian was high-tech, ethical when it came out. Now gNewSense fills that role. However, there's no reason to cede Debian to Microsoft, especially not since important distros are built from Debian. But that would be the main reason Microsoft activist have it as a target to ruin.

With the back-pedalling, Debian leadership shows it is aware of the problem. Next step is to do something. Right now it looks like a personnel problem with a small clique pushing their personal agenda where the monomaniacal goal is to shove M$ technology in every project in existence. It doesn't seem to matter to them if something is good quality or bad, efficient or inefficient, appropriate or not licensed with a clear safe license or not.

Mono is start to end a Microsoft technology. Those few individuals writing to defend mono must cease astroturfing and offer full disclosure as to their employment. M$ astroturfing is not tolerated.

I think you really hit the nail on the head here. There is a pretty big market for reselling used games. With the PSP Go, not only are you restricted from reselling your used games but you are also locked into purchasing them from Sony's download service.

Ars Technica published an excellent review on the PSP Go and why you should just stick with the standard PSP 3000.

Not to mention you probably won't be getting a pleasant price drop in PSP game prices just because they're only available digitally now.

I don't know what they think, but I am not buying a Go until hell freezes. I will stick to UMDs until they run out. By then, if I have to buy another portable, it will be something else for sure. A nintendo DSI maybe.

I read ars review on the psp go and it is simply unbelievable what they have done. They just want to fuck the customer and profit. I didn't pirated any PSP game and will not pay for other people mistakes

I think you really hit the nail on the head here. There is a pretty big market for reselling used games. With the PSP Go, not only are you restricted from reselling your used games but you are also locked into purchasing them from Sony's download service.

Ars Technica published an excellent review on the PSP Go and why you should just stick with the standard PSP 3000.

I don't know how it would compare to solar, but according to a report I read about here, painting roofs white was one of the least cost-effective forms of geoengineering options that they studies (see second page).