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You would like this article describing how the RIAA is attempting to battle the laws of economics.

• http://www.nature.com/nsu/020826/020826-2.html
  
• http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20020826/geck o.html
  
• http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/10/18/03840/816
  

In the US, the goal of govt. should be to protect the rights of individuals, not to better society at the expense of these rights.

The Constitution is at odds with your statement. The stated goal of the patent system is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" (U.S. Const., Article I, section 8).

Patents are limited

Limited in duration? That's true now, but it won't be if the big pharmaceutical companies hire Cher as a spokesmodel for the Cher Patent Term Harmonization Act. Because she's about to retire from live performance of music, she'll have a lot of time on her hands.

Limited in scope? What hurts most is overly broad patents. Imagine if Edison had patented the process of sound recording rather than sound recording on a cylinder. That's how bad some of the software patents are.

It seems to me that languages like Java and C# really don't need them.

take it to kuro5hin would ya?

I must admit that I got a hell of a lot of help editing the thing for typos and some decent editorial advice from the effort. As well as just over $1,000 up to now.

I have yet to accomplish the "get rich" part, am still working on the "get a good agent" step. That is looking at least slightly more do-able than it would have been before I put the book online.

That's all you have to do, but a lot of people don't even do that; if they did, then there'd be some mention of BSD or the Regents of the University of California somewhere in the Windows EULA, right? I mean, IIRC, there are still references to Spyglass and MOSAIC in IE's About box; you'd think Microsoft's legal people could give credit where credit is due...

We've discovered that there are links between piracy groups and organized terrorism, as reported here. I hope you scum who partake in buying CDs and DVDs of movies, warez, and what not feel like hell when the next 9/11 happens, with the knowledge that you helped make it possible.

Thank you and God bless America.

No, you're looking for kuro5hin.

The /. cabal only regards two languages as relevant C and Perl, they deny or try to bury other interesting and/or useful languages, like PHP, Java, Ruby, or Smalltalk. I wonder if a properly tuned php/apache combo could keep up with /code's perl/mod_perl/apache cluster setup. Admitedly /code has served them mostly well for 250,000 users with some hiccups here and there, but there are plenty of other CMS+Blog engines out there written in php or perl. Scoop, php-Nuke, and postNuke are some of the big ones.

While its true that a large number of IIT CS students end up at Microsoft, there is a very healthy fraction of them that are OSS zealots (that includes me :-). A while back someone made very much the same argument on K5 (Indian programmer ==> poverty ==> sell your soul to M$) and here's my rebuttal

See original article: Egg Troll's Guide to FPS Games

Yeah, and go join Kuro5hin while you're at it. Beats this shithole.

I agree! Are there any recommendation for books that have the same intensity and subject matter as Metamorphosis ?

You could always read The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. It's a relatively short piece, can be read in a couple days. Also, the book is free, so there's no downside if you don't like it (short of a spell of time).

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

If you enjoy bland groupthink from 15-year-old whiny Libertarian lawyer wannabes, I would recommend Kuro5hin.

Aren't we supposed to be boycotting Dr. Seuss Enterprises?

I don't know how Matrix Revolutions is supposed to end, but I hope it's not a damn luddite ending where the Matrix is shutdown after the people inside are forced to take the blue pill and wake up to a more "real" reality, where most learn that truth is shit, and ignorance is bliss.

Um, the blue pill keeps you inside. Remember Cypher's quote from the first movie, "Why, oh why didn't I take the blue pill?"

I like the similar and parallel story which got a link here a few months ago, The Metamorphasis of Prime Intellect. Without giving too much away, the story has a computer which gains god-like powers and, being programmed with Asimov's Laws, actively prevents humans from dying. So they evolve "contracts" in which they can turn off Prime Intellect's watchful eye and experience pain and almost "die" but the contract ends upon death and Prime Intellect revives them.

Very well written story. The humans can create whatever worlds or vistas they can imagine, and can change their bodies to be animals or zombies or anything, really. As you said, "A universe for every mind."

Red hat is still evil

--
It's my sig

Back when "Master of Orion III" had JUST been released for the Macintosh, I was REALLY desperate to get it. After being disappointed in CompUSA for not having it in stock, I resorted to calling ahead before trekking to other stores. My first call was to The Apple Store in Emeryville. They were more concerned that I, the customer, would be satisfied than they were on getting that sale. Though they didn't have it in stock, they actually referred me to three other stores that carry Macintosh software; one of which was the ComputerWare in Berkeley.

Unfortunately, none of them had MOO3 in stock yet either. A week later, I found myself in Emeryville for other reasons, and decided to stop in at the Apple Store to see if it was in yet. They didn't have it, but the store manager actually CALLED those same resellers (including again, Berkeley's ComputerWare) for me, while I was in The Apple Store, trying to get me what I wanted, EVEN IF IT WOULD COST THEM A SALE!!!

Shades of "Miriacle on 34th Street"; and certianly NOT the actions of a company that's hostile to its 3rd party resellers. More like one that places the satisfaction of the CUSTOMER at the highest priority. And that's but one more reason *I* will be staying with Apple.

Plus, as another poster noted, ComputerWare was NEVER very competitive in the first place. Basiclly, they were where you would go as a last resort if you couldn't find something locally, and you didn't want to wait for mail-order. Sure, they were exclusively Macintosh; so their staff was more clued in; but that was only ever relevant to the non-tech-savvy anyway. They also carried random Apple trinkets like T-shirts, pens, stickers, and the like. If you wanted crap like that, ComputerWare was the first place to go.

But if you wanted hardware or software? No way. ComputerWare, so far as I could ever tell, sold EVERYTHING at the full MSRP. Except for the Macs themselves, most of the hardware they sold could be had at Frys or even CompUSA at 1/3-2/3 the price. And they sold three and even FIVE YEAR OLD games at full MSRP price from when they first came out. This, when the same games could be had in the bargain bin elsewhere in town for $15; or you could wait for MacWorld to roll into the Moscone Center and get them for $5. (Hell, even The Apple Store marks down the low-end games!!!)

Like I said, I don't know what happened behind the scenes. But from where I sit, The Apple Store was pretty supportive of ComputerWare, even at the possibility of their own expense. And ComputerWare was never, IMO, the perferred store to shop in the first place. My bet is that they only lasted as long as they did because of some of the more zealous Mac users who perferred to shop at a Mac-only store, even if it cost them more money than schlepping down to Frys or CompUSA.

cya,
john

Is this common in geekdom? Is this an expression of 'hacking' outside of machinery/engineering?

. . . is this Salshdot? Or Kuro5hin?

Just read k5.

They seem to have it figured out...

Read this
I'd love to see bazillions of these set up.

Ok, venturing way OT, but yes, there is a site where you can vote on stories. K5. However, here on /., no way.

• aagh.net -- degrades gracefully, uses real (X)HTML properly, has clean URL's, simple and clear navigation, plenty of <link>'s, and is one of the few sites I know of that not only serves XHTML as application/xhtml+xml as it should be, but serves HTML 4.01 to clients that don't support it. Yes, it's my site ;)
• xiven.com -- honourable mention :)
• diveintomark.org -- aside from the braindead US date format he uses, it rules.
• DevEdge -- clean, degrades very well.
• kuro5hin -- Has a nice fresh creamy flavour.

As funny as this story is, it wasn't meant to be taken so seriously. K5 has the details.

any and all patents on System V expired in the year 2000

Not so fast. Patents subsisting in the United States as of 1995 or so (when the United States signed a patent cooperation treaty) have been extended to grant + 17 years (the old term) or filing + 20 years (the new term), whichever is later. And don't you think for a minute that SCO won't team up with drug companies and lobby for a Cher Patent Term Harmonization Act.

Worst case scenario, they were pending for 2 years

Worse than that: Worst case is that SCO pulled a Rambus and kept the patents pending for nine years.

At least that's not as bad as "UKian" or "USian" as those retards over at K5 keep trying to make common place.

So should Google strip out all news as "weblogging" except AP and original journalism?

No.

If people link to slashdot stories... instead of to the original source.... it's because the slashdot story, or perhaps the comments, are perceived as more relavent/interestnig than the original. Many times, authors interject their own opinion, or bring together multiple links into a single framework.

An even better example of "weblog as news" is kuro5hin. Occasionally, real news gets published at kuro5hin by reporters who have witnessed crimes and walked in marches.

The only real problem is that Google's ranking system works at the "site level" and not at the "story level"

So the *whole site* often gets ranked up because of *one story*... dragging all the crappy stories with it.

The solution to this is a more
*granular pagerank* system that cleverly incorporates tags. *NOT* the exclusion of important media sources from Google's engine!

How the f*** am I supposed to know when some editor at Slashdot will find my website interesting? Please, tell me, Miss Cleo.

Or are you telling me that I should have to pay for third-party hosting for my web site, which, on average, gets a number of hits per day that can be counted with two digits -- just on the off-chance that some negligent editor at Slashdot happens to find something on it interesting some year?

Stupid Toggers - all they want is Google Juice!

I asked:
"What defines a blog, anyway? "

Tablizer replied:
"How about: If it turns a profit, it is no longer a blog."

Well, there goes CNN.com, Alternet.org, Fair.org, ACLU.org, Kuro5hin, IMDB, the MIT Tech Review and everything on the BBC website.

On the other hand we'll now get authoratative hits from Amazon, Buy.com and Microsoft.

Woot!

D'oh!

I can't seem to talk to the mod_perl server. This probably means that we've taken it down for a few minutes to update something. Please be patient, I'm sure we'll be back up presently.

There is no reason to cater to the belief that there is a necessity to speak a language of imaginary creatures. It's not healthy.

If a significant number of mental health patients do only speak Klingon, they should be catered to so their illness can be treated. Yes, it's weird. But it it helps...

Also, THIS IS AN URBAN LEGEND!! Look here for a Kuro5hin story on this example of pack journalism.

Read:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/5/11/7032/18347
Hoax...urba legend...load of crap. But on CNN?!? What is the world coming to?

Check out the facts here:

"Every once in a while, in order to remind myself of the quality of information typically reported, I trace down the source of a particularly ridiculous story. The "Klingon Language Interpreter" myth, which is spawning now, provides an amusing case study of the process of pack journalism."
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/5/11/7032/18347

Seth Finkelstein investigates and finds it's a joke. Film at 11.

He's no linux geek. He's a windows geek who lacks the clue to realize that his design is inherrently flawed. Not just different, but flawed. See this link.

This is what is wrong with this distro.

Kuro5hin also has a good article on GoboLinux.

Kuro5hin also has a good article on GoboLinux.

that is being addressed partly by the research and practice of agile methodologies. The idea is to change the focus of software development to a new set of principles (for example favoring running software over documentation).

There is also a problem with the way that many managers and business people view software creation as a construction or engineering process. I wrote a paper about this: "The Software Construction Analogy is Broken". The summary is that software has so many attributes that are unlike physical things that its creation cannot be accurately mapped to the creation of buildings. For example, the economics of distribution are completely different: a building cannot generally be moved after it is constructed, yet software can not only be moved, but also can be duplicated for almost zero cost.

Ultimately, I think that software creation is actually the creation of completely new media of communication. Every program created defines a new set of communication interactions that didn't exist before. We don't really have any "science" for that.

Now, Atari -- I still have my Atari ST downstairs, and from time to time I plug it in, boot it and cry a little over the clean, crisp picture on the screen, the ease of use, and how unfair the world in general is. I could even do uucp with that machine, and if it only had had a MMU...and if only IBM hadn't bought MS DOS...if only pigs could fly...

Shame, shame, shame on Infogrames for dragging Atari down into the muck with them. Of course, it won't help: The Brits tried renaming their continuous disaster of a nuclear plant "Windscale" to "Sellafield" (or vice versa, I keep forgetting) but that didn't fool people one bit.

If there's really neither a current DivX player, nor a computer able to run an old DivX player in 20 years, there still will be an emulator for x86 hardware.

Better yet:

• There exists freely available source code to parse AVI files and to decode MPEG-4 Simple (DivX) video and MPEG-1 audio layer 3 (MP3) audio.
• The patents on DivX and MP3 will have expired after 20 years (provided that something like this doesn't pass).
• I assume that C compilers (and the rest of the GNU system) will continue to be maintained after 20 years. Heck, if we're lucky, we might all be running HURD by then ;-)

So just put the source code for an AVI player and codecs alongside your movies.

Oh the horror!

Someone got a story posted to Slashdot that contained anti-Bush propaganda.

You wouldn't last long at http://www.kuro5hin.org

Actually, yes. The Largest In The World

(And no, it's not a goatse link.)

this exact recipe was posted on kuro5hin.

Look here for one of several knowledgeable accounts of the history behind Microsoft's TCP/IP stack that are floating around the web.

Please be more careful before you declare that something has been proven.

i think you're lost. try looking here.