Slashdot Mirror

"Upright pianos with unusually tall frames and long strings are sometimes called upright grand pianos."

Andsomethingthatusedtobeofvaluewaslost?

Well, if you're Microsoft, then probably yes (note that this is from '95).

And what if Microsoft made cars? Soon we will see...

I think the grandparent meant alto sax, not baritone, since the tenor sax was already too big. These pictures show the size differences amongst common saxophones.

Relativity does NOT preclude FTL.

It says you cannot travel AT the speed of light. Important distinction there. Subatomic particles can change velocity instantly without acceleration, one day it may be possible for macroscopic objects to hop up to FTL travel, without actually passing through through the "light barrier".

Another potential possibility is the Alcubierre Drive although you'd need a large quantity of negative energy to make this work. (Negative energy is a scientific fact, but not in these quantities... as far as we know (look up the casimir effect))

These theories are far, far in advance of our current abilities, and may well not be achievable - but we simply don't know enough to discard the possibility.

I find it very interesting though that a theoretical physicist has come up with a potential faster-than-light drive that may just be possible, and it appears to be very similar to the "warp drive" used in star trek :)
This teaches us something about the true value of science fiction.

A

Sorry, it has to be posted.

http://www.usd.edu/~bwjames/humor/ms/microsoftcars .html

Instruments played by machine are hardly new. More impresive than a robot that plays guitar, a robot that plays piano, or "a collection of robotic percussion instruments" would be a robot that plays "a piano, two ranks of organ pipes (flute and violin), mandolin, snare drum, bass drum, timpani, cymbal, and triangle." Now that would be really impressive, especially since you would have to travel all the way to The National Music Museum" Vermillion, South Dakota to see one that was made in 1913! The machine is called an "Orchestrion" and they were common in the early part of the last century, as the musical accompaniment to a ride on a merry-go-round.

I think what he meant was the time taken for the old mode of thinking to fade away and be replaced by the new thing, whatever that may be. That is largely true - some people simply refuse to change their belief / philosophy because "I've thought this all my life and now I'm too old to change". Eg: Arthur Eddington attacking the concept of white dwarfs and black holes steadfastly until his death, and slowing down the public support for the new ideas of stellar life. (Read the end of the second paragraph)

I'm inclined to believe that someone respectable loudly advocating an old hypothesis is particularly damaging to any change in the philosophy of that field.

On the other hand, I'm reminded of a quote: "Old people are slaves to tradition. Young people are slaves to change.".

• Nebraska Educational Technology Association Student Contests - I'm sure other similar association exist, but this is the one I'm familiar with
• Northwest Missouri State and University of South Dakota both held programming contests for high school students with a good turnout.
• Science Olympiad has some technology-themed events that high school students can enter, including two robotics competition. But from my experience, not many schools participate in those competitions.

SOO-suh

This is a good description of the MS automated home

In the 30's underemployment reached estimated levels of 80%.

" ...During the worst years of the Depression, 1933-34, the overall jobless rate was twenty-five precent with another twenty-five percent of breadwinners having their wages and hours cut. Effecvtively, then, almost one out of every two U.S. households directly experienced unemployment or underemployment..."

Furthermore, I had said:

Here, from the computer consultants Usenet newsgroup is a more realistic definition of "unemployment" that is closer to "underutilization" and historic definitions of "unemployment" that we intuitively think of

Sure there were many more farms in that period of time. They were going bust ...too.

Furthermore, there weren't just "more farms in that period" the population was still largely farm-based. That means all of the rest of the social safety-nets you are talking about are discounted. Not having yet monetized everything from food to women they existed in a different form then -- they were based on friends and family not government. The world based on clans as social safety net is actually vastly preferable to government for a lot of reasons, regardless of how you may have perceived the economic situation of the 1930s through the eyes of others.

Even more telling is what happened to GDP

You don't have to be a well-adapted parasite to extract that social safety-net.

If you think just anyone can get the benefits needed from the government you should try looking at Oregon sometime. It is #1 in hunger in the United States. It also happens to be #1 in heroin deaths percapita. Go to the social services centers in Portland and look at the people running them. Go look at the people who are going to bed hungry in the rural areas and the people who are showing up dead at the emergency room. You'll notice a big difference: race.

My father-in-law spent 7 years in a prison camp in one of these Utopian societies. He was sent there just in case he had the idea to tell anyone that the Utopian government wasn't l33t. The amazing thing is that he is not a bitter man, but very thankful he got his family out of there. My original post was not to accuse this project of being a bunch of religious wackos, but more as a statement of what had happened historically. Perhaps when you are a bit older you will not make such off-the-cuff remarks about things you do not understand.

I have, however, MetaModerated, and right now I even have 4 golden mod points myself.

I am a slashdot user. Ya' know what? During the day I use Windows2000... and I've plenty of things to love and hate about it. There's some damn weird things about it, but for the most part, it gets things done... I fit in with my peers and everything...

I'm still against MS, in MANY ways. For example, we are in the process of deploying 900 hundred palms to first time freshmen. I work at USD and one of the software packages we are installing by default is "documents to go"... Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on a Palm!!! The insanity!!! I argued against this, but it made no difference.

People here post info on the web in .doc format... I've personally tracked these people down and told them that they are WRONG!!! PDF, at the least, and please, and HTML, RTF, and .TXT version is in order, also.

And... I'm in the process of converting my departments DB apps into all online apps. Based on CF and Oracle, and I had to fight touth and nail to not have Microsoft in this loop.

While I use and support users on MS products on a daily basis, I WILL find alternatives where possible. I'm happy as hell to be creating something that people here will use for years, that is not based on a microsoft product.

Which brings me to something ON TOPIC. I feel, from my readings, that I am a fairly average /. user. Most people here use MS products in one form or another (and Karma to those who DON'T have to).

My point being, I am happy to have slashdot... it gives me perspective and views I GET NO WHERE ELSE. I keeps my perspective of MS and other cooperate new releases in check... I use MS products, but out of necessity. I want to hear from those who don't.

Slashdot is raw, rouge, and it isn't necessarily resposible journalism, but I won't come here if it was. I don't want canned AP wired shit, I want /.

This place is like IndyMedia or CommonDreams. It's not about balance, it's about desire, love, insatiy, bias, and late night drug induced programming sessions. It's something that IS different, from the style of moderation to the type of stories posted.

Einstein had several children; A girl named Liserl (supposedly retarded and put up for adoption), and two sons, Hans Albert and Eduard (the latter also being mentally unstable and institutionalized).

http://www.usd.edu/~aelverud/advcomp/albert.html

Not directed at you in particular, but let me just say this:

"God, sometimes I wish analogies could be lameness-filtered."

There. Nothing personal. However, I have determined that analogies get it wrong in this forum, more often than not.

Here is the point that your analogy misses, and a very important point at that, to quote:

The relevant protection for copyrighted material becomes as the technology says, not as copyright law requires.

What Lessig is saying is that lawmakers have allowed the industry to write law... with regular books the copyright is the sole protection, but with e-books the industry is entitled to protection beyond what an ordinary "copyright 1994 Random Books, Inc, All Rights Reserved yadayadayada" provides; it is entitled to provide an electronic adjunct that becomes protected under the law in a way unprecedented in American legal history.

What Congress has done is given legislative authority away to big corps* and relegated themselves to irrelevance, i.e., the original copyright laws are no longer needed. Not only that, but they have delegated to law enforcement a basically insurmountable task: to prosecute each and every electronic transgression, no matter how small, in a way never intended by the original copyright law! The courts should/would be awash in a great and diverse array of cases, each with its own unique conundrum, if the DMCA holds. In fact, Metallica did point out the absurdity of trying to enforce such laws when they essentially sued all Napster users. The other side of that coin is that computers make such prosecution easier: a simple summons in your email in-box should suffice. Maybe someday, like the whole photo radar brand of violation of our Bill of Rights, such emails Will constitute proper law enforcement procedure.

So tell me, what has happened in the past when unenforceable and unjust laws went on the books? Is it then not our civic duty to take a stand against it, however we must sacrifice?

I understand that analogies can sometimes help, but they often warp the main thrust of the issue, and definitely have a tendency to understate the finer points. I agree with your stance and support your opinion (as all good ./ers will), but an education about the DMCA until we all understand it as well as we understand the GPL (I love explaining that to cowworkers!) necessitates a proper approach. Sorry, the lock analogy just don't get it here, and it is my contention that there is NO analogy that will fit, as there are no analogies in many of these issues that we discuss because of the high-tech and highly complex nature of these issues.

*- ya know, it doesn't Have to be read as "big bad powerful corps with senators in their pockets", but tell me, who else but them will be able to sic the FBI hounds on guys like Skly? The DMCA is for corps only, not for regular folks, but you knew that already, don't you?