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They also ignore IBM which is not to be ignored. Lets give props where props are due.

They didn't ignore IBM in the article, though.

Meynier pointed to IBM as an example of a successful business model that leverages open source and said that the "value-added embedded work" by Red Hat is another extremely potent business model.

Of course, this is not Miller, the Microsoft guy spreading the FUD, but a pro-open-source guy, so I'm not sure what MS thinks about the work IBM and Red Hat are doing.

Also, that link about the BIND problem calling it a linux problem only has me wondering about the credibility of this article... Sure, linux runs BIND, but don't a few other OSs run it, too?

The MacNN article only seems to contest the statement from Wired News that Mr. Jobs used profanity in every sentance. Obviously this isn't true, we all know this. It's called hyberbole, the stretching of the truth to emphasize your point. Hyberbole is a fairly common device that writers use to make their writing more vivid and we should all know when it is happening and how to interpret it. When Wired News says in an editorial piece "Every sentence he uttered -- every single one -- contained an expletive" we should be able to interpret that as "Mr. Jobs used profanity in quantities that many would consider excessive." The fact that Mr. Jobs may have uttered a sentance during the session which did not contain an expletive is neither news nor grounds for discrediting Mr. Kahney's article on Wired News.
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The MacNN article only seems to contest the statement from Wired News that Mr. Jobs used profanity in every sentance. Obviously this isn't true, we all know this. It's called hyberbole, the stretching of the truth to emphasize your point. Hyberbole is a fairly common device that writers use to make their writing more vivid and we should all know when it is happening and how to interpret it. When Wired News says in an editorial piece "Every sentence he uttered -- every single one -- contained an expletive" we should be able to interpret that as "Mr. Jobs used profanity in quantities that many would consider excessive." The fact that Mr. Jobs may have uttered a sentance during the session which did not contain an expletive is neither news nor grounds for discrediting Mr. Kahney's article on Wired News.
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Funny bit --
Extensively quoted in the Dreamcast article about Sega getting out of the hardware business because of a failed home video game console and moving exclusively into the software business is none other than Trip Hawkins, (co?)founder of Electronic Arts and 3DO (both of which had rather similar logos ;-) ... who is the all-time-undisputed-king of "Overhyped Console Maker drops its Console and goes Software Only"! :-) (Any /. readers old enough to remember how CRAZY the early Wired magazine from the early '90s hyped this thing up know what I'm talking about... ;)

Look at this article in the newest issue of wired: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.02/projectx.h tml I think this guy won't win the race to clone humans. As this article says, a human may have already been cloned but just not come forward to tell anyone that.

I submitted this, but it didn't make the cut, and since I fell below the 26-karma level (for no apparent reason; I haven't moderated in a while, got modded up a few times, and still it falls....but I digress) I have no fear of posting it here.

Remember the Wired article talking about how profane Steve Jobs was at a recent reseller meeting? We even talked about it just the other day. Well, MacNN has a different take on the subject after talking to some of the attendees.

Er, if you care.


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Here's the AP story.
Here's WIRED Digital's take.

This guy has a similar idea.
I wonder who got round to filing patent first for the 'paper computer'?
The circuit technology sounds similar, except the phone people seem to go for a plastic substrate (going by the photo of their 'working model').

Much more thorough than the Yahoo article.

These guys are claiming responsibility for it.

Here is a story from Wired about it.

The original Brian Aldiss short story, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long is avalible from Wired. It was originally published as part of the Kubrick / AI hype back in '97 when I read it on dead tree. I've been looking forward to the movie since then, and will see it even if Speilberg ruins it, just out of respect for the original. If you're into AI / Scifi / Futurism, you owe it to yourself to give it a read.

The original Brian Aldiss short story, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long is avalible from Wired. It was originally published as part of the Kubrick / AI hype back in '97 when I read it on dead tree. I've been looking forward to the movie since then, and will see it even if Speilberg ruins it, just out of respect for the original. If you're into AI / Scifi / Futurism, you owe it to yourself to give it a read.

Well I have Quicktime here, but for some reason, it didn't want to work. So, for those who need it, here is the AI movie trailer for RealPlayer

Here are some other related nuggets.
"Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" - By Brian Aldiss (AI is based on this short story)
"Frog Crisis" - A multi-part animated series, also based on Aldiss' story, by Greg Hyland [Creator of the Lethargic Lad comic]

In case you didn't know, Microsoft signed a contract with Transvirtual to support development of a GPL PersonalJava 1.1 compliant java envirnoment Kaffe . You can find the news here

However, don't dream that Microsoft dedicates to the growth of Java and GPL. Some conspiracists suspected that the whole things is to hurt Java development. The fact that Kaffe has not implemented java.security will help supporting the false claim "Java is not secure"

"Microsoft is throwing money at a small company trying to make some noise at JavaOne, the way they do every year,"Jim Mitchell, vice president of architecture and technology at Sun's JavaSoft division, said.

• Investing "$400 million to create and maintain more than 2,000 community technology centers every year" (georgewbush.com, 9/23)
• a "five year extension of the Internet tax moratorium" (georgewbush.com, 9/23)
• Expanding efforts to bring government services onto the Internet (georgewbush.com, 9/23)

The link.

From this article:

"Ecohacker Michael Markels claims he has a megafix for global warming: Supercharge the growth of ocean plankton with vitamin Fe and let a zillion CO2 scrubbers bloom."

Any problem can be solved with a clever hack. Er, right?

They don't even have to do that - they just need to set up the business case for a CPU cycles bidding market, and the applications will create themselves. (So, it is still a technical problem - creating the infrastructure so that arbitrary processing packages can be distributed according to the results of the bidding.)

Wired pondered this recently.. it could be really cool if someone can pull it off.

"Morris' top-secret "Project Sherman," which comprised a superstar group of antitrust authorities, would span three months and consume $3 million of Sun's money."

It's in bold, around halfway down the page.

Here's WIRED's blurb from July. The games were only $.80/piece then.

There was an interesting Wired Magazine article that discussed the work being done by Paper Computer to make cheap flat computers.

There was a Slashdot article about these guys over a year ago.
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They did make it work, but AOL foiled them.

Then they tried again, and again, and again. Each time, AOL blocked them. They've proven that they can tell the difference between clones and their official client. I don't know why AOL doesn't do the same thing to the linux clones. But don't say Microsoft hasn't tried, because they have.

They did make it work, but AOL foiled them.

Then they tried again, and again, and again. Each time, AOL blocked them. They've proven that they can tell the difference between clones and their official client. I don't know why AOL doesn't do the same thing to the linux clones. But don't say Microsoft hasn't tried, because they have.

the primary problem is that there is no efficient way for power providers to 'store up' on power. they can't run a plant just as hard at night, and save up electricity to meet the peek demand - they have to generate at near the level of demand or lose it.(at least alot of it)

as soon as someone wakes up and realizes that battery backups are about the worst way to store energy, maybe we can start to deal with it.

back a while in wired (8.05) there was an article about using flywheels to store energy (story). and a former aeronautics guy (company) who was working on it. (there's also some others link, link, and probably others) it was truly fascinating and they claimed energy storage efficiency of many times the level of currently used batteries. (not much of a feat, batteries suck)

Nasa's power and propulsion office was looking to replace the batteries in the ISS with this stuff (story) what ever happened to that crap? and how long will it take power companies to catch on?

perhaps only the lack of competition allows them to point figers instead of solving their problems?

Looks like someone cracked.

"Dean's two-wheel balancing device is really cool," said Dr. Wise Young, director of the W. M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University. "It zooms around like lightning just by standing on it and leaning forward or backwards. The battery is the platform. Using it is totally intuitive. It will require reorganization of sidewalks because there will be people zooming all over cities with it."

Read the complete article.

Nice to see Jobs is such a regular guy(tm).

That See Also article (Microsoft Suite on OS X) is a real keeper though.

So. If M$ ports Office 2K to OS X, does that mean we also have a port for BSD and friends as well ?

I'm not really sure which is worse; Wired for running this ridiculous story in the first place or sites like /. and Macslash for commenting on it afterwards. Wired stopped being relevant years ago. Adults and many children swear. Who gives a rats ass! And please stop whining that Wired made fun of Mac users; WHO CARES Its wired! Yes, they use a lot of Macs to produce their magazine. Does that mean because I drive a Jeep I can't call Jeep owners yuppies or rednecks or "artsy-fartsy" ? Fuck off. This is a non-comment for a non-story.

-info

I'm not really sure which is worse; Wired for running this ridiculous story in the first place or sites like /. and Macslash for commenting on it afterwards. Wired stopped being relevant years ago. Adults and many children swear. Who gives a rats ass! And please stop whining that Wired made fun of Mac users; WHO CARES Its wired! Yes, they use a lot of Macs to produce their magazine. Does that mean because I drive a Jeep I can't call Jeep owners yuppies or rednecks or "artsy-fartsy" ? Fuck off. This is a non-comment for a non-story.

-info

"This is the beginning of a new chapter in this case," Gates said at the time of Jackson's ruling. He called the decision inconsistent with past court decisions and with the realities of the marketplace.

aren't just Gates reading a press release prepared by his lawyers, but rather him asserting his own opinion of the facts (he researched anti trust law, etc, and was absolutely convinced the law was on his side).

Perhaps the most striking thing in the article is how it shows that Gates really appears to believe what he says. He appears to have been genuinely confused as to why his own government came after him. You can fake a lot of sincerety, but I doubt someone like Gates would go as far as faking tears in front of the company's board.
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"This is the beginning of a new chapter in this case," Gates said at the time of Jackson's ruling. He called the decision inconsistent with past court decisions and with the realities of the marketplace.

aren't just Gates reading a press release prepared by his lawyers, but rather him asserting his own opinion of the facts (he researched anti trust law, etc, and was absolutely convinced the law was on his side).

Perhaps the most striking thing in the article is how it shows that Gates really appears to believe what he says. He appears to have been genuinely confused as to why his own government came after him. You can fake a lot of sincerety, but I doubt someone like Gates would go as far as faking tears in front of the company's board.
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Unfortunately, it isn't unique. Cops in the United States can do that and more. Take a look at this.

I suppose a bit of incredulity and cynicism is to be expected of virtually anything posted to this forum, but nevertheless my looking into this shows that this invention may very well be, if not revolutionary, then a profound change in how we get ourselves around.

Kamen has busied himself with personal transportation devices, and has two patents (5971091 & 5975225) with regard to such devices that balance themselves on 2-4 wheels and move a load (with or without people) over irregular terrain. Now this in and of itself would be just an interesting invention, but reference to the Sept. 2000 Wired article cited here previously would show that Kamen's also worked on the Sterling engine. Here I posit that the name he gives his invention, Ginger, is actually a part of an anagram, shown here:

A STERLING ENGINE = GINGER ISNT A LIE

IF Mr. Kamen has perfected the Sterling engine to a maximum of efficiency and minimum of pollution and incorporated it into his patented personal transportation devices he will have created an easy way for anyone to locomote themselves around their neighborhoods, work site, or campus. It would be a fun, interesting way to travel. In short, this conclusion meets all of the suggestions provided for in the articles on the book deal, coordinates with one of Kamen's main areas of study and invention, and has some speculative evidence to prove itself. I haven't seen a better explanation yet.

Well, as far as PR stunts go, I doubt this is one. It's not Dean's style in the least. And before you ask, yes, I have met him although I do not know him personally. In fact I saw him last Saturday. Above all things Dean isn't really all that interested in making money anymore. He's more interested in changing the world (witness what he's done for FIRST). R Deka Research, Dean's company, is a completely R&D firm. They do contracts for some companies but I believe most of that's just to pay the bills. The real work is the stuff that Dean directs them to do. The iBot was one thing that Dean directed Deka to work on that was not something a company asked Deka to research. The more important projects Deka does (ie. those started by Dean) are usually too risky for any corporation to want to develop. In all honesty I almost expect Dean to reveal what this new invention is at either FIRST's Kickoff (January) or National Championship (April) next year. As to what it is, my guess is that's it's a Stirling Engine that actually works. They're pretty cool and can burn almost any fuel. Is this as big as they say it is? Knowing Dean, I would bet on it. Matt Leese

Also, why is it wasteful to make the case out of Ti? Metal is far easier to recycle than plastic. (It may require more energy to produce however.)

Here is a perspective by Jobs on energy efficiency: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive//4.02/jobs.html ?pg=8&topic=. Kinda long-winded, but it gives a perspective on St Steven's thinking.

There are always whiners (see Napster). However, those who make the "People see the web as free beer and are never gonna pay for content" argument overlook one important thing: People are LAZY. Millions of Americans are too lazy to even cancel Internet account subscriptions they're not using! Now if people are too lazy to cancel a subscription that costs them money they will hardly take the effort to make one unless they really, really want what's offered (Napster might offer a big enough incentive to join).

It must, as Scott pointed out in his strip, be as easy as a single click. (Something else that might work: Have a phone number on the page you must call to be automatically billed via the phone bill. Goes via cell phones as well.) Anything else is not going to work for the majority. Oh, and don't make it mandatory. People will pay because it gives them a warm fuzzy feeling, Stephen King proved that. If it's easier than in King's case, the number of people who will pay will be even higher.

Hey, I used a lot of formatting in that post.

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Considering this keeps happening (including how another Romanian script kiddy did this to Undernet in 1997... this isn't just an isolated event. What can we ALL do? Or should we even care anymore, and just let IRC fall once and for all?

I'd chat with you more on this, but I can't seem to find any stable EFNet server...

Unfortunately, I don't find OS X to be all that useable as a desktop yet, in terms of its pathetic clone of the Finder, which throws away all the subtle aspects of useability.

Somewhere, recently, there were some articles on how to make the OS X Finder more like OS 9's. Start here if you're interested.

But I rather like the new Finder. Which subtle aspects of the UI do you find degraded?

Plus that stupid dock, which takes up precious vertical screen space

In the Finder/Desktop App, go over to the "Desktop" menu, and choose "Dock & Desktop Preferences". You can shrink the Dock to just about nothing, and then if that isn't enough, set it to auto show/hide, much like the Windows or KDE toolbars...

and prevents you from using the both lower corners of the screen when it is short

Huh? Things work fine for me in the lower corners of the screen below the top of the dock.

(An option for a vertical dock dangling from the menu bar would be a small improvement.)

The Apple Menu hack would probably get you what you need. But you're right, I'm very surprised they didn't include the option to make the dock vertical -- after all, you could do that under NeXTStep, OS X's grandaddy.

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Wired already *has* run a follow-up article about the 2.4 kernel. Which makes you look like an imbecile.

Wired Article

Has anyone read the Wired article yet?

This one?

the censorship issue: one of the points of freenet is to allow web pages to link to files on freenet. as illustrated by the decss case, this is not necessarily any protection against laws. the courts can just make it illegal to link to certain articles/media on free net. on top of that, there was this article explaining new software for isp that allows specialized filtering, even to the point of deneying asll access to freenet, which is discused in the article. so tho ian clarke may not be able to stop freenet once it gets started, major isp and may plaay it safe and block all freenet trafic.

Should have provided some reading material. It may be a wee bit dated, but it's interesting. Maybe Pons and Fleischmann had it right after all. Sorta.

Read Me

-jhon

The owner of Page Creators' name is Bryan Kruchten. His company, according to the Minnesota Better Business Bureau, does nothing but scam the hell out of its clients. It's interesting to see that he hasn't been shut down yet.

Since his page is somehow down now and it seems that he doesn't answer email, I looked him up. If you're as angry as I am, send him a note, or give him a call. He's listed under his parent's number (he's only 18)

Kruchten Paul & Debbie... (320) 762-0538
1213 Lark St Alexandria MN 56308

Be nice though.

"The company's website looks quite professional."

.

The company's Terms of Service are likely just fallout from their other problems. Wired reported last week that the BBB is mad at them for persistent reports of fradulent charges. It's my guess that they are just trying to do damage control. Though it certainly seems unlikely that they will obtain any benefit for it.

In a similar note, the last company I worked for had as part of their NDA a nondisparagement clause. "You agree not to talk smack about The Company, its business practices, its officers, etc etc". Anybody know how enforecable such an agreement is, especially for people who are no longer with the company? Seems questionable to me.

The site is mysteriously down and disappeared. What is funny is that Wired just ran an article on the company (and the teenage owner) at http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,40673, 00.html

now from an unposted thought from earlier, I wonder if there's a connection with the following :

. .

The International Herald Tribune has a piece which suggests that new software may be used to monitor for stolen music on your PC.

The company in question, EMusic, proposes to use the DMCA to shoehorn its software into a policing role for Napster users, as well as, no doubt, any other user of digital media, on behalf of the rights of copyright owners. Their chief, Gene Hoffman, baldly states, "Privacy is not the issue, Piracy is."

His statement implies that the trade for using the technologies which have themselves created an era of stunning growth for media companies, is a blunt, painful, surgical implant into our private equipment and facilities.

Whilst, In a update yesterday, Wired reports that the DMCA is said not to impact the rights of customers under first sale doctrine, an aggressive, "policing" stance such as the one proposed by EMusic, appears it would infringe that.

At a blunt guess, EMusic would effectively be placing a toll gate on the legitimate transfer of a legally purchased work. Under its plans to hoop up ISPs into blocking "infringing" accounts, it creates a lopsided penalty for alleged infirngement.

It is not stated how EMusic's system is or could be audited. If a legitimate owner of a work wished to sell or trade, in an error, trust could be reduced, impeding a sale. If the vendor's ISP account were incorrectly blocked, it is conceivable that the action might be a restraint of trade.

Either way EMusic wants to introduce a burden of proof on your ownerwhip of digital media. The company may be bandwagon jumping, or monkeying on the back of the "great fear" promulgated around Napster, but EMusic looks hawkish, and copyright lawers are becoming increasingly aggressive.

. .

Dear Slashdotters, I think the corporate wagons are circling. Are you up to the argument? Or have we left things too late?

When I got to reading the linked article it got me to thinking about a story that ran in Wired's print magazine called "Bright Switch".

Either in this article, or one of the others in this same issue, they get into talking about using this optical filtering technique to be used for things like clothing, replacement for paint, and even a way to stop earthquakes.

Mind you, a lot of this is theoretical stuff about using this crystaline stuff as a filtering mechanism. It still makes for an interesting read, and it appears to be a similar concept to what this thread is supposed to be talking about.

According to this Wired article: "Tetris significantly raises cerebral glucose metabolic rates (GMRs), meaning brain energy consumption soars. Yet, after four to eight weeks of daily doses, GMRs sink to normal, while performance increases seven-fold, on average."

Not only that, it's been ported darn near everywhere, for example the Atari 2600!

I thought it died because Sony was a little too stringent with sharing the technology. They knew they had a winner and didn't want to share it with anyone. They tried to monopolize the market and when the viable VHS solution came about they took it in the rear with the grace of Martha Stewart.

Interesting. This begs the question, how do you know about Martha Stewart's reactions to anal sex?

Anyway, yes. Sony is responsible for killing Beta. Beta is superior in basically every way to VHS, with better audio and video quality, both. Super VHS is better than Beta in most ways (Except tape size) but then again, I have a Sony Super Beta Hi-Fi deck.

Incidentally, "Betamaxing" is a term. Wired has it somewhat wrong, though. They explain betamaxing this way:

Betamaxed

When a technology is overtaken by an inferior but better-marketed technology. "Apple was betamaxed out of the market by Microsoft."

I have my own feelings about the saying which seem to coincide better than Wired's with how I've heard the term (verb?) "Betamax" used. In reality, only the person who owns a product can betamax it, because to betamax a technology is to license it out so restrictively that other players don't want to use it. Everyone knew that Beta was better than VHS from a technical standpoint, but an all-encompassing "better" would have to include ("The industry standard").

As an aside, Sony looked to be working hard to Betamax Minidisc, but Sony has so much power these days (partly because of the influence of the Playstation market on their budget) that they were able to hang on and keep pushing Minidisc. These days there are four or five companies making minidisc player/recorders, the discs are down to about a buck a piece, and they're really a quite reasonable solution.