Lol, I totally agree with you, I got some cheap ass acer media for CD-R and its breaking down already, and this is less than a year after burning it. I later learned how to tell a cheap media, if you can see light through it (hold CD up to light source) its cheap, not a hard test, but a quick and easy one. I switched to Memorex media and so far minimal data loss, a corrupt byte here and there, but I havent gotten any coasters yet, some of the Acer cd's have half the data corrupted! After im through with this spindle im switching to Kodak CD-R gold ultima They claim you can set them write side up on the dash of a hot car and not lose data. Kodak testing shows with normal usage kodak discs have a lifetime of 217 years. Granted its not independant testing, and it was done in 1995, but the amount of detail they go into makes it still relevant.
Officially, Microsoft says you can boot to the real-mode command prompt only from the Emergency Boot Disk, which may leave too little memory free for running BIOS-flashing and similar programs that run only from the command prompt. Unofficially, Microsoft insiders told us to create a minimal bootable floppy disk by copying Io.sys and Command.com from the WindowsCommandEBD folder to a blank formatted disk."
Cant you windows guys boot off a CD yet? Sheesh, no wonder everyone freaked out when iMac didnt have a floppy, CD-RW is the future, not floppy. Although it is impressive that you can get functioning windows to boot off 1.4 MB, Just goes to show you dont need all that bloat.
I can only
imagine the flood of bootleg Disney merchandise once the copyright runs out on "Steamboat Willie."
Disney will NEVER let the copyright run out on steamboat wilie, they will buy whatever congressmen are necesary to extend copyright law indefinetely so they will never have to face that "unfortunate" situation. Through the likes of Disney et al, Copyright has been extended from a reasonable 14 years, to life of the artist plus 70 years. Tell me how its supposed to encourage the artist to innovate if they have an exculsve copyright after theyre dead?
Um, no, the largest economy in the world in 1900 was the British Empire and where are they now? Not an empire thats for sure. The US was in the same position in 1900 as say India or china (granted not communist, but economy wise) One of those two countries will probably have the largest economy in the world in 2100. Of course if its China, it wont be because of its communistic policies, but despite them.
Only people who are absolutely enthralled with one specific design would wait for that to become available.
Thats what apple is all about, specific design. People who want a cube but dont know about it may go out and buy a G4 tower, but if they knew 3 months in advance the cube is coming, theyll put off buying till then, lost sale for apple.
Youll note however, that that little snippet of code is commented out, and therefore is not run when you load a page.
Heres what it really looks like:
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I challenge Apple to explain how it can harm them for people to know that ahead of time.
Very simple, because then people will be waiting for the new computer rather than going out and buying a computer now. This hurts apples bottom line in a big way, theyre well within their rights to try and stop leaks.
I have a friend whos HS teacher gave the following assignment: Program a game. That was about it, his entry was barney blaster, which was a big hit with the rest of the class. The games were judged on their cleanness of code, the fact that they actually ran, and their playability.
Youre absolutely right, I correspond regularly with a friend who uses hotmail exclusively, and since last friday ive gotten 1 of 3 messages sent to me. At first i thought it was somthing with the e-mail system here (NASA GSFC), but this makes much more sense
The tech culture is becoming a elitist society with no coherent political values, poorly prepared to deal with real politicians, who pass real laws like the DMCA
Anyone else suspect this article is a little barb back at all the slashdotters who have criticized katz in the past?
Not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but by silent assimilation by a horde of genetic couch potatoes like yourself.
Interestingly enough, most civilizations end through their own fault, they stop advancing technologically and some other civilization that hasnt been so lackadasical comes along and takes them over, then that civilization becomes complacent and falls, and so on. All I have to say is, when the alien civilization comes to conquer earth because weve been slacking off, dont blame me, i plan on voting for kodos.
Before you hit that reply button to flame me, sit back and think what you would really do if you could leave on a space shuttle for Mars tomorrow. Would you really want to abandon the Earth, home of humanity for many millenia, and all of its scenic mountains, awe-inspiring oceans, and beautiful forests to go live on a God-forsaken hump of red rock?
ummm HELL YEAH! I believe other responders have said it more eloquently than I, but yes, I would go in a second. I resent the fact that you think everyone is a cookie cutter duplicate of you and that everyone thinks like you, we dont. Some of us deram of doing something more than living in the suburbs, working for middle management, and having 2.3 children. If thats what you want to do, be my guest, but some people, myself included, would rather live "on a god-forsaken hunk of red rock" than in the suburbs.
It's easy... microbes live happily on bit of rock, huge comet (meteor?) hits, tons of rock get chucked into space, one or two manage to escape the gravity well and land on another planet.
this is true, but the rocks that are thrown up arent exactly very hospitible to life, theyre probably red hot by the time they leave the atmosphere if not from the actual impact and trauma of being torn from the surrounding strata than simply by atmospheric friction as it shoots out of the gravity well. Probably enough to sterilize anything. Of course the best way to test this is to find a big honkin asteroid, slam it into earth and see if any bacteria survive being flung clear.
most Americans choose automatics over manuals. The same is not true for europe and asia.
The point is that some people, obviously many of them in europe and asia, prefer manual to automatic, the same is also true that many people enjoy multibutton vs 1 button mice, both have their advantages, one is easy to use, one is more powerful, people like each one for their own reasons.
Who moderated this as flamebait? this is a genuine concernt with any AI. Just because I said something controversial doesnt make it an invalid topic of discussion. its not like my entire post was "MAcz rule pee cee's Drule!" ore some such drivel, learn to moderate.
Youre assuming that humans will be doing the program, and to that extent, youre right. But an AI would ultimately be too complex for humans to program, it would have to be evolved or programmed by computers, and this leads to unpredictability. Second, even if this were not the case and it were programmed by people, you would need to include the ability ifor it to grow and develop itself, i.e self programming. Were you born with intimate knowledge of C? no, you self programmed yourself, any self respecting AI would have this ability, and would ultimately learn to make decisions for itself, another requisite trait for AI. It is possible that it could learn and grow to dislike or to like people, and those that say bad things cant happen should remember the titanic.
Unless, as an open source or independent project, someone creates one of these entities, and does not engineer such safeguards. What happens from there, depends entirely on what the creator engineered into it. If the creator decided to engineer in a "survival instict", or a hatred towards humanity, or even a random element so that the entity would "decide for itself", the danger exists that it would fight for it's rights, and it's survival
Doesnt this negate your assertion that it couldnt happen because people(tm) will program it, and apparently humans can do no wrong?
I think this would be an interesting experiment in AI, after all the neurons in your brain are all linked up together. The question is what if we create true AI, artificial life, and what if it doesnt like us? I know I know, it sounds like a plot to a lame Sci Fi movie, but still, if the internet wer alive and inteligent, what would the implications be for human society? I would think that this intelligence would be smarter than any given human if only due to the massive amounts of information available to it, but even smart it would still be inexperienced, and babies tend to drool. I wouldnt want the internet to drool on me;-)
A second button is like having a manual transmission, its more complex and harder to learn, but can be more powerful than an automatic. That being said, most people choose automatics over manuals, thats not to say there isnt a lot of people who love the manual, but even they see the simplicity of the automatic. Which is easier to learn, automatic or manual, and which is easier to learn, one button or two? Anyways im not expecting to persuade you, but thats my opinion
Slashdot Mirror
Cant you windows guys boot off a CD yet? Sheesh, no wonder everyone freaked out when iMac didnt have a floppy, CD-RW is the future, not floppy. Although it is impressive that you can get functioning windows to boot off 1.4 MB, Just goes to show you dont need all that bloat.
Disney will NEVER let the copyright run out on steamboat wilie, they will buy whatever congressmen are necesary to extend copyright law indefinetely so they will never have to face that "unfortunate" situation. Through the likes of Disney et al, Copyright has been extended from a reasonable 14 years, to life of the artist plus 70 years. Tell me how its supposed to encourage the artist to innovate if they have an exculsve copyright after theyre dead?
What with all the Geek profiling going on, i cant see what else could be done
Thats what apple is all about, specific design. People who want a cube but dont know about it may go out and buy a G4 tower, but if they knew 3 months in advance the cube is coming, theyll put off buying till then, lost sale for apple.
Youll note however, that that little snippet of code is commented out, and therefore is not run when you load a page./ comments.pl,");
m ments.pl,");
Heres what it really looks like:
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tail = now.getTime();
document.write("<IMG SRC='http://images2.slashdot.org/Slashdot/pc.gif?
document.write(tail);
document.write("' WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1>");
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Very simple, because then people will be waiting for the new computer rather than going out and buying a computer now. This hurts apples bottom line in a big way, theyre well within their rights to try and stop leaks.
Ah, fond memories of HS deb8, god how I loved crushing other teams with my logic ;-)
Anyone else suspect this article is a little barb back at all the slashdotters who have criticized katz in the past?
Interestingly enough, most civilizations end through their own fault, they stop advancing technologically and some other civilization that hasnt been so lackadasical comes along and takes them over, then that civilization becomes complacent and falls, and so on. All I have to say is, when the alien civilization comes to conquer earth because weve been slacking off, dont blame me, i plan on voting for kodos.
ummm HELL YEAH! I believe other responders have said it more eloquently than I, but yes, I would go in a second. I resent the fact that you think everyone is a cookie cutter duplicate of you and that everyone thinks like you, we dont. Some of us deram of doing something more than living in the suburbs, working for middle management, and having 2.3 children. If thats what you want to do, be my guest, but some people, myself included, would rather live "on a god-forsaken hunk of red rock" than in the suburbs.
Why dont you throw them *into* the sun, that would qualify under "anything the sun could throw at them"
this is true, but the rocks that are thrown up arent exactly very hospitible to life, theyre probably red hot by the time they leave the atmosphere if not from the actual impact and trauma of being torn from the surrounding strata than simply by atmospheric friction as it shoots out of the gravity well. Probably enough to sterilize anything. Of course the best way to test this is to find a big honkin asteroid, slam it into earth and see if any bacteria survive being flung clear.
The point is that some people, obviously many of them in europe and asia, prefer manual to automatic, the same is also true that many people enjoy multibutton vs 1 button mice, both have their advantages, one is easy to use, one is more powerful, people like each one for their own reasons.
Unless, as an open source or independent project, someone creates one of these entities, and does not engineer such safeguards. What happens from there, depends entirely on what the creator engineered into it. If the creator decided to engineer in a "survival instict", or a hatred towards humanity, or even a random element so that the entity would "decide for itself", the danger exists that it would fight for it's rights, and it's survival
Doesnt this negate your assertion that it couldnt happen because people(tm) will program it, and apparently humans can do no wrong?