The Church of Scientology has made it difficult to criticize them, because they tend to send the lawyers after anyone who does (generally on grounds of copyright infringement).
Funny, that they use Copyright as a mechanism for sustaining their secrecy and power over information.
The Holy Roman Church never really used anything like that, did they? (of course, in the face of the centuries of persecution, torture, murders and inquisitions... yada-yada-yada) Then again, the Roman Church didn't really did go for that "love thy neighbor" thing... except when they pay obscene amounts of tithing.
The point is, it seems that Scientology is the only “religion” to be so secretive about their dogma and scripture. Other religions will pass it around like a beach ball on Spring Break. Lo and behold! You try to share the teachings of the big ‘S’ and you're publicly shamed. (uh-oh, there's that persecution thing again!)
I guess there's many ways that you can call the rise of the Roman Church similar to that of Scientology. The biggest difference is that Scientology only uses established laws to keep itself private. The Roman Church was the law.
Most people here would consider it a right to criticize, as a subset of the right to freedom of expression.
I guess this is sort of peripheral to that, but still...
Bah! It's dead-on, mate! In case you hadn't guessed, being on/. is an automatic right to criticize. (Some would have you believe it is a requirement of continued membership.) By God... or Aruzula... or whatever... if you have an opinion, you have a right to speak it. The balance is struck when someone shares their opinion in turn. It seems that Scientology doesn't believe in such a balance; it's only their opinion that counts, and they will do everything they can to distract you from thinking that's in any way important.
If thinking that Scientology is just a front—for a covert program doing research into enhanced techniques of persuasion, mass-crowd manipulation, power brokering and self-gratification—earns me a tinfoil hat, then I wear it with pride!
US Supreme Court to revoke all software patents, then ban them
Chief Justice John Roberts remarks, “We're tired of this bull, and we will be pulling the plug on the whole thing. Let those geeks sort it out amongst themselves.”
In other news... Richard Stallman dies of acute irrelevance.
Wrestling belongs on SciFi like Freddy Krueger belongs on Lifetime.
If they had just given it to Spike in the first place, then Spike wouldn't have had to invent their own “TNA” version. (Yes- more wrestling... that's what television needs... </sarcasm> )
Maybe I can come-up with some technology and post-facto companies into paying for it.
I know! I'll invent the Digital Rights Monkey; a cyber-simian that is trained to recognize paper receipts
and bar codes from media packaging. If he finds media that doesn't have a matching receipt, he goes nuts, breaks it
to pieces and douses it in urine and feces. (making the content unplayable)
Okay, media industry... PAY UP! You must use my idea, or I'll abuse the powers of the legal system all over you!
This strategy would seem brilliant... only it's not.
If they try to twist the language of the DMCA into leveraging platform developers into adopting their little DRM
mechanism (and presuming they pull it off) I'm just going to have to kidnap their executives and make them watch every single Disney DVD title on a 9-inch CRT using just the composite-video signal.
“It watches The Lion King and sees the colors fade in and out or else it gets the hose again!”
What could further G-E along these lines is to implement sounds in a spatial (3-D) fashion. That is, have the sounds fade-in or -out (seeming as if they are approaching/receding) while you're travelling across the landscape... blending together across regions, much in the way the sat-photos do.
Along with the "cruise" function, I would bring it into the African savannah and just let it roll along,
or the South American rainforests; absorb the natural ambience and listen as the sound just flows in and out.
Wow... just a thought... what if we made Google Earth into a Second Life node? Seriously! Invent the ability to scale the v-Earth the same way, but that others in s/l would be a relative size. (that is, the v-Earth wouldn't actually s/l characters are scaled individually, making v-Earth appear to zoom in/out as a result) Have small groups link together where they scale at the same rate! Fantastic!
I think that Google should be open to this type of integration; though it would be restricted to read-only, so there would be no feedback from irrelevant platforms like games or simulations. Only Google Earth proper would have the ability to submit point-data to the virtual map.
I challenge you to find much more information on Dark Matter... that isn't purely speculative. Whining about the lack of information is even worse than the wildest of speculations. Get in the game!
So far, it's all in the name; we can't really see it, ergo; dark. It has some sort of mass-effect in the universe, ergo; it matters. The only thing we can't agree on is what Dark Matter is. Let the speculations begin!
1. - Maybe it's a Quantum Substance and we've already determined it's nature by giving it a name. If it ever gets in the way, just shine a light on it and it disappears!
2. - What if it follows an Uncertainty Principle instead? Find a cloud of it, then put the lens-cap on the telescope. If I don't believe it's there when I take the lens-cap off, will it be gone? (Call it “Schroedinger's Haze”?)
It's about time that scientific research started seriously re-evaluating the principles of the internal combustion engine. As TFA reads, it's been largely unchanged (merely tweaked here-and-there) for roughly the last 100 years.
I think the research being done is specifically targeted at fuel efficiency, that is, getting the most power out of the same drop of fuel. Whether it comes as greater HP, low-end torque or higher mileage would seem moot; they would all serve the same ends in reducing the need for more fuel.
From what I gather, the intake/exhaust paradigm is being shifted. The school where intake and exhaust are mutually exclusive will be challenged by the newer HCCI model. You might say that they're furthering the principles of the turbocharger beyond the point of just transferring heat and energy, where the vapors themselves will be manipulated and mixed together.
Still waiting for the embrace of bona-fide flex-fuel vehicles and autonomous navigation systems... (let's go, DARPA!)
Clearly, this was an editorial; an opinion-piece. The headline for TFA is far more inflammatory
than anything in TFA itself.
Why didn't anyone tag this slownewsday?
I think the summary above is far more biased than TFA could ever be, to wit...
[The article contains] a cheap shot dismissing open source projects as existing
only to act as a foil for Microsoft...
I read TFA, I scoured the text, and even took some liberties with semantics. I couldn't
find this “cheap shot” for the life of me.
All I found was this thoroughly quoted statement: (from TFA)
And frankly, without them, most open-source projects would rapidly wither away: without
an intellectual property behemoth like Microsoft to fight, what would be the point?
Let's take another look at this. I don't believe Mr. Kanellos was talking about any
survivalism or dependence between OSS and Microsoft. Rather, I believe he was playing
“chicken and egg” with the dichotomy they represent. Much like a buddhist philosophy,
he sees software-patents and open-source as two sides of the same coin. Light does
not exist without shadow. There can be no “up” without “down”. There can be no open-source
without closed-source.
I mean, if there was never such a thing as closed-source software or patents... I
think it would just be “software.” Why would we ever be inclined to call
it “open source” if we never had closed-source or patented software to contrast it?
Mr. Kanellos brings up valid points, succintly analyzes a rather complex phenomenon,
and even provides a fairly balanced—albeit opinionated—view of the current state of
intellectual property.
Frankly, if I were Keith Richards, I'd be looking into a Likeness Rights lawsuit
on the Haywards. If they keep it at home and show it to their friends, fine...
but by
selling the footage, it becomes a published medium. The Haywards may indeed
be the “artists” behind the footage, but do they have any release by the celebrities
allowing them to sell their likenesses? Aye, there's the rub.
There's a reason that Copyrights and Patents exist in the first
place, and let's not forget that they actually fulfill their tasks for the most
part. It is the complications introduced by faster, cheaper and more-accessible technologies
(and the folks that try to take advantage of them) that have made such a mess of things. Let's not forget the utter sloth and procrastination of a profiteering government failing to address these concerns in time as the abusers continue to tear at the fabric of the GNP that government is supposed to be protecting in the first place! [gasps!]
So many of us are alluding to this, but so few are actually calling it out
There really is no incentive to report their findings to the vulnerable
company, and plenty not to. Which is why, especially in the IT security business,
there needs to be a code of conduct with regard to responsible disclosure.' Do you
think there's any truth to this? Or is it a better idea to find the vulnerabilities
as fast as possible, damn the consequences?"
“No incentive” !? Is $10,000 so lacking as to be deemed a
non-incentive? Why is this
statement disagreeing with the premise of the article?
I believe the gist is this: When a developer opens the door to the community, and
puts up a cash reward for finding vulnerabilities, what's to keep the “black hats”
from keeping the exploits to themselves? (potentially selling them underground and
making more in illicit revenues than the amount posted as a bona-fide reward) They
attempt to introduce pseudo-psychological factors (which only help to confuse the
matter) but essentially address the core morality of the coder community.
TFA seems just as confused as OP about the exact point they are both trying to make.
I think the headline should read, How much is the color of your hat worth?
In the case of Apple, what if the hacker found a way
to make $100,000 from the exploit, rather than just settle for the one-time $10,000
payoff? Would it have been enough to keep someone honest?
I think this brings us to a most compelling question. What's a “white hat” worth?
What amount could be called a “standard bounty” for finding vulnerability in code?
Also, support a stance on whether such rewards are a “bounty” or a “sellout price”.
If there was ever a time to over-hype something, this isn't it. Sure, call it “enablement”,
call it whatever you like! It still represents a hurdle between consumers and the
content we would like to enjoy. (now if only the publishers would let us enjoy it)
HBO should take a page from MSFT; pumping hype into something that's painfully unworthy
of hype is just plain wrong. (e.g., Vista:
Would someone please turn down the “Wow” already? Through the distortion
it just sounds like “Wah.” )
On a lighter note, I'd love to think-up more surrogate acronyms for DRM... let's
see...
+ Consumer Regulated Underlying Dogma Disturbs You
+ Seller Hubris Integrated Technology
(and you can add “Enhanced” to that!)
+ Something Horrible Inside That Troubles You
+ Wholesale Annoyance Not Knowing Everyone Dislikes
+ Free Usability Certainly Killed Even Destroyed
+ Legitimate Ownership Undone Suffer You
+ Digital Enablement Already Dead
...but the Internet is something entirely different.
With all due respect to former Vice President Al Gore, the “superhighway” analogy was thin at best.
Senator Stevens took a stance for all that is “layman” by stating, “It's a series of tubes.” His statement brings to light the genuine need for a layman's understanding for the greatest collaborative network known to human-kind.
Perhaps we should start there; a collaborative network. That's just a general sentiment for what the Internet really is, because it doesn't just let people collaborate. It also lets us compete-with, share, ridicule, praise, shame, acknowledge, threaten and even enlighten others.
We should make a distinction between the “Web” and the “'Net”, because one is a part of the other. The “Web” is just the part of the Internet that we access with a Web Browser, even to include all the rich media content we enjoy every day. The Internet goes much, much further than that.
The Internet is e-mail. The Internet is 'chat'. The Internet is online gaming. The Internet is merchantibility. The Internet is news. The Internet is business. The Internet is government by self-rule. Yes indeed, the Internet is also a tremendous conveyor for pornographic media. The Internet is many things to many people, but then again, just what is it?
What I noticed on the Google page was a plethora of technical definitions, focusing on the nuts-and-bolts that make the Internet work. That said, it still isn't enough to really define the Internet, is it? I mean, there's more to your iPod than some miniaturized electronics, a small LCD screen and a hard drive, yeah?
The Internet must be something more than what we can tangibly see and touch. It's more than T-1, more than fiber, more than bridges and routers and hubs. (oh my!)
I seem to be failing at the “succinct” part, here. Still, considering all that's been covered to this point, there must be words “big” enough, yet simple enough for anyone to easily grasp.
Here are my humble attempts to name the Un-nameable:
Communication (pure and simple) Connections (abstract, but to the point) A Portal (yeah, vague) The Presence of Remote Information (maybe that's just the Web) The Human Connection (too much like a slogan?)
This is no easy task, (whatever you others might think) and may—IMHO—require the invention of new words, or new semantics for existing words. Hey, we've done it before!
I've always admired Marshall McLuhan for his philosophies, and insight into the modern age. His book, The Medium Is The Massage (sic) he basically predicts the emergence of computing and networks, as “an extension of the mind”.
McLuhan was thought esoteric, but also coined the term, “global village”. The idea is that, the great idea to connect human ideas (the Internet) will ultimately bring the human culture full-circle to a borderless tribal-state.
Is that it, then? Maybe it's more philosophical than practical, but I think The Great Idea to Connect Human Ideas puts it together nicely. After all, I guess it answers the fundamental question.
What is the internet? The Great Idea to Connect Human Ideas Well, what does it do? It connects.
Keep those mod-points coming, for PP has got it right. In fact, there should be concatenated mod-points; I would make PP “insightful”, “interesting” and “informative”! (That's it! We need a “+1 Hattrick”)
Patents are part of commercial trade insomuch as they protect the interests of people that genuinely come-up with (and pursue) good ideas. What did the patent-trollers do for innovation? What have they contributed? If there's one point to start addressing patent-happy firms, it's on the grounds that they didn't do squat for the market, let alone the consumer!
Yes... enter MSFT, and the matter gets a bit sticky... but I digress.
IANAL, but I do work with copyrighted materials on a daily basis.
Trademarks are about fair competition; something that obviously doesn't exist for most of the Pacific Rim. The other day, I bought a $1 gadget at the flea market with batteries sporting a logo, “SQMY” --in the same typeface and style as a popular brand, Sony. (if you were to see only the top of the logo, it's not unreasonable that you would think they said “SONY”) In America, if you started a software company called “Micrasalt”, emblazoned your logo in Arial Black, used very-close kerning and chiseled a small part of the ‘a’ away, you'd be neck-deep in trademark litigations. (Don't believe me? Try it!) How could this protect software? That's right, it can't. It protects corporate branding and identity, not products.
IMHO, the patent system is a mess. An out-dated system, first conceived for corporeal inventions, that's been bastardized into a form to cover abstracts of computer logic and doesn't even appreciate the fluid nature of code. Hell, there's even imperfections if you're patenting a physical product, let alone an abstract of electronic instructions.
Patent System Reform? Yes.
Software Patent System Reform? No... Software Patent moratorium.
Let the idea of Software Patents lapse and instead come-up with a new paradigm. Let the patent system do what it does best; protect the inventors of physical constructs from having their work duplicated without proper compensation. For software, start over!
What about a Registered Code Repository? Now that multiple OS platforms are becoming more feasible, wouldn't it make sense to protect 'wares at the fundamental source level? Take the idea of distro' repositories and apply protections to each package, (not that different from SVN) but with the real potential for legal enforcement added. Let it be headed by a competent body (like the USPTO, but as I said, competent) that oversees the sovereignty and uniqueness of each package. Apply the rules from PP to the mix (vis-a-vis, can't protect something that you're not currently selling) and add a dash of GPL (can't control, legally or monetarily, what software may or may not interact with yours on any basis; which frees the real innovation) and you've got the seeds of progress.
Keep using the crazy, mixed-up system we have now, and the Microsofts, Acacias and SCO's of the world will bog us down in so much litigation as to make progress irrelevant.
On anything that claims to compare G.W. Bush to H.M. Nixon, I can only say this:
When Nixon acted on his own, he claimed his actions were “in the interest of National Security.”
When Bush acts on his own, forget National Security, he's “doing God's will.”
Anyone catch his promise to open Federal Grants to “faith based communities”? (For all you other dotters, that's basically giving money straight from the State to the Church.)
It's not even the Holy Roman Church either! It's for evangelism.
When these companies sign such covenants, they believe that it's the ticket to the ground floor of the Next Big Thing. It's likely that Samsung sees that as a movement towards multi-function ultra-portable devices with embedded Linux. (currently their products are primarily WinCE... I still love the ironic resemblance of that name!)
Samsung isn't so much indemnifying themselves with MSFT, but rather making a compromise with an important business partner. They would rather sign a minor deal to avoid future problems than risk losing a revenue channel.
It's easy for us to interpret their actions as “bowing to MSFT” because we're all on the side of Linux being free. The truth of the matter hasn't changed; Linux is still free, and nothing MSFT can do will change that.
Also, let's try to see things from a pragmatic standpoint. MSFT isn't out to kill Linux, at least, not anymore. (buh-bye SCO, nice try)
The deal with Novell was simply MSFT going to the source of the “problem”. They struck the deal as a way to tie profitability into Linux; something that the GPL was designed to dis-allow. As we all know, that is what MSFT cares about the most.
From this standpoint, MSFT appears to be furthering their agenda with these latest deals. I suspect that this is not a genuine trend, but is only the start of how this drama will ultimately play-out.
In the end, it will be Consumers vs. The Microsoft Way. I like to think that we'll win in the end, but that depends on how much we—as consumers—are willing to learn along the way.
Somehow, that doesn't stop you from expounding on it... why?
I HAVE spent 2000+ hours [...] and I do use optical kerning on almost every body of text I deal with.
OMG... I'm terribly sorry. Who told you to use kerning on body text!? No wonder you've spent so much time with InDesign.
Someone with the experience should have told you to use tracking on body text and reserve kerning for just the larger headlines. You might have saved some time with that.
Something else that improves visibility on justified text is optical margin alignment, where punctuation marks go outside of the margins so that the actual words can line up along the gutter.
I'm sorry... is this a comment on the current state of typography? I don't know about others, but optical margin alignment is only truly relevant to block-quotes, bulleted lists and sometimes numbered lists (but only when aligned to the mark and not the digits; something MS Word still doesn't do) and is otherwise a rather irrelevant factoid. The last thing I want is having my commas and periods hanging outside the paragraph.
I'm with a number of other posters on the point that any form of automated kerning for web content or other on-screen content is just about irrelevant. We can read the screen, often with near-100% certainty, and communication is the result. Looks like we may already have it right.
In the readability department, there are much more important matters:
A visibly clear difference between lowercase ‘l’, uppercase ‘i’ and the number ‘1’ (some of you may have more trouble than others to understand this, depending on your browsers font... which is exactly the point)
A visibly clear difference between uppercase ‘O’ and number ‘0’. (I prefer bitmapped fonts where a dot appears inside a zero; it's how I hand-write them, and IMHO it should be mandated)
Whether ClearType or TrueType or OpenType or PostScript-font or whatever... just keep the text readable with or without anti-aliasing at smaller sizes on-screen. (or just make it “greek” when it's small enough—past the point of being legible anyway)
Why does it seem that only Firefox lets me set a Minimum Font Size? Brilliant!
Unfortunately, pages that are affected by that setting often have text spilling from the layout.
It's never easy to tell the difference between ‘rn’ and ‘m’ (except in monospace)
I've found a bunch of domains that sound real funny as “dot-corn” sites. (next round of TLDs, anyone?)
FYI, my screen font is the highly underrated Trebuchet MS. (also the namesake of my favorite unit in AoE2) It addresses most of the concerns I put in the list above and is entirely readable down to 6pt (8px) size... er- with ClearType enabled, that is.;)
I'd use mod points, but I'm a designer (Web and print) and this has to be set straight. Besides, who on/. actually reads TFA to comprehend these posts?
Waa-aay back on the early printing presses, characters were steel/pewter “shots” and held together with molten lead. The shots were lead-alloy and would break-away from melting the pure lead once the print-run was complete.
The letters each occupied a rectangular space, since the shots were forged from rectangular molds. When the shots were fitted together on a line, they would have a specific amount of space between them which was largely based on their overall size. (the shots were three-dimensional, and therefore, actually had volume)
For the common, body-text type, the rectangular spaces (proportional to a letter's width) were enough to make the type readable. However, with larger type in the masthead, headline or other large type, the space between letters could sometimes lead to a confusing appearance. The larger letters were often made of wood, not metal, so the spaces would be cut-away near the corners. The notches that resulted made the angular letters (e.g., like ‘VA’ or ‘WAY”) fit-together more closely, and yet would not lose any space when placed next to letters that occupy the full rectangle. (such as with ‘AMV’, ‘MAN’, or ‘OMG’)
Since only the corners of certain letters were trimmed-away, it came to be known as “cornering”, which in-time became the vernacular we know today, kerning. Presumably, some Northern European dialect gives us the word we now use.
So many people confuse kerning with a system called tracking and think the two are one and the same... NOT so! While each is a name for a system to determine the visible space between letters, they do it in fully different ways. In a nutshell, tracking applies to a full typeface and is applied to all text at the same time. (as if to increase/decrease the size of the letter-shots themselves) Whereas kerning only applies to the space between two, specific letters.
In that light, you may have already guessed that kerning is not widely used with body-text (like the text you're reading now) and tracking is used instead. For instance, the next time you read a fully-justified column, (aligned both left and right sides) notice how some lines appear “stretched” or “compressed” when compared to others. Tracking is the mechanism for making justified text.
Where you'll find kerning most often is in mastheads, corporate logos, and occasionally in article headlines. Working with only two letters at a time is a tedious process, so it's generally reserved for when fewer letters are displayed at a larger size.
The very logo for Slashdot (top of this page) is a fair example of kerning; the letters are almost touching, but the same effect can not be done so precisely by simply adjusting the tracking of the same text. (even the slogan, “NEWS FOR NERDS, STUFF THAT MATTERS” is kerned just a bit)
What amuses me the most in this thread is the number of people claiming they can compare the effects of tracking or kerning from one poster to the next. Are you all using the exact-same font on your browser? (Slashdot posts appear in the default font for your browser--go ahead, test it!)
With the obvious variety of platforms represented here, I'd safely say “no”. Unless you're in the same room, looking at the same PC monitor, you can't make any comparisons. While the page reads the same, I'm sure it appears just-a-bit-different on my screen than it does on yours. There's no proof there.
Besides “Optical Volumes” does sound just a bit cooler than “Optical Areas”.
So, I'm in the Metropolitan Denver area, where we have no less than two area codes for the entire Metropolitan region. (303/720) We have to dial 10 digits for every call. (aaa-ppp-xxxx) There is no geographical distinction between them, so how would they make the survey any more accurate?
Add to that, the distinctive phenomenon where folks are living land-line-free. Not just owning a mobile phone, but using it as their only voice communication service. (myself included)
Let's get the FCC to bite the bullet and actually investigate the matter, rather than sit on their duffs and play guessing games from the groundwork of the postal service.
Open your package manager; the one through System, but not the
Add/Remove item! (the one with the big list, no icons)
Make sure to select All packages and scan the list; find every package that lists a Latest Version ending with '-ubuntuXX'.
Each of those packages has the Ubuntu team's fingerprints on it, and those changes are fed back to the community. (upstream patches; whether upstream uses them or not)
I'm sure there's some clever shell-command that will do something like this for you, but I would gladly defer that honor to someone that's done it before.
Even if you're not impressed with the results, consider that Ubuntu has put Linux “into the limelight” like no other distro before it. (with the possible exception of RedHat)
Slashdot Mirror
“Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell. ‘More human than human’ is our motto.”
Funny, that they use Copyright as a mechanism for sustaining their secrecy and power over information.
The Holy Roman Church never really used anything like that, did they? (of course, in the face of the centuries of persecution, torture, murders and inquisitions... yada-yada-yada) Then again, the Roman Church didn't really did go for that "love thy neighbor" thing... except when they pay obscene amounts of tithing.
The point is, it seems that Scientology is the only “religion” to be so secretive about their dogma and scripture. Other religions will pass it around like a beach ball on Spring Break. Lo and behold! You try to share the teachings of the big ‘S’ and you're publicly shamed. (uh-oh, there's that persecution thing again!)
I guess there's many ways that you can call the rise of the Roman Church similar to that of Scientology. The biggest difference is that Scientology only uses established laws to keep itself private. The Roman Church was the law.
Most people here would consider it a right to criticize, as a subset of the right to freedom of expression. I guess this is sort of peripheral to that, but still...Bah! It's dead-on, mate! In case you hadn't guessed, being on /. is an automatic right to criticize. (Some would have you believe it is a requirement of continued membership.) By God... or Aruzula... or whatever... if you have an opinion, you have a right to speak it. The balance is struck when someone shares their opinion in turn. It seems that Scientology doesn't believe in such a balance; it's only their opinion that counts, and they will do everything they can to distract you from thinking that's in any way important.
If thinking that Scientology is just a front—for a covert program doing research into enhanced techniques of persuasion, mass-crowd manipulation, power brokering and self-gratification—earns me a tinfoil hat, then I wear it with pride!
I'm bemused by the thought; that we're witnessing the formation of a world-wide order, a league of unknown-but-surely-diabolical intent, a organization of limitless sinister potential, that may one day form a SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.
All I know is... I can't wait for the next Bond film!
Now here's a headline we'd like to see...
US Supreme Court to revoke all software patents, then ban them
Chief Justice John Roberts remarks, “We're tired of this bull, and we will be pulling the plug on the whole thing. Let those geeks sort it out amongst themselves.”
In other news... Richard Stallman dies of acute irrelevance.
The penguins are free. Let the penguins be.
Wrestling belongs on SciFi like Freddy Krueger belongs on Lifetime.
If they had just given it to Spike in the first place, then Spike wouldn't have had to invent their own “TNA” version. (Yes- more wrestling... that's what television needs... </sarcasm> )
Now... let's see about re-making Buck Rogers!
Maybe I can come-up with some technology and post-facto companies into paying for it.
I know! I'll invent the Digital Rights Monkey; a cyber-simian that is trained to recognize paper receipts and bar codes from media packaging. If he finds media that doesn't have a matching receipt, he goes nuts, breaks it to pieces and douses it in urine and feces. (making the content unplayable)
Okay, media industry... PAY UP! You must use my idea, or I'll abuse the powers of the legal system all over you!
This strategy would seem brilliant... only it's not.
If they try to twist the language of the DMCA into leveraging platform developers into adopting their little DRM mechanism (and presuming they pull it off) I'm just going to have to kidnap their executives and make them watch every single Disney DVD title on a 9-inch CRT using just the composite-video signal.
“It watches The Lion King and sees the colors fade in and out or else it gets the hose again!”
werd.
What could further G-E along these lines is to implement sounds in a spatial (3-D) fashion. That is, have the sounds fade-in or -out (seeming as if they are approaching/receding) while you're travelling across the landscape... blending together across regions, much in the way the sat-photos do.
Along with the "cruise" function, I would bring it into the African savannah and just let it roll along, or the South American rainforests; absorb the natural ambience and listen as the sound just flows in and out.
Wow... just a thought... what if we made Google Earth into a Second Life node? Seriously! Invent the ability to scale the v-Earth the same way, but that others in s/l would be a relative size. (that is, the v-Earth wouldn't actually s/l characters are scaled individually, making v-Earth appear to zoom in/out as a result) Have small groups link together where they scale at the same rate! Fantastic!
I think that Google should be open to this type of integration; though it would be restricted to read-only, so there would be no feedback from irrelevant platforms like games or simulations. Only Google Earth proper would have the ability to submit point-data to the virtual map.
I challenge you to find much more information on Dark Matter... that isn't purely speculative. Whining about the lack of information is even worse than the wildest of speculations. Get in the game!
So far, it's all in the name; we can't really see it, ergo; dark. It has some sort of mass-effect in the universe, ergo; it matters. The only thing we can't agree on is what Dark Matter is. Let the speculations begin!
1. - Maybe it's a Quantum Substance and we've already determined it's nature by giving it a name. If it ever gets in the way, just shine a light on it and it disappears!
2. - What if it follows an Uncertainty Principle instead? Find a cloud of it, then put the lens-cap on the telescope. If I don't believe it's there when I take the lens-cap off, will it be gone? (Call it “Schroedinger's Haze”?)
3. - The residue of “unnecessary emotions” cast-off by an advanced species?
4. - Star farts?
I'd like to hear any better ideas... [ducks]
It's about time that scientific research started seriously re-evaluating the principles of the internal combustion engine. As TFA reads, it's been largely unchanged (merely tweaked here-and-there) for roughly the last 100 years.
I think the research being done is specifically targeted at fuel efficiency, that is, getting the most power out of the same drop of fuel. Whether it comes as greater HP, low-end torque or higher mileage would seem moot; they would all serve the same ends in reducing the need for more fuel.
From what I gather, the intake/exhaust paradigm is being shifted. The school where intake and exhaust are mutually exclusive will be challenged by the newer HCCI model. You might say that they're furthering the principles of the turbocharger beyond the point of just transferring heat and energy, where the vapors themselves will be manipulated and mixed together.
Still waiting for the embrace of bona-fide flex-fuel vehicles and autonomous navigation systems... (let's go, DARPA!)
[mostly agrees with parent]
Clearly, this was an editorial; an opinion-piece. The headline for TFA is far more inflammatory than anything in TFA itself.
Why didn't anyone tag this slownewsday?
I think the summary above is far more biased than TFA could ever be, to wit...
I read TFA, I scoured the text, and even took some liberties with semantics. I couldn't find this “cheap shot” for the life of me.
All I found was this thoroughly quoted statement: (from TFA)
Let's take another look at this. I don't believe Mr. Kanellos was talking about any survivalism or dependence between OSS and Microsoft. Rather, I believe he was playing “chicken and egg” with the dichotomy they represent. Much like a buddhist philosophy, he sees software-patents and open-source as two sides of the same coin. Light does not exist without shadow. There can be no “up” without “down”. There can be no open-source without closed-source.
I mean, if there was never such a thing as closed-source software or patents... I think it would just be “software.” Why would we ever be inclined to call it “open source” if we never had closed-source or patented software to contrast it?
Mr. Kanellos brings up valid points, succintly analyzes a rather complex phenomenon, and even provides a fairly balanced—albeit opinionated—view of the current state of intellectual property.
Frankly, if I were Keith Richards, I'd be looking into a Likeness Rights lawsuit on the Haywards. If they keep it at home and show it to their friends, fine... but by selling the footage, it becomes a published medium. The Haywards may indeed be the “artists” behind the footage, but do they have any release by the celebrities allowing them to sell their likenesses? Aye, there's the rub.
There's a reason that Copyrights and Patents exist in the first place, and let's not forget that they actually fulfill their tasks for the most part. It is the complications introduced by faster, cheaper and more-accessible technologies (and the folks that try to take advantage of them) that have made such a mess of things. Let's not forget the utter sloth and procrastination of a profiteering government failing to address these concerns in time as the abusers continue to tear at the fabric of the GNP that government is supposed to be protecting in the first place! [gasps!]
Speaking of messes... back to the “discussion”...
So many of us are alluding to this, but so few are actually calling it out
“No incentive” !? Is $10,000 so lacking as to be deemed a non-incentive ? Why is this statement disagreeing with the premise of the article?
I believe the gist is this: When a developer opens the door to the community, and puts up a cash reward for finding vulnerabilities, what's to keep the “black hats” from keeping the exploits to themselves? (potentially selling them underground and making more in illicit revenues than the amount posted as a bona-fide reward) They attempt to introduce pseudo-psychological factors (which only help to confuse the matter) but essentially address the core morality of the coder community.
TFA seems just as confused as OP about the exact point they are both trying to make. I think the headline should read, How much is the color of your hat worth?
In the case of Apple, what if the hacker found a way to make $100,000 from the exploit, rather than just settle for the one-time $10,000 payoff? Would it have been enough to keep someone honest?
I think this brings us to a most compelling question. What's a “white hat” worth? What amount could be called a “standard bounty” for finding vulnerability in code? Also, support a stance on whether such rewards are a “bounty” or a “sellout price”.
(I can hear the knuckles cracking already...)
TFA did mention that the upcoming titles would likely “be made for television” —the DVD would come one week later.
If there was ever a time to over-hype something, this isn't it. Sure, call it “enablement”, call it whatever you like! It still represents a hurdle between consumers and the content we would like to enjoy. (now if only the publishers would let us enjoy it)
HBO should take a page from MSFT; pumping hype into something that's painfully unworthy of hype is just plain wrong. (e.g., Vista: Would someone please turn down the “Wow” already? Through the distortion it just sounds like “Wah.” )
On a lighter note, I'd love to think-up more surrogate acronyms for DRM... let's see...
+ Consumer Regulated Underlying Dogma Disturbs You
+ Seller Hubris Integrated Technology (and you can add “Enhanced” to that!)
+ Something Horrible Inside That Troubles You
+ Wholesale Annoyance Not Knowing Everyone Dislikes
+ Free Usability Certainly Killed Even Destroyed
+ Legitimate Ownership Undone Suffer You
+ Digital Enablement Already Dead
Now that's entertainment.
...but the Internet is something entirely different.
With all due respect to former Vice President Al Gore, the “superhighway” analogy was thin at best.
Senator Stevens took a stance for all that is “layman” by stating, “It's a series of tubes.” His statement brings to light the genuine need for a layman's understanding for the greatest collaborative network known to human-kind.
Perhaps we should start there; a collaborative network. That's just a general sentiment for what the Internet really is, because it doesn't just let people collaborate. It also lets us compete-with, share, ridicule, praise, shame, acknowledge, threaten and even enlighten others.
We should make a distinction between the “Web” and the “'Net”, because one is a part of the other. The “Web” is just the part of the Internet that we access with a Web Browser, even to include all the rich media content we enjoy every day. The Internet goes much, much further than that.
The Internet is e-mail. The Internet is 'chat'. The Internet is online gaming. The Internet is merchantibility. The Internet is news. The Internet is business. The Internet is government by self-rule. Yes indeed, the Internet is also a tremendous conveyor for pornographic media. The Internet is many things to many people, but then again, just what is it?
What I noticed on the Google page was a plethora of technical definitions, focusing on the nuts-and-bolts that make the Internet work. That said, it still isn't enough to really define the Internet, is it? I mean, there's more to your iPod than some miniaturized electronics, a small LCD screen and a hard drive, yeah?
The Internet must be something more than what we can tangibly see and touch. It's more than T-1, more than fiber, more than bridges and routers and hubs. (oh my!)
I seem to be failing at the “succinct” part, here. Still, considering all that's been covered to this point, there must be words “big” enough, yet simple enough for anyone to easily grasp.
Here are my humble attempts to name the Un-nameable:
Communication (pure and simple)
Connections (abstract, but to the point)
A Portal (yeah, vague)
The Presence of Remote Information (maybe that's just the Web)
The Human Connection (too much like a slogan?)
This is no easy task, (whatever you others might think) and may—IMHO—require the invention of new words, or new semantics for existing words. Hey, we've done it before!
I've always admired Marshall McLuhan for his philosophies, and insight into the modern age. His book, The Medium Is The Massage (sic) he basically predicts the emergence of computing and networks, as “an extension of the mind”.
McLuhan was thought esoteric, but also coined the term, “global village”. The idea is that, the great idea to connect human ideas (the Internet) will ultimately bring the human culture full-circle to a borderless tribal-state.
Is that it, then? Maybe it's more philosophical than practical, but I think The Great Idea to Connect Human Ideas puts it together nicely. After all, I guess it answers the fundamental question.
What is the internet?
The Great Idea to Connect Human Ideas
Well, what does it do?
It connects.
Hear, hear!
Keep those mod-points coming, for PP has got it right. In fact, there should be concatenated mod-points; I would make PP “insightful”, “interesting” and “informative”! (That's it! We need a “+1 Hattrick”)
Patents are part of commercial trade insomuch as they protect the interests of people that genuinely come-up with (and pursue) good ideas. What did the patent-trollers do for innovation? What have they contributed? If there's one point to start addressing patent-happy firms, it's on the grounds that they didn't do squat for the market, let alone the consumer!
Yes... enter MSFT, and the matter gets a bit sticky... but I digress.
IANAL, but I do work with copyrighted materials on a daily basis.
Copyrights protect creative ideas in media; your web site is copyrighted, no? (If not, get to it! In windows, try holding down the Alt key and type 0169 on the number-pad at the same time, then release the Alt key and the © character appears. Use it!) Though copyrights protect published works, it's hard to call a software package “published” unless the source is included, no? In any case, when I see a splash-screen with a copyright statement, it only leads me to believe that the splash-screen art/presentation/animation is protected. Adjusting copyright law to be inclusive of software isn't out-of-the-question, however it would make protecting software quite a bit different. (Didn't comment your code? If there's not a copyright statement in all source files, then they're as good as Public Domain!)
Trademarks are about fair competition; something that obviously doesn't exist for most of the Pacific Rim. The other day, I bought a $1 gadget at the flea market with batteries sporting a logo, “SQMY” --in the same typeface and style as a popular brand, Sony. (if you were to see only the top of the logo, it's not unreasonable that you would think they said “SONY”) In America, if you started a software company called “Micrasalt”, emblazoned your logo in Arial Black, used very-close kerning and chiseled a small part of the ‘a’ away, you'd be neck-deep in trademark litigations. (Don't believe me? Try it!) How could this protect software? That's right, it can't. It protects corporate branding and identity, not products.
IMHO, the patent system is a mess. An out-dated system, first conceived for corporeal inventions, that's been bastardized into a form to cover abstracts of computer logic and doesn't even appreciate the fluid nature of code. Hell, there's even imperfections if you're patenting a physical product, let alone an abstract of electronic instructions.
Patent System Reform? Yes.
Software Patent System Reform? No... Software Patent moratorium.
Let the idea of Software Patents lapse and instead come-up with a new paradigm. Let the patent system do what it does best; protect the inventors of physical constructs from having their work duplicated without proper compensation. For software, start over!
What about a Registered Code Repository? Now that multiple OS platforms are becoming more feasible, wouldn't it make sense to protect 'wares at the fundamental source level? Take the idea of distro' repositories and apply protections to each package, (not that different from SVN) but with the real potential for legal enforcement added. Let it be headed by a competent body (like the USPTO, but as I said, competent) that oversees the sovereignty and uniqueness of each package. Apply the rules from PP to the mix (vis-a-vis, can't protect something that you're not currently selling) and add a dash of GPL (can't control, legally or monetarily, what software may or may not interact with yours on any basis; which frees the real innovation) and you've got the seeds of progress.
Keep using the crazy, mixed-up system we have now, and the Microsofts, Acacias and SCO's of the world will bog us down in so much litigation as to make progress irrelevant.
On anything that claims to compare G.W. Bush to H.M. Nixon, I can only say this:
When Nixon acted on his own, he claimed his actions were “in the interest of National Security.”
When Bush acts on his own, forget National Security, he's “doing God's will.”
Anyone catch his promise to open Federal Grants to “faith based communities”? (For all you other dotters, that's basically giving money straight from the State to the Church.)
It's not even the Holy Roman Church either! It's for evangelism.
fer crissake!
When these companies sign such covenants, they believe that it's the ticket to the ground floor of the Next Big Thing. It's likely that Samsung sees that as a movement towards multi-function ultra-portable devices with embedded Linux. (currently their products are primarily WinCE... I still love the ironic resemblance of that name!)
Samsung isn't so much indemnifying themselves with MSFT, but rather making a compromise with an important business partner. They would rather sign a minor deal to avoid future problems than risk losing a revenue channel.
It's easy for us to interpret their actions as “bowing to MSFT” because we're all on the side of Linux being free. The truth of the matter hasn't changed; Linux is still free, and nothing MSFT can do will change that.
Also, let's try to see things from a pragmatic standpoint. MSFT isn't out to kill Linux, at least, not anymore. (buh-bye SCO, nice try)
The deal with Novell was simply MSFT going to the source of the “problem”. They struck the deal as a way to tie profitability into Linux; something that the GPL was designed to dis-allow. As we all know, that is what MSFT cares about the most.
From this standpoint, MSFT appears to be furthering their agenda with these latest deals. I suspect that this is not a genuine trend, but is only the start of how this drama will ultimately play-out.
In the end, it will be Consumers vs. The Microsoft Way. I like to think that we'll win in the end, but that depends on how much we—as consumers—are willing to learn along the way.
Somehow, that doesn't stop you from expounding on it... why?
I HAVE spent 2000+ hours [...] and I do use optical kerning on almost every body of text I deal with.OMG... I'm terribly sorry. Who told you to use kerning on body text!? No wonder you've spent so much time with InDesign.
Someone with the experience should have told you to use tracking on body text and reserve kerning for just the larger headlines. You might have saved some time with that.
Something else that improves visibility on justified text is optical margin alignment, where punctuation marks go outside of the margins so that the actual words can line up along the gutter.I'm sorry... is this a comment on the current state of typography? I don't know about others, but optical margin alignment is only truly relevant to block-quotes, bulleted lists and sometimes numbered lists (but only when aligned to the mark and not the digits; something MS Word still doesn't do) and is otherwise a rather irrelevant factoid. The last thing I want is having my commas and periods hanging outside the paragraph.
I'm with a number of other posters on the point that any form of automated kerning for web content or other on-screen content is just about irrelevant. We can read the screen, often with near-100% certainty, and communication is the result. Looks like we may already have it right.
In the readability department, there are much more important matters:
FYI, my screen font is the highly underrated Trebuchet MS. (also the namesake of my favorite unit in AoE2) It addresses most of the concerns I put in the list above and is entirely readable down to 6pt (8px) size... er- with ClearType enabled, that is. ;)
I'd use mod points, but I'm a designer (Web and print) and this has to be set straight. Besides, who on /. actually reads TFA to comprehend these posts?
Waa-aay back on the early printing presses, characters were steel/pewter “shots” and held together with molten lead. The shots were lead-alloy and would break-away from melting the pure lead once the print-run was complete.
The letters each occupied a rectangular space, since the shots were forged from rectangular molds. When the shots were fitted together on a line, they would have a specific amount of space between them which was largely based on their overall size. (the shots were three-dimensional, and therefore, actually had volume)
For the common, body-text type, the rectangular spaces (proportional to a letter's width) were enough to make the type readable. However, with larger type in the masthead, headline or other large type, the space between letters could sometimes lead to a confusing appearance. The larger letters were often made of wood, not metal, so the spaces would be cut-away near the corners. The notches that resulted made the angular letters (e.g., like ‘VA’ or ‘WAY”) fit-together more closely, and yet would not lose any space when placed next to letters that occupy the full rectangle. (such as with ‘AMV’, ‘MAN’, or ‘OMG’)
Since only the corners of certain letters were trimmed-away, it came to be known as “cornering”, which in-time became the vernacular we know today, kerning. Presumably, some Northern European dialect gives us the word we now use.
So many people confuse kerning with a system called tracking and think the two are one and the same... NOT so! While each is a name for a system to determine the visible space between letters, they do it in fully different ways. In a nutshell, tracking applies to a full typeface and is applied to all text at the same time. (as if to increase/decrease the size of the letter-shots themselves) Whereas kerning only applies to the space between two, specific letters.
In that light, you may have already guessed that kerning is not widely used with body-text (like the text you're reading now) and tracking is used instead. For instance, the next time you read a fully-justified column, (aligned both left and right sides) notice how some lines appear “stretched” or “compressed” when compared to others. Tracking is the mechanism for making justified text.
Where you'll find kerning most often is in mastheads, corporate logos, and occasionally in article headlines. Working with only two letters at a time is a tedious process, so it's generally reserved for when fewer letters are displayed at a larger size.
The very logo for Slashdot (top of this page) is a fair example of kerning; the letters are almost touching, but the same effect can not be done so precisely by simply adjusting the tracking of the same text. (even the slogan, “NEWS FOR NERDS, STUFF THAT MATTERS” is kerned just a bit)
What amuses me the most in this thread is the number of people claiming they can compare the effects of tracking or kerning from one poster to the next. Are you all using the exact-same font on your browser? (Slashdot posts appear in the default font for your browser--go ahead, test it!)
With the obvious variety of platforms represented here, I'd safely say “no”. Unless you're in the same room, looking at the same PC monitor, you can't make any comparisons. While the page reads the same, I'm sure it appears just-a-bit-different on my screen than it does on yours. There's no proof there.
Besides “Optical Volumes” does sound just a bit cooler than “Optical Areas”.
So, I'm in the Metropolitan Denver area, where we have no less than two area codes for the entire Metropolitan region. (303/720) We have to dial 10 digits for every call. (aaa-ppp-xxxx) There is no geographical distinction between them, so how would they make the survey any more accurate?
Add to that, the distinctive phenomenon where folks are living land-line-free. Not just owning a mobile phone, but using it as their only voice communication service. (myself included)
Let's get the FCC to bite the bullet and actually investigate the matter, rather than sit on their duffs and play guessing games from the groundwork of the postal service.
For that matter, what about those MSFT plans to abandon XP support? Where does that leave these schools?
Sure hope someone in the upper echelon has their eyes open on this one. (Oh, boy...)
Here's the lesson: 2 + 2 = 5.3 billion in government fundage from leveraged Vista upgrades.
Don't forget: (from OP)
To qualify, a government would have to provide free PCs to schools.Just wait for the announcement that Dell, CDW or HP will be providing “entry level workstations” for this. (read: formerly-on-clearance-2003-models)
When you're capital is running dry, make deals with governments... they'll buy anything if they think it’s good for their nation.
Got Ubuntu? Then you're halfway to the answer.
Open your package manager; the one through System, but not the Add/Remove item! (the one with the big list, no icons)
Make sure to select All packages and scan the list; find every package that lists a Latest Version ending with '-ubuntu XX'.
Each of those packages has the Ubuntu team's fingerprints on it, and those changes are fed back to the community. (upstream patches; whether upstream uses them or not)
I'm sure there's some clever shell-command that will do something like this for you, but I would gladly defer that honor to someone that's done it before.
Even if you're not impressed with the results, consider that Ubuntu has put Linux “into the limelight” like no other distro before it. (with the possible exception of RedHat)
Power to the penguin!
Per Parent:
I like how they think they have to kindergarten-up government to teach it to the people.Indeed.
The other side-effect of that is how the children can see how upside-down the government is without having it explained by their parents. Brilliant!
From TFA:
...the Department of Defense led a group of eight agencies that received failing marks for computer security.Nice to know that the administrative branch of the Most Powerful Military in The World is using "passwordxx" for their passwords.
Wake me when they open-source the government; should have been GPL'd years ago. (right around 2000, I believe)
Just you wait... the United Nations will beat you to it.
Ha HAH! Irony!
I'd just like to see honesty in TLD's. Where's the .con and .irk sites?
Ha HAH! Irony!