Some copyright is quite reasonable. What we need is a legalization of noncommercial copyright infringement. Leave the rest of copyright law perfectly as it is. I should be able to share all the files I want, but as soon as I start trying to make money doing that, that's when it should become illegal (as it is today).
The interesting part here is that the person in question wouldn't have paid for the product anyways, unless it was something that was critical to their work or life(ie - physical item like a light bulb). And entertainment isn't. People will just go elsewhere if the price is too high. For instance, I could have seen my favorite band in concert, but at $140 a ticket, it was too expensive. Since there was no "free" option either, I simply opted out. I heard that they only sold about 2/3 of the total tickets as well. I didn't cost the promoter a sale. There were no damages. I just went elsewhere.
This is a critical point for the producers to understand. Copying isn't a lost sale. I never would have been a sale at all anyways.
So what's the upside? How many of us have bought something after playing a demo or listening to a sample of the music online? Getting exposure for your product means a lot lately, and that means you have to give it away to attract new listeners or viewers. Attempting to squash it will just end up making people spend their money elsewhere. And in this economic climate, you'd think that the major studios and recording companies would figure this out. If they thought it was bad before, with these continuing tactics, they're in for a rude awakening.
My son doesn't even care about watching TV much any more or music on the radio. He watches YouTube for entertainment because it's free. I doubt if he'll even bother to download music at this rate or buy a single CD before he's 18. They just simply put, lost a future customer because there are better free alternatives out there without the idiocy and rules to deal with. He gets $5 a week and that's like gold to him. Spending it on music is the last thing he wants to do at this point. So it goes to his guitar or his bike or video games... all physical things, since YouTube and other similar sites(he likes those free Java-driven game sites for instance) offer him an enormous number of ways to waste time for free.
Even I have never downloaded a single music or movie file. Because there's an almost unlimited amount of better stuff out there for free. I pay a lot of money per month for a fast connection and to be honest, I'd rather watch some crazy video on YouTube (was watching old Battlebots segments for instance last night with my son(who now wants to build a Battlebot - heh)) than more of the boring drek that Hollywood puts out. And I'd rather go out to one of the local bars around town to hear some *live* music than waste it on a CD.
I've seen only three movies in a theater this last year. With online content and 80+ channels of Cable TV, I just don't need music or movies in my life at this point.
Note - since I do live in a major urban area, yes, it is simply a matter of going down the street to find entertainment, so I admit that that's a factor in my favor.
Most semi-automatic pistols are also capable of accurately firing 3-4 rounds per second and as has already been mentioned keeping a 750 joules laser on a target for an entire second would be close to impossible unless the target was completely incapable of movement
Add to that that most aircraft mounted guns are.50 BMG, which puts out a whopping 17625 joules and has a several mile range(as well as being dirt cheap and plenty effective) and you're looking at probably 20-30 years to equal that. It's a nice first step but nothing more.
Sadly however, people will read this article and will still freak out about how the LHC is going to doom us all.
Still, the LHC *can* make an fairly impressive mess of the test chamber area something goes wrong. I'd recommend being at least a few miles away from it while it's running.
The last model I know of that did this was the Mac classic the mid 90s - it had OS in ROM and was a fully functional machine if booted up this way. My favorite though was the old C128, because it was actually a usable modern computer and worked as well as a typical console in terms of ease of use and reliability. With Readyboost and similar slots now on some motherboards, you may see a return of these type of setups. The only worry of course is being able to lock down the volume in a manner that is BIOS or physical and not under software control.
This approach was common a couple of decades ago where you had the OS in ROM and there wasn't any way to do this sort of nonsense. The Live CD approach works well enough, I guess(though it's seriously slow), but with the right technology(USB or flash/SDD port on most new motherboards comes to mind), it should be possible to load some version of *IX onto the device, plug it into the slot, and go. You would need some method of physical protection for the device you've plugged in. I don't know of any, though, that have physical protection like this built in. They all seem to rely on software to do protection, and so far, none seem 100% safe from hacking.
Perhaps a simpler solution, then, might be for companies to block all incoming traffic from ISPs that don't do filtering and authorization. I guarantee that if Comcast's or Earthlink's customers suddenly can't get to YouTube/Goolge or Itunes because they have blocked those companies' entire DNS ranges, that will get them to enforce stricter traffic filtering.
While there is net neutrality in theory, the reality is that these large companies can de-facto enforce any scheme that they want in this manner. It's their hardware, after all, and they can decide what they want to accept and run on it, after all. Google could easily just decide that it will only accept connections from ISPs who are compliant with what they consider "normal" security measures. Get serious about spam and security or explain to your angry customers why it all stopped working suddenly. Just three companies alone would be enough (Google, Apple, and Microsoft) to make bad ISPs shape up their act. And the controlled/hijacked smaller ones who don't comply quickly get added to the block lists after a month or two.
Better yet, just wipe the hard drives. The users might think harder about security if something other than their net connection gets abused.
Easier yet would be to add those infected machines to the block lists. That would get people's attention just as well and keep them from infecting others.(as a side effect, most ISPs would find their entire cable modem DNS ranges blocked, but no big loss there... might actually prompt them to get serious about spam, even.)
The typical "solution" to this is to check you drive in and out every morning, at least in places that do this sort of thing.
Re:The Solution? Removable Drive Bay
on
Microsoft COFEE Leaked
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Anyone who is truly concerned with security knows that you take your drive with you and/or lock it up at night. Thankfully SSDs are lightweight and easy to stick in a pocket. I'm amazed at how many businesses don't have any physical protection plan in place, because that's how most data ends up getting into the wrong hands.
It was also the wrong place to try this stunt. It seems as if a lot of people from the 60s(read hippies) decided to settle in this area and have families. And the area is known for having thousands of small self-run businesses as well as being home to HP's Northern California operations. The average level of adult education in that county as a result is almost a Masters. There just are no idiots or stupid judges, either, to be found. I'm completely not surprised that the judge knew basic Calculus and Physics - or at least enough to see through this stunt.
I got roughly 75mph since he'd have seen the officer and hit the brakes at the end to get down to the legal limit(figure ~2-3 seconds to drop to 35mph without smoking the tires and leaving an obvious set of skid marks). Figure 200ft with reaction time added to drop back to 35mph.
So that's really about 20 seconds to cover 1500ft. If we're looking at the actual driving, though, it probably was him getting up to nearly 100mph briefly and backing off quick to get back to speed before the next light(20 seconds hard throttle, 10 seconds to brake back down). The scenario appears to be his punching it hard and then dropping back down before the next light. I lived in the area years ago for a while and know that road, actually. It's very inviting and feels like a drag strip between lights. Kids used to do this stunt all the time and think the cops didn't know where to hide to catch them.
Since Apple's license for OS X says that it can only be run on Apple hardware, the in-memory copy is just as unauthorized as the rest of them.
But there are two other issues at work here. 1 - The problem with the EULA generally being unenforceable due to your not having any option but to accept it in its entirety when you buy the retail copy - before you open it up and actually are able to read it. California and many other states for instance rule that such EULA "hijacking" is most likely unenforceable, though it has never actually been brought to a conclusion yet in a case, since the software companies know they will lose.
2 - The idea that whatever rubbish Apple decides to say is actually enforceable. "You can only run X on our equipment" is also unenforceable just the same as if they had a line saying "your first born son belongs to us" or some other idiocy. If you buy a physical copy of something you can obviously do whatever you want with it from making a mobile out of the CDs or using it as a coaster or running it on another machine. For example, though it may not work, nothing will keep you from inserting a Windows CD into a PlayStation 3. Or say, putting a bar of soap you just bought in your microwave.(don't do this, though the results ARE spectacular...)
And this is aside from the fact that copyright issues are solely civil law and not criminal issues. The worst you can do is fine the offenders for essentially not following these arbitrarily decided rules. I think a lot of people(and judges apparently - sigh) seem to forget that lately.
The real real problem with the patriot is that is was built as an anti-aircraft missile not an anti-missile missile and it simply doesn't have enough speed, so all it can do is try to predict the position of an incoming missile and be in the same place when the missile gets there.
Exactly as I said. It's basically a WWII era flak shell with a big rocket and some guidance systems strapped on it to get it up to speed and near the target. They should shoot a dozen at each target to make sure. Note - this get close and blow up approach works well for much much slower aircraft which it can easily catch, as you also mentioned. But not for something going mach 4-5+ on descent.
0.1 sec at Mach 3 is 100m, so you'd have a hope in hell of ever hitting a 3m long target.
The missiles range from 10.7M - 12.29M long It "works" because it gets near the missile and then explodes. They figure that the resulting debris cloud will damage the incoming missile and cause it to destroy itself or knock it sufficiently off-course. It doesn't actually "hit" the missile itself.
To be honest, it's a kludge of a system hardly any better than flak guns were from WWII at hitting enemy planes. The real problem, as someone stated, was to not have overlapping systems that fired multiple missiles at the same targets.
Still, even some amount of success rate would be better than not having it at all.
No. It means that people have yet to realize that physical copies = ownership. Digital copies = you're SOL if they decide to ban your account for *insert reason here*.
*** And that was the traditional argument. Apparently the "I don't care, give it to me for less money" crowd has won the fight.
If you don't like Steam, Direct2Drive also offers almost the exact same software list without any of the idiocy - they give you a serial number and a stand-alone installer. In that way you do "own" it if you decide to burn the installer file to a CD/DVD.
All this means is that the business model put forth by Steam on March 22, 2002 won.
I use it and it works great, with nearly a thousand games, sale prices on older games, and the option to either play it off-line in case Steam ever dies(just turn off updates and "keep this game up to date" for every game, then kick it into offline mode) or on, and also whether you want it kept patched or not(one game I have I've modded to a silly degree and so I've got that off).
It just works and I can get a game in an hour or two most of the time. The only physical games I buy any more are for my son's PS3 because Sony hasn't fully implemented this yet.
...if the moon-quake/gravitational earth pull/meteors broke a hole in the tube, couldn't the same thing happen over the heads of the moon cave-men?
Possibly, but it would be simple enough to reinforce the ceiling like they do in tunneling projects. There probably would also be a dome or structure over the top in case even that failed and sprung a leak.
Of course, the problem with these series is their miserably short filming time and low budget. A movie like Pitch Black can actually get nearly everything spot-on tech wise because it has the time and budget. The average TV show has a week to figure it out and come up with something that's not utter rubbish. Considering that, shows like B5 are at least a little bit plausible and self-consistent. We watch them months or years later and consult bibles full of quotes and plots and tech. Those guys had days to cobble together dialogue and make it all come together. You have to give them credit for at least trying.
Of course, perhaps that's the real issue. Time. A good example of this was the original Doctor Who shows. They were shot on a much longer production schedule and the writers had much longer to figure out the fine details. And while the production budget is clearly zero and it all looks a bit fake, the tech was remarkably self-consistent and stayed with you from episode to episode.
Of course, they mangled it all with the new series, which is purely entertainment and filler. Though, very enjoyable beer and pizza filler, and I kind of want that after a week at work...
I wonder how much things would improve if they took twice as long to produce each episode? I'd rather have amazing shows that came along every other week than half-baked weekly stuff that's rushed.
As you can see, it's targeted at exactly the standard list of reviewed apps on most sites. The easy solutions to fix this problem would be:
1 - Have the benchmark test check the config files for the video cards and flat out refuse to run tests which it finds the apps name in the list. But this would probably be quickly hard-coded somewhere in the chipset or drivers to avoid this type of detection, so it's only a temporary fix. The sneakier solution would be to have the benchmark randomly renamed by reviewers before running or have it randomly rename the program files. Crysis becomes "potato46.exe" or something impossible to catch. A nice random 1000-2000 word file like they use for email spam would be easy to add to the benchmark program(few dozen K at most) but create chaos in the drivers to try to replicate every combination.
2 - Have review sites randomly pick games that are non standard. This would have the advantage of eventually making that list of optimized games grow to dozens if not hundreds.
Note - I wonder how much difference it would make to add the games you regularly play to the config files? Just add the 20-30 games? Could it be that simple? (I don't see why all games aren't benefiting from these optimizations)
Reaching room temperature super conduction would bring huge benefits to modern day technology.
The fact is that you only need to be able to do it with standard refrigeration. That's cheap enough to accomplish. While room temperature is a good goal, it's just not really required for most applications.
Obviously the end of the barrel would be straight. The bend would be best done near the beginning so that the last 8-10KM is pointing up the side of the mountain at a slight incline. The problem of course would be to find a suitable location, since the only examples that I know of that might work are usually volcanoes and the like.(ie - not very geologically stable or near fault zones). You also don't want to build this in Alaska or someplace with horrendous weather extremes. A better question might be what is the largest bend that we could put in it without it destroying itself?
There's nothing to keep them from making it 11km long and making the forces much less of a problem. That's long, but not unreasonably so (about twice as long as the longest runways). Just have it climb up the side of a really tall mountain at the end.
I say yes, but what happens when you have to reinstall and your only installer is some steam-like gateway that approves and disapproves of your access to said software? This is going to be a MAJOR shift your rights to copy software and make backups.
True, but it makes sense that any physical copy that you have is exactly like any other physical object that you want to sell or give away. I think all this will do, though, is make software publishers move their content to purely online and charge a hefty premium for a hard copy(my data recovery software is like this, actually - and yes, I paid the $20+shippng/tax extra for the CD).
It is basically a serial key registration system that uses online check as well to validate the key, and that before registering the program runs in demo mode. Surely there we're games/shareware apps that did that before this patent too.
I'm not too sure, since the patent was filed in 1993. I think they actually might BE the first company to have thought of this.
The other issue which nobody seems to be bringing up is that at the other end the light has to be uncompressed and corrected for errors so that it can be read properly. This takes time and essentially negates any savings. I suppose this sort of thing would be useful if vast distances were involved, but on the Earth, the distances are short enough where it's really a neat science trick rather than anything useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Some copyright is quite reasonable. What we need is a legalization of noncommercial copyright infringement. Leave the rest of copyright law perfectly as it is. I should be able to share all the files I want, but as soon as I start trying to make money doing that, that's when it should become illegal (as it is today).
The interesting part here is that the person in question wouldn't have paid for the product anyways, unless it was something that was critical to their work or life(ie - physical item like a light bulb). And entertainment isn't. People will just go elsewhere if the price is too high. For instance, I could have seen my favorite band in concert, but at $140 a ticket, it was too expensive. Since there was no "free" option either, I simply opted out. I heard that they only sold about 2/3 of the total tickets as well. I didn't cost the promoter a sale. There were no damages. I just went elsewhere.
This is a critical point for the producers to understand. Copying isn't a lost sale. I never would have been a sale at all anyways.
So what's the upside? How many of us have bought something after playing a demo or listening to a sample of the music online? Getting exposure for your product means a lot lately, and that means you have to give it away to attract new listeners or viewers. Attempting to squash it will just end up making people spend their money elsewhere. And in this economic climate, you'd think that the major studios and recording companies would figure this out. If they thought it was bad before, with these continuing tactics, they're in for a rude awakening.
My son doesn't even care about watching TV much any more or music on the radio. He watches YouTube for entertainment because it's free. I doubt if he'll even bother to download music at this rate or buy a single CD before he's 18. They just simply put, lost a future customer because there are better free alternatives out there without the idiocy and rules to deal with. He gets $5 a week and that's like gold to him. Spending it on music is the last thing he wants to do at this point. So it goes to his guitar or his bike or video games... all physical things, since YouTube and other similar sites(he likes those free Java-driven game sites for instance) offer him an enormous number of ways to waste time for free.
Even I have never downloaded a single music or movie file. Because there's an almost unlimited amount of better stuff out there for free. I pay a lot of money per month for a fast connection and to be honest, I'd rather watch some crazy video on YouTube (was watching old Battlebots segments for instance last night with my son(who now wants to build a Battlebot - heh)) than more of the boring drek that Hollywood puts out. And I'd rather go out to one of the local bars around town to hear some *live* music than waste it on a CD.
I've seen only three movies in a theater this last year. With online content and 80+ channels of Cable TV, I just don't need music or movies in my life at this point.
Note - since I do live in a major urban area, yes, it is simply a matter of going down the street to find entertainment, so I admit that that's a factor in my favor.
Most semi-automatic pistols are also capable of accurately firing 3-4 rounds per second and as has already been mentioned keeping a 750 joules laser on a target for an entire second would be close to impossible unless the target was completely incapable of movement
Add to that that most aircraft mounted guns are .50 BMG, which puts out a whopping 17625 joules and has a several mile range(as well as being dirt cheap and plenty effective) and you're looking at probably 20-30 years to equal that. It's a nice first step but nothing more.
Sadly however, people will read this article and will still freak out about how the LHC is going to doom us all.
Still, the LHC *can* make an fairly impressive mess of the test chamber area something goes wrong. I'd recommend being at least a few miles away from it while it's running.
http://www.scientificblogging.com/big_science_gambles/interview_professor_otto_rossler_takes_on_the_lhc
And interesting discussion on this that I found. It's very likely that the resulting explosion would "save the planet" as a side effect, but make for a very impressive crater as well.
The last model I know of that did this was the Mac classic the mid 90s - it had OS in ROM and was a fully functional machine if booted up this way. My favorite though was the old C128, because it was actually a usable modern computer and worked as well as a typical console in terms of ease of use and reliability. With Readyboost and similar slots now on some motherboards, you may see a return of these type of setups. The only worry of course is being able to lock down the volume in a manner that is BIOS or physical and not under software control.
This approach was common a couple of decades ago where you had the OS in ROM and there wasn't any way to do this sort of nonsense. The Live CD approach works well enough, I guess(though it's seriously slow), but with the right technology(USB or flash/SDD port on most new motherboards comes to mind), it should be possible to load some version of *IX onto the device, plug it into the slot, and go. You would need some method of physical protection for the device you've plugged in. I don't know of any, though, that have physical protection like this built in. They all seem to rely on software to do protection, and so far, none seem 100% safe from hacking.
Perhaps a simpler solution, then, might be for companies to block all incoming traffic from ISPs that don't do filtering and authorization. I guarantee that if Comcast's or Earthlink's customers suddenly can't get to YouTube/Goolge or Itunes because they have blocked those companies' entire DNS ranges, that will get them to enforce stricter traffic filtering.
While there is net neutrality in theory, the reality is that these large companies can de-facto enforce any scheme that they want in this manner. It's their hardware, after all, and they can decide what they want to accept and run on it, after all. Google could easily just decide that it will only accept connections from ISPs who are compliant with what they consider "normal" security measures. Get serious about spam and security or explain to your angry customers why it all stopped working suddenly. Just three companies alone would be enough (Google, Apple, and Microsoft) to make bad ISPs shape up their act. And the controlled/hijacked smaller ones who don't comply quickly get added to the block lists after a month or two.
Better yet, just wipe the hard drives. The users might think harder about security if something other than their net connection gets abused.
Easier yet would be to add those infected machines to the block lists. That would get people's attention just as well and keep them from infecting others.(as a side effect, most ISPs would find their entire cable modem DNS ranges blocked, but no big loss there... might actually prompt them to get serious about spam, even.)
The typical "solution" to this is to check you drive in and out every morning, at least in places that do this sort of thing.
Anyone who is truly concerned with security knows that you take your drive with you and/or lock it up at night. Thankfully SSDs are lightweight and easy to stick in a pocket. I'm amazed at how many businesses don't have any physical protection plan in place, because that's how most data ends up getting into the wrong hands.
http://www.startech.com/item/SAT2510U2REM-InfoSafe-35-Bay-Removable-25-SATA-Drive-Enclosure.aspx
Under $40 for this model.
It was also the wrong place to try this stunt. It seems as if a lot of people from the 60s(read hippies) decided to settle in this area and have families. And the area is known for having thousands of small self-run businesses as well as being home to HP's Northern California operations. The average level of adult education in that county as a result is almost a Masters. There just are no idiots or stupid judges, either, to be found. I'm completely not surprised that the judge knew basic Calculus and Physics - or at least enough to see through this stunt.
I got roughly 75mph since he'd have seen the officer and hit the brakes at the end to get down to the legal limit(figure ~2-3 seconds to drop to 35mph without smoking the tires and leaving an obvious set of skid marks). Figure 200ft with reaction time added to drop back to 35mph.
So that's really about 20 seconds to cover 1500ft. If we're looking at the actual driving, though, it probably was him getting up to nearly 100mph briefly and backing off quick to get back to speed before the next light(20 seconds hard throttle, 10 seconds to brake back down). The scenario appears to be his punching it hard and then dropping back down before the next light. I lived in the area years ago for a while and know that road, actually. It's very inviting and feels like a drag strip between lights. Kids used to do this stunt all the time and think the cops didn't know where to hide to catch them.
Since Apple's license for OS X says that it can only be run on Apple hardware, the in-memory copy is just as unauthorized as the rest of them.
But there are two other issues at work here.
1 - The problem with the EULA generally being unenforceable due to your not having any option but to accept it in its entirety when you buy the retail copy - before you open it up and actually are able to read it. California and many other states for instance rule that such EULA "hijacking" is most likely unenforceable, though it has never actually been brought to a conclusion yet in a case, since the software companies know they will lose.
2 - The idea that whatever rubbish Apple decides to say is actually enforceable. "You can only run X on our equipment" is also unenforceable just the same as if they had a line saying "your first born son belongs to us" or some other idiocy. If you buy a physical copy of something you can obviously do whatever you want with it from making a mobile out of the CDs or using it as a coaster or running it on another machine. For example, though it may not work, nothing will keep you from inserting a Windows CD into a PlayStation 3. Or say, putting a bar of soap you just bought in your microwave.(don't do this, though the results ARE spectacular...)
And this is aside from the fact that copyright issues are solely civil law and not criminal issues. The worst you can do is fine the offenders for essentially not following these arbitrarily decided rules. I think a lot of people(and judges apparently - sigh) seem to forget that lately.
The real real problem with the patriot is that is was built as an anti-aircraft missile not an anti-missile missile and it simply doesn't have enough speed, so all it can do is try to predict the position of an incoming missile and be in the same place when the missile gets there.
Exactly as I said. It's basically a WWII era flak shell with a big rocket and some guidance systems strapped on it to get it up to speed and near the target. They should shoot a dozen at each target to make sure. Note - this get close and blow up approach works well for much much slower aircraft which it can easily catch, as you also mentioned. But not for something going mach 4-5+ on descent.
0.1 sec at Mach 3 is 100m, so you'd have a hope in hell of ever hitting a 3m long target.
The missiles range from 10.7M - 12.29M long It "works" because it gets near the missile and then explodes. They figure that the resulting debris cloud will damage the incoming missile and cause it to destroy itself or knock it sufficiently off-course. It doesn't actually "hit" the missile itself.
To be honest, it's a kludge of a system hardly any better than flak guns were from WWII at hitting enemy planes. The real problem, as someone stated, was to not have overlapping systems that fired multiple missiles at the same targets.
Still, even some amount of success rate would be better than not having it at all.
No. It means that people have yet to realize that physical copies = ownership. Digital copies = you're SOL if they decide to ban your account for *insert reason here*.
***
And that was the traditional argument. Apparently the "I don't care, give it to me for less money" crowd has won the fight.
If you don't like Steam, Direct2Drive also offers almost the exact same software list without any of the idiocy - they give you a serial number and a stand-alone installer. In that way you do "own" it if you decide to burn the installer file to a CD/DVD.
All this means is that the business model put forth by Steam on March 22, 2002 won.
I use it and it works great, with nearly a thousand games, sale prices on older games, and the option to either play it off-line in case Steam ever dies(just turn off updates and "keep this game up to date" for every game, then kick it into offline mode) or on, and also whether you want it kept patched or not(one game I have I've modded to a silly degree and so I've got that off).
It just works and I can get a game in an hour or two most of the time. The only physical games I buy any more are for my son's PS3 because Sony hasn't fully implemented this yet.
...if the moon-quake/gravitational earth pull/meteors broke a hole in the tube, couldn't the same thing happen over the heads of the moon cave-men?
Possibly, but it would be simple enough to reinforce the ceiling like they do in tunneling projects. There probably would also be a dome or structure over the top in case even that failed and sprung a leak.
Of course, the problem with these series is their miserably short filming time and low budget. A movie like Pitch Black can actually get nearly everything spot-on tech wise because it has the time and budget. The average TV show has a week to figure it out and come up with something that's not utter rubbish. Considering that, shows like B5 are at least a little bit plausible and self-consistent. We watch them months or years later and consult bibles full of quotes and plots and tech. Those guys had days to cobble together dialogue and make it all come together. You have to give them credit for at least trying.
Of course, perhaps that's the real issue. Time. A good example of this was the original Doctor Who shows. They were shot on a much longer production schedule and the writers had much longer to figure out the fine details. And while the production budget is clearly zero and it all looks a bit fake, the tech was remarkably self-consistent and stayed with you from episode to episode.
Of course, they mangled it all with the new series, which is purely entertainment and filler. Though, very enjoyable beer and pizza filler, and I kind of want that after a week at work...
I wonder how much things would improve if they took twice as long to produce each episode? I'd rather have amazing shows that came along every other week than half-baked weekly stuff that's rushed.
Two solutions come to mind immediately for this.
First off, here is the offending list of apps:
***
[Enable3DContexts_CTG_AddSwSettings]
HKR,, ~3DMark03.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~3DMark06.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~dreamfall.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~FEAR.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~FEARMP.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~HL2.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~LEGOIndy.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~RelicCOH.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~Sam2.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~SporeApp.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~witcher.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~Wow.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 1
HKR,, ~3DMarkVantage.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 2
HKR,, ~3DMarkVantageCmd.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 2
HKR,, ~CoJ_DX10.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 2
HKR,, ~Crysis.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 2
HKR,, ~RelicCoH.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 2
HKR,, ~UAWEA.exe, %REG_DWORD%, 2
***
As you can see, it's targeted at exactly the standard list of reviewed apps on most sites. The easy solutions to fix this problem would be:
1 - Have the benchmark test check the config files for the video cards and flat out refuse to run tests which it finds the apps name in the list. But this would probably be quickly hard-coded somewhere in the chipset or drivers to avoid this type of detection, so it's only a temporary fix. The sneakier solution would be to have the benchmark randomly renamed by reviewers before running or have it randomly rename the program files. Crysis becomes "potato46.exe" or something impossible to catch. A nice random 1000-2000 word file like they use for email spam would be easy to add to the benchmark program(few dozen K at most) but create chaos in the drivers to try to replicate every combination.
2 - Have review sites randomly pick games that are non standard. This would have the advantage of eventually making that list of optimized games grow to dozens if not hundreds.
Note - I wonder how much difference it would make to add the games you regularly play to the config files? Just add the 20-30 games? Could it be that simple? (I don't see why all games aren't benefiting from these optimizations)
Reaching room temperature super conduction would bring huge benefits to modern day technology.
The fact is that you only need to be able to do it with standard refrigeration. That's cheap enough to accomplish. While room temperature is a good goal, it's just not really required for most applications.
Obviously the end of the barrel would be straight. The bend would be best done near the beginning so that the last 8-10KM is pointing up the side of the mountain at a slight incline. The problem of course would be to find a suitable location, since the only examples that I know of that might work are usually volcanoes and the like.(ie - not very geologically stable or near fault zones). You also don't want to build this in Alaska or someplace with horrendous weather extremes. A better question might be what is the largest bend that we could put in it without it destroying itself?
There's nothing to keep them from making it 11km long and making the forces much less of a problem. That's long, but not unreasonably so (about twice as long as the longest runways). Just have it climb up the side of a really tall mountain at the end.
I say yes, but what happens when you have to reinstall and your only installer is some steam-like gateway that approves and disapproves of your access to said software? This is going to be a MAJOR shift your rights to copy software and make backups.
True, but it makes sense that any physical copy that you have is exactly like any other physical object that you want to sell or give away. I think all this will do, though, is make software publishers move their content to purely online and charge a hefty premium for a hard copy(my data recovery software is like this, actually - and yes, I paid the $20+shippng/tax extra for the CD).
It is basically a serial key registration system that uses online check as well to validate the key, and that before registering the program runs in demo mode. Surely there we're games/shareware apps that did that before this patent too.
I'm not too sure, since the patent was filed in 1993. I think they actually might BE the first company to have thought of this.
The other issue which nobody seems to be bringing up is that at the other end the light has to be uncompressed and corrected for errors so that it can be read properly. This takes time and essentially negates any savings. I suppose this sort of thing would be useful if vast distances were involved, but on the Earth, the distances are short enough where it's really a neat science trick rather than anything useful.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/09/24/2129206/New-Images-Reveal-Pure-Water-Ice-On-Mars?from=rss
And look what came up today on Slashdot. :) If Mars has water on it, you can be sure that the Moon will as well once we start digging.