"Annual minimum royalties are payable upon signature and each following year in January and are fully creditable against annual royalties."
We're talking $15,000.00 US/year. Even if the $0.75 isn't an issue, 15G's a year would bury any OSS project. Even if the software were to be free (as in speech), it could no longer be free (as in beer).
Re:should this be published?
on
Ape-Human DNA Split
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
> Cannibalism is wrong because same-species flesh > carries bacteria, viruses, prions, concentrated > toxins, and all sorts of nasty stuff that is bad > for us.
Oh, piffle. All it takes is a little care and preparation of the meat. Also, eating healthful specimens is better than munching away on Johnny CouchPotato.
> Why is it we eat lots of herbivores (chickens, > pigs, cows, etc), but we don't eat carnivores > (dogs, cats, tigers, lions)? Is it because it
Who's "we"? There are several asian cultures where dog meat is considered a delicacy. Anyway, that said, hunter-gatherer humans would eat the meat from any animal preyed on. The main reason our diet currently consists of herbivore flesh is that herbivores are easier to domesticate and raise in an agricultural environment. And, historically, most herbivores would be much less dangerous for humans to hunt and kill.
If it were about avoiding toxins, nobody would be smoking, drinking, overdosing, etc. We, as a species, are smart, but not that smart.
> Why don't Jews eat pork? Is it because God said > so, or is it because God (and his numerous > assistants down here) noticed that before > refrigerators you got Trichinosis from eating > pork?
Ask some Jews and you'll get one answer, ask science-oriented non-Jews and you'll get a different answer.
> Is it because you will go to hell if you have > sex, or perhaps it is because people recognized > that lots of promiscuous sex was correlated to > diseases?
It's because there are vast numbers of people out there who really subscribe to the idea that if it feels good it must be wrong. If sex were really considered okay today, we'd never have BS "storks bring babies" stories taught to youngsters. Unfortunately, the world is full of people for whom even nudity is something of which to be ashamed.
Really, man, you give too much credit. You state that many seeminly senseless taboos have a basis in fact, but I would say that many of them have a basis in nothing more than psychological control. And the church still uses those tactics today. How...modern of them.
> However, I have the feeling the majority of users > making use of tabbed browsing will not browse as > you do - and for those users the change makes a > lot of sense.
What makes the most sense is to close the current tab and return to the last tab viewed or, if closed, the tab that spawned the current tab.
Unfortunately, Tokyo Internet Cafes seem to be run by Bill Gates and Co.
Re:should this be published?
on
Ape-Human DNA Split
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
You're probably correct that the next step will be trying to activate this gene in apes. It is in our nature to muck with things that we do not understand. Personal responsiblity in science is only relevant where lawsuits are involved. As long as the researcher is not liable for being found guilty of a crime in a court of law, there is no bounds to what may be researched.
This is an ethical issue of biblical proportion. Something inside us says that this is wrong, but the same is true of cannibalism. Cannibalism is the norm for adolescent wolf spiders, so why is it that we as human beings find it so distasteful? Same-species protein is wrong simply because it comes from the same species.
It's an interesting dilemma.
Do we ignore the potential to test our theories on hapless and helpless apes or do we go with our questions unanswered. Between you an' me, I'll guess that the pocket-protector types will figure out a way to test on our ape brethren.
> I don't know how I'm paying enough for their > server bandwidth.
Excellent point. I can't remember a time when Zinf got less than around 120K/s on my ADSL connection. Certainly quick enough to satisfy me.
> accidentally wiped the partition holding my mp3s > twice in the last 4 months. Here's to unlimited > downloads.
AND to the fact that EMusic tracks what you've downloaded so you can download all the gems of your collection again with just a mouse click or three. I ran into an issue when they upgraded their servers where my filename-format preferences were lost (which was, admittedly announced by EMusic and I failed to make the connection). I downloaded heaps of stuff with just the track title and needed to download most of my collection again with the full artist/album/track/track# info. With EMusic, it's not a problem. With ADSL, it was even less of a problem.:)
Actually, there's a feature request in the making. It would be great to have a 1-click download of an entire collection for those of us recovering from a disk crash.
> Before we could "crack" it, we'd need to know > certain things in order to write an algorithm that > would run on this distributed computing > architecture of yours.
Actually, I was thinking more of the first step being a simple analysis of the script. For example, we want to see how any given character matches known script in other languages of the time. We'd want to look for patterns that might indicate whether we're looking at a text-based dissertation or comlex mathematic formulae (or both).
You're correct that certain things need to be known, but preliminary analysis need not assume that we're breaking code. The first thing is to match the patterns in the document against known alphabetic/pictographic/numeric patterns. That is a huge task and absolutely worthy of a distributed computing approach.
> But I don't think the fact that emusic allows you > freedom in your music purchases is a count against > it.
And I certainly don't. The combination of EMusic and Zinf makes me a very happy camper. I will admit that I don't worry about RIAA titles when I download, either. I just download and listen and am happy that the artists get paid for it.
I still buy CD's, but I download way more from EMusic. Flat-rate subscriptions encourage gluttony and now I need to buy a new hard disk. (eyes roll here)
> Did you really "hate to burst [my] bubble"? You > seem to be pursuing your attempt with a great > deal of glee,
You've cut me to the quick! You can sleep on the couch tonight! No more nicities.;) Nah, nothing of the sort. Just being my usual ascerbic self. You know, one must exhibit a flair for drama while professing to have the answers to Life, The Universe And Everything.;)
> I'm sure there are a few inaccurate statements > waiting for you.
It seems to me that analyzing the script used to write the text would be well suited to a distributed computing architecture. It's great to be doing setiathome, but how about cracking the cipher? I'd love to know what this is all about. It could be very illuminating.
> Almost all of the music I download there is from > non-RIAA labels.
Fair enough, but by your own admission you're triggering RIAA royalties to be paid.
>> "Well, I hate to burst your bubble," > > BTW, I've never heard anyone say that > truthfully.
You must have missed something. It was said and in all truthfulness and your own comments affirm it as such.
> Any time someone says that, I immediately > downgrade my estimate of the veracity of what > they're saying, because they're already lying. >:)
Odd thing to say in response to admitting to the purchase of RIAA-governed material, don't you think? How's this for veracity: I suspect that when it comes time to download your tunes from EMusic, you just download without giving a second thought to the RIAA or any other label.;)
> I subscribe to emusic, and have for a long time. > Unlimited downloads, mp3 format. It's mostly not > major label stuff, which is a good thing for me-- > why should I support the RIAA?
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, startled, but by being an EMusic subscriber, you're supporting the RIAA. How so, you ask? It's simple. EMusic works hard at obtaining license agreements to distribute their music. The music that is downloaded triggers royalties to be paid. So, the pay-to-play subscription that EMusic offers follows the ideals that the RIAA would wish to see enforced. Legal payment to the record companies and artists takes place whenever a track/album is downloaded from EMusic.
I don't understand why you would need forums in order to join EMusic. Do you need forums to buy CD's, tapes or vinyl recordings? Nah, didn't think so.
EMusic might not be perfect -- licensing can block various recordings from being downloadable outside North America -- but its user agreement is superb. Download all you like, burn all you want, transfer from one computer/listening device to another, whatever. Basically, they just say that you can't give your files to others. Fair enough.
With one-click album downloads, supported by Zinf under Linux, a quickly expanding library, generous user freedoms and a comfortable subscription fee, I couldn't be happier. Rather than rip my own MP3's, I'll download them from EMusic even when I already own the CD. Bonus is that royalties are tracked and paid for each download. Everybody wins.
> Gnome and KDE are the obvious choices, but what > kills linux (for the newcomer) is the > overabundance of choice! Abiword, Kword, > OpenOffice, StarOffice, Applix (if they are still > around).
How is the matter of abundant selection going to hinder corporate adoption? It's not. In a corporate environment, users don't have any choices. Do you honestly think I'd CHOOSE to use Outlook 98 as my corporate e-mail client? Hardly! The average bloke in most organizations gets to choose whatever the folks in the server room stick on the box. Large scale corporations have IT departments that are responsible for making the decisions about which software makes it onto the desktop and what does not. Nobody, not even the CEO, gets to use Eudora when the rest of the company is committed to Lotus Notes or Outlook.
Choice is a good thing and is nothing *but* a good thing.
What the killer is, of course, is interoperability with MS products. I'd love to have a 100% Exchange Server-compatible NON-Microsoft mail client available for free (as in beer). That might convince me to attempt to do the OpenOffice on Linux thing that I've dreamed about for years.
As for work versus home use, I agree that few people will bother to upgrade to Linux from, say, Windows Me. Why? Because no matter how you slice it, the vast majority of computer users in this century are almost completely computer illiterate. It takes some brain power, confidence and familiarity to make Slackware, for example, install on a Compaq 3200 Series system that was only ever intended to run with Windows Me.
What do Joe Average and Suzy Creamcheeze do when their system goes south for the winter? Grab that QuickRestore CD-ROM and get the box running the way it was from the factory! Even if they don't know what they're doing, they know that much. The interface is familiar and that's all that matters.
Now, when you're talking IT guys and assorted geeks, they (like me) will have been using Linux on their own time long before it finds its way into a dark corner of the server room or, God forbid, sees actual desktop use in the main office.
When you talk of people en masse adopting Linux in the home, you need to have an installation routine that does all the hardware probing, configuration, etc. better than Windows. And even more importantly than that, when something does need its own driver, there'd better be some Linux drivers staring 'em in the face.
That's the world of Joe Average and Suzy Creamcheeze, folks.
That said, if/as/when Slack's installation routine changes much from where it is now, I'll be gravely disappointed. After 7 years of Slack, I can't imagine doing it any other way.;)
Maybe Net2Phone doesn't offer perfect audio quality, but it's definitely good enough. With full-time ADSL here, I use Net2Phone for all my international calls. What works out well is that although I'm in Japan, I've registered stateside, so when I make calls to North America, it actually costs me less than were I to use Net2Phone to call inside Japan.
With domestic long distance calls being highly competitive in Japan now, there's little incentive for me to get Yet Another Modem to take advantage of the free calls as described in the article. Most of my contact is via e-mail anyway, so phone calls are a rare occurrence in this household.
I do see the point of cloning the mammoth. Being able to study a real, living specimen would be a big deal. On the other hand, breeding a hybrid - a mammophant? Elemoth? - makes precious little sense to me. Taking 50 years to try and create an 88%-pure sort-of-mammoth-but-not-really won't offer science much as the new animal would neither be an elephant or a mammoth. It would be an entirely new, man-made species.
Then again, this is to be done for a Japanese theme park, so why am I surprised? (I live in Tokyo.)
When I read some of the comments here, it's obvious that many of the posters don't live in earthquake-active areas. I do (Tokyo) and, man, I tell you that a 30-second warning would be great.
Fast-forward into the future a bit. Our 30-second Earthquake Early Warning System is in place. The system has been 'net enabled and my gas valves in the apartment monitor the EEWS. My PC runs a daemon that sounds an audible alarm whenever a 'quake is forecast.
It's summer, I'm a telecommuter and my kids are screaming their lungs out in the bedroom. My wife is cooking lunch in the kitchen. Suddenly, she curses as the gas shuts off. Less than a second later, the EEWS alarm triggers on my PC. INCOMING!
We run to the bedroom and get the kids assembled in the two doorways, covering their heads with pillows. Just as the last kid is taken care of, we get the hell shaken out of us. Thankfully, only a few dishes are broken from falling out of the dish rack. It could have been worse, but at least we were ready.
It's not at all a far-fetched scenario. Joke all you like about 30 seconds being too little time to do more than kiss your butt good-bye, but I see it as being a real blessing. It could be the difference between having a bookcase fall on your child or just on the floor.
As a foreigner in Japan for over 10 years now, I have to add that it's refreshing for me to see the uproar that the nationwide ID is generating. I've had to carry a Foreign Registration ID card here since day one, and that card has my fingerprint on it. A little bit of what's good for me is good for them, I guess.
As for trusting the government here, it governs in spite of its efforts to muck things up. The people are so very right not to want the right hand to know what the left hand is doing because it effects a sort of damage control. As doable as it might be to relate info from database to database here, no sector wants to give up its autonomy. No matter how technically feasible, nobody here wants to share the information.
It will be interesting to see how life changes for the average Japanese once all government agencies will have access to a unified data source.
Unfortunately, a lot of the arguments just don't hold water. Comments such as the fact where he states that 50% of royalties go to the artists assume that 100% of the money fronted to the artist's project has been recouped. That money comes from where? Sales and, you guessed it, royalties. The artist doesn't see a penny of those royalty cheques until the album begins to make a profit. So, unless you're Celine Dion selling squillions of albums and singles to the unwashed masses, you, as an artist, will get your royalty statements for life indicating how much money you still owe the record company.
The fact of life for most artists is that they make their money from playing live engagements, and those engagements are attended by people familiar with the artist. How better to get the exposure necessary to build and maintain your fan base than by having your music out there in the open for the world to hear?
This whole idea that they're championing the cause of the starving artist just doesn't wash. Nasty stuff that really gets up my ire!
Although I absolutely agree that precious few of the systems sold will actually wind up with FreeDOS installed on them, it pleases me to think that a few boxen will have it installed if for no other reason than people will be curious about it. That's good for mindshare. It will hopefully encourage a few to begin using it and/or participate in the project itself. That is A Good Thing.
When I look back at Linux's humble beginnings as a hacker's OS, the resemblence is striking. Linux wouldn't be where it is today without mindshare. FreeDOS may never gain the popularity that Linux now enjoys, but it's heartening to see that it is no longer going completely unnoticed.
More like "this guy" just digs SGI. I know I've had a hard-on for an O2 for as long as they've been around. I'd buy one, but the wife would have my nuts. That would be one too many 'puters around here.
Slashdot Mirror
From the Thompson site:
"Annual minimum royalties are payable upon signature and each following year in January and are fully creditable against annual royalties."
We're talking $15,000.00 US/year. Even if the $0.75 isn't an issue, 15G's a year would bury any OSS project. Even if the software were to be free (as in speech), it could no longer be free (as in beer).
> Cannibalism is wrong because same-species flesh
> carries bacteria, viruses, prions, concentrated
> toxins, and all sorts of nasty stuff that is bad
> for us.
Oh, piffle. All it takes is a little care and preparation of the meat. Also, eating healthful specimens is better than munching away on Johnny CouchPotato.
> Why is it we eat lots of herbivores (chickens,
> pigs, cows, etc), but we don't eat carnivores
> (dogs, cats, tigers, lions)? Is it because it
Who's "we"? There are several asian cultures where dog meat is considered a delicacy. Anyway, that said, hunter-gatherer humans would eat the meat from any animal preyed on. The main reason our diet currently consists of herbivore flesh is that herbivores are easier to domesticate and raise in an agricultural environment. And, historically, most herbivores would be much less dangerous for humans to hunt and kill.
If it were about avoiding toxins, nobody would be smoking, drinking, overdosing, etc. We, as a species, are smart, but not that smart.
> Why don't Jews eat pork? Is it because God said > so, or is it because God (and his numerous
> assistants down here) noticed that before
> refrigerators you got Trichinosis from eating
> pork?
Ask some Jews and you'll get one answer, ask science-oriented non-Jews and you'll get a different answer.
> Is it because you will go to hell if you have
> sex, or perhaps it is because people recognized
> that lots of promiscuous sex was correlated to
> diseases?
It's because there are vast numbers of people out there who really subscribe to the idea that if it feels good it must be wrong. If sex were really considered okay today, we'd never have BS "storks bring babies" stories taught to youngsters. Unfortunately, the world is full of people for whom even nudity is something of which to be ashamed.
Really, man, you give too much credit. You state that many seeminly senseless taboos have a basis in fact, but I would say that many of them have a basis in nothing more than psychological control. And the church still uses those tactics today. How...modern of them.
> However, I have the feeling the majority of users
> making use of tabbed browsing will not browse as
> you do - and for those users the change makes a
> lot of sense.
What makes the most sense is to close the current tab and return to the last tab viewed or, if closed, the tab that spawned the current tab.
Unfortunately, Tokyo Internet Cafes seem to be run by Bill Gates and Co.
You're probably correct that the next step will be trying to activate this gene in apes. It is in our nature to muck with things that we do not understand. Personal responsiblity in science is only relevant where lawsuits are involved. As long as the researcher is not liable for being found guilty of a crime in a court of law, there is no bounds to what may be researched.
This is an ethical issue of biblical proportion. Something inside us says that this is wrong, but the same is true of cannibalism. Cannibalism is the norm for adolescent wolf spiders, so why is it that we as human beings find it so distasteful? Same-species protein is wrong simply because it comes from the same species.
It's an interesting dilemma.
Do we ignore the potential to test our theories on hapless and helpless apes or do we go with our questions unanswered. Between you an' me, I'll guess that the pocket-protector types will figure out a way to test on our ape brethren.
> I don't know how I'm paying enough for their
:)
> server bandwidth.
Excellent point. I can't remember a time when Zinf got less than around 120K/s on my ADSL connection. Certainly quick enough to satisfy me.
> accidentally wiped the partition holding my mp3s
> twice in the last 4 months. Here's to unlimited
> downloads.
AND to the fact that EMusic tracks what you've downloaded so you can download all the gems of your collection again with just a mouse click or three. I ran into an issue when they upgraded their servers where my filename-format preferences were lost (which was, admittedly announced by EMusic and I failed to make the connection). I downloaded heaps of stuff with just the track title and needed to download most of my collection again with the full artist/album/track/track# info. With EMusic, it's not a problem. With ADSL, it was even less of a problem.
Actually, there's a feature request in the making. It would be great to have a 1-click download of an entire collection for those of us recovering from a disk crash.
> Before we could "crack" it, we'd need to know
> certain things in order to write an algorithm that
> would run on this distributed computing
> architecture of yours.
Actually, I was thinking more of the first step being a simple analysis of the script. For example, we want to see how any given character matches known script in other languages of the time. We'd want to look for patterns that might indicate whether we're looking at a text-based dissertation or comlex mathematic formulae (or both).
You're correct that certain things need to be known, but preliminary analysis need not assume that we're breaking code. The first thing is to match the patterns in the document against known alphabetic/pictographic/numeric patterns. That is a huge task and absolutely worthy of a distributed computing approach.
Hi, again. :)
;) Nah, nothing of the sort. Just being my usual ascerbic self. You know, one must exhibit a flair for drama while professing to have the answers to Life, The Universe And Everything. ;)
> But I don't think the fact that emusic allows you
> freedom in your music purchases is a count against
> it.
And I certainly don't. The combination of EMusic and Zinf makes me a very happy camper. I will admit that I don't worry about RIAA titles when I download, either. I just download and listen and am happy that the artists get paid for it.
I still buy CD's, but I download way more from EMusic. Flat-rate subscriptions encourage gluttony and now I need to buy a new hard disk. (eyes roll here)
> Did you really "hate to burst [my] bubble"? You
> seem to be pursuing your attempt with a great
> deal of glee,
You've cut me to the quick! You can sleep on the couch tonight! No more nicities.
> I'm sure there are a few inaccurate statements
> waiting for you.
LOL! Nice meeting you, man.
It seems to me that analyzing the script used to write the text would be well suited to a distributed computing architecture. It's great to be doing setiathome, but how about cracking the cipher? I'd love to know what this is all about. It could be very illuminating.
> Almost all of the music I download there is from
:)
;)
> non-RIAA labels.
Fair enough, but by your own admission you're triggering RIAA royalties to be paid.
>> "Well, I hate to burst your bubble,"
>
> BTW, I've never heard anyone say that
> truthfully.
You must have missed something. It was said and in all truthfulness and your own comments affirm it as such.
> Any time someone says that, I immediately
> downgrade my estimate of the veracity of what
> they're saying, because they're already lying.
>
Odd thing to say in response to admitting to the purchase of RIAA-governed material, don't you think? How's this for veracity: I suspect that when it comes time to download your tunes from EMusic, you just download without giving a second thought to the RIAA or any other label.
> I subscribe to emusic, and have for a long time.
> Unlimited downloads, mp3 format. It's mostly not
> major label stuff, which is a good thing for me--
> why should I support the RIAA?
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, startled, but by being an EMusic subscriber, you're supporting the RIAA. How so, you ask? It's simple. EMusic works hard at obtaining license agreements to distribute their music. The music that is downloaded triggers royalties to be paid. So, the pay-to-play subscription that EMusic offers follows the ideals that the RIAA would wish to see enforced. Legal payment to the record companies and artists takes place whenever a track/album is downloaded from EMusic.
I don't understand why you would need forums in order to join EMusic. Do you need forums to buy CD's, tapes or vinyl recordings? Nah, didn't think so.
EMusic might not be perfect -- licensing can block various recordings from being downloadable outside North America -- but its user agreement is superb. Download all you like, burn all you want, transfer from one computer/listening device to another, whatever. Basically, they just say that you can't give your files to others. Fair enough.
With one-click album downloads, supported by Zinf under Linux, a quickly expanding library, generous user freedoms and a comfortable subscription fee, I couldn't be happier. Rather than rip my own MP3's, I'll download them from EMusic even when I already own the CD. Bonus is that royalties are tracked and paid for each download. Everybody wins.
> Gnome and KDE are the obvious choices, but what
;)
> kills linux (for the newcomer) is the
> overabundance of choice! Abiword, Kword,
> OpenOffice, StarOffice, Applix (if they are still
> around).
How is the matter of abundant selection going to hinder corporate adoption? It's not. In a corporate environment, users don't have any choices. Do you honestly think I'd CHOOSE to use Outlook 98 as my corporate e-mail client? Hardly! The average bloke in most organizations gets to choose whatever the folks in the server room stick on the box. Large scale corporations have IT departments that are responsible for making the decisions about which software makes it onto the desktop and what does not. Nobody, not even the CEO, gets to use Eudora when the rest of the company is committed to Lotus Notes or Outlook.
Choice is a good thing and is nothing *but* a good thing.
What the killer is, of course, is interoperability with MS products. I'd love to have a 100% Exchange Server-compatible NON-Microsoft mail client available for free (as in beer). That might convince me to attempt to do the OpenOffice on Linux thing that I've dreamed about for years.
As for work versus home use, I agree that few people will bother to upgrade to Linux from, say, Windows Me. Why? Because no matter how you slice it, the vast majority of computer users in this century are almost completely computer illiterate. It takes some brain power, confidence and familiarity to make Slackware, for example, install on a Compaq 3200 Series system that was only ever intended to run with Windows Me.
What do Joe Average and Suzy Creamcheeze do when their system goes south for the winter? Grab that QuickRestore CD-ROM and get the box running the way it was from the factory! Even if they don't know what they're doing, they know that much. The interface is familiar and that's all that matters.
Now, when you're talking IT guys and assorted geeks, they (like me) will have been using Linux on their own time long before it finds its way into a dark corner of the server room or, God forbid, sees actual desktop use in the main office.
When you talk of people en masse adopting Linux in the home, you need to have an installation routine that does all the hardware probing, configuration, etc. better than Windows. And even more importantly than that, when something does need its own driver, there'd better be some Linux drivers staring 'em in the face.
That's the world of Joe Average and Suzy Creamcheeze, folks.
That said, if/as/when Slack's installation routine changes much from where it is now, I'll be gravely disappointed. After 7 years of Slack, I can't imagine doing it any other way.
Maybe Net2Phone doesn't offer perfect audio quality, but it's definitely good enough. With full-time ADSL here, I use Net2Phone for all my international calls. What works out well is that although I'm in Japan, I've registered stateside, so when I make calls to North America, it actually costs me less than were I to use Net2Phone to call inside Japan.
With domestic long distance calls being highly competitive in Japan now, there's little incentive for me to get Yet Another Modem to take advantage of the free calls as described in the article. Most of my contact is via e-mail anyway, so phone calls are a rare occurrence in this household.
I do see the point of cloning the mammoth. Being able to study a real, living specimen would be a big deal. On the other hand, breeding a hybrid - a mammophant? Elemoth? - makes precious little sense to me. Taking 50 years to try and create an 88%-pure sort-of-mammoth-but-not-really won't offer science much as the new animal would neither be an elephant or a mammoth. It would be an entirely new, man-made species.
Then again, this is to be done for a Japanese theme park, so why am I surprised? (I live in Tokyo.)
When I read some of the comments here, it's obvious that many of the posters don't live in earthquake-active areas. I do (Tokyo) and, man, I tell you that a 30-second warning would be great.
Fast-forward into the future a bit. Our 30-second Earthquake Early Warning System is in place. The system has been 'net enabled and my gas valves in the apartment monitor the EEWS. My PC runs a daemon that sounds an audible alarm whenever a 'quake is forecast.
It's summer, I'm a telecommuter and my kids are screaming their lungs out in the bedroom. My wife is cooking lunch in the kitchen. Suddenly, she curses as the gas shuts off. Less than a second later, the EEWS alarm triggers on my PC. INCOMING!
We run to the bedroom and get the kids assembled in the two doorways, covering their heads with pillows. Just as the last kid is taken care of, we get the hell shaken out of us. Thankfully, only a few dishes are broken from falling out of the dish rack. It could have been worse, but at least we were ready.
It's not at all a far-fetched scenario. Joke all you like about 30 seconds being too little time to do more than kiss your butt good-bye, but I see it as being a real blessing. It could be the difference between having a bookcase fall on your child or just on the floor.
As a foreigner in Japan for over 10 years now, I have to add that it's refreshing for me to see the uproar that the nationwide ID is generating. I've had to carry a Foreign Registration ID card here since day one, and that card has my fingerprint on it. A little bit of what's good for me is good for them, I guess.
As for trusting the government here, it governs in spite of its efforts to muck things up. The people are so very right not to want the right hand to know what the left hand is doing because it effects a sort of damage control. As doable as it might be to relate info from database to database here, no sector wants to give up its autonomy. No matter how technically feasible, nobody here wants to share the information.
It will be interesting to see how life changes for the average Japanese once all government agencies will have access to a unified data source.
Unfortunately, a lot of the arguments just don't hold water. Comments such as the fact where he states that 50% of royalties go to the artists assume that 100% of the money fronted to the artist's project has been recouped. That money comes from where? Sales and, you guessed it, royalties. The artist doesn't see a penny of those royalty cheques until the album begins to make a profit. So, unless you're Celine Dion selling squillions of albums and singles to the unwashed masses, you, as an artist, will get your royalty statements for life indicating how much money you still owe the record company.
The fact of life for most artists is that they make their money from playing live engagements, and those engagements are attended by people familiar with the artist. How better to get the exposure necessary to build and maintain your fan base than by having your music out there in the open for the world to hear?
This whole idea that they're championing the cause of the starving artist just doesn't wash. Nasty stuff that really gets up my ire!
trane
Although I absolutely agree that precious few of the systems sold will actually wind up with FreeDOS installed on them, it pleases me to think that a few boxen will have it installed if for no other reason than people will be curious about it. That's good for mindshare. It will hopefully encourage a few to begin using it and/or participate in the project itself. That is A Good Thing.
When I look back at Linux's humble beginnings as a hacker's OS, the resemblence is striking. Linux wouldn't be where it is today without mindshare. FreeDOS may never gain the popularity that Linux now enjoys, but it's heartening to see that it is no longer going completely unnoticed.
trane
More like "this guy" just digs SGI. I know I've had a hard-on for an O2 for as long as they've been around. I'd buy one, but the wife would have my nuts. That would be one too many 'puters around here.