How to really fix one of the problems
on
Hostile ta Vista, Baby
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· Score: 2, Insightful
For example, this one:
Perhaps the idea was to steer users towards using the buttons on the toolbar, but there aren't enough buttons to cover all the options located under the menus. If the UI designers wanted to steer users gently towards using the buttons, my suggestion would have been: Whenever the user picks something under a menu that corresponds to something accessible from the toolbar, display a dialog box which says for example, "In the future, you can print faster by clicking the printer button on the toolbar", along with a picture (and a "Do not show this message again" checkbox -- important!).
2. Realize that you once again traded in the crappy station wagon that broke down the day you drove it off the lot for another crappy station wagon, although newer, that broke down as soon as you drove it off the lot - same make, same dealer.
3. Come to the realization that as long as you think it's your job to excuse why your station wagon broke down - after all, everyone seems to drives one and everyone seems to give those excuses and suggestions - then you are doomed to keep buying broken down station wagons and you become part of the encouragement to dealer and maker to just keep up what they do - and some day, you'll be part of the mass of station wagon buyers that influenced someone else to follow this behavior.
4. Once this realization is established, the problem is solved, and it elegantly leaves you two options.
Option A - Rationalize away what you've just realized, and now your problem is solved: this pretty much includes not having any further questions on the subject and whenever you hear someone else complain about the idiocy of driving a broken down station wagon at new car prices, roll your eyes with the knowing, "he's just a Microsoft basher!" explanation.
Option B - Vow to never repeat this mistake. This pretty much includes going across the intersection to another corner, and picking up one of the free tanks - yes, I mean as in big, mean Army tank! - and drive it or the other corner and pay about the same as you did or will over your use-time for a sleeker, fun car that breaks down about as often as the Army tank - ie, virtually never. If you have something that can only be done using a broken down station wagon, you'll find your tank has a thing called WINE that will let you drive parts of the little station wagon around inside your tank or you'll find your sleek car lets you play broken down station wagon inside a couple of videogames called Parallels or VMWare.
Once you have followed this path, you will have magically answered this question, too:
But to this day I've never heard an answer to one question: Since even Linux advocates admit that it's harder to use, what can you do with Linux that you can't do with Windows, to make it worth switching over to?
If you solved your problem by going with Option B, you've realized that the question isn't going to be ever answered. Because you just asked, "Why don't I get a simple answer to one question: Ever since I saw that a tank might be harder to drive, why would I want a free tank that never breaks down when I can keep paying for the privilege of driving a crappy station wagon guaranteed to be broken down by design?"
If you solved your problem by going with Option A, you've realized that broken down station wagon drivers throwing good money after bad are much more clever than free tank drivers or sleek car drivers. (Don't forget to gloat, even if done ever so humbly.)
Hope it's not to late for the author in question - best luck, compadre.
PS - I have never recommended the online version of "In The Beginning..." - ever. I always insist people buy the book. It seems to help those preconditioned to buy what they can get for free to actually get
I should also point out the other obvious thing while I'm at it.....
An attempt to made to find the excuse that the market accepts - instead of the truth (screwed) - for this behavior. This attempt is called marketing.
When the excuse is successful, it's called sales.
I don't know about you, but knowing that I'm screwed really helps me to see clearly.
I predict that these guys have opened the floodgates. There will be no price alternative. Switch to DSL and the DSL will do the same thing - why should they leave money on the table?
I feel that I should point out that once the rhetoric of these guys owning content vs. iTunes and the other arguments die down, this is really simple capitalism.
There's a store called the iTunes Music Store, and it's become popular. Somebody has finally realized that they can raise the toll to get there because they own many of the roads and bridges to get there. It's not about traffic (number of people) or weight on the road (increased bandwidth use).
We want X like never before, so we're going to buy X, but we have to go through Y. Y is going to raise their prices to cash in on X's success - because they finally figured out that they can. It's called simple capitalism.
This practice will increase so long as market demand supports it. Given the cost of HDTVs, BD, satellite feeds - we will evidently support a lot.
Many people like Ron or Barack or whomever. I don't. I'm disenfranchised by all of them. I continue to be presented with the choice of least evil. If I end up supporting Ron, it will be because of that. And because he actually said something intelligent and true the other night to McCain and Romney about Iraq when they were babbling about buzzwords and timetables. IOW- I'd end up supporting him on a soundbite - just like every candidate hopes for.
I'll shut up now. Whatever you might say, the last word is yours.
I do respect that you're working for what you believe in.
Maybe you should be modded informative for pointing to the prosperity link - I'd found it between your posting and mine, and read it.
My point was and is simply this - politicians don't make it easy to find out what they think or what positions they really take, probably because that would alienate some voters. Your counterpoint that with his long record allows me to find out what he thinks is true but misses the essential point and my complaint.
Suppose, because it's true, that I really care enough to want to know about all of the choices for all parties throughout this entire process. I'm not going to find anyone that's "perfect" like most people seem to want, but I've hoped to find someone whose overall stand will make me back him or her.
How many rallies must I attend, how many cross-references must I perform, how many past records must I look up? Calculate for each hopeful and multiply by number of hopefuls - that takes a lot of time, compadre.
The truth is, no one has that time, everyone takes shortcuts to get "close-enough" information - and I've yet to see a candidate in the field that isn't exploiting this.
Now that we've read his Prescription for Prosperity together, you may see my point. (And it's not just that the web site sucks, this is critical info in a banner ad - who thought that gem up?)
Where's the equivalent statement on abortion? Hate crimes? Welfare? Unemployment benefits? Foreign policy (beyond the simplistic bring-the-troops-home, let everyone fend for themselves (if that's really what he meant to say))?
I take difference with some of his key policies. SOX (Sarbanes/Oxley regulations) were born to protect minority investors, were they not? I've had to live through the hell in paperwork they impose. But they pose no real barrier. We've sought foreign investments and guess what? Many overseas investors require SOX compliance because they believe - probably rightly so - that they avoid American crooks that can't find money here. I question the reality presented that SOX is sending jobs overseas. Here's another unpopular stand - especially on/. - I question medical mary jane. I live in a state that pioneered it and took heat for years administering it. The health care professionals and patients published in local papers their thankfulness at having THC made available in pill form, as a refinement a natural drug. For some people that benefit from medical hemp, smoking is still just smoking. Try to stay on NORML's good side with that position! So, I'm surprised that an M.D. supports what more advanced colleagues have moved on from.
But that's just chin music.
Your original point that I argue with - and you restate so well - was this: would I expect time spent like this on Super Tuesday for a group as small as Slashdot? (I paraphrase openly, but believe in my heart I've done so with high fidelity.)
My rebuttal comes in two parts: 1. How very odd that the questions posed weren't answered until Super Tuesday. 2. The questions were less than stellar, as were the answers, because the candidates so occlude their positions - perhaps expecting that it is our responsibility to do their research for them - rather than specifically stating their positions.
DRM support - yes or no? FCC management - what, where, how? Transportation department policies - why are Mexican truckers not put to the same standards as our own workers? Defense department - nuclear stockpile - maintain, or decrease? Military training in peacetime - increase or decrease? Abortion - continue to hide behind Supreme Court hyperbole or push the bully pulpit to pass legislation to make it federally legal? Or illegal?
Were I to look for a job, I could not win because I expected the employer to find the truth (UFO guys, here's your cue: The Truth Is Out There!) - and I wouldn't expect an employer to have to seek out my claims. I make them, they verify.
PS - sorry to lump you in and categorize you as a politico getting the last laugh. That was personal, and I don't even know you. I regret having said it - true or false, it was an ad hominem. Please accept my apology for that one remark, maybe by understanding it as coming from a simple place - frustration. No one today seems to be accountable to answer to what I've posed - and my opinion isn't even close to a splinter opinion on what's wrong with our system and our candidates.
At the same time,/. is not really a huge voting bloc, and they have dozens of interviews like this they are trying to respond to right now. Lots of/.ers think highly of your guy as different. But in your one sentence, you reveal his campaign - and for me, that means the man - to be the same as all of the rest in today's sick Walmart-a-torium of candidates.
I went to http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ - many times. Where is the platform? Where is the list of proposed policies, clearly stated, available for the American public to judge the man? And please don't respond that it's under the "Issues" link - those are just more of the same that this whole thread is about, and all we get these days, which in my opinion, boils down to, "Here are my answers to the hot questions."
People here are thrashing the Ron Paul campaign for the answers and themselves for the questions - but you politicos are having the last laugh.
Where was it possible for this or any group to ask, "Please elaborate on position X in subject Y, found on your web site," or, "We believe that position K contradicts your position M, please comment?" It's not possible at all - not with Ron Paul, not with any of the presidential hopefuls.
Being elected and doing the job have become two different things in this country. Hell, maybe I'm just naive and it's always been this way. A truly different candidate would come out and do the vision thing. It was political suicide for the rich guy not too many elections ago who came with this simple approach - anyone even remember http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/forbes_flat_tax.html ? The guy didn't elected because he had thick glasses, a wealthy name, spoke about wealth and scared people by truly proposing to upset the status quo. All it took to torpedo him were guys like Jerry Brown - Jerry Brown! - to equate the idea of the flat tax with a flat earth. But you politicos missed the point, and will continue to content yourselves that you're doing the right thing running more-of-the-same-campaigns but still somehow believing that your guy is not more of the same.
Last presidential hopeful that had one intelligent, independent issue all their own? Forbes. How did he do in a sea of howler monkeys? He didn't stand a chance.
The lesson learned by politicians? Forget about intelligent, independent issues, people are too stupid, no one gets elected that way - and gee whiz, why don't more people vote, it's such a mystery.
Maybe if a candidate - like Ron Paul - and his staff, or "team" (love that abuse of the word) - took the time to be proactive, you wouldn't have to worry about how hard it is to respond to so many questions from so many splinter groups - like slashdot.
Why doesn't it say on the top of the Ron Paul website that he's a Republican? Ashamed? Or are we supposed to feel as stupid as I did months ago trying to see from his website what party the yet-another-guy-I've-never-heard-of-but-am-willing-to-take-MY-time-to-find-out is with?
His website says - and I quote - that he's worked tirelessly for a return to sound monetary policies. What monetary policies? Anoter link - http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/debt-and-taxes/ - says we need lower taxes and - this is a hum-dinger - "We need a new method to prioritize our spending. It's called the Constitution of the United States."
Ron Paul is exactly the same as the other candidates as far as I'm concerned - vague on issues and demogogic, as clearly evidenced by the above quotes. If he loses, please don't say, "If only we'd gotten the message out!" - because like all the rest, the only message I see is "Me, me, me."
I thought they were discussing a new kind of remote with orthogonal gyros and accelerometers, not necessarily the existing one - not being sarcastic, just honest and confused.
That's a very good point, and I must rescind one of mine - that accuracy over time is a function of the accelerometers. In fact, it's a function of the gyros, and the accelerometers. Even ring laser gyros have drift, so position inaccuracies creep in over time. I think modern inertial nav gyros have appropriate control systems to not suffer the same trouble as you describe in the inner ear - but I think your point is still valid. If control limits are exceeded - for whatever reason - then the equivalent of spatial disorientation might occur.
I'm terribly out of date on this, but - in the old days with multiple chips for a memory bank, there was address decoding circuitry that would point you to the right chips/pins. If - and I'm clueless here - the same thing is still being done but it's all been reduced to fewer chips, then this _might_ imply that you still do the address decoding as before, but you have fewer address wires to route. In other words, we used to need two cells for four - now we have four in one cell - so the complexity in reading the states may be offset by the reduced address decoding.
Remember that if you differentiate distance with time, you get velocity; differentiate again, you get acceleration.
So, if you have accelerometer data (acceleration), you integrate once to get speed, and then integrate that to get distance. If you begin the process by seeding with a known position, then the initial known position summed with the distance calculated gives the new position.
This is exactly how inertial navigation systems on flight vehicles work.
However, accuracy over time is a function of the quality of the accelerometers, requiring things like Kalman filters to deal with. Sounds like a lot of work for a game controller, but I'm not a gamer. Maybe it has other compelling applications also.
Evolution does not negate epiphanies. The argument that it's all evolution is a twisting of the idea that no one really invents anything, and is foisted off by people who simply have not invented something. That's my take-away from L. Sprague DeCamp's book, The Ancient Engineers - here's a crappy synopsis of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancient_Engineers and here's a better one: http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-0345320298-4
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in this controversy.
The article says a part two of the interview is coming. I hope that the reporter asks more insightful follow-ups - for example, regarding the internet tax ban, the guy came out and said he has a specific stand on that, but the simple question, "What would that be?" wasnt' asked.
(Although, maybe the questions had to be vetted, I wouldn't know.)
And nothing about DMCA or DRM or the FCC.
So, I guess it was a step in the right direction.
On the TV show, House, the main character made a reference to the interweb - not ignorantly. A candidate doing that would probably win a few hearts around here for that alone.
Yep, iTunes lets you put music on your iPod as a one-way deal - you can't pull them back off without third party software. (Whether they're popular or not, I can't say. I got one after a disk crash - only way to get my music back out - but that didn't involve anything DRM'd.)
So far as I recall, you can only place iTunes Fairplay'd music on an iPod you _sync_ to - you can sync with an iPod (and only one) - or you can not sync, but transfer music to - and remove from - an iPod manually.
Maybe merit in what you say - it's DRM'd on your desktop, but strips DRM on the way to the iPod. That's going to lock out working with sync'd iPods - the music with syncing has to be on your desktop. Also, I know very little about the internals of an iPod - I don't have idea what would happen with music copied in from iTunes next to music copied in from a third party app - maybe it's all good, I don't know.
So, yes you have the food chain correct. Your idea that this is their scheme - allow a roundabout method to circumvent DRM and allow free music copying - while not impossible - seems to require more thinking that these guys seem capable of to me. After reading the Register article cited elsewhere in this thread, the only thing I'd give them credit for cranially is associated with venture capital.
Thieves and scammers "think", too, but that doesn't make them a Johnny Lee ( http://johnnylee.net/ )
If you understand iPods at all, be prepared to wretch at the level of FUD in the article. For example:
That's unusual, as iPods only playback unrestricted MP3s files or tracks with Apple's proprietary version of DRM, dubbed FairPlay.
"We've had a technical breakthrough which enables us to put songs on an iPod without any interference from FairPlay," said Allan Klepfisz, Qtrax's president and chief executive. Let's be clear - the problem is DRM itself. The solution is to drop it.
The problem is not how to get DRM content onto an iPod without Apple's help. The problem is not how to get content onto an Apple. The problem is not that iPods only play open MP3s and Fairplay'd tunes - Jesus, that's not true (cue the dead horse beating).
The issue here - not in the summary - is that QTrax is P2P as well as download. And they're either scared or just stupid:
As long as the DRM on downloads and advertising in the Qtrax application aren't too obtrusive, the music service may appeal to computer users now trolling for tracks via LimeWire and other unlicensed services, Enderle said.
"This is a way to get the stuff for free and not take the risk of having the (recording industry) show up at your doorstep with a six-figure lawsuit," he said. Call it Flamebait if you will for what I'm about to say (which this isn't, BTW): if these guys aren't stupid, then my first suspicion is that they're a stalking horse for the record industry to prove that DRM is ok, and that the record company's version of what DRM is ok on an iPod isn't subject to Apple's dictates. Failing that, then they actually believe you can have your DRM and eat it, too.
Either way, I'm disgusted by their attempt and their thinking.
I'm sorry, but it just is. One example is the no-comment for security reasons on whether or not we might "shoot it down." Uhhhhhh..... maybe it would be a security issue to create a bigger debris field to deal with where such platforms are flying, and that's satellite-speak for "What a dumb question?"
Or, how the leap was made from spy satellite to keyholes are falling......
Or, the spokesman had to speak from anonymity due to security?
The posts here are about a bazillion times more insightful and informative than the articles. Read/. and avoid the article - nothing to see there...
First, in the article outlining what's available over the web, they missed my favorite, that I highly recommend to all, Miro: http://www.getmiro.com/ - it's free and it supports Linux, OS X, and Windows.
Next, I'm going to shamelessly recycle one of my posts from another thread about Microsoft and others looking at internet over TV airwaves because if it comes to pass that that takes off, and if I'm right, then there may be a less-clear technical landscape for TV via internet than we might hope for today, especially for merging computers with TVs. (And, yes, I know most all HDTVs are already merging technologies on some levels.) Apologies if my point remains unclear, but it's this - I'm not ready to believe that commercial interests - led by Microsoft - won't yet win and screw us all. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=423982&cid=22111742 and http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=423982&cid=22127942
Apple is making new strides into HDTV w/ iTMS and the newer version Apple TV. They bundle nothing with BD yet.
Microsoft invested heavily in HD DVD, whose future is uncertain.
So, I postulate that Microsoft wants - and is willing to invest - in internet over soon-to-be-used VHF airwaves with a TiVo-like phone-home, to facilitate HD movie purchases, with what they hope would be easier access than Apple's iTMS, perhaps more marketable, with another profit component by having the rights to parts of the internet over TV airwaves technology.
The best I can hope for with online HD delivery gets bottlenecked by DSL, Comcast or whatever. Network delivery of HD content is a big buzz on all fronts.
Putting the network on TV airwaves - for that critical one-way feed, requiring very little uplink bandwidth to complete purchases or make choices - could be a breakthrough.
That isn't even a new technical model. Years ago, when popular broadband was in its infancy, someone was trying to market to us modem users the idea of a satellite dish for download while continuing to use our modems for outgoing requests.
So, combine that satellite/modem technology that never took off, substitute internet over TV airwaves for satellite, substitute porn-surfing (whatever) with HD movies on demand (w/ appropriate business model such as PPV but it only works for the major studios with DRM), expect parts of the TV bandwidth to become free where now crowded (per the digital TV mandate), and now ask yourself:
Who would know how to do that, and who would have already invested in learning about HD content delivery but is poised to lose money on that learning investment?
Microsoft, the lead name in the article, that's who.
Who taught them to pay more attention to the emerging digital-media-content market? Arguably, Apple.
That was my original point. Apologies if touching on the memes at zero-level in my original post was unclear - given the offtopic mod for a thought insanely ontopic proves I just wasn't clear enough.
Per my insistence that this is really the harbinger of Microsoft HDTV/DRM to come, then yes, the set-top rig or the integrated-into-Dell-TV rig phones home.
Slashdot Mirror
I want to thank you - your title made me aware of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese - very good. In any case your title cracked me up.
May I recommend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning...was_the_Command_Line or my later submission in thread for valid arguments against Vista?
Perhaps the idea was to steer users towards using the buttons on the toolbar, but there aren't enough buttons to cover all the options located under the menus. If the UI designers wanted to steer users gently towards using the buttons, my suggestion would have been: Whenever the user picks something under a menu that corresponds to something accessible from the toolbar, display a dialog box which says for example, "In the future, you can print faster by clicking the printer button on the toolbar", along with a picture (and a "Do not show this message again" checkbox -- important!).
How to fix:
1. Read In The Beginning Was The Command Line http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html
2. Realize that you once again traded in the crappy station wagon that broke down the day you drove it off the lot for another crappy station wagon, although newer, that broke down as soon as you drove it off the lot - same make, same dealer.
3. Come to the realization that as long as you think it's your job to excuse why your station wagon broke down - after all, everyone seems to drives one and everyone seems to give those excuses and suggestions - then you are doomed to keep buying broken down station wagons and you become part of the encouragement to dealer and maker to just keep up what they do - and some day, you'll be part of the mass of station wagon buyers that influenced someone else to follow this behavior.
4. Once this realization is established, the problem is solved, and it elegantly leaves you two options.
Option A - Rationalize away what you've just realized, and now your problem is solved: this pretty much includes not having any further questions on the subject and whenever you hear someone else complain about the idiocy of driving a broken down station wagon at new car prices, roll your eyes with the knowing, "he's just a Microsoft basher!" explanation.
Option B - Vow to never repeat this mistake. This pretty much includes going across the intersection to another corner, and picking up one of the free tanks - yes, I mean as in big, mean Army tank! - and drive it or the other corner and pay about the same as you did or will over your use-time for a sleeker, fun car that breaks down about as often as the Army tank - ie, virtually never. If you have something that can only be done using a broken down station wagon, you'll find your tank has a thing called WINE that will let you drive parts of the little station wagon around inside your tank or you'll find your sleek car lets you play broken down station wagon inside a couple of videogames called Parallels or VMWare.
Once you have followed this path, you will have magically answered this question, too:
But to this day I've never heard an answer to one question: Since even Linux advocates admit that it's harder to use, what can you do with Linux that you can't do with Windows, to make it worth switching over to?
If you solved your problem by going with Option B, you've realized that the question isn't going to be ever answered. Because you just asked, "Why don't I get a simple answer to one question: Ever since I saw that a tank might be harder to drive, why would I want a free tank that never breaks down when I can keep paying for the privilege of driving a crappy station wagon guaranteed to be broken down by design?"
If you solved your problem by going with Option A, you've realized that broken down station wagon drivers throwing good money after bad are much more clever than free tank drivers or sleek car drivers. (Don't forget to gloat, even if done ever so humbly.)
Hope it's not to late for the author in question - best luck, compadre.
PS - I have never recommended the online version of "In The Beginning..." - ever. I always insist people buy the book. It seems to help those preconditioned to buy what they can get for free to actually get
From the old Riptide TV show:
What's 1.57?
A piece of pi.
FWIW - I found more people got this than I'd expected......
I should also point out the other obvious thing while I'm at it.....
An attempt to made to find the excuse that the market accepts - instead of the truth (screwed) - for this behavior. This attempt is called marketing.
When the excuse is successful, it's called sales.
I don't know about you, but knowing that I'm screwed really helps me to see clearly.
I predict that these guys have opened the floodgates. There will be no price alternative. Switch to DSL and the DSL will do the same thing - why should they leave money on the table?
Simple capitalism.
I feel that I should point out that once the rhetoric of these guys owning content vs. iTunes and the other arguments die down, this is really simple capitalism.
There's a store called the iTunes Music Store, and it's become popular. Somebody has finally realized that they can raise the toll to get there because they own many of the roads and bridges to get there. It's not about traffic (number of people) or weight on the road (increased bandwidth use).
We want X like never before, so we're going to buy X, but we have to go through Y. Y is going to raise their prices to cash in on X's success - because they finally figured out that they can. It's called simple capitalism.
This practice will increase so long as market demand supports it. Given the cost of HDTVs, BD, satellite feeds - we will evidently support a lot.
My dear friends - we are screwed.
Many people like Ron or Barack or whomever. I don't. I'm disenfranchised by all of them. I continue to be presented with the choice of least evil. If I end up supporting Ron, it will be because of that. And because he actually said something intelligent and true the other night to McCain and Romney about Iraq when they were babbling about buzzwords and timetables. IOW- I'd end up supporting him on a soundbite - just like every candidate hopes for.
I'll shut up now. Whatever you might say, the last word is yours.
I do respect that you're working for what you believe in.
/. - I question medical mary jane. I live in a state that pioneered it and took heat for years administering it. The health care professionals and patients published in local papers their thankfulness at having THC made available in pill form, as a refinement a natural drug. For some people that benefit from medical hemp, smoking is still just smoking. Try to stay on NORML's good side with that position! So, I'm surprised that an M.D. supports what more advanced colleagues have moved on from.
Maybe you should be modded informative for pointing to the prosperity link - I'd found it between your posting and mine, and read it.
My point was and is simply this - politicians don't make it easy to find out what they think or what positions they really take, probably because that would alienate some voters. Your counterpoint that with his long record allows me to find out what he thinks is true but misses the essential point and my complaint.
Suppose, because it's true, that I really care enough to want to know about all of the choices for all parties throughout this entire process. I'm not going to find anyone that's "perfect" like most people seem to want, but I've hoped to find someone whose overall stand will make me back him or her.
How many rallies must I attend, how many cross-references must I perform, how many past records must I look up? Calculate for each hopeful and multiply by number of hopefuls - that takes a lot of time, compadre.
The truth is, no one has that time, everyone takes shortcuts to get "close-enough" information - and I've yet to see a candidate in the field that isn't exploiting this.
Now that we've read his Prescription for Prosperity together, you may see my point. (And it's not just that the web site sucks, this is critical info in a banner ad - who thought that gem up?)
Where's the equivalent statement on abortion? Hate crimes? Welfare? Unemployment benefits? Foreign policy (beyond the simplistic bring-the-troops-home, let everyone fend for themselves (if that's really what he meant to say))?
I take difference with some of his key policies. SOX (Sarbanes/Oxley regulations) were born to protect minority investors, were they not? I've had to live through the hell in paperwork they impose. But they pose no real barrier. We've sought foreign investments and guess what? Many overseas investors require SOX compliance because they believe - probably rightly so - that they avoid American crooks that can't find money here. I question the reality presented that SOX is sending jobs overseas. Here's another unpopular stand - especially on
But that's just chin music.
Your original point that I argue with - and you restate so well - was this: would I expect time spent like this on Super Tuesday for a group as small as Slashdot? (I paraphrase openly, but believe in my heart I've done so with high fidelity.)
My rebuttal comes in two parts:
1. How very odd that the questions posed weren't answered until Super Tuesday.
2. The questions were less than stellar, as were the answers, because the candidates so occlude their positions - perhaps expecting that it is our responsibility to do their research for them - rather than specifically stating their positions.
DRM support - yes or no? FCC management - what, where, how? Transportation department policies - why are Mexican truckers not put to the same standards as our own workers? Defense department - nuclear stockpile - maintain, or decrease? Military training in peacetime - increase or decrease? Abortion - continue to hide behind Supreme Court hyperbole or push the bully pulpit to pass legislation to make it federally legal? Or illegal?
Were I to look for a job, I could not win because I expected the employer to find the truth (UFO guys, here's your cue: The Truth Is Out There!) - and I wouldn't expect an employer to have to seek out my claims. I make them, they verify.
PS - sorry to lump you in and categorize you as a politico getting the last laugh. That was personal, and I don't even know you. I regret having said it - true or false, it was an ad hominem. Please accept my apology for that one remark, maybe by understanding it as coming from a simple place - frustration. No one today seems to be accountable to answer to what I've posed - and my opinion isn't even close to a splinter opinion on what's wrong with our system and our candidates.
I went to http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ - many times. Where is the platform? Where is the list of proposed policies, clearly stated, available for the American public to judge the man? And please don't respond that it's under the "Issues" link - those are just more of the same that this whole thread is about, and all we get these days, which in my opinion, boils down to, "Here are my answers to the hot questions."
People here are thrashing the Ron Paul campaign for the answers and themselves for the questions - but you politicos are having the last laugh.
Where was it possible for this or any group to ask, "Please elaborate on position X in subject Y, found on your web site," or, "We believe that position K contradicts your position M, please comment?" It's not possible at all - not with Ron Paul, not with any of the presidential hopefuls.
Being elected and doing the job have become two different things in this country. Hell, maybe I'm just naive and it's always been this way. A truly different candidate would come out and do the vision thing. It was political suicide for the rich guy not too many elections ago who came with this simple approach - anyone even remember http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/forbes_flat_tax.html ? The guy didn't elected because he had thick glasses, a wealthy name, spoke about wealth and scared people by truly proposing to upset the status quo. All it took to torpedo him were guys like Jerry Brown - Jerry Brown! - to equate the idea of the flat tax with a flat earth. But you politicos missed the point, and will continue to content yourselves that you're doing the right thing running more-of-the-same-campaigns but still somehow believing that your guy is not more of the same.
Last presidential hopeful that had one intelligent, independent issue all their own? Forbes. How did he do in a sea of howler monkeys? He didn't stand a chance.
The lesson learned by politicians? Forget about intelligent, independent issues, people are too stupid, no one gets elected that way - and gee whiz, why don't more people vote, it's such a mystery.
Maybe if a candidate - like Ron Paul - and his staff, or "team" (love that abuse of the word) - took the time to be proactive, you wouldn't have to worry about how hard it is to respond to so many questions from so many splinter groups - like slashdot.
Why doesn't it say on the top of the Ron Paul website that he's a Republican? Ashamed? Or are we supposed to feel as stupid as I did months ago trying to see from his website what party the yet-another-guy-I've-never-heard-of-but-am-willing-to-take-MY-time-to-find-out is with?
His website says - and I quote - that he's worked tirelessly for a return to sound monetary policies. What monetary policies? Anoter link - http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/debt-and-taxes/ - says we need lower taxes and - this is a hum-dinger - "We need a new method to prioritize our spending. It's called the Constitution of the United States."
Ron Paul is exactly the same as the other candidates as far as I'm concerned - vague on issues and demogogic, as clearly evidenced by the above quotes. If he loses, please don't say, "If only we'd gotten the message out!" - because like all the rest, the only message I see is "Me, me, me."
I thought they were discussing a new kind of remote with orthogonal gyros and accelerometers, not necessarily the existing one - not being sarcastic, just honest and confused.
That's a very good point, and I must rescind one of mine - that accuracy over time is a function of the accelerometers. In fact, it's a function of the gyros, and the accelerometers. Even ring laser gyros have drift, so position inaccuracies creep in over time. I think modern inertial nav gyros have appropriate control systems to not suffer the same trouble as you describe in the inner ear - but I think your point is still valid. If control limits are exceeded - for whatever reason - then the equivalent of spatial disorientation might occur.
Good thinking.
Those are good questions.
I'm terribly out of date on this, but - in the old days with multiple chips for a memory bank, there was address decoding circuitry that would point you to the right chips/pins. If - and I'm clueless here - the same thing is still being done but it's all been reduced to fewer chips, then this _might_ imply that you still do the address decoding as before, but you have fewer address wires to route. In other words, we used to need two cells for four - now we have four in one cell - so the complexity in reading the states may be offset by the reduced address decoding.
I'm guessing.
Remember that if you differentiate distance with time, you get velocity; differentiate again, you get acceleration.
So, if you have accelerometer data (acceleration), you integrate once to get speed, and then integrate that to get distance. If you begin the process by seeding with a known position, then the initial known position summed with the distance calculated gives the new position.
This is exactly how inertial navigation systems on flight vehicles work.
However, accuracy over time is a function of the quality of the accelerometers, requiring things like Kalman filters to deal with. Sounds like a lot of work for a game controller, but I'm not a gamer. Maybe it has other compelling applications also.
Evolution does not negate epiphanies. The argument that it's all evolution is a twisting of the idea that no one really invents anything, and is foisted off by people who simply have not invented something. That's my take-away from L. Sprague DeCamp's book, The Ancient Engineers - here's a crappy synopsis of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancient_Engineers and here's a better one: http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-0345320298-4
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in this controversy.
The article says a part two of the interview is coming. I hope that the reporter asks more insightful follow-ups - for example, regarding the internet tax ban, the guy came out and said he has a specific stand on that, but the simple question, "What would that be?" wasnt' asked.
(Although, maybe the questions had to be vetted, I wouldn't know.)
And nothing about DMCA or DRM or the FCC.
So, I guess it was a step in the right direction.
On the TV show, House, the main character made a reference to the interweb - not ignorantly. A candidate doing that would probably win a few hearts around here for that alone.
PS - whatever these guys are really up to, the expression I was looking for to describe them was, "too clever by half."
Yep, iTunes lets you put music on your iPod as a one-way deal - you can't pull them back off without third party software. (Whether they're popular or not, I can't say. I got one after a disk crash - only way to get my music back out - but that didn't involve anything DRM'd.)
So far as I recall, you can only place iTunes Fairplay'd music on an iPod you _sync_ to - you can sync with an iPod (and only one) - or you can not sync, but transfer music to - and remove from - an iPod manually.
Maybe merit in what you say - it's DRM'd on your desktop, but strips DRM on the way to the iPod. That's going to lock out working with sync'd iPods - the music with syncing has to be on your desktop. Also, I know very little about the internals of an iPod - I don't have idea what would happen with music copied in from iTunes next to music copied in from a third party app - maybe it's all good, I don't know.
So, yes you have the food chain correct. Your idea that this is their scheme - allow a roundabout method to circumvent DRM and allow free music copying - while not impossible - seems to require more thinking that these guys seem capable of to me. After reading the Register article cited elsewhere in this thread, the only thing I'd give them credit for cranially is associated with venture capital.
Thieves and scammers "think", too, but that doesn't make them a Johnny Lee ( http://johnnylee.net/ )
"We've had a technical breakthrough which enables us to put songs on an iPod without any interference from FairPlay," said Allan Klepfisz, Qtrax's president and chief executive. Let's be clear - the problem is DRM itself. The solution is to drop it.
The problem is not how to get DRM content onto an iPod without Apple's help. The problem is not how to get content onto an Apple. The problem is not that iPods only play open MP3s and Fairplay'd tunes - Jesus, that's not true (cue the dead horse beating).
The issue here - not in the summary - is that QTrax is P2P as well as download. And they're either scared or just stupid: As long as the DRM on downloads and advertising in the Qtrax application aren't too obtrusive, the music service may appeal to computer users now trolling for tracks via LimeWire and other unlicensed services, Enderle said.
"This is a way to get the stuff for free and not take the risk of having the (recording industry) show up at your doorstep with a six-figure lawsuit," he said. Call it Flamebait if you will for what I'm about to say (which this isn't, BTW): if these guys aren't stupid, then my first suspicion is that they're a stalking horse for the record industry to prove that DRM is ok, and that the record company's version of what DRM is ok on an iPod isn't subject to Apple's dictates. Failing that, then they actually believe you can have your DRM and eat it, too.
Either way, I'm disgusted by their attempt and their thinking.
I'm sorry, but it just is. One example is the no-comment for security reasons on whether or not we might "shoot it down." Uhhhhhh..... maybe it would be a security issue to create a bigger debris field to deal with where such platforms are flying, and that's satellite-speak for "What a dumb question?"
/. and avoid the article - nothing to see there...
Or, how the leap was made from spy satellite to keyholes are falling......
Or, the spokesman had to speak from anonymity due to security?
The posts here are about a bazillion times more insightful and informative than the articles. Read
Oops and BTW - Miro includes HD content.
First, in the article outlining what's available over the web, they missed my favorite, that I highly recommend to all, Miro: http://www.getmiro.com/ - it's free and it supports Linux, OS X, and Windows.
Next, I'm going to shamelessly recycle one of my posts from another thread about Microsoft and others looking at internet over TV airwaves because if it comes to pass that that takes off, and if I'm right, then there may be a less-clear technical landscape for TV via internet than we might hope for today, especially for merging computers with TVs. (And, yes, I know most all HDTVs are already merging technologies on some levels.) Apologies if my point remains unclear, but it's this - I'm not ready to believe that commercial interests - led by Microsoft - won't yet win and screw us all. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=423982&cid=22111742 and http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=423982&cid=22127942
All this made me start to wonder about voting machine requirements and this turned up - http://www.verifiedvoting.org/
Thought others might find it interesting.
My parents had big ideas on how I would turn out, too. Even tried to raise me so.
Can't say that worked out too well for them.
Yes, Apple is on the BD board.
Apple is making new strides into HDTV w/ iTMS and the newer version Apple TV. They bundle nothing with BD yet.
Microsoft invested heavily in HD DVD, whose future is uncertain.
So, I postulate that Microsoft wants - and is willing to invest - in internet over soon-to-be-used VHF airwaves with a TiVo-like phone-home, to facilitate HD movie purchases, with what they hope would be easier access than Apple's iTMS, perhaps more marketable, with another profit component by having the rights to parts of the internet over TV airwaves technology.
The best I can hope for with online HD delivery gets bottlenecked by DSL, Comcast or whatever. Network delivery of HD content is a big buzz on all fronts.
Putting the network on TV airwaves - for that critical one-way feed, requiring very little uplink bandwidth to complete purchases or make choices - could be a breakthrough.
That isn't even a new technical model. Years ago, when popular broadband was in its infancy, someone was trying to market to us modem users the idea of a satellite dish for download while continuing to use our modems for outgoing requests.
So, combine that satellite/modem technology that never took off, substitute internet over TV airwaves for satellite, substitute porn-surfing (whatever) with HD movies on demand (w/ appropriate business model such as PPV but it only works for the major studios with DRM), expect parts of the TV bandwidth to become free where now crowded (per the digital TV mandate), and now ask yourself:
Who would know how to do that, and who would have already invested in learning about HD content delivery but is poised to lose money on that learning investment?
Microsoft, the lead name in the article, that's who.
Who taught them to pay more attention to the emerging digital-media-content market? Arguably, Apple.
That was my original point. Apologies if touching on the memes at zero-level in my original post was unclear - given the offtopic mod for a thought insanely ontopic proves I just wasn't clear enough.
Per my insistence that this is really the harbinger of Microsoft HDTV/DRM to come, then yes, the set-top rig or the integrated-into-Dell-TV rig phones home.
Just like TiVo. Proven model.