Agreed, normally. Agreed, almost always. But in this case, I just don't see any international ramifications. This is one company in one state in a competitive market trying to slit their throats. They can't afford to go with this policy unless they feel like losing out to cable, so it's going to;
a) be a nonissue.
b) be irrelevant to anyone else.
That's why this is, in my mind, _strictly_ a regional issue.
So why doesn't this article get tagged with a US flag? This is regional if anything on/. is, and I really don't give a shit what happens in the states.
I get asked about OSI layers whenever I interview. I explain to the interviewer why I consider them completely irrelevant and useless, and then list them. Then I make a mental note that this is a company still convinced that TCP/IP has something to do with OSI.
The OSI should have been buried about 15 years ago. Drop it already.
If the ISP has logs, then they are legally required to participate fully in any investigation. Furthermore, in Canada at least they would be REQUIRED BY LAW to go to the police if they had evidence or reason to believe that a crime had occurred. (In this case, phoning the ISP and explaining the thing would qualify) Not doing so is considered Aiding and Abetting.
Don't know if the same law exists in the US, but I suspect that an ISP that refused to help you would face charges.
1) VFAT sucks. Don't use it ever. No surprise.
2) JFS sucks on Linux. No surprise--it'll take a while and more development than they've put in so far.
3) EXT2 sucks because it isn't journalling, although it has quite good performance.
4) XFS doesn't suck, but it's not great.
5) Reiserfs doesn't suck, but it's not much better than XFS.
6) EXT3 doesn't suck, but it's still not out of beta!
Conclusion: I want EXT3 to become stable released code!
I'm not convinced. I was looking at the raft of games that have come out in the last year, or so and I'm quite impressed with the innovation in them. Consider;
The Sims
Black and White
The Longest Journey (yeah, not too innovative but brilliant and at least not another FPS)
Thief (which sadly didn't sell as well as it should have)
And now I see something called "The Sting" that looks promising and maybe even innovative.
There's always _some_ room for innovation in compuer gaming, although maybe not enough.
Well this is silly flamebait, but I'll rise to it anyways.
Since day one, Macs have used SCSI. Networking was built in from ages before PC NICs were common. They helped develop the first (only?) modern desktop processor.
The PC still uses an extension of IDE devices. LANs have become common in the last year or two. The x86 processor line (and AMD spinoffs as well) STILL have 8088 codes in them!
Now tell me which is more advanced again? Which one is future-looking?
I didn't say "became," I said "began." It was the beginning--the bleeding edge that MS (and IBM) stole from. Regardless of who won, it was the Mac first.
The Atari 400/800 could in fact display 16 colours simultaneously from a palate of 256. However, through the magic of VSI programming, you could change the 16 colours that were set to be displayed partway through the TV scan, and effectively have 256 onscreen at once.
Trust me--I've still got printouts of the code I wrote to do it.
Also, someone else pointed out that the C-64 only had 8-bit/4-channel sound. The Atari had this as well, but allowed one to gang together two channels into a single 16-bit channel. (hence, two 16-bit channels from 4 8-bit ones) I vaguely remembered that the C-64 could do the same, but I could easily be mistaken.
IBM? Weren't they the ones who created OS/2? You know, the best desktop OS between CP/M and (possibly) OS X? They certainly made huge waves with THAT now, didn't they?
IBM could not, can not, and will not ever understand the desktop market. They just don't get that part of the market. (they're not much better in most other area either, but that's another story) If I were Linus, I'd be saying to IBM "Thanks, but we don't want your support--we want to survive!":-)
Can OS X be the next revolution? Maybe. It should be--it has the potential at least. Personally I'm hoping for it as hard as I can.
Incidentally , you're wrong on one important point: Given the current state of computers, innovation _is_ a pretty box, and a pretty box with no fan and interesting ideas about space is doubly innovative. In the case of the cube, it just wasn't innovative enough to compensate for its flaws.
I don't know how many here actually remember the original release of the Mac, but there are some substantial similarities between that product and this one. Why did the Mac survive while the cube didn't? Therein lies the key...
Those were the days of the Atari 800, the C-64, and even Apple's own ][+ (e, xe, c, whatever). The Atari and C64 had the ability to do 256 colours at about 320x200 (with some seriously clever programming) and had 16-bit sound! Then came the Mac. Lunky, clunky, tiny B+W built-in monitor, bad sound, and this goofy interface. (Remember this was the first home compute with a mouse, and the original mac mouse was _ugly_ to use even after you got used to it)
But it worked! It caught on. It singlehandedly began the next wave of computing, despite its severe limitations. Why?
1) Apple had the money to support it for more than eight months or so.
2) It was absolutely unique! There was nothing like it out there, and what it was offering was a whole new experience.
3) They could _deliver_ the damned things when the orders started rolling in.
4) There was no real concept of a standard platform. You bought your computer, and bought the software for that platform. When the largest company only had 15-20% of the market, there was less feeling of picking the 'right' or 'wrong' platform--just the one you wanted.
Now we have (or rather, had) the cube. Although it was intriguingly sexy, it lost out on all of the above points. Apple cannot afford to keep flogging the things until they start selling. Furthermore, they can't get production up to match demand anyways. The fact that they're perceived as being a (nearly) dead company vs. Microsoft is a huge handicap as well.
But the killer is this: The cube isn't unique enough. It's beautiful, it's advanced (fanless case? It's already becoming the Next Thing--except to see fanless desktop processors from Intel and AMD again in about 18 months), but underneath the skin it's still Another Mac--just like the G3/G4 Macs which are still available, better machines, and cheaper to boot.
Apple has been a computer _design_ company from day 1. This design just wasn't revolutionary to overcome its flaws.
Hmm. Probably 90% of the searches on this will be porn. Seriously, how often do you want to search for some other specific picture?
The commercial porn websites won't like it, and Google will have a hard time justifying this service for hunting down porn. I just don't see it making financial sense. (something Google is pretty good at understanding)
So in other words, grab all the pics you can now.:-)
Understand this: We don't pay for bandwidth in our ISP costs. Well we do, but it's a miniscule amount of the monthly bill vs. customer support, server admin, storage, paperwork, and so forth. If the cost of a unit of bandwidth suddenly got cut in half, it would still only change your monthly costs by a few quarters, maybe up to a dollar.
"As long as the MPAA thinks they can make people pay for the rights to develop software..."
Now look at what you wrote:
"They don't. They think they can make people pay for the rights to develop software..."
You can argue that I cut off your qualifier. I am arguing that the qualifier doesn't make any difference. For one specific purpose and one only, they're restricting your ability to develop software. That's one purpose too many.
If it infringed their copyright somehow, then I could see them restricting the _use_ of such work. Not the development, the distribution, or the discussion of it. Are photocopiers illegal? No. Are photocopier schematics illegal? No. Are photocopier sales illegal? No. Is using a photocopier illegal? In some cases yes, but that doesn't make the rest of the chain illegal.
As for your other point; "What confuses me most is why people think we have some inalienable right to free movies and music, and the RIAA and MPAA are evil because they make you pay for the product they find, fund, distribute, and market."
1) This has nothing to do with free movies and music. Never has. It's all about letting me watch movies that I HAVE LEGALLY PURCHASED (yes, for real money, from the store) without having to run Windows. Nobody ever told me I couldn't build a VCR out of rusty tin cans and earwax or at least that I wasn't allowed to:-), and nobody should be able to tell me that I can't build my own DVD player.
As for the RIAA, I pesonally consider them to be entirely evil because they charge large sums of money for music and then keep it, instead of distributing it to the artists. Musicians get a pittance, and the RIAA makes gobs, which is not how things should be.
I've always felt that the fringes of applied science tended to produce all sorts of neat advances, and keep the field as a whole from stagnating. Weird science* is good for the soul!
And you can always tell that you're reading about weird science if you find yourself looking at the date, just to make sure that it wasn't published on April 1st.
In other words, good on em!
* Or weird applications of normal science. Take your pick.
"Does a DVD player for Linux have to be a subversive mission against the MPAA?"
Yep! It sure does.
Hold on a second here, I'm not actually being facetious. Consider this:
There are no licensed DVD players for any linux (not to mention all the Unices, OS/2, etc. etc.) In fact, no Linux (etc.) developers have licences to produce one, as far as we know. Thus, ANY DVD PLAYER DEVELOPMENT on Linux is a de facto 'line in the sand' against the MPAA. There's no way for it not to be.
And for that matter, that's the way it should be. As long as the MPAA thinks they can make people pay for the rights to develop software, we should agressively ignore their decrees and do everything in our power to defeat them.
Remember: They are selling you the right to develop your own software. That's simply unconscionable.
Honestly, the idea that Linux runs 24% of the new servers being sold out there is absolutely silly! 8.6% isn't much better.
From where I sit, as a professional Unix consultant, I see roughly 1-2% of "servers" being linux boxes, and even that's stretching the truth a bit. What are they calling a server here--any machine that runs DHCP?
I suspect that their definition of server is just as valid as defining a mainframe as anything that can cranks out "x" MIPS. It just ain't right!
I hereby waive my next set of moderation points to give to Jamie for his intelligent checklists. It's honestly a pity that you can't moderate the articles themselves, because this bit was great.
Sorry for the OT stuff folks, but we rag on the editors/writers so much when they suck that they deserve to know when they're doing a good job.
Slashdot Mirror
In all honesty, this brings up an interesting question.
Some bit of knowledge exists in the public domain. Then that information is lost. If it's rediscovered, can it be patented?
OK, it will be patented, no question. EVERYTHING gets patented. But is it enforceable?
Agreed, normally. Agreed, almost always. But in this case, I just don't see any international ramifications. This is one company in one state in a competitive market trying to slit their throats. They can't afford to go with this policy unless they feel like losing out to cable, so it's going to;
a) be a nonissue.
b) be irrelevant to anyone else.
That's why this is, in my mind, _strictly_ a regional issue.
So why doesn't this article get tagged with a US flag? This is regional if anything on /. is, and I really don't give a shit what happens in the states.
One argument from me on this.
I get asked about OSI layers whenever I interview. I explain to the interviewer why I consider them completely irrelevant and useless, and then list them. Then I make a mental note that this is a company still convinced that TCP/IP has something to do with OSI.
The OSI should have been buried about 15 years ago. Drop it already.
Incorrect on one point.
If the ISP has logs, then they are legally required to participate fully in any investigation. Furthermore, in Canada at least they would be REQUIRED BY LAW to go to the police if they had evidence or reason to believe that a crime had occurred. (In this case, phoning the ISP and explaining the thing would qualify) Not doing so is considered Aiding and Abetting.
Don't know if the same law exists in the US, but I suspect that an ISP that refused to help you would face charges.
OK, let's see here.
1) VFAT sucks. Don't use it ever. No surprise.
2) JFS sucks on Linux. No surprise--it'll take a while and more development than they've put in so far.
3) EXT2 sucks because it isn't journalling, although it has quite good performance.
4) XFS doesn't suck, but it's not great.
5) Reiserfs doesn't suck, but it's not much better than XFS.
6) EXT3 doesn't suck, but it's still not out of beta!
Conclusion: I want EXT3 to become stable released code!
I'm not convinced. I was looking at the raft of games that have come out in the last year, or so and I'm quite impressed with the innovation in them. Consider;
The Sims
Black and White
The Longest Journey (yeah, not too innovative but brilliant and at least not another FPS)
Thief (which sadly didn't sell as well as it should have)
And now I see something called "The Sting" that looks promising and maybe even innovative.
There's always _some_ room for innovation in compuer gaming, although maybe not enough.
Well this is silly flamebait, but I'll rise to it anyways.
Since day one, Macs have used SCSI. Networking was built in from ages before PC NICs were common. They helped develop the first (only?) modern desktop processor.
The PC still uses an extension of IDE devices. LANs have become common in the last year or two. The x86 processor line (and AMD spinoffs as well) STILL have 8088 codes in them!
Now tell me which is more advanced again? Which one is future-looking?
I didn't say "became," I said "began." It was the beginning--the bleeding edge that MS (and IBM) stole from. Regardless of who won, it was the Mac first.
Damn damn damn! Somebody moderate this up--it's the funniest thing I've heard all day!
Mind you, it's been a slow day...
The Atari 400/800 could in fact display 16 colours simultaneously from a palate of 256. However, through the magic of VSI programming, you could change the 16 colours that were set to be displayed partway through the TV scan, and effectively have 256 onscreen at once.
Trust me--I've still got printouts of the code I wrote to do it.
Also, someone else pointed out that the C-64 only had 8-bit/4-channel sound. The Atari had this as well, but allowed one to gang together two channels into a single 16-bit channel. (hence, two 16-bit channels from 4 8-bit ones) I vaguely remembered that the C-64 could do the same, but I could easily be mistaken.
IBM? Weren't they the ones who created OS/2? You know, the best desktop OS between CP/M and (possibly) OS X? They certainly made huge waves with THAT now, didn't they?
:-)
IBM could not, can not, and will not ever understand the desktop market. They just don't get that part of the market. (they're not much better in most other area either, but that's another story) If I were Linus, I'd be saying to IBM "Thanks, but we don't want your support--we want to survive!"
Can OS X be the next revolution? Maybe. It should be--it has the potential at least. Personally I'm hoping for it as hard as I can.
Incidentally , you're wrong on one important point: Given the current state of computers, innovation _is_ a pretty box, and a pretty box with no fan and interesting ideas about space is doubly innovative. In the case of the cube, it just wasn't innovative enough to compensate for its flaws.
I don't know how many here actually remember the original release of the Mac, but there are some substantial similarities between that product and this one. Why did the Mac survive while the cube didn't? Therein lies the key...
Those were the days of the Atari 800, the C-64, and even Apple's own ][+ (e, xe, c, whatever). The Atari and C64 had the ability to do 256 colours at about 320x200 (with some seriously clever programming) and had 16-bit sound! Then came the Mac. Lunky, clunky, tiny B+W built-in monitor, bad sound, and this goofy interface. (Remember this was the first home compute with a mouse, and the original mac mouse was _ugly_ to use even after you got used to it)
But it worked! It caught on. It singlehandedly began the next wave of computing, despite its severe limitations. Why?
1) Apple had the money to support it for more than eight months or so.
2) It was absolutely unique! There was nothing like it out there, and what it was offering was a whole new experience.
3) They could _deliver_ the damned things when the orders started rolling in.
4) There was no real concept of a standard platform. You bought your computer, and bought the software for that platform. When the largest company only had 15-20% of the market, there was less feeling of picking the 'right' or 'wrong' platform--just the one you wanted.
Now we have (or rather, had) the cube. Although it was intriguingly sexy, it lost out on all of the above points. Apple cannot afford to keep flogging the things until they start selling. Furthermore, they can't get production up to match demand anyways. The fact that they're perceived as being a (nearly) dead company vs. Microsoft is a huge handicap as well.
But the killer is this: The cube isn't unique enough. It's beautiful, it's advanced (fanless case? It's already becoming the Next Thing--except to see fanless desktop processors from Intel and AMD again in about 18 months), but underneath the skin it's still Another Mac--just like the G3/G4 Macs which are still available, better machines, and cheaper to boot.
Apple has been a computer _design_ company from day 1. This design just wasn't revolutionary to overcome its flaws.
Hey, you can't get much more "News for Nerds" than X-Files miscellanea.
Stuff that matters? Well, it matters to nerds I guess.
The reference to code morphing got me thinking.
"Hey Dave, hear you got a new heart. How's it feel?"
"Well I'm pretty tired, but that's probably because I'm using spare battery cycls to run SETI@Home."
Sorry, but I'm not sure my wife would like the idea of a girlfriend.
Maybe you can't understand that I'm talking economics here. The same economics that drove the VCR industry, for instance.
Ah, that's what I get for reading AC posts.
Hmm. Probably 90% of the searches on this will be porn. Seriously, how often do you want to search for some other specific picture?
:-)
The commercial porn websites won't like it, and Google will have a hard time justifying this service for hunting down porn. I just don't see it making financial sense. (something Google is pretty good at understanding)
So in other words, grab all the pics you can now.
Understand this: We don't pay for bandwidth in our ISP costs. Well we do, but it's a miniscule amount of the monthly bill vs. customer support, server admin, storage, paperwork, and so forth. If the cost of a unit of bandwidth suddenly got cut in half, it would still only change your monthly costs by a few quarters, maybe up to a dollar.
OK, read what I said:
:-), and nobody should be able to tell me that I can't build my own DVD player.
"As long as the MPAA thinks they can make people pay for the rights to develop software..."
Now look at what you wrote:
"They don't. They think they can make people pay for the rights to develop software..."
You can argue that I cut off your qualifier. I am arguing that the qualifier doesn't make any difference. For one specific purpose and one only, they're restricting your ability to develop software. That's one purpose too many.
If it infringed their copyright somehow, then I could see them restricting the _use_ of such work. Not the development, the distribution, or the discussion of it. Are photocopiers illegal? No. Are photocopier schematics illegal? No. Are photocopier sales illegal? No. Is using a photocopier illegal? In some cases yes, but that doesn't make the rest of the chain illegal.
As for your other point; "What confuses me most is why people think we have some inalienable right to free movies and music, and the RIAA and MPAA are evil because they make you pay for the product they find, fund, distribute, and market."
1) This has nothing to do with free movies and music. Never has. It's all about letting me watch movies that I HAVE LEGALLY PURCHASED (yes, for real money, from the store) without having to run Windows. Nobody ever told me I couldn't build a VCR out of rusty tin cans and earwax or at least that I wasn't allowed to
As for the RIAA, I pesonally consider them to be entirely evil because they charge large sums of money for music and then keep it, instead of distributing it to the artists. Musicians get a pittance, and the RIAA makes gobs, which is not how things should be.
Are the trolls still around? Is Cathleen still part of them?
I don't think I've ever quite recovered from seeing Wes Borg drop his pants onstage.
I've always felt that the fringes of applied science tended to produce all sorts of neat advances, and keep the field as a whole from stagnating. Weird science* is good for the soul!
And you can always tell that you're reading about weird science if you find yourself looking at the date, just to make sure that it wasn't published on April 1st.
In other words, good on em!
* Or weird applications of normal science. Take your pick.
"Does a DVD player for Linux have to be a subversive mission against the MPAA?"
Yep! It sure does.
Hold on a second here, I'm not actually being facetious. Consider this:
There are no licensed DVD players for any linux (not to mention all the Unices, OS/2, etc. etc.) In fact, no Linux (etc.) developers have licences to produce one, as far as we know. Thus, ANY DVD PLAYER DEVELOPMENT on Linux is a de facto 'line in the sand' against the MPAA. There's no way for it not to be.
And for that matter, that's the way it should be. As long as the MPAA thinks they can make people pay for the rights to develop software, we should agressively ignore their decrees and do everything in our power to defeat them.
Remember: They are selling you the right to develop your own software. That's simply unconscionable.
Not bad--they beat Amazon!
Honestly, the idea that Linux runs 24% of the new servers being sold out there is absolutely silly! 8.6% isn't much better.
From where I sit, as a professional Unix consultant, I see roughly 1-2% of "servers" being linux boxes, and even that's stretching the truth a bit. What are they calling a server here--any machine that runs DHCP?
I suspect that their definition of server is just as valid as defining a mainframe as anything that can cranks out "x" MIPS. It just ain't right!
I hereby waive my next set of moderation points to give to Jamie for his intelligent checklists. It's honestly a pity that you can't moderate the articles themselves, because this bit was great.
Sorry for the OT stuff folks, but we rag on the editors/writers so much when they suck that they deserve to know when they're doing a good job.