If you can be hurt by others commercializing your software then the choice is obvious.
GPL doesn't prevent commercializing of software.
A number of times I've seen the "if anyone's going to make money off my software it's going to be me" argument in favor of the GPL. Meanwhile, Red Hat (just one example) makes a bunch of money selling GPL'ed software.
GPL legally requires the source code be made available, but it doesn't otherwise prevent commercialization by third parties.
In text editors, I would like to say "oops" and automatically have the last word deleted. That would definitely speed me up, but my cubicle neighbors might get tired of hearing a constant stream of "oops... oops... oops" over the wall. I bet it wouldn't be hard to patch that into emacs...
I'm thinking Emacs might be very well-suited for voice recognition.
Think about it: Practically everything in Emacs is done with lisp functions, most of which have names that are basicly english. Obviously you could have the "undo undo undo" thing where the undo function is called, you could also have "revert buffer, yes", "compile", etc. And because Emacs is Emacs and has the "everything but the kitchen sink" aspect to it, you'll probably also have lisp functions for accessing a web browser, mail client, mp3 player, television via your tv card, lights and household appliances via X10, etc, etc, etc.
In comparison, try integrating voice recognition into a windowing system. I can't help but think of that IBM(?) commercial with the guy sitting on the park bench with pigeons all around, wearing a headset thing with voice recognition... "up up up up" as if he were using a mouse with his voice. How unelelgant can a user interface get?!
Yep, Emacs is gonna take over the world, or at least integrate all of its functionality.:)
Building a killer virus for fun and profit By Bill Gates
1- Buy "Quick and Dirty Virus" from some other guy.
2- License virus to a large company that manufactures chess grandmasters. This should provide a fruitful infection vector. And remember: 640k is enough for anyone, so don't worry if your virus does things that prevent access to the rest of memory, nobody will notice.
3- When other, nicer looking viruses come along, copy the user interface, but make it quirky and inconsistant (this is a virus we're talking about here, so it has to be nasty in one way or another).
4- When "dr-virus" threaten to replace our virus, spit out weird error messages to confuse and disorient the user, allowing our virus opportunity to re-establish control over the system. Viruses that are dependant on our virus, however, can be left free to roam.
5- A web browser should be integrated into the virus. Everything integrates a web browser sooner or later so make sure its ours and not somebody else's. This will expose you to the feds, who love to go after virus writers, so be careful not to get caught.
6- By this time the virus should have infected most of the world. For new challenges, create another virus (or several!) and start the process again. If the feds put a stop to our old virus we'll still have this new virus already spreading.
This is an outrage! We shouldn't tolerate software reviewers getting product for free.
These software reviewers damn well better go to cheapbytes and pay the entire $1.99 for their *nix just like the rest of us 56kbps slobs! Otherwise it's just not fair!
.NET will allow you to use apps anywhere, not just at one box, but any net-accessible machine, including potentally devices et al. Your working state is persistant when you logoff because everything's saved mostly at a central server rather than your local HD. Updates and upgrades can be easily installed at only one point, as opposed to every computer on a network.
This sounds like NFS, RPC, X, Java, etc.
I expect it will be most like Java, except not cross-platform and probably not sandboxed.
A lot of stuff I hear about.NET is the same sort of stuff I heard about when Java first appeared. The idea of getting the latest version of your application off the web every time you run it, saving your data to the server, maybe paying a per-use charge to the application service provider ("ASP"), etc. All of these things were possible with Java applets, but it hasn't really taken off, probably because of bandwidth contraints.
Dude, British Columbia is in Canada, not Britain. Canadian attitudes to these things are close to American ones (said as someone who has lived in all three countries).
I've only lived in Canada, but like most Canadians I can receive television and radio from both Canada and the US.
One thing I noticed recently when listening to the radio, is that the American censors absolutly butcher some songs. I really noticed this listening to one of the latest from Eminem, the one about the obsessed fan who drives himself over the edge a bridge (I can't remember what it's called). On American stations the song was rendered almost worthless. Practically every other word was scrambled, and an entire verse was removed (the one where the guy actually drives over the edge of the bridge, which is a rather important part of the story). In contrast, on Canadian stations the song was plated in its entirety, complete with four-letter words.
Television is similar. Explicit sex scenes in movies are cut on the American stations, but left in on Canadian stations.
That's not to say Canada doesn't have its censorship problems. Our equivalent of the 1st amendment is not absolute like the American version: it explicitly states that limits on freedom are okay if they can be justified within a free and democratic society. Of course that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. There are the Quebec language laws that many people have heard of. And "Little Sister's Bookstore" here in BC has had incoming shipments of controversial (read: gay and lesbian) books siezed at the border by Canada Customs. Ernst Zundel and other holocaust-deniers have been the subject of legal action for their beliefs, which is bad enough ("thought crime" anyone?) but what is really scary is that under the hate-speech laws, truth is no defense.
In comparison to all of the above, I don't think restricting under-18 access to a computer game is such a big deal in either country.
2. what does it mean to be human? This later question is all that PKD was concerned with in writing DADOES.
I haven't read DADOES, but I've seen the movie a few times and I agree 100%. Practically every scene at least touches on the issue. They almost beat you over the head with it.
Deckard is very much human.. and his trial throughout the novel, is his inability to describe those traits that make us human.
Watching the movie it never occured to me that Deckard might be a replicant. I guess I haven't dissected the movie to the same extent as others have.
Still, the movie was clearly centered around the "what does it mean to be human" question. I think it's much more meaningful for a human to come to accept other forms of life than for a replicant to do so.
OTOH, knowing now that the director(?) considered Deckard a replicant when I had just taken for granted that he was human, makes me think about the question again from a whole other angle.
The problem is that X is basically inferior to direct rendering subsytems (like GDI on Windows.)
Xfree86 4.0 has direct rendering, and Utah-GLX has been able to do direct rendering with XF86 3.3 for about a year now.
Even for 2d games like AOK there is support in DirectX for page flipping which saves one huge screen blit. Where is that support in XFree (3 or 4.)?
With OpenGL page flipping is handled by the driver if it is handled at all. Some drivers do it, but many don't because in practice it is a very small performance improvement. A large blit is nothing compared to drawing all of the polys required for a complex scene. As I recall from reading the utah-glx-dev list, the difference is somewhere around 2%. Hardly the killer feature you make it out to be.
Really, 3D drivers in Linux are not that bad right now. Nv and 3dfx are clearly on-board, and they are probably the two biggest players in consumer 3d hardware. The situation is only going to improve, and at an increasing rate.
The only problem with Linux gaming is getting the games and apps themselves ported. Hopefully that will improve now that the drivers are available.
If you're a hardcore gamer you'll probably continue dual-booting for now, but if that's the only reason you use ms-windows then you've probably paid your last MS-tax.
In short, you're suggesting that people sued make frivolous claims that their infringement falls under fair use in order to effect a DDoS on the RIAA's lawyers. Sounds like Elron Blubbard and the Co$ doctrine that "The purpose of a lawsuit is not to win, but to harass".
Not harassment at all, because the people who would make the "frivolous claims" (which may or may not actually be frivolous) would not be the ones filing the lawsuit.
It's more like MS' claim that the web browser belongs in operating system. It's subject to interpretation.
AFAICS it's common for people to claim every possible defense they can come up with. I think they call it "due process".:)
To dig up an old comment I made about spammers - it's like putting a few heads on pikes to encourage the others to comply. Whether this would be effective in the context of a distributed system such as Gnutella or not is open to debate. It's rather like the War On Some Drugs. Posession is illegal, but only a tiny minority of "downloaders" get nailed to the wall.
Bah. The drugwar hasn't stopped people from using drugs, and the government has nearly bottomless pockets to spend on that vietnam. Copyright holders are not in that situation- they have to make money.
The future will be "interesting" to say the least.
Gnutella users have plenty of opportunity, once they see that Metallica track on honeypot.riaa.com, to Just Say No. If they walk away from the bait, they're not guilty -- even if they searched for "Metallica" to find the bait in the first place -- because there's no law against searching for infringing material. Only when they elect (of their own free will) to download what they reasonably believe to be infringing material, have they committed a crime.
Good post. One question:
Can't the user simply claim "fair use"? I know fair use is somewhat limited, but how could the copyright holder prove that it was not fair use?
Might it at least drag things out long enough to make the case too expensive for the copyright holder? I know the big intellectual propery clearing-houses have deep pockets compared to most individuals, but compared to millions of individuals is another story.
Most piracy cases AFAIK have targetted large distributers. Going after the end-user is a much more hairy proposition I think.
(Somebody has to fix these damn "invalid form key" slashdot errors.)
I couldn't get the cpu (a k6-2-380) to run at full load with the largest passive heatsink I could find w/o getting too hot. Underclocking didn't help much.
Try underclocking and undervolting.
Undervolting makes the biggest difference- according to some article I read somewhere heat production is linear to the clock frequency, but exponential to the voltage.
You usually need to underclock in order to undervolt. As I understand it, at lower voltages the transistors take longer to change state, so they may not be able to keep up with the normal MHz.
Remember, the dinosaurs were dependent on lysine, so they couldn't leave the park. However, they just found some chicken in the surrounding area, and had lysine feast!
One solution would be if the nanoassemblers were dependent on an artificial element, one that does not exist in nature. Technetium or something like that.
Figure out how many nanobots you need, figure out how much element will be required, and pour that much into the vat.
Also, if the element has a low half-life, you can limit the lifespan of the nanobots.
The trick would be keeping the facilities where the element is produced free of nanobots.
In an attempt to raie my karma up from the current -15, I beseech any moderator reading this to help a down and out brother. Oh, how the tears will begone from my eye and a smile grace my face if someone would spare me some karma!
Holy crap! All this while I've been posting insightful, informative, funny posts to raise my karma. Now I discover you can just ask for karma!
RC4 is also thought to be strong, and is in the public domain whether RSA like it or not. It has the advantage that it can be coded in about 15 lines.
It is also the most likely to be used in a broken manner.
Countless are the programs that used the RC4 keystream for encryping more than one plaintext. This is highly breakable.
Really, RC4 is the NSA's dream. It is such a simple little algorithm that it leads people to think that they can create a secure system with just a few lines of code.
Basically, spend your time hardening the implementation. That's where you will be attacked. Also, don't code them yourself (except for fun) - there are a number of free (usually public domain) implementations of these algorithms. These have been peer-reviewed and tested. The chance of blowing the strength of the algorithm with a stupid coding error is too high to risk.
I would go a step further.
Ignore the algorithms and pick a complete cryptosystem. If you're worried about packet sniffers, use SSL or IPsec.
(Am I the only one who gets "invalid form key" messages when trying to post? It's really starting to bug me.)
well, if your binaries are all on read-only media, maybe there are subtle backdoors hidden in your rc.files; maybe configurations files for daemons have been subtly altered to provide a way back into your machine even after you think it's resecured.
Indeed. I've spent many hours thinking about this...
Suppose you lock down your system really tight. You use Linux capabilities or BSD securelevel to set your binaries and config files (and directories! don't forget the directories and their parents or "mv" followed by "cp" is all it takes to trojan your stuff) read-only and your log files append-only in such a way that not even root can mess with them.
Being a security-concious person you insist upon changing your passwords regularly. This requires/etc/passwd to be writable by root.
Your login shell is specified in/etc/passwd.
Some intruder gains root, discovers he can't trojan the system binaries or wipe his footprints from the logfiles because of all the lock-down you've done. No problem! He changes your login shell in/etc/passwd to point to a little program that chroots you into a special jail directory heirarchy where all of your usual tools and logfiles can be found, in trojan form. Since the intruder hasn't altered the protected stuff in/bin,/var/log, etc. he hasn't done anything your capabilities system can prevent.
Bingo, you are now the clueless luser in the honeypot.
There is a lot more to pinball than pressing a left and right button to nudge a couple levers. But in a digital version, that's all there is. [...]I want to be able to throw my weight into the game and control, for just a little while, that 200lb piece of wood, metal and glass.
After a long session of real pinball I've found myself physically exhausted. I guess it's because I push the buttons more forcefully on a big heavy machine than on a computer. There's something about the physicality of a pinball machine, the realness of it that sucks you in the way a CRT never can.
With a computer game you can mentally "become one" with the machine. I remember feeling exhausted after my first few Doom deathmatch sessions, but it was a mental exhaustion, not the same as after playing pinball.
With pinball, you physically "become one" with the machine.
Or if you're having too bad of a day to "become one" with anything you can just take out your frustrations on a pinball machine and it will affect the game, whereas banging on a video console is like banging on a brick wall.
Sci-fi aside, I think there will always be a noticable difference between virtual and real.
When Coca-Cola demand goes up, the price doesn't increase. When carpet demand goes up, the price doesn't increase. Yet somehow we're to believe that the RAM industry is so grossly incompetent as to be unable to adequate predict the demand for their sole product more than a month in advance?
They don't call it "supply and demand" for nothing.
In the case of Coke and Carpets there is an ample supply of both, so both are cheap regardless of demand. If demand goes up it's easy to increase production by hiring more workers and buying more raw materials.
With RAM chips the supply is (supposedly) not ample. Demand fluctuates. Increasing production to meet demand requires building or converting a fab. Ramping up production to meet demand takes a while, during which time prices are high.
There is nothing wrong, nor abusive about standards. What microsoft is in trouble for is not having a closed api or a "politicized" standard, but for price gouging, license gouging, vendor contracts and bad business practices.
Obviously.
The question is, how to stop them? More generally, how do you ensure that our vital technology is not dominated by a single entity who will exploit that power for their own benefit at the expense of everyone else?
Java isn't a standard, everyone has there own concept of it, why don't we sue SUN for not having one? Sun had proprietary knowledge and developers that build it and can customize it for THERE os and THERE HARDWARE. Doesn't that sound kind of strange? Sure you get the source code if you want, but that doesn't stop sun from doing things behind closed doors.
Java may not be a standard, but it's still a good example of what I was talking about. There are multiple implementations of it. They are different but compatible (except for Microsoft's). They compete, mostly on the basis of performance.
Because of the way Sun maintains control over the Java specification I wouldn't want it to dominate the computing industry. If it were then Sun may be able to manipulate things just as MS has. That's why open standards are better. But with the current state of affairs Java is okay.
The IBM PC isn't a standard either. Look at the major labels. Dell is the only one i know of that for business desktops uses replaceable components. HP's have crappy motherboards and proprietary miniature cases, Compaq's have disgusting bios's and really proprietary cheap asshardware solutions.
So the IBM PC isn't a standard, but MS Windows is? You say people have different ideas about what "standards" are... What exactly is yours?
FYI, replacing the case along with the motherboard is usually sufficient in the case of those major labels. But that's a hassle. Fortunately you can go to one of the thousands of smaller PC shops and buy a computer with a standard ATX mobo and case. It's often cheaper than buying a computer from a major label, too. Ain't competition great?
Sure you have PCI folks, Vesa Groups and all sorts of other standards, but the Open source community cant afford the costs of Posix licensing/standardizing, ISO-9000 Certifications, Public meetings/relations/developer consortiums.
It's unfortunate that the open source community can't afford such things, but hardly a show-stopper. Standards are still very valuable because they allow multiple vendors to produce competing products without vendor lock-in. The result is faster, cheaper, better products. Ain't competition great?
So tell me again, why people shouldn't use Directx 8? Is it because OpenGL is standardized by a company that is loosing money faster then a drunk tycoon at a slot machine?
Because DirectX is only available for Microsoft's operating systems. More importantly: Because Microsoft will attempt to use DirectX to extend their monopoly power into the gaming market.
So tell me again, why people should use DirectX 8? Is it because Microsoft is an 800-pound gorilla and if you produce a product based on a different technology you will be crushed?
Don't worry about SGI's fiscal status. OpenGL will continue to exist even if SGI goes belly-up.
If you don't like a product, DON'T USE IT.
If only it were so simple!
There are people who don't like MS Windows, but don't have the option of not using it because they want (sometimes even need) to run software that works only under that OS.
You can say, "Tough cookies. They can switch to Windows or not use the software." And you'd be right. But my point is, it doesn't have to be this way.
If MS didn't have the power to force DirectX down everyone's throat then Epic could easily port their software to Linux, Mac and other non-MS systems.
(YOU CAN'T TELL ME THAT SUN DOESN'T PRICE GOUGE ON ITS HARDWARE/SOFTWARE/SUPPORT SOLUTIONS.) You can't tell me that a computer Sparc 5 should retail for 2900.00 while a pc with similar specs and tons more software and features runs for a 3'rd that price.
That's because Sun is the only company selling that type of hardware. If there were thousands of companies selling Sun-compatible hardware then the market would look a lot more like the PC market. Competition is (or would be) a Good Thing(tm).
But, the competition isn't there and the prices aren't good. Don't like it? Don't buy Sun. The choice is simple in this case because Sun has not been manipulating the industry like MS has been doing.
Sure microsoft has its own beliefs in xml/dhtml/html and whatever else, but who is to judge if that is right or wrong.
We are. It's called "thinking for ourselves", something you yourself have advocated.
As you state that breaks the reasons for a standard. if the standard is to be followed, then ONE CHANGE by ONE VENDOR screws up the whole standard should that ONE VENDOR be the sole leader of that market.
Yep. And a "sole leading" vendor is almost certain to make such a change, because they have the power to do it and it is in their interest to further cement their control.
This is why we need MULTIPLE COMPETING implementations. Lots of web browsers, lots of XML engines, lots of OpenGL implementations, etc. NOT Microsoft's "you must use our program/format/API/protocol or we will make sure that you are incompatible with 90% of the world" bullshit.
JUST like SGI & OpenGL, sure they're in with NVIDIA, but i guess that is alright since NVIDIA is a linux friendly company. Tell me howcome if NVIDIA follows a standard i can't replace it with another graphics card that follows the exact same "standard" you (*?( think exists and have it work in the exact same fashion to the spec???
I don't understand what you're getting at here. You're having trouble switching graphics cards? Maybe your drivers are buggy. But I don't see what that has to do with the rest of your post.
Get my point? Or do people just not think for themselves anymore? Got your head out of your ass yet?
Sorry, I don't get your point. Maybe if you would write a response that didn't take the tone of a flame your point would be more clear. For what it's worth, you seem to be improving in that regard.
The problem here is again, a different stack here, a different browser here, a different protocol there, a different compression scheme here, a different xml engine there, a different ipsec here, and you get the point.
[SARCASM] I'd like to talk to you about an upstart computer company called "Compaq". It seems they're about to release a so-called "IBM-compatible" PC. This is the worst thing that can happen to the computer industry! Everyone should buy IBM. Not just because nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, but because IBM is standard. Just look at what Compaq and companies like them are going to do to the computer industry. Soon everyone will have different computers with different hard drives and different video cards and different CPUs and different amounts of RAM. Imagine the chaos that will ensue! There is no way that all of these different parts can possibly work together in a "100% IBM compatible" way. I predict that 10-15 years from now computers will be twice the size of a house and so expensive that only the five richest kings of England will be able to afford them. Put a stop to this! Buy IBM! [/SARCASM]
But seriously. I believe it was Bill Joy who said, "The function of an operating system is fixed." That function is to control access to the computers' resources (CPU, RAM, files, network sockets, etc). Applications ask the operating system to provide access to resources through a standard API.
What we need are operating systems (multiple, not one) providing APIs that are standard and available to all manufacturers the way hardware standards like PCI are. Then we can start to see the same competition in operating systems that we see in PC hardware.
On the internet we have dozens of different TCP/IP stacks, web browsers, protocols, compression schemes, XML engines, IPSEC implementations, etc. As long as they are written to open standards more is better. It means you have a choice in what software you use as opposed to being locked into a single vendor such as Microsoft. Vendor lock-in is what happens when you have a single dominating implementation of a "standard". When such a "standard" is violated there are few people to complain about interoperability problems and no standards-compliant vendor to turn to. When there are multiple vendors with nobody dominating then people will simply stop buying from a non-compliant vendor (why buy a broken software when you can get software that works?), thus making non-compliance unprofitable.
Of course alpha and beta radiation is much worse, it breaks up your DNA and shit and you get instant cancer. But those are no problem if you live in a brick house since they are particles and get stopped.
You don't even need the brick house. Your skin is enough to stop such particles.
Alpha and beta radiation are harmful if emitters get inside your body. Then they can do serious damage. This is the main problem in post-accident/bomb areas. The fissile materials decay into elements like iodine that the body readily absorbs. Then they decay further, irradiating your cells from the inside out. Cancer is the usual result.
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GPL doesn't prevent commercializing of software.
A number of times I've seen the "if anyone's going to make money off my software it's going to be me" argument in favor of the GPL. Meanwhile, Red Hat (just one example) makes a bunch of money selling GPL'ed software.
GPL legally requires the source code be made available, but it doesn't otherwise prevent commercialization by third parties.
I'm thinking Emacs might be very well-suited for voice recognition.
Think about it: Practically everything in Emacs is done with lisp functions, most of which have names that are basicly english. Obviously you could have the "undo undo undo" thing where the undo function is called, you could also have "revert buffer, yes", "compile", etc. And because Emacs is Emacs and has the "everything but the kitchen sink" aspect to it, you'll probably also have lisp functions for accessing a web browser, mail client, mp3 player, television via your tv card, lights and household appliances via X10, etc, etc, etc.
In comparison, try integrating voice recognition into a windowing system. I can't help but think of that IBM(?) commercial with the guy sitting on the park bench with pigeons all around, wearing a headset thing with voice recognition... "up up up up" as if he were using a mouse with his voice. How unelelgant can a user interface get?!
Yep, Emacs is gonna take over the world, or at least integrate all of its functionality. :)
Building a killer virus for fun and profit
By Bill Gates
1- Buy "Quick and Dirty Virus" from some other guy.
2- License virus to a large company that manufactures chess grandmasters. This should provide a fruitful infection vector. And remember: 640k is enough for anyone, so don't worry if your virus does things that prevent access to the rest of memory, nobody will notice.
3- When other, nicer looking viruses come along, copy the user interface, but make it quirky and inconsistant (this is a virus we're talking about here, so it has to be nasty in one way or another).
4- When "dr-virus" threaten to replace our virus, spit out weird error messages to confuse and disorient the user, allowing our virus opportunity to re-establish control over the system. Viruses that are dependant on our virus, however, can be left free to roam.
5- A web browser should be integrated into the virus. Everything integrates a web browser sooner or later so make sure its ours and not somebody else's. This will expose you to the feds, who love to go after virus writers, so be careful not to get caught.
6- By this time the virus should have infected most of the world. For new challenges, create another virus (or several!) and start the process again. If the feds put a stop to our old virus we'll still have this new virus already spreading.
7- And whatever you do, don't call it a virus!
This is an outrage! We shouldn't tolerate software reviewers getting product for free.
These software reviewers damn well better go to cheapbytes and pay the entire $1.99 for their *nix just like the rest of us 56kbps slobs! Otherwise it's just not fair!
This sounds like NFS, RPC, X, Java, etc.
I expect it will be most like Java, except not cross-platform and probably not sandboxed.
A lot of stuff I hear about .NET is the same sort of stuff I heard about when Java first appeared. The idea of getting the latest version of your application off the web every time you run it, saving your data to the server, maybe paying a per-use charge to the application service provider ("ASP"), etc. All of these things were possible with Java applets, but it hasn't really taken off, probably because of bandwidth contraints.
From what I've read of the system, it's a box that gets plugged in to the ISPs network and sniffs the traffic.
But don't most ISPs use ethernet switches rather than hubs?
If so, the Carnivore box would only receive traffic addressed to it (none) and maybe the occasional wayward packet.
Am I missing something? Are the feds doing some sort of MAC hacking or Tempest monitoring or other weird voodoo?
I've only lived in Canada, but like most Canadians I can receive television and radio from both Canada and the US.
One thing I noticed recently when listening to the radio, is that the American censors absolutly butcher some songs. I really noticed this listening to one of the latest from Eminem, the one about the obsessed fan who drives himself over the edge a bridge (I can't remember what it's called). On American stations the song was rendered almost worthless. Practically every other word was scrambled, and an entire verse was removed (the one where the guy actually drives over the edge of the bridge, which is a rather important part of the story). In contrast, on Canadian stations the song was plated in its entirety, complete with four-letter words.
Television is similar. Explicit sex scenes in movies are cut on the American stations, but left in on Canadian stations.
That's not to say Canada doesn't have its censorship problems. Our equivalent of the 1st amendment is not absolute like the American version: it explicitly states that limits on freedom are okay if they can be justified within a free and democratic society. Of course that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. There are the Quebec language laws that many people have heard of. And "Little Sister's Bookstore" here in BC has had incoming shipments of controversial (read: gay and lesbian) books siezed at the border by Canada Customs. Ernst Zundel and other holocaust-deniers have been the subject of legal action for their beliefs, which is bad enough ("thought crime" anyone?) but what is really scary is that under the hate-speech laws, truth is no defense.
In comparison to all of the above, I don't think restricting under-18 access to a computer game is such a big deal in either country.
I haven't read DADOES, but I've seen the movie a few times and I agree 100%. Practically every scene at least touches on the issue. They almost beat you over the head with it.
Watching the movie it never occured to me that Deckard might be a replicant. I guess I haven't dissected the movie to the same extent as others have.
Still, the movie was clearly centered around the "what does it mean to be human" question. I think it's much more meaningful for a human to come to accept other forms of life than for a replicant to do so.
OTOH, knowing now that the director(?) considered Deckard a replicant when I had just taken for granted that he was human, makes me think about the question again from a whole other angle.
"We must limit cross-platform connectivity and interoperability even at the expense of uptime and security!"
;)
It is rumored (or more?) that the USA has lasers that can fry satelites.
This guy's experiment isn't really applicable to satelites anyway, as his rocket isn't powerful enough to reach orbit.
Xfree86 4.0 has direct rendering, and Utah-GLX has been able to do direct rendering with XF86 3.3 for about a year now.
With OpenGL page flipping is handled by the driver if it is handled at all. Some drivers do it, but many don't because in practice it is a very small performance improvement. A large blit is nothing compared to drawing all of the polys required for a complex scene. As I recall from reading the utah-glx-dev list, the difference is somewhere around 2%. Hardly the killer feature you make it out to be.
Really, 3D drivers in Linux are not that bad right now. Nv and 3dfx are clearly on-board, and they are probably the two biggest players in consumer 3d hardware. The situation is only going to improve, and at an increasing rate.
The only problem with Linux gaming is getting the games and apps themselves ported. Hopefully that will improve now that the drivers are available.
If you're a hardcore gamer you'll probably continue dual-booting for now, but if that's the only reason you use ms-windows then you've probably paid your last MS-tax.
Not harassment at all, because the people who would make the "frivolous claims" (which may or may not actually be frivolous) would not be the ones filing the lawsuit.
It's more like MS' claim that the web browser belongs in operating system. It's subject to interpretation.
AFAICS it's common for people to claim every possible defense they can come up with. I think they call it "due process". :)
Bah. The drugwar hasn't stopped people from using drugs, and the government has nearly bottomless pockets to spend on that vietnam. Copyright holders are not in that situation- they have to make money.
Agreed.
Good post. One question:
Can't the user simply claim "fair use"? I know fair use is somewhat limited, but how could the copyright holder prove that it was not fair use?
Might it at least drag things out long enough to make the case too expensive for the copyright holder? I know the big intellectual propery clearing-houses have deep pockets compared to most individuals, but compared to millions of individuals is another story.
Most piracy cases AFAIK have targetted large distributers. Going after the end-user is a much more hairy proposition I think.
(Somebody has to fix these damn "invalid form key" slashdot errors.)
Try underclocking and undervolting.
Undervolting makes the biggest difference- according to some article I read somewhere heat production is linear to the clock frequency, but exponential to the voltage.
You usually need to underclock in order to undervolt. As I understand it, at lower voltages the transistors take longer to change state, so they may not be able to keep up with the normal MHz.
One solution would be if the nanoassemblers were dependent on an artificial element, one that does not exist in nature. Technetium or something like that.
Figure out how many nanobots you need, figure out how much element will be required, and pour that much into the vat.
Also, if the element has a low half-life, you can limit the lifespan of the nanobots.
The trick would be keeping the facilities where the element is produced free of nanobots.
I read their rules. Too complicated. This is better:
The goo shall not be gray. "Goo of colour" is acceptable. Red, orange, purple... but not gray.
No gray goo. Problem solved.
Holy crap! All this while I've been posting insightful, informative, funny posts to raise my karma. Now I discover you can just ask for karma!
Karma, please.
Oh yeah, not the negative kind, thank you.
-- Admiral Burrito, Karma-whore wannabe.
It is also the most likely to be used in a broken manner.
Countless are the programs that used the RC4 keystream for encryping more than one plaintext. This is highly breakable.
Really, RC4 is the NSA's dream. It is such a simple little algorithm that it leads people to think that they can create a secure system with just a few lines of code.
I would go a step further.
Ignore the algorithms and pick a complete cryptosystem. If you're worried about packet sniffers, use SSL or IPsec.
(Am I the only one who gets "invalid form key" messages when trying to post? It's really starting to bug me.)
Indeed. I've spent many hours thinking about this...
Suppose you lock down your system really tight. You use Linux capabilities or BSD securelevel to set your binaries and config files (and directories! don't forget the directories and their parents or "mv" followed by "cp" is all it takes to trojan your stuff) read-only and your log files append-only in such a way that not even root can mess with them.
Being a security-concious person you insist upon changing your passwords regularly. This requires /etc/passwd to be writable by root.
Your login shell is specified in /etc/passwd.
Some intruder gains root, discovers he can't trojan the system binaries or wipe his footprints from the logfiles because of all the lock-down you've done. No problem! He changes your login shell in /etc/passwd to point to a little program that chroots you into a special jail directory heirarchy where all of your usual tools and logfiles can be found, in trojan form. Since the intruder hasn't altered the protected stuff in /bin, /var/log, etc. he hasn't done anything your capabilities system can prevent.
Bingo, you are now the clueless luser in the honeypot.
After a long session of real pinball I've found myself physically exhausted. I guess it's because I push the buttons more forcefully on a big heavy machine than on a computer. There's something about the physicality of a pinball machine, the realness of it that sucks you in the way a CRT never can.
With a computer game you can mentally "become one" with the machine. I remember feeling exhausted after my first few Doom deathmatch sessions, but it was a mental exhaustion, not the same as after playing pinball.
With pinball, you physically "become one" with the machine.
Or if you're having too bad of a day to "become one" with anything you can just take out your frustrations on a pinball machine and it will affect the game, whereas banging on a video console is like banging on a brick wall.
Sci-fi aside, I think there will always be a noticable difference between virtual and real.
They don't call it "supply and demand" for nothing.
In the case of Coke and Carpets there is an ample supply of both, so both are cheap regardless of demand. If demand goes up it's easy to increase production by hiring more workers and buying more raw materials.
With RAM chips the supply is (supposedly) not ample. Demand fluctuates. Increasing production to meet demand requires building or converting a fab. Ramping up production to meet demand takes a while, during which time prices are high.
Disclaimer: IANAE (I am not an economist).
Obviously.
The question is, how to stop them? More generally, how do you ensure that our vital technology is not dominated by a single entity who will exploit that power for their own benefit at the expense of everyone else?
Java may not be a standard, but it's still a good example of what I was talking about. There are multiple implementations of it. They are different but compatible (except for Microsoft's). They compete, mostly on the basis of performance.
Because of the way Sun maintains control over the Java specification I wouldn't want it to dominate the computing industry. If it were then Sun may be able to manipulate things just as MS has. That's why open standards are better. But with the current state of affairs Java is okay.
So the IBM PC isn't a standard, but MS Windows is? You say people have different ideas about what "standards" are... What exactly is yours?
FYI, replacing the case along with the motherboard is usually sufficient in the case of those major labels. But that's a hassle. Fortunately you can go to one of the thousands of smaller PC shops and buy a computer with a standard ATX mobo and case. It's often cheaper than buying a computer from a major label, too. Ain't competition great?
It's unfortunate that the open source community can't afford such things, but hardly a show-stopper. Standards are still very valuable because they allow multiple vendors to produce competing products without vendor lock-in. The result is faster, cheaper, better products. Ain't competition great?
Because DirectX is only available for Microsoft's operating systems. More importantly: Because Microsoft will attempt to use DirectX to extend their monopoly power into the gaming market.
So tell me again, why people should use DirectX 8? Is it because Microsoft is an 800-pound gorilla and if you produce a product based on a different technology you will be crushed?
Don't worry about SGI's fiscal status. OpenGL will continue to exist even if SGI goes belly-up.
If only it were so simple!
There are people who don't like MS Windows, but don't have the option of not using it because they want (sometimes even need) to run software that works only under that OS.
You can say, "Tough cookies. They can switch to Windows or not use the software." And you'd be right. But my point is, it doesn't have to be this way.
If MS didn't have the power to force DirectX down everyone's throat then Epic could easily port their software to Linux, Mac and other non-MS systems.
That's because Sun is the only company selling that type of hardware. If there were thousands of companies selling Sun-compatible hardware then the market would look a lot more like the PC market. Competition is (or would be) a Good Thing(tm).
But, the competition isn't there and the prices aren't good. Don't like it? Don't buy Sun. The choice is simple in this case because Sun has not been manipulating the industry like MS has been doing.
We are. It's called "thinking for ourselves", something you yourself have advocated.
Yep. And a "sole leading" vendor is almost certain to make such a change, because they have the power to do it and it is in their interest to further cement their control.
This is why we need MULTIPLE COMPETING implementations. Lots of web browsers, lots of XML engines, lots of OpenGL implementations, etc. NOT Microsoft's "you must use our program/format/API/protocol or we will make sure that you are incompatible with 90% of the world" bullshit.
I don't understand what you're getting at here. You're having trouble switching graphics cards? Maybe your drivers are buggy. But I don't see what that has to do with the rest of your post.
Sorry, I don't get your point. Maybe if you would write a response that didn't take the tone of a flame your point would be more clear. For what it's worth, you seem to be improving in that regard.
[SARCASM]
I'd like to talk to you about an upstart computer company called "Compaq". It seems they're about to release a so-called "IBM-compatible" PC. This is the worst thing that can happen to the computer industry! Everyone should buy IBM. Not just because nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, but because IBM is standard. Just look at what Compaq and companies like them are going to do to the computer industry. Soon everyone will have different computers with different hard drives and different video cards and different CPUs and different amounts of RAM. Imagine the chaos that will ensue! There is no way that all of these different parts can possibly work together in a "100% IBM compatible" way. I predict that 10-15 years from now computers will be twice the size of a house and so expensive that only the five richest kings of England will be able to afford them. Put a stop to this! Buy IBM!
[/SARCASM]
But seriously. I believe it was Bill Joy who said, "The function of an operating system is fixed." That function is to control access to the computers' resources (CPU, RAM, files, network sockets, etc). Applications ask the operating system to provide access to resources through a standard API.
What we need are operating systems (multiple, not one) providing APIs that are standard and available to all manufacturers the way hardware standards like PCI are. Then we can start to see the same competition in operating systems that we see in PC hardware.
On the internet we have dozens of different TCP/IP stacks, web browsers, protocols, compression schemes, XML engines, IPSEC implementations, etc. As long as they are written to open standards more is better. It means you have a choice in what software you use as opposed to being locked into a single vendor such as Microsoft. Vendor lock-in is what happens when you have a single dominating implementation of a "standard". When such a "standard" is violated there are few people to complain about interoperability problems and no standards-compliant vendor to turn to. When there are multiple vendors with nobody dominating then people will simply stop buying from a non-compliant vendor (why buy a broken software when you can get software that works?), thus making non-compliance unprofitable.
Competition is a Good Thing(tm).
Informative post. Just a small correction...
You don't even need the brick house. Your skin is enough to stop such particles.
Alpha and beta radiation are harmful if emitters get inside your body. Then they can do serious damage. This is the main problem in post-accident/bomb areas. The fissile materials decay into elements like iodine that the body readily absorbs. Then they decay further, irradiating your cells from the inside out. Cancer is the usual result.
A few people, no. A few million people, yes.