What they are overlooking is that security holes in software is also a breach in national security and they need to step back and decide if what they are releasing is appropiate.
If an MSIE security hole is able expose information vital to national security then our national security is a joke, and any appeal which attempts to take it seriously is fatally flawed. Last I heard the NSA certified MS products as secure only if they weren't connected to a network. BTW, if you know where the Windows 2000 Security Recomendations are, please let me know.
On a side note, I was mildly disturbed to find that the NSA has a kid's page, but it's actually pretty cool. If only my school had access to something like it when they put me in their travesty of a gifted program, I might have even stayed in it...
Regarding mnenotics, Imagine having to type something like JMP377 with the right tape loaded instead of typing in fsck.
Except, JMP is a mnemonic, so you'd just have to know the code for "jump" (which was 303 for the 8080) as well as the address you wanted to jump to (which would be 377 in your example).
My first coding class was assembly on 8080 workstations which had an octal keypad for input and 3 rows of 8 LEDs for output. It sucked. When we finally got to use Z80 workstations with keyboards and monitors we had a true appreciation for the blessing of mnemonics! Stored memory didn't seem so cool, though. It was less painful to retype in my program every day than to have to deal with those stupid cassette drives.
Cable companies aren't a government-enforced monopoly. The cable companies own the physical cables, and thus get to decide who gets to use them. Cable TV is not a "necessity" like the telephone has become, and so the government has not seen fit to force them to allow competition like they have with the local Telcos.
Once the other firms are gone, however, the monopolist firm can not re-price at the monopoly price because they'd simply be inviting new firms into their market.
I have to disagree here. Once a monopoly is established it becomes fairly simple to leverage that monopoly to prevent new competition, through licensing and distribution contracts (for example, the MS OEM license).
what most people conveniently forget is that our current welfare state was only meant to last for a duration of 5-10 years or so
I'm not sure what relevance this has to a discussion of anti-trust and why we need it. If you're able to find a sunset clause in any anti-trust law, please point it out to me, as I couldn't find any. Since the Sherman Act was passed in 1890, your attempt to connect it with FDR's New Deal is dubious at best.
The old policy of Laissez Faire was the best policy, in regards to government involvement in the marketplace.If this were true, there would be no anti-trust law. The idea of a self-regulating free market is nothing more than naive fantasy, as is the notion that the socialist programs of the New Deal have outlived their necessity (I agree that they need some heavy reform, but the reasons for their existance are just as valid today as they were in the Great Depression).
Welcome to monopoly economics 101, wherein we will detail why you are wrong and I am right. Err, I mean why you're misguided about capitalism/monopolies vs the Free Market.
So aside from some purely theoretical economics, which I think we can agree are just as valid as the simplified models used in introductory Physics classes, how exactly have you proven me wrong? I restate my points:
1. The goal of the true Capitalist is the destruction of the Free Market.
2. A regulated Free Market is more beneficial to the general populace than unregulated Capitalism.
The first few iterations of IE were pretty bad, but they were not included as part of W95; the leveraging of the browser did not really start until the advent of Win98
That was key to my point. IE was so bad that it would have survived if not for MS's deep pockets.
But my point is, it was not MS's monopoly that allowed them to continue development prior to IE's inclusion in the operating system. IE was a give-away and a loser, and they turned it to a winner with their deep pockets
That's exactly what I said. IE is an excellent example of how MS has become immune to the forces of the free market. Whether it's because they have a monopoly or because they have deep pockets is largely irrelevant, as the two feed off each other in a symbiotic relationship.
(last time I looked, it's not illegal to have money).
Read the reply from the AC to your post. I don't have anything else to add here.
The integration into the OS helped speed their take-over of the browser, but that wouldn't have happened without a product that could compete.
Arguable, but probably a reasonable assumption. At the time of integration the only advantage IE had over Netscape was integration (IMHO). Otherwise they were roughly equivalent. What actually got me to switch to IE was Communicator. I wanted a browser, not a communications suite with all the overhead that entails.
Even if Windows wasn't installed by default on basically every computer in the world, people would still request it, simply because no one has given them a better option.
How will we know until someone gives them a choice? Is windows installed by default because that's what everyone uses? Or does everyone use windows because that's what comes installed by default?
As was pointed out a few articles ago, Linux is still too hard to use, and doesn't have enough non-geek functionality.
Oh, please! Have you used any of the recent distro releases? SuSE 7.3 is incredibly simple to install and configure (IMHO much easier than winme or win2k), and comes with excellent documentation for the OS and the major apps.
For all the Libertarian posturing on Slashdot, we should be the ones discouraging this court action and letting the free market decide.
MS has gone beyond the reach of the forces of the free market, that's what anti-trust action is all about! MSIE, while certainly not being the most horrendous example of MS's abuse of their monopoly, is the most visible example. If IE were an independent product (meaning not made by MS) it would have been stillborn long ago, and everyone would be using Netscape or Opera. But, because of MS's obscene amount of money, they were able to keep it going, and because MS also makes Windows, they were able to bundle it with the OS, and because MS owns the desktop, they were able to force an OEM license that made IE the first browser the user saw, if not the only one installed. And people used it! Can you imagine that?!? OMG, people use the software installed by default!!! I don't believe it!!!
And for all the Libertarians who are thinking about mod'ing me down, here's another reason to:
Capitalism is the enemy of the Free Market! The goal of any true capitalist is to create a monopoly. A monopoly means they have no competition, and without competition there is no free market! The Free Market is a good and wonderful thing, it is the foundation of our way of life and the root of just about everything that is good about the USA. It needs to be protected from the predations of the powerful corporations who would crush it in the pursuit of their vision of Capitalist Brand Utopia. That's why we need anti-trust law.
BTW, if you're thinking I'm a Socialist because of my sig, read it again.
Basically, a mainframe/thin client implemented virtually on a peer network. The advantages as I see them would be keeping the centralized aspect of a mainframe (at least as far as software goes) and easy scalability of a peer network (just add workstations for more storage and processors).
I'm not sure that the advantages would outweigh the costs in terms of physical network requirements, or even if the advantages are real or just imagined, but I thought it was an interesting idea I could maybe throw out there for someone who actually knows enough to maybe pull it off.
I only wish there were a practical system for generating solar power without moving parts
They're called solar panels.
Yes, they wear out, but they really aren't that expensive, especially now that they're being designed as roofing material (both shingles and metal sheet-style). Cost wise there's little advantage currently, installation and maintenance will currently cost you about the same as it would to get the power from the grid. Manufacturing costs for solar cells have steadily gone down, and will continue to do so in the forseeable future, while efficiencies rise. With a moderate storage system there's no worries about short-term power loss (obviously this isn't a great sollution for somewhere that gets a lot of snow). If you happen to be in a location where getting on grid is cheap and easy, you could hook up a phase-matching invertor and sell your excess power to the power company (at least in CA, one of the few benefits of deregulation). If you're in a location where getting on the grid is difficult or expensive, this is the way to go (I lived in such a situation for almost 20 years).
In an urban or suburban situation it doesn't make much sense from an individual perpective, but a whole neighborhood with solar-cell roofing could produce a fair amount of power. There's no polution, no line-loss, and the only space that's used up isn't good for much else anyway.
Really, all that's missing is an economic incentive for people to do it. At one time there was a tax credit for installing alternative energy systems (I don't know if it was Federal or State), and GWB's short-sighted energy plan unfortunately doesn't include that. (I applaud him for having an energy plan, I just don't think it's a very good one.)
The lifecycle for the solar cells is 15-25 years, depending on the specific tech (the same as most standard roofing materials), the invertor you'd want to replace every 10 years (to take advantage of new tech, they generally last longer than that), and the batteries should probably be replaced every 5 years or so (we used deep cycle lead-acid batteries, Lithium or NiMH would probably be a better choice, but I don't know anything about the cost/maintenance issues).
the govt really fucked us when they allowed the local monopolys (phone companies, power companies, etc).
It wasn't a matter of "allowing" local monopolies, there isn't any other way to do it. Someone has to maintain the physical connections, and that costs money. Local Telco and Power monopolies are required to allow other companies to provide access, but no matter who you go to as your providor, you still have to pay for the maintenance of the lines. Whoever owns the lines (and thus maintains them) can charge less for access as they have less overhead to cover, thus the "monopoly" which you percieve. The "best" you could hope to achieve in further breaking up these "monopolies" is a finer granularity of monopoly, which would degrade service with no cost benefit to the consumer.
Most of the lines in my area are owned by Pacific Bell, and the service is fine. Even in the heaviest storms service is rarely out for even a day, even though it's a rural, mountainous region with a fairly spread-out population. (Yes, there are parts of California that get real weather. I know it's hard to believe.) In one of the small outlying communities, however, the lines are owned by GTE, and the service is horrible. The office isn't big enough to support a real crew, so outages sometimes last for days, and since the profit margins are so thin the CO equipment is rarely upgraded. Modem connections top out at 19k within spitting distance of the CO.
I know you think that further breaking up the local "monopolies" will benefit you, but believe me, it won't. All you'll get is what I've described above, spread out over the whole country.
Of course, you could always have the government buy up all the lines, we all know how fast and efficient the government is with infrastructure maintenance! But hey, at least you'd only have to pay once a year instead of once a month...
Streaming video still works on a modem because noone has done the streaming movie (as in video rental store) idea yet which would certainly require broadband even with better technology.
Casinos are the first places you're likely to see e-paper. When I worked at a printing company a few years ago I helped with some of the R&D for developing ways to print electrolumanescent inks with silkscreens. We already worked with conductive inks used in touchpads, and the money the slot-machine manufacturers were willing to pay someone who could mass-produce that sort of thing was ridiculous. I heard rumors of standing orders offering $200 per page (The average order was something like $2-10 per, depending on number of colors and material. Printing on metal was more expensive since it tore up the screens.)
Anyway, slot machines are how whoever pulls this off first is going to recoup their R&D investment. You'd be amazed how many of the strips that go around the wheels they seem to need!
Once the processes are developed and the initial ramp-up is done, the prices should fall pretty fast.
I think this is a straw man arguement. You're blaming the technology for the uses it's being put to, and frankly it's inappropriate. Technology is nothing but a tool, like a hammer. You're essentially asking all hammer manufacturers to shut down because it's possible to kill someone with a hammer.
Your arguement is certainly pacifist, but not freedom-loving at all. Censorship is the enemy of freedom, even if it is self imposed! The GPL is about Free-as-in-speech, and if you alter the license so that, for example, GPLed code can't be used in weapon systems, then it is no longer Free-as-in-speech. You are removing freedoms in order to impose your own pacifist morallity on others. That doesn't sound very freedom-loving to me. Feel free to write your own license for your code that prevents military use, but don't ask for such a clause to be added to a license like the GPL, it violates the basic principles on which that license is built.
Personally, I would have no problems writing code specifically for weapons systems if I were being paid to do it, nor would I be bothered if code I wrote for some other purpose were used in a weapon system. The for pay requirement above is merely a reflection of my desire to be paid, and my recognition that the military-industrial complex has the capability to do that. Unfortunately a military is necessary in our world, and a modern military requires technological systems. Someone is going to get paid to create those systems, and it might as well be me.
RDBs have many potential uses, none of which are destructive (unlike nuclear physics and medicine). Some of the potential uses are invasive, but does that mean the world should be deprived of this technology? Certainly not, especially considering the only difference between invasive and non-invasive RDBs are the people using them.
Translating and distributing the first chapter of Harry Potter would only be a copyright violation if you were selling it. Otherwise there's a pretty clear case for fair use.
However, software is treated differently. Bad analogy, but still a valid point if they're actually distributed a full translated copy of Civ3. If they're just distributing a patch, as some have said, than I'd say that puts infogrames on shaky ground unless France has a DMCA-type law that prevents reverse-engineering of any sort.
"The sober truth is that although consumers are bothered by multiple user IDs and passwords, most consumers don't see much relative value in having one credential to navigate the Web," Avivah Litan, vice president and research director for Gartner, said in a statement.
Of course, it's still the way of the future, and at some point we'll all be pretty much forced to use something like this. That's not all bad, I certainly won't fight it, but I don't think it's necessary either. I definately don't trust MS with it, but I don't think I'd trust AOL with it either.
AOLs support will certainly make this a viable sollution, though, and the competition will hopefully benefit us little folks.
I'm just not sure how I feel about this whole thing.
You're probably right, although in a way it's unfortunate. I finally found my prefered tone by using my solid state Bass amp (Peavey MarkIII with an Ampeg SVT cabinet (8x10)) and a tube distortion emulator (Tech21 XXXL) after trying and rejecting several other solutions, both tube and solid state. Not surprising, really, considering that the first Marshalls were just copies of the Fender Bassman.
The transistor really got a bad rap from those first few years of solid state amps, but the fact is that the tube amps from the first year or two after Fender was bought by CBS were just as bad. In truth, that great sound came from a combination of the electrocal properties of tubes, poor engineering, and shoddy assembly (both in the amp and the tubes themselves). After CBS got Leo Fender out of the way their engineers went in and cleaned up everything they could, and the result was amps that sounded like crap!
That said, there are certainly audible differences between standard transistors and tubes (even vs. odd-order harmonics, clipping speed, current vs. voltage triggered, etc.), but most of them can be overcome by using FETs. There is still an audible difference, but I find my solid state tone to be smoother, more consistent, just as warm, and about $300 a year cheaper!
Because the kids will know what to do with them, and can teach the teachers.
Yeah! Just like in that magic schoolbus show on PBS! We all know that's what school's really like!
And of course, these are mutually exclusive goals.
To some extent, yes. Kids need to learn how to do this stuff "by hand" first, and the vast majority haven't by the time they reach the 6th or 7th grade. Maybe a competency test would be appropriate with the laptops being a reward for exceptional performance, but of course that would be unacceptable as it would damage the self-esteem of the kids that didn't do well enough.
And of course, computers and how computers are used haven't changed the slightest since then.
No, not fundamentally. Schoolkids still use their computers primarily for writing essays and playing games. The internet adds socialising and research to the equation (and we all know that if it's on the internet it must be true!), but socialising is really better done face-to-face, and the research is fairly unreliable. What disturbs me the most, though, is watching kids cut and paste a few articles together and turn it in as their own work. Do they get a good grade? Probably. Have they learned anything valuable? No. But of course, our society values the grade over the knowledge, so I guess that's OK.
I bet you walked uphill both ways to school, too.
As a matter of fact I did, that's one of the joys of living in the mountains. No matter where you want to go, it always seems to be uphill from where you're at. I had it easy though, the bus stop was only about 4 miles from my house. I'm actually not kidding, either. If you're ever in Grass Valley, CA, I'd be happy to show you my route.
These laptops are totally unnecessary. What a waste of money. The vast majority of teachers don't know what to do with the computers in the computer lab down the hall. How is that going to be improved by putting them in every backpack?
Sure, computer literacy is important in the modern world, but so is writing and math. In fact, computer literacy without both of those to back it up gives you nothing but slashdot trolls. This is just as bad of an idea as letting kids use calculators in pre-algebra, and for the same reasons. How are kids ever going to learn the basics of anything if we keep handing them machines to take care of the basics for them?
Computers in schools are great. I remember the first computer I ever got to use, a Commodore PET with a cassette drive that lived in the corner of my 4th grade classroom. You had to reserve it ahead of time to play games on it during recess. Unfortunately that's all we ever did with it. A few years later we had a lab with some Apple]['s that we could use to type up our essays, and by the time I got to high school those were replaced with PCs. Were they useful? Did I learn from using them? Sure, but not enough to justify giving every kid their own. 10:1 is a perfectly acceptable ratio, probably even less in more upscale neighborhoods where everyone has a computer at home.
There was recently that linked the rise of the modern word processor with the decline of writing skills in college students. My fear is that these programs are just going to produce more of the same. Kids need to learn how to do stuff themselves before we hand them tools that do stuff for them.
I just pulled the quote from the article, I never said that they guy I quoted wasn't an idiot. He also said there wasn't a equivalent to Adobe Illustrator. Personally, I prefer the GIMP to Illustrator or Photoshop, but then again I abandoned the visual arts for music 15 years ago, so what do I know...
Thanks for the list, though. I'll have to check some of those out.
For the record, my CAD package of choice is SolidWorks, which is heavily tied to VBA and Excel, and therefore Windows only. My comment wasn't a dig on Windows software, but on AutoCAD specifically, which has historically been available for Unix. If SolidWorks was available for Linux, I would be thrilled. But it isn't, and won't be in the forseable future, so I use Windows for CAD.
Autocad is outdated and extremely difficult to learn. Do I want Linux to do CAD? Certainly. But I don't want an AutoCAD clone. The usability bar has been raised significantly for CAD software in the last 10 years, and it would be a shame to take such a giant step backwards when there are such better models available to work from.
I never advocate Linux to people who aren't ready for it. When I build PCs for family and friends I install Windows, because that's what they know and are comfortable with. If I know someone that's ready for Linux, I talk to them about it and help them get started if they decide that's what they want.
As far as letting people choose their OS, you seem to indicate that the average computer buyer actually has a choice now. People "choose" Windows because that's what their computers come with.
Say I'm buying a new truck and the salesman says "The standard engine is a straight 6, but you can buy a V6 or V8 and install it yourself." How much of a choice is that? How is this hypothetical situation different from the "choice" offered to the average consumer when they buy a new PC? 90% of consumers "choose" Windows because they aren't given a choice.
The single biggest obstacle to Linux everywhere is specific Windows applications with no direct portable equivalent, like AutoCAD...
I can't say that disappoints me really, I personally hate AutoCAD. Granted, it's as easy as anything else once you've learned it, but it's the most difficult software to learn that I've ever worked with, and I've never been able to get the alleged 3-D design tools to work. All in all, I can't say no AutoCAD is a bad thing. I know AutoCAD has it's place, but for what I do (mechanical design) it's only the tool of choice for Engineers who are too old to learn a new software package. I do like the option of a CLI, but that's the only positive point I can think of.
I recall, though, that AutoCAD used to be available for Unix, and many of the CLI commands are named after standard *nix commands. Is this not still the case?
I haven't used it since R14, so my info may be a bit out of date...
The cable co. doesn't do it, the individual channels do. The vast majority don't use macrovision, but there are a few that do.
However, simply feeding cable through your VCR isn't sufficient to judge the presence of Macrovision, it only really shows up if you're recording. Simply watching something, Macrovision only occasionally reveals itself as that curl at the top of the screen.
Re:What the hell is wrong with the Judiciary
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DMCA 2, Freedom 0
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· Score: 2
The problem is, judges have much more in common with politicians than professors.
It is possible to get a judge kicked off the bench, but you have to be able to prove that they are corrupt (taking bribes, etc.), and that's pretty difficult to do. Unfortunately, judges can't be impeached on the basis of blatant stupidity. They have to actually do something illegal.
I guess that's one more thing they have in common with politicians...
The DMCA is Federal law, and this decision was in a State court, so no, it unfortunately doesn't mean what you think it means.
However, if this decision is upheld by a Federal court, than there is a chance that it could be used in DMCA cases, and it would also effectively over-rule portions of UCITA, which is State level legislation.
Slashdot Mirror
If an MSIE security hole is able expose information vital to national security then our national security is a joke, and any appeal which attempts to take it seriously is fatally flawed. Last I heard the NSA certified MS products as secure only if they weren't connected to a network. BTW, if you know where the Windows 2000 Security Recomendations are, please let me know.
On a side note, I was mildly disturbed to find that the NSA has a kid's page, but it's actually pretty cool. If only my school had access to something like it when they put me in their travesty of a gifted program, I might have even stayed in it...
Except, JMP is a mnemonic, so you'd just have to know the code for "jump" (which was 303 for the 8080) as well as the address you wanted to jump to (which would be 377 in your example).
My first coding class was assembly on 8080 workstations which had an octal keypad for input and 3 rows of 8 LEDs for output. It sucked. When we finally got to use Z80 workstations with keyboards and monitors we had a true appreciation for the blessing of mnemonics! Stored memory didn't seem so cool, though. It was less painful to retype in my program every day than to have to deal with those stupid cassette drives.
Once the other firms are gone, however, the monopolist firm can not re-price at the monopoly price because they'd simply be inviting new firms into their market.
I have to disagree here. Once a monopoly is established it becomes fairly simple to leverage that monopoly to prevent new competition, through licensing and distribution contracts (for example, the MS OEM license).
what most people conveniently forget is that our current welfare state was only meant to last for a duration of 5-10 years or so
I'm not sure what relevance this has to a discussion of anti-trust and why we need it. If you're able to find a sunset clause in any anti-trust law, please point it out to me, as I couldn't find any. Since the Sherman Act was passed in 1890, your attempt to connect it with FDR's New Deal is dubious at best.
The old policy of Laissez Faire was the best policy, in regards to government involvement in the marketplace.If this were true, there would be no anti-trust law. The idea of a self-regulating free market is nothing more than naive fantasy, as is the notion that the socialist programs of the New Deal have outlived their necessity (I agree that they need some heavy reform, but the reasons for their existance are just as valid today as they were in the Great Depression).
Welcome to monopoly economics 101, wherein we will detail why you are wrong and I am right. Err, I mean why you're misguided about capitalism/monopolies vs the Free Market.
So aside from some purely theoretical economics, which I think we can agree are just as valid as the simplified models used in introductory Physics classes, how exactly have you proven me wrong? I restate my points:
1. The goal of the true Capitalist is the destruction of the Free Market.
2. A regulated Free Market is more beneficial to the general populace than unregulated Capitalism.
That was key to my point. IE was so bad that it would have survived if not for MS's deep pockets.
But my point is, it was not MS's monopoly that allowed them to continue development prior to IE's inclusion in the operating system. IE was a give-away and a loser, and they turned it to a winner with their deep pockets
That's exactly what I said. IE is an excellent example of how MS has become immune to the forces of the free market. Whether it's because they have a monopoly or because they have deep pockets is largely irrelevant, as the two feed off each other in a symbiotic relationship.
(last time I looked, it's not illegal to have money).
Read the reply from the AC to your post. I don't have anything else to add here.
The integration into the OS helped speed their take-over of the browser, but that wouldn't have happened without a product that could compete.
Arguable, but probably a reasonable assumption. At the time of integration the only advantage IE had over Netscape was integration (IMHO). Otherwise they were roughly equivalent. What actually got me to switch to IE was Communicator. I wanted a browser, not a communications suite with all the overhead that entails.
How will we know until someone gives them a choice? Is windows installed by default because that's what everyone uses? Or does everyone use windows because that's what comes installed by default?
As was pointed out a few articles ago, Linux is still too hard to use, and doesn't have enough non-geek functionality.
Oh, please! Have you used any of the recent distro releases? SuSE 7.3 is incredibly simple to install and configure (IMHO much easier than winme or win2k), and comes with excellent documentation for the OS and the major apps.
For all the Libertarian posturing on Slashdot, we should be the ones discouraging this court action and letting the free market decide.
MS has gone beyond the reach of the forces of the free market, that's what anti-trust action is all about! MSIE, while certainly not being the most horrendous example of MS's abuse of their monopoly, is the most visible example. If IE were an independent product (meaning not made by MS) it would have been stillborn long ago, and everyone would be using Netscape or Opera. But, because of MS's obscene amount of money, they were able to keep it going, and because MS also makes Windows, they were able to bundle it with the OS, and because MS owns the desktop, they were able to force an OEM license that made IE the first browser the user saw, if not the only one installed. And people used it! Can you imagine that?!? OMG, people use the software installed by default!!! I don't believe it!!!
And for all the Libertarians who are thinking about mod'ing me down, here's another reason to:
Capitalism is the enemy of the Free Market! The goal of any true capitalist is to create a monopoly. A monopoly means they have no competition, and without competition there is no free market! The Free Market is a good and wonderful thing, it is the foundation of our way of life and the root of just about everything that is good about the USA. It needs to be protected from the predations of the powerful corporations who would crush it in the pursuit of their vision of Capitalist Brand Utopia. That's why we need anti-trust law.
BTW, if you're thinking I'm a Socialist because of my sig, read it again.
Basically, a mainframe/thin client implemented virtually on a peer network. The advantages as I see them would be keeping the centralized aspect of a mainframe (at least as far as software goes) and easy scalability of a peer network (just add workstations for more storage and processors).
I'm not sure that the advantages would outweigh the costs in terms of physical network requirements, or even if the advantages are real or just imagined, but I thought it was an interesting idea I could maybe throw out there for someone who actually knows enough to maybe pull it off.
They're called solar panels.
Yes, they wear out, but they really aren't that expensive, especially now that they're being designed as roofing material (both shingles and metal sheet-style). Cost wise there's little advantage currently, installation and maintenance will currently cost you about the same as it would to get the power from the grid. Manufacturing costs for solar cells have steadily gone down, and will continue to do so in the forseeable future, while efficiencies rise. With a moderate storage system there's no worries about short-term power loss (obviously this isn't a great sollution for somewhere that gets a lot of snow). If you happen to be in a location where getting on grid is cheap and easy, you could hook up a phase-matching invertor and sell your excess power to the power company (at least in CA, one of the few benefits of deregulation). If you're in a location where getting on the grid is difficult or expensive, this is the way to go (I lived in such a situation for almost 20 years).
In an urban or suburban situation it doesn't make much sense from an individual perpective, but a whole neighborhood with solar-cell roofing could produce a fair amount of power. There's no polution, no line-loss, and the only space that's used up isn't good for much else anyway.
Really, all that's missing is an economic incentive for people to do it. At one time there was a tax credit for installing alternative energy systems (I don't know if it was Federal or State), and GWB's short-sighted energy plan unfortunately doesn't include that. (I applaud him for having an energy plan, I just don't think it's a very good one.)
The lifecycle for the solar cells is 15-25 years, depending on the specific tech (the same as most standard roofing materials), the invertor you'd want to replace every 10 years (to take advantage of new tech, they generally last longer than that), and the batteries should probably be replaced every 5 years or so (we used deep cycle lead-acid batteries, Lithium or NiMH would probably be a better choice, but I don't know anything about the cost/maintenance issues).
It wasn't a matter of "allowing" local monopolies, there isn't any other way to do it. Someone has to maintain the physical connections, and that costs money. Local Telco and Power monopolies are required to allow other companies to provide access, but no matter who you go to as your providor, you still have to pay for the maintenance of the lines. Whoever owns the lines (and thus maintains them) can charge less for access as they have less overhead to cover, thus the "monopoly" which you percieve. The "best" you could hope to achieve in further breaking up these "monopolies" is a finer granularity of monopoly, which would degrade service with no cost benefit to the consumer.
Most of the lines in my area are owned by Pacific Bell, and the service is fine. Even in the heaviest storms service is rarely out for even a day, even though it's a rural, mountainous region with a fairly spread-out population. (Yes, there are parts of California that get real weather. I know it's hard to believe.) In one of the small outlying communities, however, the lines are owned by GTE, and the service is horrible. The office isn't big enough to support a real crew, so outages sometimes last for days, and since the profit margins are so thin the CO equipment is rarely upgraded. Modem connections top out at 19k within spitting distance of the CO.
I know you think that further breaking up the local "monopolies" will benefit you, but believe me, it won't. All you'll get is what I've described above, spread out over the whole country.
Of course, you could always have the government buy up all the lines, we all know how fast and efficient the government is with infrastructure maintenance! But hey, at least you'd only have to pay once a year instead of once a month...
Sputnik7
Of course, it's free, so it's not exactly like the video rental store, but it is streaming on demand. I'm sure they aren't the only ones.
Anyway, slot machines are how whoever pulls this off first is going to recoup their R&D investment. You'd be amazed how many of the strips that go around the wheels they seem to need!
Once the processes are developed and the initial ramp-up is done, the prices should fall pretty fast.
Your arguement is certainly pacifist, but not freedom-loving at all. Censorship is the enemy of freedom, even if it is self imposed! The GPL is about Free-as-in-speech, and if you alter the license so that, for example, GPLed code can't be used in weapon systems, then it is no longer Free-as-in-speech. You are removing freedoms in order to impose your own pacifist morallity on others. That doesn't sound very freedom-loving to me. Feel free to write your own license for your code that prevents military use, but don't ask for such a clause to be added to a license like the GPL, it violates the basic principles on which that license is built.
Personally, I would have no problems writing code specifically for weapons systems if I were being paid to do it, nor would I be bothered if code I wrote for some other purpose were used in a weapon system. The for pay requirement above is merely a reflection of my desire to be paid, and my recognition that the military-industrial complex has the capability to do that. Unfortunately a military is necessary in our world, and a modern military requires technological systems. Someone is going to get paid to create those systems, and it might as well be me.
RDBs have many potential uses, none of which are destructive (unlike nuclear physics and medicine). Some of the potential uses are invasive, but does that mean the world should be deprived of this technology? Certainly not, especially considering the only difference between invasive and non-invasive RDBs are the people using them.
However, software is treated differently. Bad analogy, but still a valid point if they're actually distributed a full translated copy of Civ3. If they're just distributing a patch, as some have said, than I'd say that puts infogrames on shaky ground unless France has a DMCA-type law that prevents reverse-engineering of any sort.
Of course, it's still the way of the future, and at some point we'll all be pretty much forced to use something like this. That's not all bad, I certainly won't fight it, but I don't think it's necessary either. I definately don't trust MS with it, but I don't think I'd trust AOL with it either.
AOLs support will certainly make this a viable sollution, though, and the competition will hopefully benefit us little folks.
I'm just not sure how I feel about this whole thing.
The transistor really got a bad rap from those first few years of solid state amps, but the fact is that the tube amps from the first year or two after Fender was bought by CBS were just as bad. In truth, that great sound came from a combination of the electrocal properties of tubes, poor engineering, and shoddy assembly (both in the amp and the tubes themselves). After CBS got Leo Fender out of the way their engineers went in and cleaned up everything they could, and the result was amps that sounded like crap!
That said, there are certainly audible differences between standard transistors and tubes (even vs. odd-order harmonics, clipping speed, current vs. voltage triggered, etc.), but most of them can be overcome by using FETs. There is still an audible difference, but I find my solid state tone to be smoother, more consistent, just as warm, and about $300 a year cheaper!
Yeah! Just like in that magic schoolbus show on PBS! We all know that's what school's really like!
And of course, these are mutually exclusive goals.
To some extent, yes. Kids need to learn how to do this stuff "by hand" first, and the vast majority haven't by the time they reach the 6th or 7th grade. Maybe a competency test would be appropriate with the laptops being a reward for exceptional performance, but of course that would be unacceptable as it would damage the self-esteem of the kids that didn't do well enough.
And of course, computers and how computers are used haven't changed the slightest since then.
No, not fundamentally. Schoolkids still use their computers primarily for writing essays and playing games. The internet adds socialising and research to the equation (and we all know that if it's on the internet it must be true!), but socialising is really better done face-to-face, and the research is fairly unreliable. What disturbs me the most, though, is watching kids cut and paste a few articles together and turn it in as their own work. Do they get a good grade? Probably. Have they learned anything valuable? No. But of course, our society values the grade over the knowledge, so I guess that's OK.
I bet you walked uphill both ways to school, too.
As a matter of fact I did, that's one of the joys of living in the mountains. No matter where you want to go, it always seems to be uphill from where you're at. I had it easy though, the bus stop was only about 4 miles from my house. I'm actually not kidding, either. If you're ever in Grass Valley, CA, I'd be happy to show you my route.
Witness this sentence as an example.
And as further evidence, I offer CmdrTaco :)
These laptops are totally unnecessary. What a waste of money. The vast majority of teachers don't know what to do with the computers in the computer lab down the hall. How is that going to be improved by putting them in every backpack?
Sure, computer literacy is important in the modern world, but so is writing and math. In fact, computer literacy without both of those to back it up gives you nothing but slashdot trolls. This is just as bad of an idea as letting kids use calculators in pre-algebra, and for the same reasons. How are kids ever going to learn the basics of anything if we keep handing them machines to take care of the basics for them?
Computers in schools are great. I remember the first computer I ever got to use, a Commodore PET with a cassette drive that lived in the corner of my 4th grade classroom. You had to reserve it ahead of time to play games on it during recess. Unfortunately that's all we ever did with it. A few years later we had a lab with some Apple]['s that we could use to type up our essays, and by the time I got to high school those were replaced with PCs. Were they useful? Did I learn from using them? Sure, but not enough to justify giving every kid their own. 10:1 is a perfectly acceptable ratio, probably even less in more upscale neighborhoods where everyone has a computer at home.
There was recently that linked the rise of the modern word processor with the decline of writing skills in college students. My fear is that these programs are just going to produce more of the same. Kids need to learn how to do stuff themselves before we hand them tools that do stuff for them.
Thanks for the list, though. I'll have to check some of those out.
Autocad is outdated and extremely difficult to learn. Do I want Linux to do CAD? Certainly. But I don't want an AutoCAD clone. The usability bar has been raised significantly for CAD software in the last 10 years, and it would be a shame to take such a giant step backwards when there are such better models available to work from.
I never advocate Linux to people who aren't ready for it. When I build PCs for family and friends I install Windows, because that's what they know and are comfortable with. If I know someone that's ready for Linux, I talk to them about it and help them get started if they decide that's what they want.
As far as letting people choose their OS, you seem to indicate that the average computer buyer actually has a choice now. People "choose" Windows because that's what their computers come with.
Say I'm buying a new truck and the salesman says "The standard engine is a straight 6, but you can buy a V6 or V8 and install it yourself." How much of a choice is that? How is this hypothetical situation different from the "choice" offered to the average consumer when they buy a new PC? 90% of consumers "choose" Windows because they aren't given a choice.
I can't say that disappoints me really, I personally hate AutoCAD. Granted, it's as easy as anything else once you've learned it, but it's the most difficult software to learn that I've ever worked with, and I've never been able to get the alleged 3-D design tools to work. All in all, I can't say no AutoCAD is a bad thing. I know AutoCAD has it's place, but for what I do (mechanical design) it's only the tool of choice for Engineers who are too old to learn a new software package. I do like the option of a CLI, but that's the only positive point I can think of.
I recall, though, that AutoCAD used to be available for Unix, and many of the CLI commands are named after standard *nix commands. Is this not still the case?
I haven't used it since R14, so my info may be a bit out of date...
However, simply feeding cable through your VCR isn't sufficient to judge the presence of Macrovision, it only really shows up if you're recording. Simply watching something, Macrovision only occasionally reveals itself as that curl at the top of the screen.
It is possible to get a judge kicked off the bench, but you have to be able to prove that they are corrupt (taking bribes, etc.), and that's pretty difficult to do. Unfortunately, judges can't be impeached on the basis of blatant stupidity. They have to actually do something illegal.
I guess that's one more thing they have in common with politicians...
However, if this decision is upheld by a Federal court, than there is a chance that it could be used in DMCA cases, and it would also effectively over-rule portions of UCITA, which is State level legislation.
IANAL, though...