There's also the effect on investors. A potential lawsuit hanging over a company can scare away investors, reduce the stock price, etc. So RealNetworks may be strategically bringing this issue to court. By doing so, they give the impression that they are going to win, which will calm investors.
It may also be that for various reasons (e.g. cash flow, current stock trends...), management decided that right now would be the best time to deal with any potential court case. By preemptively going to court, they control the timing, rather than being at the mercy of the MPAA.
A crucial difference is that OpenDNS is opt-in, whereas when an ISP does it, it becomes an opt-out situation (or, more likely, a "deal with it" situation).
OpenDNS provides a service (robust lookup, filtering, etc.), with a well-established downside (ads on DNS lookup errors). If you like the deal, you can use OpenDNS. If you don't like the deal (e.g. you rely on proper DNS failures), then you don't use it.
The real problem occurs when all the default DNS servers do ad-redirecting. Then it will become impossible to actually check for lookup errors. Part of an ISP's job (in my opinion) is to provide unfiltered DNS access. (OpenDNS is not an ISP).
Your overall point is correct. However based on my experiences with the degradation of a digital signal on a noisy cable line, I would say that a digital signal is not necessarily a binary "perfect picture or no picture at all." (I'm assuming it would be similar for a noisy or weak over-the-air signal. Am I wrong?)
Depending on the noise source, a poor signal can mean seeing occasionally blockyness in the image, or getting frames intermittently (so that the image freezes from time to time), or getting audio but not video. Beyond a certain error rate, the converter box will probably just display a "no signal" message. But it is possible to build boxes that show a "best effort" reconstruction of the signal, even though some data/frames are missing.
However your original point is still correct in a variety of senses. The boxes are probably designed conservatively, so that they report "no signal" rather than display a low-quality image (how much error-correction are they designed to do?). And the degradation of a digital signal is less forgiving than an analog--rather than fuzziness and noise gradually entering the image, you get very ugly and distracting artifacts (blocks, freezing). The picture quality goes from "perfect" to "unwatcheable" over a narrow range in signal-to-noise.
Cory Doctorow described it nicely in his recent book "Little Brother" (free download available):
If you ever decide to do something as stupid as build an automatic terrorism detector, here's a math lesson you need to learn first. It's called "the paradox of the false positive," and it's a doozy.
Say you have a new disease, called Super-AIDS. Only one in a million people gets Super-AIDS. You develop a test for Super-AIDS that's 99 percent accurate. I mean, 99 percent of the time, it gives the correct result -- true if the subject is infected, and false if the subject is healthy. You give the test to a million people.
One in a million people have Super-AIDS. One in a hundred people that you test will generate a "false positive" -- the test will say he has Super-AIDS even though he doesn't. That's what "99 percent accurate" means: one percent wrong.
What's one percent of one million?
1,000,000/100 = 10,000
One in a million people has Super-AIDS. If you test a million random people, you'll probably only find one case of real Super-AIDS. But your test won't identify one person as having Super-AIDS. It will identify 10,000 people as having it.
Your 99 percent accurate test will perform with 99.99 percent inaccuracy.
That's the paradox of the false positive. When you try to find something really rare, your test's accuracy has to match the rarity of the thing you're looking for. If you're trying to point at a single pixel on your screen, a sharp pencil is a good pointer: the pencil-tip is a lot smaller (more accurate) than the pixels. But a pencil-tip is no good at pointing at a single atom in your screen. For that, you need a pointer -- a test -- that's one atom wide or less at the tip.
This is the paradox of the false positive, and here's how it applies to terrorism:
Terrorists are really rare. In a city of twenty million like New York, there might be one or two terrorists. Maybe ten of them at the outside. 10/20,000,000 = 0.00005 percent. One twenty-thousandth of a percent.
That's pretty rare all right. Now, say you've got some software that can sift through all the bank-records, or toll-pass records, or public transit records, or phone-call records in the city and catch terrorists 99 percent of the time.
In a pool of twenty million people, a 99 percent accurate test will identify two hundred thousand people as being terrorists. But only ten of them are terrorists. To catch ten bad guys, you have to haul in and investigate two hundred thousand innocent people.
Guess what? Terrorism tests aren't anywhere close to 99 percent accurate. More like 60 percent accurate. Even 40 percent accurate, sometimes.
What this all meant was that the Department of Homeland Security had set itself up to fail badly. They were trying to spot incredibly rare events -- a person is a terrorist -- with inaccurate systems.
Re:Good news cause PDF's should be shunned
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PDF Exploits On the Rise
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· Score: 4, Informative
There are alternatives for Windows as well that are better than the "official" reader.
They are both orders-of-magnitude faster than Adobe Acrobat. Part of the reason for this speed boost is that they don't implement the hundreds of plug-ins that Acrobat supports. But frankly for >99% of the PDFs you encounter, those additional plug-ins are not required. (In the rare case where a PDF needs one of those features, I guess you can load up Acrobat.)
In addition to a speed advantage, using an alternate PDF reader is probably more secure. Both because it is less well-known (fewer exploits tailored to it), and because they don't implement those hundreds of plug-ins (some of which enable certain kinds of code execution).
I'm happy to see that the suggested strategies are ones which carry significant drawbacks. Segmenting markets and keeping everything closed does indeed give you control, but it also slows the very network growth that makes products become successful. And it frequently leads to user frustration (because of, for example, DRM, or the lack of support groups, or the inability to find or construct fixes/hacks as needed).
This is good news in the sense that any strategy to fight open-source means that you emphasize the gap between open-source and closed-source products: the open-source product's advantage is the openness, the community, the ease of distribution, the non-naginess, the network effects, the hackability... and the more closed the closed-source products try to be, the more these items become product differentiators, which the open-source product can point to as big advantages.
So, I do hope closed-source projects go ahead and implement those user-hostile strategies. It will only serve to make open-source products look that much better by comparison. As other posters have pointed out, there is no fundamental divide between "open-source" and "commercial". So I would think the better strategy for MBAs thinking about open-source is "if you can't beat 'em--join 'em". Or in other words, why get involved in closed-source business ventures when an open-sourced equivalent inherently leverages network effects?
Fair enough. People should be careful what they post (I know I am).
But in another sense, this issues is shining a light on a fundamental hypocrisy in our society. Were teens before the Internet angels? I think not. They vandalized, they drank, they did drugs, they pushed boundaries... just like the teens of today. But, their actions were easier to keep private. Now with SMS, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Google, etc., all these kinds of things are more consistently cataloged and disseminated. Even if you don't post it yourself, a friend (or enemy) might post it. And it will be indexed.
The hypocrisy comes in from the social elders who now judge these teens. They see a teen holding a can of beer, and deem them irresponsible. Yet, the vast majority of those judging did the exact same thing when they were a teen. Holding this next generation to a higher standard is hypocritical. How many of the great men and women in society did the same kinds of things? (According to statistics: most of them.) And what does it accomplish? Does it actually reduce the activitie(s), or just teach teens how to hide and lie?
I think it's time that society in general got a little more honest and realistic about what teens are up to. They drink, they have sex, they do all kinds of crazy things. I'm not saying that we give them free reign to do whatever they want without consequences. But I'm sick of holding them to unrealistic expectations, and teaching them habits that amount to "hide the truth" rather than "enjoy life in a balanced and responsible way."
To be honest, I think your best option is: "Ask nicely."
Seriously, academia and publishing and citation is a massive reputation system. It almost entirely works on the honor system, with formal inquiries occurring (rarely) when there are major transgressions. Let's say you find or write some complicated open-source license that requires citation. The code will still be available. Unscrupulous people could still use the code and publish without citation. Do you really think you (or your supervisor) would ever bother suing them? I highly doubt it. But you would certainly spread the word that these researchers don't cite properly. You would certainly bring up this issue during peer review. This is where the real damage to them will occur.
So, my recommendation is to just skip the middle-man, and don't bother with the unconventional FOSS license (which would just confuse people who want to use the software but won't ever publish anything). Wherever you post the code, just include a prominent request (on webpage, in README, and code headers) along the lines of "If you publish any work that uses this software, please cite XXX." Most scientists would be happy to add that citation. The only ones who wouldn't are the ones who try to pass off other's work as their own: do you really think they care about respecting copyright?
This is, at least, the procedure used in my field. Publish your paper. Release the code using a standard FOSS license.. Add a citation request. Done.
This isn't a rant against your post (because you're right); rather just a reaction to the general concept of "stealing ideas".
I'm sick of the innumerable "X stole this computer idea from Y" complaints. They don't make sense for a variety of reasons, such as: 1. The same idea is frequently developed by different people independently. Especially when the idea is a fairly obvious and expected extension of what already exists. (Hint: 99% of software and interface improvements fall into this category.) 2. I *want* developers "stealing" ideas from each other. If the Internet Explorer team comes up with a cool new idea, I want the Mozilla and Safari and Konqueror teams to implement it, too. Only ridiculous pride (or ridiculous patent law) would argue otherwise. Having different people competing and innovating is great--but it's only a big advantage for the end consumers if the best ideas are eventually incorporated in a single product. 3. Ideas can't be "owned" and hence can't be "stolen". They are ethereal, replicable, and not sharply defined. It is impossible to delineate the limits to an idea, and thus any ownership thereof. (Patent and copyright law try to do this--and this is one reason they so frequently lead to absurd situations.)
I firmly believe in attribution and having a proper sense of history. But I am sick of people acting as if "stealing" an idea is bad thing. When it comes to ideas, we should be encouraging their wild proliferation, and encouraging everyone to use the best among them.
Well, Firefox is open-source, but manages to adhere (pretty well) to the standards set for HTML, Javascript, etc.
OpenOffice is open-source, but manages to adhere to a farily well-defined guideline for file formats (ODF).
There are plenty of other examples of open-source projects sticking to well-defined standards and guidelines. I understand your concern; there is no guarantee that incompatible forking won't happen. But, there is at least precedent for open-source communities working together to maintain cohesive standards. In fact, having competing open-source implementations (e.g. Gecko vs. Webkit) can go a long way to making sure that everyone uses the same standard (because they want to interoperate).
users copying content from Wikipedia to Knol, where it can be verified by credentialed users and protected against vandalism.
But why is copying the content to another site even needed? Wikipedia maintains an edit history, and you can link specifically to previous versions of an article. So, you just have a third-party site that maintains a database of "trusted people" and "wikipedia entries" and "trust relations" between those two sets.
The third-party site doesn't need to host any Wikipedia content at all. It just does the work of vetting people and maintaining the database. You then search on this site for some content, and it gives you a link to the version of the Wikipedia article that was vetted and signed as being trustworthy.
If the expert needs to fix the article before vetting it, he can make those changes to the Wikipedia version, and then sign-off on that version. Basically, I don't see the need to create a Wikipedia fork in order to get the advantages of "expert vetting." Keep everything combined on Wikipedia, rather than duplicating effort.
Actually I wonder if this is just an extension of the RIAA's legal tactics to the lawyers themselves. Previously, they would sue people in order to intimidate them into settling and/or not file-sharing. Now, they are applying the same logic to lawyers: suing lawyers with the audacity to defend file-sharers, so as to intimidate other potential defense lawyers from even taking a file-sharing case.
As usual, even if the RIAA loses (or eventually drops the case), they "win" in the sense that they send the message that they are willing to make life hell for anyone who opposes them (including other lawyers).
Such a tactic from the RIAA is presumably illegal... but it's probably very difficult to prove in court that this is their intention.
dynamic frequency sharing, in which radios automatically locate unused frequencies, or share channels based on a priority system
But as with any system of resource sharing (especially bandwidth), some devices/users will simply ignore the rules to improve their own performance: flag every transmission as ultra-high-priority and so forth. You can't expect users, or even manufacturers, to "play fair." And I'm not convinced that regulation can force people to play fair. Unlike objective measures like antenna transmission power, things like "priority" are more open to interpretation (or misinterpretation, if you prefer). I suppose the same solution as for cell-phones could be applied: if you charge someone for every transmission, they are forced to conserve bandwidth.
In public safety, cognitive radios also could be used to provide interoperability between various signals and automatically adjust radio performance.
I love technology... but when it comes to safety and emergency systems, it's usually best to use the lowest-tech solution possible: cheaper, easier to repair/maintain, more robust, more reliable, and better understood. I don't know if I want my emergency call negotiating interoperability with other devices to reach someone (since any such operation is error-prone). The simplest solution (e.g. full-power transmission on a reserved channel) is probably better in such a case.
According to Singer, video should become a buy once, play anywhere technology like CDs and DVDs.... will define and build a new media framework
Ummm.... doesn't this already exist? I mean, if you want to release video in a format that will play anywhere, on any device... this is trivial. Just release it using a well-established video codec. Every laptop and OS and browser and media center and video iPod and mobile phone can then play the file.
Of course this would be by far the most consumer-friendly approach, and would satisfy the requirement of "play anywhere technology." But of course the subtext to the article, which isn't explicitly stated, is that they want a "play anywhere" format... but with DRM.
This is basically an oxymoron, though. Like a "drive anywhere" car, that is incidentally specifically designed to shut-off if you drive outside of a pre-approved range. Or a "cook anything" microwave oven that reads the barcodes off your instant-meals, and incidentally won't turn on if unrecognized things (like home-made food) are put inside.
This whole venture is doomed to fail. It will fail because for a truly "play anywhere" ecosystem, the DRM spec would have to be open and not costly (in which case, homebrewers and hackers alike will circumvent it within minutes). It will fail because big companies (like Apple) have no reason to help this idea. It will fail because the implementation will be complicated and error prone. It will fail because consumers will still notice the DRM, and have to overcome it frequently (thereby defeating the purpose).
It's interesting that new technology is always held to a higher standard than established technology.
We trust trains even though someone could put some rubble on the tracks. We trust human drivers even though someone could shine a laser pointer into their eyes. We trust bikes even though someone could string up a tripwire. We trust buffet restaurants even though someone could put crushed glass into the food.
Newsflash: if someone wants to sabotage a piece of infrastructure, they'll find a way! Obviously autonomous driving vehicles need to be able to continue functioning despite normal interference (weather, traffic accidents, etc.), and even some forms of sabotage. But ultimately it will be possible for someone to mess with the system. Just as it is with everything else.
Tossing a bag of magnetic marbles in front of robo-busses is no different than dropping bricks on cars from an overpass: the main deterrent is that most people are not sadistic assholes trying to kill other people.
Are they anticipating researchers waking up at 1am and thinking "hey, I want to run one more experiment from home before I go to bed..."?
I know you were trying to joke... but the answer is probably "yes."
I've never worked at CERN, but it may be similar to large-scale science user facilities (e.g. x-ray synchrotrons) that I have worked at. Specifically, you want to be able to control the instruments remotely for a variety of reasons. Part of it is safety (in order to minimize time spent near radiation sources and industrial equipment). Part of it is convenience (to check on the status before driving all the way to the actual facility). Part of it is for collaboration (allowing an instrument scientist to log into the machine and change a setting for you, show you how to do something, etc.).
At many facilities, you can change samples, alter instrument settings, re-align, etc.; all without actually going to the facility. Scientists doing those kinds of experiments do indeed appreciate the ability to log into the machine at 1am and check on the status.
There are of course safeguards in place (e.g. hardware safety triggers that cannot be remotely over-ridden)... but it is sometimes possible to break something with remote commands. Now, most of the facilities that work like this are running samples, and need remote manipulation to switch samples and re-align and so forth. LHC doesn't have the same set of requirements... but there are indeed a variety of legitimate reasons why a scientist might need to remotely log into the system and change some settings.
Large facilities are designed to "do science" 24/7. Remote control is one thing that helps scientists maximize the usefulness of equipment. (Such as waking up at 1 am, checking on an experiment you started before leaving work, realizing the data is no good, fixing a few parameters, and running a new more useful experiment.)
Indeed. These "gurus" are just marketers under a different name. Of course, the intention is to deceive the customer into thinking they are getting impartial technical advice, when in fact they are getting a sales pitch. Some quotes from TFA show that people are already fooled:
"After years of monopolistic behavior, Microsoft is finally recognizing the need for the softer things, dealing with customers in a higher-touch way," said Lisa Bradner, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. "All of our research shows that customers want their hands held. They're tired of being dumped to a Web site where they have to look through some FAQs."
Yet the article points out that the purpose of the gurus is NOT to hand-hold with respect to fixing problems, or even selecting the most appropriate product. Rather, it is to convince the customer to buy a Vista computer. This isn't a "softer" approach: it is another avenue for them to continue their usual (monopolistic?) tactics.
I worry about this because most in-store customers will assume that the "gurus" are providing sound technical advice, but instead they are just trying to get them to buy something. The same could be said of the other store employees, I suppose; but in this case instead of steering the customer towards buying *something*, they will invariably steer the customer towards Vista. Regardless of whether or not it is the right choice for them.
I can see this causing headaches for the stores as well. When a customer seeks out an employee for help, they are typically not aware of the distinction between different departments. Customers may become frustrated when they ask a "guru" for help but said employee can't help them ("I'm looking for a new washer/dryer." "Have you considered this Windows Vista Home Media Center desktop computer?" "WTF?")
Like many creative types, their creation is almost like a one of their children.
And just like with children, if you attempt to enact perfect control, you will stifle and destroy that which you love.
Ultimately, every parent has to learn to let their child grown up, and find their own way in the world (the alternative produces hopelessly needy and/or bitter children). Similarly, every artist has to learn to let their art be distributed, and be built-upon by others (the alternative produces hopelessly sterile art and/or a restriction on cultural freedom).
(To take the analogy further: I'm not advocating a complete lack of parenting; nor am I advocating that artists retain no control over their art. But in both cases, they must eventually "let go.")
Indeed. They should take advantage of the open-source textbooks that already exist... either by simply selecting one for their purposes, or putting together the best pieces from various sources into a coherent textbook that serves their purposes. Here are the open-source textbook (or related information) sites I'm aware of:
I thought that the critics of this project were worried about the effects of COLLIDING the particles. Since that hasn't happened yet, this story is a whole lotta nuthin'.
Huh? You do realize that the purpose of building and turning on the LHC isn't to silence black-hole-apocalypse believers, right? The purpose of the LHC is to do new science. Successful containment and acceleration of the beams is an important milestone for this project. That's why this is news.
Presumably you will still think this story is "a whole lotta nuthin'" once collisions do happen, because those collisions will be at energies already probed by other accelerators. And even once LHC ramps up to full power, it will still be "a whole lotta nuthin'" because those energies already occur in nature (e.g. cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere).
I think it would be more accurate to say that the worries about black-hole-apocalypse are "a whole lotta nuthin'" whereas a successful activation of the LHC is amazing news for anyone interested in science.
Why is Gecko worth keeping if it is outdated and bloated?
You've begged the question, there. The fact is that Gecko isn't outdated and bloated. Mozilla has kept the code up-to-date. They've improved rendering and javascript performance remarkably in recent Firefox releases.
Personally, I'd rather see alternatives being independently developed and improved; all the while competing with each other for mindshare and technical superiority. The alternative, of relying on a single rendering engine for all browsers, is a bad idea. History has taught us it will lead to stagnation and quirky (rather than standards-compliant) rendering.
Considering alternative, ad-based, free online video sites such as Hulu, is Amazon's service too pricey?
It's not just price that matters. This new service is for "Mac or PC", and the expiration means that it will be DRMed. This means it won't run on my Linux system. Hulu is far from perfect, but it runs just fine on Linux, so it's what I use to catch up on the occasional show.
Of course, most of the population doesn't care about Linux per se. However I've learned over time that "will it work on Linux?" is a good proxy-question for "will it be easy to get it working?" If it doesn't run on Linux, then it invariably means that on Windows it's going to require a custom download, non-generic codecs, DRM, etc. So basically it's going to be a pain for just about everyone.
At the end of the day, something like Hulu (where a friend can just send you a link for a show; where you can just open it up in a browser; etc.) is more easily accessible and thus preferable (in my opinion).
(Note: I fully agree that the video quality of something like Hulu isn't that great... but that's orthogonal to the accessibility question. A direct download of a generic video file is by far easier for everyone than a DRMed file and a custom playing app.)
if you show that you're interested in taking money for the domain name, they will then use that as an argument during legal proceedings that you're a domain name squatter.
I'm no lawyer, but that sounds like a pretty flimsy legal argument. (Which doesn't mean someone won't try and use it in court--but I just doubt it would stand up.)
Lots of people have sold domain names in the past, and even advertised them for sale. People even buy domain names speculatively and sell them later. All of this is legal and not "squatting". The nasty stuff is typo-squatting, or otherwise intentionally confusing consumers. Sitting on a domain name that most people would assume points to a particular company can sometimes fall into this category.
In this case, the submitter indicated that the domain name is his last-name. That sounds like a pretty solid defense in any court against the squatting argument. In terms of any squatting or trademark dispute, his claim (last name) is equally valid to the company's claim (company name).
My inclination would be to just come up with a fair price, and then tell them that you are actively using the domain, but would be willing to sell it to them for $X. Either they accept or they don't. I doubt this is an attempt to trick him. (Then again, maybe I'm a naive glass-half-full kind of person.)
It's not just that a 14-year old might have an advantage (hence cheating). It is also the fact that such a young person (who, let's face it, can't really make his/her own decisions) is being put in this situation of stress and hardship.
Frankly I think even 16 is too young to allow them to compete at this level, because it invariably means that they were coerced into training at a much younger age. It hardly seems like an informed choice for such young persons to be enrolled in this kind of training by their parents/guardians.
My point is that the minimum age requirements are there not just for fairness, but also (I would hope) help establish some bound of decency with respect to the stresses being put on children. Breaking the rule is not just cheating; it is being dangerously irresponsible with one's young.
I think it's actually interesting to note that this trend of altering photographs actually has deeper roots.
Think about portrait paintings that were all the rage for many hundreds of years before cameras were invented. The portraits were not usually exact recreations of what the painter saw. Usually, the subject was altered slightly to make them look 'better' (more conforming to the beauty ideals of the time period). The person was usually given clothes, jewelery, and surroundings that were prettier than reality (possibly more extravagant than they could really afford). These portraits were not really meant to capture reality: they were meant as a statement (usually "look how important I am", but perhaps also "this is what's meaningful/important to us").
Old photographs were mostly "staged" (especially really old ones where people had to hold still for them), so it's not like they were faithful reflections of reality, either.
Digitally altered images are similar. People are altering the photos to capture something. Not reality. But rather a statement they want to make, like "look how much fun that day was" or "look how beautiful I am" or "look how much I love you" or whatever.
I'm not going to pass a value judgment on whether this trend is "good" or "bad". Rather I will note a few things:
1. As computer power increases, automated "adjustment" of photos is likely to become more common. (Everything from relatively benign red-eye-removal and HDR tweaking, to more drastic things like automatically making people look prettier.)
2. It may be that only for a thin slice of history were the majority of photos "real"--in the time period where photography was fast and cheap enough to snap "candid shots" but before photo-manipulation was fast and cheap enough to alter them.
3. Despite all this modification, I'm sure plenty of "real" photos will remain--journalists, historians, and even normal folk will still be inclined to archive unmodified pictures. Especially with storage costs dropping, keeping the raw image files (before manipulation) will likely continue. In fact I would hope that future image formats would maintain an internal undo history, where the original photo-data remains.
Slashdot Mirror
There's also the effect on investors. A potential lawsuit hanging over a company can scare away investors, reduce the stock price, etc. So RealNetworks may be strategically bringing this issue to court. By doing so, they give the impression that they are going to win, which will calm investors.
It may also be that for various reasons (e.g. cash flow, current stock trends...), management decided that right now would be the best time to deal with any potential court case. By preemptively going to court, they control the timing, rather than being at the mercy of the MPAA.
A crucial difference is that OpenDNS is opt-in, whereas when an ISP does it, it becomes an opt-out situation (or, more likely, a "deal with it" situation).
OpenDNS provides a service (robust lookup, filtering, etc.), with a well-established downside (ads on DNS lookup errors). If you like the deal, you can use OpenDNS. If you don't like the deal (e.g. you rely on proper DNS failures), then you don't use it.
The real problem occurs when all the default DNS servers do ad-redirecting. Then it will become impossible to actually check for lookup errors. Part of an ISP's job (in my opinion) is to provide unfiltered DNS access. (OpenDNS is not an ISP).
Your overall point is correct. However based on my experiences with the degradation of a digital signal on a noisy cable line, I would say that a digital signal is not necessarily a binary "perfect picture or no picture at all." (I'm assuming it would be similar for a noisy or weak over-the-air signal. Am I wrong?)
Depending on the noise source, a poor signal can mean seeing occasionally blockyness in the image, or getting frames intermittently (so that the image freezes from time to time), or getting audio but not video. Beyond a certain error rate, the converter box will probably just display a "no signal" message. But it is possible to build boxes that show a "best effort" reconstruction of the signal, even though some data/frames are missing.
However your original point is still correct in a variety of senses. The boxes are probably designed conservatively, so that they report "no signal" rather than display a low-quality image (how much error-correction are they designed to do?). And the degradation of a digital signal is less forgiving than an analog--rather than fuzziness and noise gradually entering the image, you get very ugly and distracting artifacts (blocks, freezing). The picture quality goes from "perfect" to "unwatcheable" over a narrow range in signal-to-noise.
There are alternatives for Windows as well that are better than the "official" reader.
Specifically Sumatra PDF and Foxit Reader are alternative PDF readers for Windows.
They are both orders-of-magnitude faster than Adobe Acrobat. Part of the reason for this speed boost is that they don't implement the hundreds of plug-ins that Acrobat supports. But frankly for >99% of the PDFs you encounter, those additional plug-ins are not required. (In the rare case where a PDF needs one of those features, I guess you can load up Acrobat.)
In addition to a speed advantage, using an alternate PDF reader is probably more secure. Both because it is less well-known (fewer exploits tailored to it), and because they don't implement those hundreds of plug-ins (some of which enable certain kinds of code execution).
I'm happy to see that the suggested strategies are ones which carry significant drawbacks. Segmenting markets and keeping everything closed does indeed give you control, but it also slows the very network growth that makes products become successful. And it frequently leads to user frustration (because of, for example, DRM, or the lack of support groups, or the inability to find or construct fixes/hacks as needed).
This is good news in the sense that any strategy to fight open-source means that you emphasize the gap between open-source and closed-source products: the open-source product's advantage is the openness, the community, the ease of distribution, the non-naginess, the network effects, the hackability... and the more closed the closed-source products try to be, the more these items become product differentiators, which the open-source product can point to as big advantages.
So, I do hope closed-source projects go ahead and implement those user-hostile strategies. It will only serve to make open-source products look that much better by comparison. As other posters have pointed out, there is no fundamental divide between "open-source" and "commercial". So I would think the better strategy for MBAs thinking about open-source is "if you can't beat 'em--join 'em". Or in other words, why get involved in closed-source business ventures when an open-sourced equivalent inherently leverages network effects?
Fair enough. People should be careful what they post (I know I am).
But in another sense, this issues is shining a light on a fundamental hypocrisy in our society. Were teens before the Internet angels? I think not. They vandalized, they drank, they did drugs, they pushed boundaries... just like the teens of today. But, their actions were easier to keep private. Now with SMS, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Google, etc., all these kinds of things are more consistently cataloged and disseminated. Even if you don't post it yourself, a friend (or enemy) might post it. And it will be indexed.
The hypocrisy comes in from the social elders who now judge these teens. They see a teen holding a can of beer, and deem them irresponsible. Yet, the vast majority of those judging did the exact same thing when they were a teen. Holding this next generation to a higher standard is hypocritical. How many of the great men and women in society did the same kinds of things? (According to statistics: most of them.) And what does it accomplish? Does it actually reduce the activitie(s), or just teach teens how to hide and lie?
I think it's time that society in general got a little more honest and realistic about what teens are up to. They drink, they have sex, they do all kinds of crazy things. I'm not saying that we give them free reign to do whatever they want without consequences. But I'm sick of holding them to unrealistic expectations, and teaching them habits that amount to "hide the truth" rather than "enjoy life in a balanced and responsible way."
To be honest, I think your best option is: "Ask nicely."
Seriously, academia and publishing and citation is a massive reputation system. It almost entirely works on the honor system, with formal inquiries occurring (rarely) when there are major transgressions. Let's say you find or write some complicated open-source license that requires citation. The code will still be available. Unscrupulous people could still use the code and publish without citation. Do you really think you (or your supervisor) would ever bother suing them? I highly doubt it. But you would certainly spread the word that these researchers don't cite properly. You would certainly bring up this issue during peer review. This is where the real damage to them will occur.
So, my recommendation is to just skip the middle-man, and don't bother with the unconventional FOSS license (which would just confuse people who want to use the software but won't ever publish anything). Wherever you post the code, just include a prominent request (on webpage, in README, and code headers) along the lines of "If you publish any work that uses this software, please cite XXX." Most scientists would be happy to add that citation. The only ones who wouldn't are the ones who try to pass off other's work as their own: do you really think they care about respecting copyright?
This is, at least, the procedure used in my field. Publish your paper. Release the code using a standard FOSS license.. Add a citation request. Done.
This isn't a rant against your post (because you're right); rather just a reaction to the general concept of "stealing ideas".
I'm sick of the innumerable "X stole this computer idea from Y" complaints. They don't make sense for a variety of reasons, such as:
1. The same idea is frequently developed by different people independently. Especially when the idea is a fairly obvious and expected extension of what already exists. (Hint: 99% of software and interface improvements fall into this category.)
2. I *want* developers "stealing" ideas from each other. If the Internet Explorer team comes up with a cool new idea, I want the Mozilla and Safari and Konqueror teams to implement it, too. Only ridiculous pride (or ridiculous patent law) would argue otherwise. Having different people competing and innovating is great--but it's only a big advantage for the end consumers if the best ideas are eventually incorporated in a single product.
3. Ideas can't be "owned" and hence can't be "stolen". They are ethereal, replicable, and not sharply defined. It is impossible to delineate the limits to an idea, and thus any ownership thereof. (Patent and copyright law try to do this--and this is one reason they so frequently lead to absurd situations.)
I firmly believe in attribution and having a proper sense of history. But I am sick of people acting as if "stealing" an idea is bad thing. When it comes to ideas, we should be encouraging their wild proliferation, and encouraging everyone to use the best among them.
Well, Firefox is open-source, but manages to adhere (pretty well) to the standards set for HTML, Javascript, etc.
OpenOffice is open-source, but manages to adhere to a farily well-defined guideline for file formats (ODF).
There are plenty of other examples of open-source projects sticking to well-defined standards and guidelines. I understand your concern; there is no guarantee that incompatible forking won't happen. But, there is at least precedent for open-source communities working together to maintain cohesive standards. In fact, having competing open-source implementations (e.g. Gecko vs. Webkit) can go a long way to making sure that everyone uses the same standard (because they want to interoperate).
users copying content from Wikipedia to Knol, where it can be verified by credentialed users and protected against vandalism.
But why is copying the content to another site even needed? Wikipedia maintains an edit history, and you can link specifically to previous versions of an article. So, you just have a third-party site that maintains a database of "trusted people" and "wikipedia entries" and "trust relations" between those two sets.
The third-party site doesn't need to host any Wikipedia content at all. It just does the work of vetting people and maintaining the database. You then search on this site for some content, and it gives you a link to the version of the Wikipedia article that was vetted and signed as being trustworthy.
If the expert needs to fix the article before vetting it, he can make those changes to the Wikipedia version, and then sign-off on that version. Basically, I don't see the need to create a Wikipedia fork in order to get the advantages of "expert vetting." Keep everything combined on Wikipedia, rather than duplicating effort.
Indeed.
Actually I wonder if this is just an extension of the RIAA's legal tactics to the lawyers themselves. Previously, they would sue people in order to intimidate them into settling and/or not file-sharing. Now, they are applying the same logic to lawyers: suing lawyers with the audacity to defend file-sharers, so as to intimidate other potential defense lawyers from even taking a file-sharing case.
As usual, even if the RIAA loses (or eventually drops the case), they "win" in the sense that they send the message that they are willing to make life hell for anyone who opposes them (including other lawyers).
Such a tactic from the RIAA is presumably illegal... but it's probably very difficult to prove in court that this is their intention.
But as with any system of resource sharing (especially bandwidth), some devices/users will simply ignore the rules to improve their own performance: flag every transmission as ultra-high-priority and so forth. You can't expect users, or even manufacturers, to "play fair." And I'm not convinced that regulation can force people to play fair. Unlike objective measures like antenna transmission power, things like "priority" are more open to interpretation (or misinterpretation, if you prefer). I suppose the same solution as for cell-phones could be applied: if you charge someone for every transmission, they are forced to conserve bandwidth.
I love technology... but when it comes to safety and emergency systems, it's usually best to use the lowest-tech solution possible: cheaper, easier to repair/maintain, more robust, more reliable, and better understood. I don't know if I want my emergency call negotiating interoperability with other devices to reach someone (since any such operation is error-prone). The simplest solution (e.g. full-power transmission on a reserved channel) is probably better in such a case.
According to Singer, video should become a buy once, play anywhere technology like CDs and DVDs. ... will define and build a new media framework
Ummm.... doesn't this already exist? I mean, if you want to release video in a format that will play anywhere, on any device... this is trivial. Just release it using a well-established video codec. Every laptop and OS and browser and media center and video iPod and mobile phone can then play the file.
Of course this would be by far the most consumer-friendly approach, and would satisfy the requirement of "play anywhere technology." But of course the subtext to the article, which isn't explicitly stated, is that they want a "play anywhere" format... but with DRM.
This is basically an oxymoron, though. Like a "drive anywhere" car, that is incidentally specifically designed to shut-off if you drive outside of a pre-approved range. Or a "cook anything" microwave oven that reads the barcodes off your instant-meals, and incidentally won't turn on if unrecognized things (like home-made food) are put inside.
This whole venture is doomed to fail. It will fail because for a truly "play anywhere" ecosystem, the DRM spec would have to be open and not costly (in which case, homebrewers and hackers alike will circumvent it within minutes). It will fail because big companies (like Apple) have no reason to help this idea. It will fail because the implementation will be complicated and error prone. It will fail because consumers will still notice the DRM, and have to overcome it frequently (thereby defeating the purpose).
You can't achieve "play anywhere" with DRM.
It's interesting that new technology is always held to a higher standard than established technology.
We trust trains even though someone could put some rubble on the tracks. We trust human drivers even though someone could shine a laser pointer into their eyes. We trust bikes even though someone could string up a tripwire. We trust buffet restaurants even though someone could put crushed glass into the food.
Newsflash: if someone wants to sabotage a piece of infrastructure, they'll find a way! Obviously autonomous driving vehicles need to be able to continue functioning despite normal interference (weather, traffic accidents, etc.), and even some forms of sabotage. But ultimately it will be possible for someone to mess with the system. Just as it is with everything else.
Tossing a bag of magnetic marbles in front of robo-busses is no different than dropping bricks on cars from an overpass: the main deterrent is that most people are not sadistic assholes trying to kill other people.
Are they anticipating researchers waking up at 1am and thinking "hey, I want to run one more experiment from home before I go to bed..."?
I know you were trying to joke... but the answer is probably "yes."
I've never worked at CERN, but it may be similar to large-scale science user facilities (e.g. x-ray synchrotrons) that I have worked at. Specifically, you want to be able to control the instruments remotely for a variety of reasons. Part of it is safety (in order to minimize time spent near radiation sources and industrial equipment). Part of it is convenience (to check on the status before driving all the way to the actual facility). Part of it is for collaboration (allowing an instrument scientist to log into the machine and change a setting for you, show you how to do something, etc.).
At many facilities, you can change samples, alter instrument settings, re-align, etc.; all without actually going to the facility. Scientists doing those kinds of experiments do indeed appreciate the ability to log into the machine at 1am and check on the status.
There are of course safeguards in place (e.g. hardware safety triggers that cannot be remotely over-ridden)... but it is sometimes possible to break something with remote commands. Now, most of the facilities that work like this are running samples, and need remote manipulation to switch samples and re-align and so forth. LHC doesn't have the same set of requirements... but there are indeed a variety of legitimate reasons why a scientist might need to remotely log into the system and change some settings.
Large facilities are designed to "do science" 24/7. Remote control is one thing that helps scientists maximize the usefulness of equipment. (Such as waking up at 1 am, checking on an experiment you started before leaving work, realizing the data is no good, fixing a few parameters, and running a new more useful experiment.)
Yet the article points out that the purpose of the gurus is NOT to hand-hold with respect to fixing problems, or even selecting the most appropriate product. Rather, it is to convince the customer to buy a Vista computer. This isn't a "softer" approach: it is another avenue for them to continue their usual (monopolistic?) tactics.
I worry about this because most in-store customers will assume that the "gurus" are providing sound technical advice, but instead they are just trying to get them to buy something. The same could be said of the other store employees, I suppose; but in this case instead of steering the customer towards buying *something*, they will invariably steer the customer towards Vista. Regardless of whether or not it is the right choice for them.
I can see this causing headaches for the stores as well. When a customer seeks out an employee for help, they are typically not aware of the distinction between different departments. Customers may become frustrated when they ask a "guru" for help but said employee can't help them ("I'm looking for a new washer/dryer." "Have you considered this Windows Vista Home Media Center desktop computer?" "WTF?")
Like many creative types, their creation is almost like a one of their children.
And just like with children, if you attempt to enact perfect control, you will stifle and destroy that which you love.
Ultimately, every parent has to learn to let their child grown up, and find their own way in the world (the alternative produces hopelessly needy and/or bitter children). Similarly, every artist has to learn to let their art be distributed, and be built-upon by others (the alternative produces hopelessly sterile art and/or a restriction on cultural freedom).
(To take the analogy further: I'm not advocating a complete lack of parenting; nor am I advocating that artists retain no control over their art. But in both cases, they must eventually "let go.")
Indeed. They should take advantage of the open-source textbooks that already exist... either by simply selecting one for their purposes, or putting together the best pieces from various sources into a coherent textbook that serves their purposes. Here are the open-source textbook (or related information) sites I'm aware of:
Pointers to Textbooks and Content:
http://textbookrevolution.org/
http://www.opentextbook.org/
http://www.theassayer.org/
http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/
http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu/
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Books
Some available lecture notes:
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/theorist.html#languages
http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/
I thought that the critics of this project were worried about the effects of COLLIDING the particles. Since that hasn't happened yet, this story is a whole lotta nuthin'.
Huh? You do realize that the purpose of building and turning on the LHC isn't to silence black-hole-apocalypse believers, right? The purpose of the LHC is to do new science. Successful containment and acceleration of the beams is an important milestone for this project. That's why this is news.
Presumably you will still think this story is "a whole lotta nuthin'" once collisions do happen, because those collisions will be at energies already probed by other accelerators. And even once LHC ramps up to full power, it will still be "a whole lotta nuthin'" because those energies already occur in nature (e.g. cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere).
I think it would be more accurate to say that the worries about black-hole-apocalypse are "a whole lotta nuthin'" whereas a successful activation of the LHC is amazing news for anyone interested in science.
Why is Gecko worth keeping if it is outdated and bloated?
You've begged the question, there. The fact is that Gecko isn't outdated and bloated. Mozilla has kept the code up-to-date. They've improved rendering and javascript performance remarkably in recent Firefox releases.
Personally, I'd rather see alternatives being independently developed and improved; all the while competing with each other for mindshare and technical superiority. The alternative, of relying on a single rendering engine for all browsers, is a bad idea. History has taught us it will lead to stagnation and quirky (rather than standards-compliant) rendering.
Considering alternative, ad-based, free online video sites such as Hulu, is Amazon's service too pricey?
It's not just price that matters. This new service is for "Mac or PC", and the expiration means that it will be DRMed. This means it won't run on my Linux system. Hulu is far from perfect, but it runs just fine on Linux, so it's what I use to catch up on the occasional show.
Of course, most of the population doesn't care about Linux per se. However I've learned over time that "will it work on Linux?" is a good proxy-question for "will it be easy to get it working?" If it doesn't run on Linux, then it invariably means that on Windows it's going to require a custom download, non-generic codecs, DRM, etc. So basically it's going to be a pain for just about everyone.
At the end of the day, something like Hulu (where a friend can just send you a link for a show; where you can just open it up in a browser; etc.) is more easily accessible and thus preferable (in my opinion).
(Note: I fully agree that the video quality of something like Hulu isn't that great... but that's orthogonal to the accessibility question. A direct download of a generic video file is by far easier for everyone than a DRMed file and a custom playing app.)
if you show that you're interested in taking money for the domain name, they will then use that as an argument during legal proceedings that you're a domain name squatter.
I'm no lawyer, but that sounds like a pretty flimsy legal argument. (Which doesn't mean someone won't try and use it in court--but I just doubt it would stand up.)
Lots of people have sold domain names in the past, and even advertised them for sale. People even buy domain names speculatively and sell them later. All of this is legal and not "squatting". The nasty stuff is typo-squatting, or otherwise intentionally confusing consumers. Sitting on a domain name that most people would assume points to a particular company can sometimes fall into this category.
In this case, the submitter indicated that the domain name is his last-name. That sounds like a pretty solid defense in any court against the squatting argument. In terms of any squatting or trademark dispute, his claim (last name) is equally valid to the company's claim (company name).
My inclination would be to just come up with a fair price, and then tell them that you are actively using the domain, but would be willing to sell it to them for $X. Either they accept or they don't. I doubt this is an attempt to trick him. (Then again, maybe I'm a naive glass-half-full kind of person.)
It's not just that a 14-year old might have an advantage (hence cheating). It is also the fact that such a young person (who, let's face it, can't really make his/her own decisions) is being put in this situation of stress and hardship.
Frankly I think even 16 is too young to allow them to compete at this level, because it invariably means that they were coerced into training at a much younger age. It hardly seems like an informed choice for such young persons to be enrolled in this kind of training by their parents/guardians.
My point is that the minimum age requirements are there not just for fairness, but also (I would hope) help establish some bound of decency with respect to the stresses being put on children. Breaking the rule is not just cheating; it is being dangerously irresponsible with one's young.
I think it's actually interesting to note that this trend of altering photographs actually has deeper roots.
Think about portrait paintings that were all the rage for many hundreds of years before cameras were invented. The portraits were not usually exact recreations of what the painter saw. Usually, the subject was altered slightly to make them look 'better' (more conforming to the beauty ideals of the time period). The person was usually given clothes, jewelery, and surroundings that were prettier than reality (possibly more extravagant than they could really afford). These portraits were not really meant to capture reality: they were meant as a statement (usually "look how important I am", but perhaps also "this is what's meaningful/important to us").
Old photographs were mostly "staged" (especially really old ones where people had to hold still for them), so it's not like they were faithful reflections of reality, either.
Digitally altered images are similar. People are altering the photos to capture something. Not reality. But rather a statement they want to make, like "look how much fun that day was" or "look how beautiful I am" or "look how much I love you" or whatever.
I'm not going to pass a value judgment on whether this trend is "good" or "bad". Rather I will note a few things:
1. As computer power increases, automated "adjustment" of photos is likely to become more common. (Everything from relatively benign red-eye-removal and HDR tweaking, to more drastic things like automatically making people look prettier.)
2. It may be that only for a thin slice of history were the majority of photos "real"--in the time period where photography was fast and cheap enough to snap "candid shots" but before photo-manipulation was fast and cheap enough to alter them.
3. Despite all this modification, I'm sure plenty of "real" photos will remain--journalists, historians, and even normal folk will still be inclined to archive unmodified pictures. Especially with storage costs dropping, keeping the raw image files (before manipulation) will likely continue. In fact I would hope that future image formats would maintain an internal undo history, where the original photo-data remains.