The N900 is -far- superior to the HTC Dream. Lets see here, the HTC Dream ships with 192 MB of RAM, the N900 ships with 256 MB of RAM. The HTC Dream ships with 256 MB of Flash and a MicroSD expansion, the N900 ships with 32 GB of Flash and a MicroSD expansion, The HTC Dream has a screen resolution of 480×320, the N900 has a resolution of 800×480. The HTC Dream uses a 3.2 megapixel camera while the N900 uses a 5.0 megapixel camera. The HTC Dream is without a doubt inferior to the N900.
Got to love dicks with mod points. 5 posts of mine modded troll (including this one which even the/. reader with a low IQ can tell its not a troll) for no reason. Quite sad that someone would want to censor someone so badly that they would mod down all posts by them.
So lets see here, I'm supposed to believe some random person on the internet because of A) Sci-Fi films, B) "facts" that contradict reputable sources such as the United Nations and C) ideas that don't make much sense. Lets see here, we have technology that allows us to grow more crops in a single area than ever before, technology that lets us grow more crops with less effort (we have less humans employed as farmers than before yet have more crops than before) and technology that will let us grow crops in places that could never have had crops planted before. We similarly have lots of habitable space, more than ever before. Someone could live in the middle of the desert, yet still have food, a habitable place to live and water.
So in the end, we have more food than we know what to do with, technology enabling us if there was some kind of food shortage to grow our own food in our basements if need be, no shortage of space, etc. Seriously, part of science fiction is... fiction. If it was true, well perhaps I should start carving Ego in big letters in rocks in case humanity forgets about individuality and the word I (for those not in the know this is a reference to Ayn Rand's book Anthem). But really take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_growth_rate_world.PNG -large- portions of the world have a negative birth rate. So with no science to back up your claims, other than a few science fiction movies, why should I believe you?
Well of course, we know that above all things nature simply survives. But we can't know for certain whether they are "important" for it to survive on its own. Especially with the ever-changing nature of the world. If a predator dies will another predictor eaten by the other predator move in? Will the prey multiply like crazy? Its these things that will make the PageRank algorithm useless in biology.
Please tell how you think we are currently becoming overpopulated? For one we have enough food to feed -everyone- the problem is corrupt government and lack of education that causes hunger in third-world countries. In first world countries its quite easy to get food and shelter so no one should ever die of hunger. Yeah, you won't be eating steak and shrimp every night, but you aren't going to starve to death. Take a drive to North Dakota sometime if you don't think we have enough space. If you read the UN's projections for birth rates (http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2006/WPP2006_Highlights_rev.pdf) it shows a -sharp- decline in birth rates for most of the developed world. And in general a "bubble" of population increase then a decrease (because there is a large amount of old people who are going to die). Even a doubling in human population isn't really a huge deal with increasing technology leading to increased crop yields and the ability to farm previously unfarmable areas. And we have way more than enough space.
You mean browser based MMOs like Runescape or Kingdom of Loathing? Or all the social-networking MMOs? Or what about kids games with MMO-like themes like Neopets or other virtual pet sites or Adventure Quest All you are really limited by is A) Connection speed and B) Graphics. However its -far- more convenient for your users. For one is the ability to play it on almost any computer, from a netbook to a Core i7, to your old Pentium III stored in your basement. Its also OS independent, if you stick to Flash, Java, server-side code and Javascript. Another is portability, its unfeasible to install WoW on a library computer or a locked-down internet cafe computer, but most computers have Flash, a browser and Java and so you could play a browser-based MMO quite easily.
In PageRank, a web page is important if important pages point to it. In our approach, a species is important if it points to important species.'"
The difference is, its pretty obvious to a human if a page is important. On the other hand there are a lot of species that we don't know if they are important or not. So how do we know what the "important" species are? Other than humans, we don't know of any real "important" species. Could the ecosystem survive without X? Theres no way we can really know that.
We are humans. Really humans are the only species that in the end matter. So long as we have enough food and oxygen, all is good and the survival of our species is guaranteed (assuming no effects of huge disasters such as an asteroid impact, etc.)
The problem is we have a society that thinks that every subject needs to be taught. To be perfectly honest, there are probably lots of classes we took in high school that have little to no benefit. Some students figure out that the class will have no benefit to them and as such do bad in that class. On the other hand they might be great at another subject. I know some really great authors who are terrible at mathematics, it doesn't affect their writing much, similarly I know some really great mathematicians with terrible English skills, yet they still accomplish great things.
You are forgetting one big thing, the internet. When a kid learns how to read and use the computer, any question can be answered. Same thing with parents. To be perfectly honest, other than reading (socializing can be done online too) most students won't need much more than a computer and a net connection. Especially 3-5 years down the line.
Why, pray tell, would a publisher pay good money to extend a copyright if they have no intention of releasing the works in some form of per-profit publication? The only reason I could see is to maintain an artificial rarity, which is a valid gripe, but maybe a copyright could be automatically terminated early if the product is not available for sale (orphan works are automatically considered "abandoned property" and become public domain after a year or two of non-publication, for example?).
So no one else can use them or for legal purposes. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fantastic_Four_(film)) Others are simply not sold in one country but may be widely distributed in other countries (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_south#Releases_and_availability). Look at video games for other examples, even though the game itself wasn't distributed at the time, they would sit on the copyright to release it on other times. For example, the original NES version of The Legend of Zelda was only re-released in 2003 after being unavailable for many years (due to the discontinuation of the NES).
Renew is not the same as keep. I was meaning that you could not keep renewing after the artist's death. So in your case, they would still have copyright for however long a renewal lasts then it passes into the public domain. Considering that the sales of most things are highest in the first few years (though sometimes it does take a book a bit longer, but it depends on the situation) I don't see how his family would be negativity effected if they could keep copyright for a few years.
I think the problems are twofold, on one hand you have things being simpler, that is to use a computer almost anyone with a few hours to kill can pick up a keyboard and mouse and at least sorta figure it out. 30 years ago though, you needed to attend a class or read a book to figure out how to use a computer. On the other hand you have tech support being nationally done with large retailers (such as Geek Squad in Best Buy) this leads to the people who people "trust" giving them answers that please them and their company's bottom line. For example ask them why you can't do something with DRM and they would say it simply isn't possible, however, they might be willing to sell you some "authorized" equipment to do the job. So when the only information they are seeing is the "its not possible" from "tech support" and the "its not possible" when they ignore them and try to do it themselves with little knowledge, they assume that its just a feature not added in rather than a feature intentionally removed and that the system is truly defective by design.
No, what really needs to happen is: A) You have a 5 year period of no formalities, however it is very limited in what you can peruse legal damages for. B) You can register your copyright and get it for 10 years plus less limited legal damages if you sue because now everyone can know that it is under copyright, C) You can renew your copyright for a maximum of 30 years, or until the author's death, whichever comes first.
b) between years 10-15 (term + 5 year grace period), and author with sufficient interest in maintaining the copyright should have to i) register the copyright, and ii) pay some less than nominal fee. The copyright will continue for an additional 30 years (a total of 40 years).
This "less than nominal fee" will be the next version of the RIAA/MPAA, here, waive all your rights to it and we will keep renewing your copyright because you can't afford it! Plus 30 years is too long, especially in the age of digital copies, lets see here, 30 years ago was 1979, assuming your hardware still works, most data will need to be painstakingly recovered using hard-to-find/expensive equipment, the data will then need to be read and then most certainly will need to have an emulator written in order to run the programs.
c) thereafter, the author pays an increasing amount for each additional 30 year period.
Again, it leads to new forms of the RIAA/MPAA in the future in order to pay for these.
1. everyone gets a copyright in their works without any formalities.
This is not necessarily a good thing. This leads to traps where someone might have came up with something, put it on the internet, you never read it but you make something similar and they accuse you of plagiarism.
2. If it is economically viable after 10 years, they can pay a nominal amount and register it (no more orphan works).
The same thing will happen, just with a large publisher with a huge sum of cash. The copyright never falls into the public domain, the artists get screwed and orphan works (as in works that are never released but still have copyright on them) still happen.
3. It will last for most every author's lifetime and then some.
Again, how is this a benefit? Look at Shakespeare's works, most of them were adapted from works that would still be under copyright if your system had been in place when he was alive. It is a natural part of art to borrow and adapt.
4. It puts works that an author no longer considers valuable into the public domain in relatively short order.
Which in general it won't. While the every day chatter of the internet would go into the public domain, if an artist doesn't think something is worthwhile they won't publish it. If it isn't published it isn't copyrighted, even after their deaths if someone takes it and publishes it they still have the copyright from when they publish it.
The problem isn't that it is private it is the fact that the private companies are totally screwing stuff up. Between incorrect calculations, "anti-virus software" messing things up, and other random stuff, e-voting is proven a bad idea.
The easy way to hire tech people and keep them happy is have them work on, wait for it... technology. That is, most of them, unless they signed up for help desk basically want to be given a problem, some hardware, some software and then them to fix the problem. Thats it, no "team building", no pointless meetings, in general most tech people are happy simply working. The less social interaction with most people is the best.
This is Slashdot, not the mainstream media. When we say hacker, we usually mean someone like Richard Stallman or Eric S. Raymond, that is people who are naturally talented at writing code. A hack is an interesting way of using something, such as using CPU fans to cool a cooler. Just because the mainstream media misuses tech words, does not mean that it is really correct. It would be like saying that RNA is simply half a strand of DNA, even though it might give the general picture to people without basic knowledge about biology and genetics, that doesn't mean that its not incorrect.
Exactly, I mean, if something was set in the "real world" or the close future, ads in the form of products would be good. The problem is they seem to want to give the ads some god-like quality that they can't be touched, destroyed or anything. I mean, if I could use the gravity gun to propel a can of Coca Cola at a high velocity to kill a headcrab, that would be pretty sweet (using a setting set around 2009 or so of course)
The thing about Debian is that its not -meant- for use in enterprise. Its more of a general purpose distro. Yes, your pretty much going to get the same level of reliability if you chose RHEL or Debian stable, but you have to remember that Red Hat has a lot more -paid- people to do all the "boring" tasks that Debian has to rely on volunteers for, so enterprise features are generally first to go into a Red Hat distro.
Well that is because that is what the Cell was really designed to do, and that is number crunching. Games are just similar enough to that to make good results. When you optimize stuff for the Cell it is fast. The problem is the Cell is a total pain to program for and in general things that work great for the Cell turn out terrible for every other platform and vice versa.
Sure, but most applications are made to use the RAM as little more than a fast storage device. So the more RAM the better. Yes, when programmed for XDR you can have some amazing results, but most programs simply aren't and therefore need lots of slow RAM because they are programed for capacity and not for speed.
Well, if you do anything enough you will start to dream about it. How many of us have had dreams about work or school? Tetris is even more repetitive so chances are you would dream more about that.
Well of course they will have stronger immune systems, but will they get sick as much? Its kind of comparing someone active with strong bones compared to someone inactive with weaker bones. If the most activity you do is go up and down stairs, your risk of breaking a leg is probably less than someone who is into extreme sports, even if the person is healthier and has stronger bones than the person who does little activity.
And then you had a media who acted like it was the end of the world and caused some people to stop paying their mortgage. Seriously. I have a friend who is a banker and said that after all the media stories people who were never late on a payment just stopped paying. When they called them to ask why they haven't made a payment they responded by saying "Well my house is going to be foreclosed anyways..." they were shocked to learn that if they paid their loans like they have been paying they could continue living normally.
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The N900 is -far- superior to the HTC Dream. Lets see here, the HTC Dream ships with 192 MB of RAM, the N900 ships with 256 MB of RAM. The HTC Dream ships with 256 MB of Flash and a MicroSD expansion, the N900 ships with 32 GB of Flash and a MicroSD expansion, The HTC Dream has a screen resolution of 480×320, the N900 has a resolution of 800×480. The HTC Dream uses a 3.2 megapixel camera while the N900 uses a 5.0 megapixel camera. The HTC Dream is without a doubt inferior to the N900.
Got to love dicks with mod points. 5 posts of mine modded troll (including this one which even the /. reader with a low IQ can tell its not a troll) for no reason. Quite sad that someone would want to censor someone so badly that they would mod down all posts by them.
So lets see here, I'm supposed to believe some random person on the internet because of A) Sci-Fi films, B) "facts" that contradict reputable sources such as the United Nations and C) ideas that don't make much sense. Lets see here, we have technology that allows us to grow more crops in a single area than ever before, technology that lets us grow more crops with less effort (we have less humans employed as farmers than before yet have more crops than before) and technology that will let us grow crops in places that could never have had crops planted before. We similarly have lots of habitable space, more than ever before. Someone could live in the middle of the desert, yet still have food, a habitable place to live and water.
So in the end, we have more food than we know what to do with, technology enabling us if there was some kind of food shortage to grow our own food in our basements if need be, no shortage of space, etc. Seriously, part of science fiction is... fiction. If it was true, well perhaps I should start carving Ego in big letters in rocks in case humanity forgets about individuality and the word I (for those not in the know this is a reference to Ayn Rand's book Anthem). But really take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_growth_rate_world.PNG -large- portions of the world have a negative birth rate. So with no science to back up your claims, other than a few science fiction movies, why should I believe you?
Sure, but its still "News for Nerds" (perhaps not "stuff that matters"). It involves A) MMORPGs and B) Star Wars, both of which nerds tend to like.
Well of course, we know that above all things nature simply survives. But we can't know for certain whether they are "important" for it to survive on its own. Especially with the ever-changing nature of the world. If a predator dies will another predictor eaten by the other predator move in? Will the prey multiply like crazy? Its these things that will make the PageRank algorithm useless in biology.
Please tell how you think we are currently becoming overpopulated? For one we have enough food to feed -everyone- the problem is corrupt government and lack of education that causes hunger in third-world countries. In first world countries its quite easy to get food and shelter so no one should ever die of hunger. Yeah, you won't be eating steak and shrimp every night, but you aren't going to starve to death. Take a drive to North Dakota sometime if you don't think we have enough space. If you read the UN's projections for birth rates (http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2006/WPP2006_Highlights_rev.pdf) it shows a -sharp- decline in birth rates for most of the developed world. And in general a "bubble" of population increase then a decrease (because there is a large amount of old people who are going to die). Even a doubling in human population isn't really a huge deal with increasing technology leading to increased crop yields and the ability to farm previously unfarmable areas. And we have way more than enough space.
You mean browser based MMOs like Runescape or Kingdom of Loathing? Or all the social-networking MMOs? Or what about kids games with MMO-like themes like Neopets or other virtual pet sites or Adventure Quest All you are really limited by is A) Connection speed and B) Graphics. However its -far- more convenient for your users. For one is the ability to play it on almost any computer, from a netbook to a Core i7, to your old Pentium III stored in your basement. Its also OS independent, if you stick to Flash, Java, server-side code and Javascript. Another is portability, its unfeasible to install WoW on a library computer or a locked-down internet cafe computer, but most computers have Flash, a browser and Java and so you could play a browser-based MMO quite easily.
In PageRank, a web page is important if important pages point to it. In our approach, a species is important if it points to important species.'"
The difference is, its pretty obvious to a human if a page is important. On the other hand there are a lot of species that we don't know if they are important or not. So how do we know what the "important" species are? Other than humans, we don't know of any real "important" species. Could the ecosystem survive without X? Theres no way we can really know that.
We are humans. Really humans are the only species that in the end matter. So long as we have enough food and oxygen, all is good and the survival of our species is guaranteed (assuming no effects of huge disasters such as an asteroid impact, etc.)
The problem is we have a society that thinks that every subject needs to be taught. To be perfectly honest, there are probably lots of classes we took in high school that have little to no benefit. Some students figure out that the class will have no benefit to them and as such do bad in that class. On the other hand they might be great at another subject. I know some really great authors who are terrible at mathematics, it doesn't affect their writing much, similarly I know some really great mathematicians with terrible English skills, yet they still accomplish great things.
You are forgetting one big thing, the internet. When a kid learns how to read and use the computer, any question can be answered. Same thing with parents. To be perfectly honest, other than reading (socializing can be done online too) most students won't need much more than a computer and a net connection. Especially 3-5 years down the line.
Why, pray tell, would a publisher pay good money to extend a copyright if they have no intention of releasing the works in some form of per-profit publication? The only reason I could see is to maintain an artificial rarity, which is a valid gripe, but maybe a copyright could be automatically terminated early if the product is not available for sale (orphan works are automatically considered "abandoned property" and become public domain after a year or two of non-publication, for example?).
So no one else can use them or for legal purposes. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fantastic_Four_(film)) Others are simply not sold in one country but may be widely distributed in other countries (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_south#Releases_and_availability). Look at video games for other examples, even though the game itself wasn't distributed at the time, they would sit on the copyright to release it on other times. For example, the original NES version of The Legend of Zelda was only re-released in 2003 after being unavailable for many years (due to the discontinuation of the NES).
Renew is not the same as keep. I was meaning that you could not keep renewing after the artist's death. So in your case, they would still have copyright for however long a renewal lasts then it passes into the public domain. Considering that the sales of most things are highest in the first few years (though sometimes it does take a book a bit longer, but it depends on the situation) I don't see how his family would be negativity effected if they could keep copyright for a few years.
I think the problems are twofold, on one hand you have things being simpler, that is to use a computer almost anyone with a few hours to kill can pick up a keyboard and mouse and at least sorta figure it out. 30 years ago though, you needed to attend a class or read a book to figure out how to use a computer. On the other hand you have tech support being nationally done with large retailers (such as Geek Squad in Best Buy) this leads to the people who people "trust" giving them answers that please them and their company's bottom line. For example ask them why you can't do something with DRM and they would say it simply isn't possible, however, they might be willing to sell you some "authorized" equipment to do the job. So when the only information they are seeing is the "its not possible" from "tech support" and the "its not possible" when they ignore them and try to do it themselves with little knowledge, they assume that its just a feature not added in rather than a feature intentionally removed and that the system is truly defective by design.
b) between years 10-15 (term + 5 year grace period), and author with sufficient interest in maintaining the copyright should have to i) register the copyright, and ii) pay some less than nominal fee. The copyright will continue for an additional 30 years (a total of 40 years).
This "less than nominal fee" will be the next version of the RIAA/MPAA, here, waive all your rights to it and we will keep renewing your copyright because you can't afford it! Plus 30 years is too long, especially in the age of digital copies, lets see here, 30 years ago was 1979, assuming your hardware still works, most data will need to be painstakingly recovered using hard-to-find/expensive equipment, the data will then need to be read and then most certainly will need to have an emulator written in order to run the programs.
c) thereafter, the author pays an increasing amount for each additional 30 year period.
Again, it leads to new forms of the RIAA/MPAA in the future in order to pay for these.
1. everyone gets a copyright in their works without any formalities.
This is not necessarily a good thing. This leads to traps where someone might have came up with something, put it on the internet, you never read it but you make something similar and they accuse you of plagiarism.
2. If it is economically viable after 10 years, they can pay a nominal amount and register it (no more orphan works).
The same thing will happen, just with a large publisher with a huge sum of cash. The copyright never falls into the public domain, the artists get screwed and orphan works (as in works that are never released but still have copyright on them) still happen.
3. It will last for most every author's lifetime and then some.
Again, how is this a benefit? Look at Shakespeare's works, most of them were adapted from works that would still be under copyright if your system had been in place when he was alive. It is a natural part of art to borrow and adapt.
4. It puts works that an author no longer considers valuable into the public domain in relatively short order.
Which in general it won't. While the every day chatter of the internet would go into the public domain, if an artist doesn't think something is worthwhile they won't publish it. If it isn't published it isn't copyrighted, even after their deaths if someone takes it and publishes it they still have the copyright from when they publish it.
The problem isn't that it is private it is the fact that the private companies are totally screwing stuff up. Between incorrect calculations, "anti-virus software" messing things up, and other random stuff, e-voting is proven a bad idea.
The easy way to hire tech people and keep them happy is have them work on, wait for it... technology. That is, most of them, unless they signed up for help desk basically want to be given a problem, some hardware, some software and then them to fix the problem. Thats it, no "team building", no pointless meetings, in general most tech people are happy simply working. The less social interaction with most people is the best.
This is Slashdot, not the mainstream media. When we say hacker, we usually mean someone like Richard Stallman or Eric S. Raymond, that is people who are naturally talented at writing code. A hack is an interesting way of using something, such as using CPU fans to cool a cooler. Just because the mainstream media misuses tech words, does not mean that it is really correct. It would be like saying that RNA is simply half a strand of DNA, even though it might give the general picture to people without basic knowledge about biology and genetics, that doesn't mean that its not incorrect.
Exactly, I mean, if something was set in the "real world" or the close future, ads in the form of products would be good. The problem is they seem to want to give the ads some god-like quality that they can't be touched, destroyed or anything. I mean, if I could use the gravity gun to propel a can of Coca Cola at a high velocity to kill a headcrab, that would be pretty sweet (using a setting set around 2009 or so of course)
The thing about Debian is that its not -meant- for use in enterprise. Its more of a general purpose distro. Yes, your pretty much going to get the same level of reliability if you chose RHEL or Debian stable, but you have to remember that Red Hat has a lot more -paid- people to do all the "boring" tasks that Debian has to rely on volunteers for, so enterprise features are generally first to go into a Red Hat distro.
Well that is because that is what the Cell was really designed to do, and that is number crunching. Games are just similar enough to that to make good results. When you optimize stuff for the Cell it is fast. The problem is the Cell is a total pain to program for and in general things that work great for the Cell turn out terrible for every other platform and vice versa.
Sure, but most applications are made to use the RAM as little more than a fast storage device. So the more RAM the better. Yes, when programmed for XDR you can have some amazing results, but most programs simply aren't and therefore need lots of slow RAM because they are programed for capacity and not for speed.
Well, if you do anything enough you will start to dream about it. How many of us have had dreams about work or school? Tetris is even more repetitive so chances are you would dream more about that.
Well of course they will have stronger immune systems, but will they get sick as much? Its kind of comparing someone active with strong bones compared to someone inactive with weaker bones. If the most activity you do is go up and down stairs, your risk of breaking a leg is probably less than someone who is into extreme sports, even if the person is healthier and has stronger bones than the person who does little activity.
And then you had a media who acted like it was the end of the world and caused some people to stop paying their mortgage. Seriously. I have a friend who is a banker and said that after all the media stories people who were never late on a payment just stopped paying. When they called them to ask why they haven't made a payment they responded by saying "Well my house is going to be foreclosed anyways..." they were shocked to learn that if they paid their loans like they have been paying they could continue living normally.