Nope. It's not entirely necessary to have a brick-and-mortar presence somewhere for a suit to be filed--though it does help very much. Case in point: Kaazaa and the State of California. Californian courts are looking to sue Kaazaa for some reason (I forget what reason precisely, but it has to do with distributing their program), and since quite a few Californians use Kaazaa, it can be argued that Kaazaa the business has substantial contact with California. Emphasis on substantial contact.
IANAL, etc, etc. It was here on./ a few days ago, if memory serves me correctly. Who knows how it will play out.
I thought Tom Bombadil was one of the more colorful characaters in the book. While, perhaps his incessant singing was annoying to some, I don't think he was there without a puropse. He was a metaphor (at least to me) of all of the wonderful things of life--being carefree, and being the master of yourself. He was the embodiment of the spirit of nature: old and wise, yet young and fragile.
I think Tolkien wanted to say something with the voice of Bombadil, but as all metaphors, it's open to interpretation.
At the very least, it was an opportunity for us to get to know the hobbits better. That said, I can see why he was left out of the movie. He added very little to the storyline, took much time, and most movie goers would be confused by him.
On the other hand, I can't see how Treebeard and the Ents could be left out of the movie, and would be disappointed if they don't play a major part. I thought the March of the Ents was a fabulous part of the story, and felt like I was there, amongst their great trumpeting and marching song. Perhaps, I don't want that part to be played in the movie, because it might spoil my imaginaton. At any rate, it would be sorely missed.
I think you would be really suprised at the current offerings from Redhat, Mandrakesoft, and the like. If you have fairly common hardware, it's a no brainer. Partitioning is a breeze, the installers do all the hard work for you, hold your hand, but let you change things if you like. I'd say that damn near every AC'97 audio chipset is supported, and if you have a nVidia graphics card, it's setup the right way too (can't say about ATI, because I don't have one to test). You only have to choose what video modes you want to run in, and that's about the extent of it. If there's a current module for your NIC, it's loaded, and DHCP is run automagically. It can't get any easier.
Choose your passwords, and hop into the shiny world of KDE (seems to be the default), and you would have a hard time looking back.
Being a old-hand at this game, it's a breath of fresh air--from the days when tweaking your XFree86config was known as a "black art".
I'd venture that it's even easier than windows installation (if it works right, and I haven't happened upon a setup that worked badly), because you don't have to enter a blasted key-code.
I gotta agree, trueSpace has been a great tool for me throught the years (been using it since 1.0). I can't say personally that I have had really great success in making anything especially shiny with it, but it has helped with some projects, and was a fun diversion for a student.
As for non-photorealistic, I'd have to argue that some of their contest submissions are quite impressive, and have definitely improved within the recent years. Some of the contestees are really quite talented, and will undoubtedly be working on films for some company in the near future...
Too bad it's not on the mac platform so the person in question could mess with it some...
Actually, Rhino's new renderer, Flamingo is pretty darn good. It can do just about anything most other commercial renderers. I think it's an option, not part of Rhino3D. I had the chance to mess with the 2.0Betas, and it was indeed an exciting change to one of my favorite tools.
Yes, true. Don't think I did not consider that possibility. I took that into cosideration, and spoofed the MAC address on my laptop. Since I know my ISP does not monitor MAC address (besides their very loose DHCP database, and some router accounting) it was not that much of a threat. Even if that poor CEO's computer did have logging of windows services enabled, they weren't going to find my spoofed MAC on any network segements. The only trace would be a DHCP lease for a random MAC, and the date and time that lease was obtained, and possibly from which network segment it came from.
In all reality, I could have just as well used NetBIOS, and not even bothered to get an IP lease, except I was browsing the web at the same time.
It just was not that big of a risk, for a little bit of fun.
--Like any technically challenged CEO without a competent sysadmin would understand exactly what happened. Even if he did have a competent sysadmin, he's surely a neglegent one who would most likely BOFH him.
I can attest to the fun in the benevolent maleficence in messing with people's PCs. I took my home NAT box offline to do some work on it, and decided to hook up my laptop to raw ethernet over DSL in the meantime. I simply could not believe the ammount of computers that were wide open, with Admimistrator password left blank, and c:\ shared. Winders Messaging Service is also quite the source of entertainment.
Being the nice guy I am, I made up an instruction sheet detailing how to fix the problem, and printed it to whatever shared printers existed.
It's no wonder that 11 year olds are so able to DoS whatever they want. The truely scary thing is that one of the computers was property of my ISP.
No, it's a Teflon(tm) suit that nothing sticks to.
Anit-trust suits, also known as an "Intern Protection Device", or IPD for short, are most useful for "situations" in which you can't trust someone. It's well worth the extra cost for Teflon®, if you ask me.
As an addendum, since Mozilla decided to goof on me:
No mainstream computers are going to be any more or less compelled to use Solaris than they were before. My grandma dosen't use Linux for the same reason that any other casual computer user will likely never use anything besides Windows or MacOS. There is simply no benefit for them to do so (at the moment).
First of all, x86 Solaris has been around for a long while. Secondly, It's not designed to be a Desktop OS like Winders, or MaxOS. It's not even really targeted at x86 servers, though it works there just as well as other unix(-like) OSes. In fact, the only reason I can see using Solaris on x86 for a server at all would be scalability. If you design your web-app or whatever to run on Solaris x86, you can be fairly sure that it will run on a larger Sparc system with minimal fuss (especially if it's a Java app.) Most of the Solaris installations I have seen are used as embedded controllers of hardware; computers that are designed to do one specific thing over and over.
In addation to the Anon's tron book, there are blue and red ibooks here. I'm sure you could do the same with a green tint, if that's what makes you happy. I personally would not though. My reason for that is basically not to mess with it till my warranty runs out, then everything is fair game. As it is, I have to send my own iBook to get it's touch pad replaced. Had I modified my hardware, they probably would not replace it. It's kinda too bad that Apple hasn't made replacement skins, so one could decorate their computer to hearts content.. I know, that I for one, would really like a comoflauge iBook:) Either that or a nice paisly.
In all serriousness, I don't think Porche has reallly quite done it. They may have been aiming fot a PowerbookG4 look, but the dimensions just aren't there:
G4 specs From apple.com: Size and weight
Height: 1.0 inch (2.6 cm)
Width: 13.4 inches (34.1 cm)
Depth: 9.5 inches (24.1 cm)
Weight: 5.4 pounds (2.45 kg) with battery Titanium Case.
Porche book from cnet: 6.4 pounds 13.9 inches wide 10 inches deep and 1.2 inches thick. Case presumably made from magnesium alloy.
It's bigger, heavier, and just not as sexy, in my opinion. That said, it looks like enough, and also has some decent hardware. Might be better if it were fire engine red, though.
Hrm, thanks for the input. I was serriously considering putting one of these suckers together for just that purpose, having read others' success stories with them. Maybe a dedicated decoder would be the way to go afterall... Then again, a higher end Celeron or P3 in a socket 370 version of a mini-itx could surely handle just about any DivX?
Ack, it still might make a swell replacement for my aging NAT box. God knows it would be quiter.
Never did I say it would encode it in real time. Hell, that's a tough task for a CPU 4 times as powerful.. I did however say it would play Divx or whatever the hell... (MPEG4) nicely.
The PVR card could do it's own hardware compression, then batch convert to whatever codec later with the CPU.
Well, it's not my call to make, nor is it my situation. I would personally do things differently. That's that.
On the flip side, if my 70 year old grandmother can learn to effectively communicate over the 'net, anyone can figure out a PVR hooked to a TV. At the very least, I would hope they could. If, perchance things are that bad off, surely the personage in question could take a few minutes to show them. Maybe the case is that he dosen't want to bother?
And before anyone asks 'Why don't you just play directly from the HD?', I should point out that I have to share the TV gear in this house with the rest of the family so it's just easier to burn their stuff to disk and let them use the DVD player than to fight over access to the TiVo-clone."
Maybe you read a differnt submission than I did?
It would seem to me, using this setup that some learning would still have to be done on part of the end users. I would argue that it would be far easier to show grandma how to navigate a PVR than it would be to show her how to encode, write, and erase an SVCD to CDRW. Iv'e been there, my "untranible" father actually learned to burn his CDs. It was much, much more painful than sitting him down and showing him how to use his DirecTV receiver.
Nah, I get it quite fine, infact. The guy burns his shows onto CDRW, and after a few uses he has to shit-can them. If he were trying to archive them, he would use a more permanent method. In this person's instance, the CDRW is just a one time transport. Initially, an HTPC might cost a bit more, I'll give you that. However, if this person records enough discs (and having to trash more than a few CDRWs after using them several times indicates that he probably does), he will make up that initial cost in both materials, and time spent recording the damned discs, then erasing them. Not to mention that nearly every SVCD that I have had the misfortune to gander had very poor quality, even on a TV. Of course, his SVCDs may be just fine for him; that's nobody else's call but his.
Furthermore, what's to say that this fellow can't burn his favorite shows for archival/family/whatever in his codec of choice with an HTPC? If it were that important to him, he could still make an SVCD, to take to his friends' house, or anywhere else that had an SVCD compatible DVD player.
It's just another option... For a little more upfront cost, your entertainemnt is much more flexible. Funny how some people just don't get it, huh?
I agree. Why is there a need to have a DVD player at all? One could construct a near-silent(with a little more work, it could be inaudible) set-top PC with a Mini-ITX motherboard for very little cost. It varies, but Mini-ITX mobos have everthing from S-video, LAN, to firewire and USB2. Couple the above with a 800-1.0Ghz VIA C3 processor, a largish hard drive, and you have a cute little box that can play DIVXs, MPEGs, or whatever.
Heck, it also has a PCI slot, so you could make this little beast full-function; record, rip, play, burn CDs even. The only problem I see is that the VIA C3 is a bit short of FPU power, which would obviously make for slowish encoding. One would have to do the test with his own hardware and software to be sure it would work.
Re:ViewSonic's the way to go if gaming
on
LCD Round-up
·
· Score: 1
I think I would have to go with the Viewsonic VX800 if I were in the market for a killer LCD right now (or maybe a Samsung in the same range.) It has essentially all the same specs as the VA800 (25ms pixel times, etc.), but is a tad larger with 18" diagonal, and with DVI and analog inputs. It's a bit more expensive, at ~$825 retail, but that's not a large concern, if one is already spending $700.
DVI is the clincher for me. All the LCDs I have looked at just seem so much more crisp and vibrant when using DVI. Aside from the quality aspect, I figure that if you are already half way to having a real digital display, you might as well go the next step.
That's one nice chunk of hardware. But, did you happen to checkout the power consumption on that bad boy? 135W! That's a tremendous ammount of power for an LCD! IIRC, Viewsonic's 19" LCD eats about 50 watts, which was about on average for LCDs that size when I was researching my next purchase.
Heck.. My Viewsonic P220F 22" CRT is rated at 160W average, just 25 watts more than the IBM LCD.. Still, I would not mind at all, if one landed on my lap.
Not being an aerospace engineer, I would guess that they made use of the fuselage of the aircraft for some lift as well. In this picture it looks like the body is aerofoil shaped (from nose to stern). I doubt the performance envelope is anywhere close to that of a fighter aircraft, though.
Just about everyone experiences benefits from open-source products...
Yes, many businesses do experience savings due to OSS products. The point is: MS looses more revenue due to migration than it saves using OSS code. They don't like that. While I may have speculated what they might do to advert this, there is an abundance of evidence that supports that outcome.
While a PR-mass media campaign might help, the demographics that Microsoft and OSS targets are often quite different. If a bunch of geeks get on prime time TV and try to tell eveyone that MS is out for their souls, people's eyes will glass over faster than you can say/dev/null. Incidentally, that's where most of our argument will go. Perhaps if we use some big named stars in a "save the children" type broadcast, it might get into some of their heads. Thing is, the media companies have more to gain of they go with MS. I guess we will just have to cross that road when we come to it.
No, I understand that point all too clearly. If the media, hardware and software people team up to radically change the way things work, you will have four choices (as far as I can see). Number one: being a nice cooperative consumer of DRM enabled hardware, software and media. Number 2: using systems that have no DRM (older platforms, Chineese Dragon* chips, etc.) Number 3: be a cracker of DRM computers, and fraglantly ignore the law (DMCA, etc.) Number 4: do any of the above, and remain to be a strong critic of DRM, and make sure the people who matter know what you and the rest of the people like you feel about DRM.
*You want to buy silicon designed by a country that is probably most well known for ignoring the human rights of their enormous population? Sounds like bargining with the devil to me. They censor everything; what makes you think their chips won't have some nasty stuff in them as well? It's too early to say they do, but you must admit, the possibility is there. In any case, with this Palladium free computer you may be missing out on your media of choice. You'd better get used to Chineese Pop Culture:) On the other hand, pizza with Sesame Chicken, Lo Mein, and some cabbage might be pretty good!
I realize I paint an apocalyptic picture here. It might happen, and it might not. The thing is, there are people out there who want to see this scenario unfold (the faster the better.) On the other side of the coin, there are people who don't care (lets face it, some people have more to worry about besides computers and technology.)
While being outsiders, castaways and criminals may be ok for some of the Open Source community, the vast majority of people don't know anything outside of AOL, MSN, Internet Explorer, Brittney Spheres, etc. To them, Linux is not an option at the moment; perhaps that will start to change in the near future, perhaps not. If (when) DRM gains steam, these people will be a fulcrum for the crowbar that will pry many more into the grasps of Evil. *insert melodramatic music*
I agree whole-heartedly that DRM will piss the public off eventually. My worry is that it might get stuck under their noses while they look eastward, and they will have little recourse. If the computing public doesn't have a choice but to upgrade to a DRM enabled platform --because of various influences (media availability, wide passport acceptance, compatibility, etc.)-- then that's what they will do. Unless there is unilateral opposition against the new hardware/software, we are in trouble. We know that's not going to happen, though. People (Americans, especially) want the newest/biggest/fastest products--despite aesthetics, despite good reason, despite efficiency. It will take a very strong individual to convince them that the newest Windows incarnation, with the 5.9Ghz processor will be worse for them than what they already have. I'm not sure such a person exists.
Fair use is a big thing, no doubt. However, I think there are larger things at stake than Suzie Stevens from Middle Town, USA copying her new Boy Band of the Week® CD to her MP3 player.
It's not the business model I'm concerned about; it's the industry movement that makes it just a little bit harder for me to sleep at night. If it gains enough momentum, with the right legislation, the right people in the right places, it could be here before we blink. Maybe I'm being a bit pessimistic in my evaluation of people, the system and business. However, they haven't done much to make me feel otherwise recently.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope. It's not entirely necessary to have a brick-and-mortar presence somewhere for a suit to be filed--though it does help very much. Case in point: Kaazaa and the State of California. Californian courts are looking to sue Kaazaa for some reason (I forget what reason precisely, but it has to do with distributing their program), and since quite a few Californians use Kaazaa, it can be argued that Kaazaa the business has substantial contact with California. Emphasis on substantial contact.
./ a few days ago, if memory serves me correctly. Who knows how it will play out.
IANAL, etc, etc. It was here on
So, basically it's a Soccer mom's dream vehicle? :D
*laughs* You're evil! Sauron incarnate? ;)
I thought Tom Bombadil was one of the more colorful characaters in the book. While, perhaps his incessant singing was annoying to some, I don't think he was there without a puropse. He was a metaphor (at least to me) of all of the wonderful things of life--being carefree, and being the master of yourself. He was the embodiment of the spirit of nature: old and wise, yet young and fragile.
I think Tolkien wanted to say something with the voice of Bombadil, but as all metaphors, it's open to interpretation.
At the very least, it was an opportunity for us to get to know the hobbits better. That said, I can see why he was left out of the movie. He added very little to the storyline, took much time, and most movie goers would be confused by him.
On the other hand, I can't see how Treebeard and the Ents could be left out of the movie, and would be disappointed if they don't play a major part. I thought the March of the Ents was a fabulous part of the story, and felt like I was there, amongst their great trumpeting and marching song. Perhaps, I don't want that part to be played in the movie, because it might spoil my imaginaton. At any rate, it would be sorely missed.
I think you would be really suprised at the current offerings from Redhat, Mandrakesoft, and the like. If you have fairly common hardware, it's a no brainer. Partitioning is a breeze, the installers do all the hard work for you, hold your hand, but let you change things if you like. I'd say that damn near every AC'97 audio chipset is supported, and if you have a nVidia graphics card, it's setup the right way too (can't say about ATI, because I don't have one to test). You only have to choose what video modes you want to run in, and that's about the extent of it. If there's a current module for your NIC, it's loaded, and DHCP is run automagically. It can't get any easier.
Choose your passwords, and hop into the shiny world of KDE (seems to be the default), and you would have a hard time looking back.
Being a old-hand at this game, it's a breath of fresh air--from the days when tweaking your XFree86config was known as a "black art".
I'd venture that it's even easier than windows installation (if it works right, and I haven't happened upon a setup that worked badly), because you don't have to enter a blasted key-code.
I gotta agree, trueSpace has been a great tool for me throught the years (been using it since 1.0). I can't say personally that I have had really great success in making anything especially shiny with it, but it has helped with some projects, and was a fun diversion for a student.
As for non-photorealistic, I'd have to argue that some of their contest submissions are quite impressive, and have definitely improved within the recent years. Some of the contestees are really quite talented, and will undoubtedly be working on films for some company in the near future...
Too bad it's not on the mac platform so the person in question could mess with it some...
Actually, Rhino's new renderer, Flamingo is pretty darn good. It can do just about anything most other commercial renderers. I think it's an option, not part of Rhino3D. I had the chance to mess with the 2.0Betas, and it was indeed an exciting change to one of my favorite tools.
Here for details
Yes, true. Don't think I did not consider that possibility. I took that into cosideration, and spoofed the MAC address on my laptop. Since I know my ISP does not monitor MAC address (besides their very loose DHCP database, and some router accounting) it was not that much of a threat. Even if that poor CEO's computer did have logging of windows services enabled, they weren't going to find my spoofed MAC on any network segements. The only trace would be a DHCP lease for a random MAC, and the date and time that lease was obtained, and possibly from which network segment it came from.
In all reality, I could have just as well used NetBIOS, and not even bothered to get an IP lease, except I was browsing the web at the same time.
It just was not that big of a risk, for a little bit of fun.
--Like any technically challenged CEO without a competent sysadmin would understand exactly what happened. Even if he did have a competent sysadmin, he's surely a neglegent one who would most likely BOFH him.
I can attest to the fun in the benevolent maleficence in messing with people's PCs. I took my home NAT box offline to do some work on it, and decided to hook up my laptop to raw ethernet over DSL in the meantime. I simply could not believe the ammount of computers that were wide open, with Admimistrator password left blank, and c:\ shared. Winders Messaging Service is also quite the source of entertainment.
Being the nice guy I am, I made up an instruction sheet detailing how to fix the problem, and printed it to whatever shared printers existed.
It's no wonder that 11 year olds are so able to DoS whatever they want. The truely scary thing is that one of the computers was property of my ISP.
No, it's a Teflon(tm) suit that nothing sticks to.
Anit-trust suits, also known as an "Intern Protection Device", or IPD for short, are most useful for "situations" in which you can't trust someone. It's well worth the extra cost for Teflon®, if you ask me.
As an addendum, since Mozilla decided to goof on me:
No mainstream computers are going to be any more or less compelled to use Solaris than they were before. My grandma dosen't use Linux for the same reason that any other casual computer user will likely never use anything besides Windows or MacOS. There is simply no benefit for them to do so (at the moment).
First of all, x86 Solaris has been around for a long while.
Secondly, It's not designed to be a Desktop OS like Winders, or MaxOS. It's not even really targeted at x86 servers, though it works there just as well as other unix(-like) OSes. In fact, the only reason I can see using Solaris on x86 for a server at all would be scalability. If you design your web-app or whatever to run on Solaris x86, you can be fairly sure that it will run on a larger Sparc system with minimal fuss (especially if it's a Java app.)
Most of the Solaris installations I have seen are used as embedded controllers of hardware; computers that are designed to do one specific thing over and over.
In addation to the Anon's tron book, there are blue and red ibooks here. I'm sure you could do the same with a green tint, if that's what makes you happy. I personally would not though. My reason for that is basically not to mess with it till my warranty runs out, then everything is fair game. As it is, I have to send my own iBook to get it's touch pad replaced. Had I modified my hardware, they probably would not replace it. It's kinda too bad that Apple hasn't made replacement skins, so one could decorate their computer to hearts content.. I know, that I for one, would really like a comoflauge iBook :)
Either that or a nice paisly.
In all serriousness, I don't think Porche has reallly quite done it. They may have been aiming fot a PowerbookG4 look, but the dimensions just aren't there:
G4 specs From apple.com:
Size and weight
Height: 1.0 inch (2.6 cm)
Width: 13.4 inches (34.1 cm)
Depth: 9.5 inches (24.1 cm)
Weight: 5.4 pounds (2.45 kg) with battery
Titanium Case.
Porche book from cnet:
6.4 pounds
13.9 inches wide
10 inches deep
and 1.2 inches thick.
Case presumably made from magnesium alloy.
It's bigger, heavier, and just not as sexy, in my opinion. That said, it looks like enough, and also has some decent hardware. Might be better if it were fire engine red, though.
Hrm, thanks for the input.
I was serriously considering putting one of these suckers together for just that purpose, having read others' success stories with them. Maybe a dedicated decoder would be the way to go afterall... Then again, a higher end Celeron or P3 in a socket 370 version of a mini-itx could surely handle just about any DivX?
Ack, it still might make a swell replacement for my aging NAT box. God knows it would be quiter.
Never did I say it would encode it in real time. Hell, that's a tough task for a CPU 4 times as powerful.. I did however say it would play Divx or whatever the hell... (MPEG4) nicely.
The PVR card could do it's own hardware compression, then batch convert to whatever codec later with the CPU.
Well, it's not my call to make, nor is it my situation. I would personally do things differently. That's that.
On the flip side, if my 70 year old grandmother can learn to effectively communicate over the 'net, anyone can figure out a PVR hooked to a TV. At the very least, I would hope they could. If, perchance things are that bad off, surely the personage in question could take a few minutes to show them. Maybe the case is that he dosen't want to bother?
And before anyone asks 'Why don't you just play directly from the HD?', I should point out that I have to share the TV gear in this house with the rest of the family so it's just easier to burn their stuff to disk and let them use the DVD player than to fight over access to the TiVo-clone."
Maybe you read a differnt submission than I did?
It would seem to me, using this setup that some learning would still have to be done on part of the end users. I would argue that it would be far easier to show grandma how to navigate a PVR than it would be to show her how to encode, write, and erase an SVCD to CDRW. Iv'e been there, my "untranible" father actually learned to burn his CDs. It was much, much more painful than sitting him down and showing him how to use his DirecTV receiver.
Nah, I get it quite fine, infact. The guy burns his shows onto CDRW, and after a few uses he has to shit-can them. If he were trying to archive them, he would use a more permanent method. In this person's instance, the CDRW is just a one time transport. Initially, an HTPC might cost a bit more, I'll give you that. However, if this person records enough discs (and having to trash more than a few CDRWs after using them several times indicates that he probably does), he will make up that initial cost in both materials, and time spent recording the damned discs, then erasing them. Not to mention that nearly every SVCD that I have had the misfortune to gander had very poor quality, even on a TV. Of course, his SVCDs may be just fine for him; that's nobody else's call but his.
Furthermore, what's to say that this fellow can't burn his favorite shows for archival/family/whatever in his codec of choice with an HTPC? If it were that important to him, he could still make an SVCD, to take to his friends' house, or anywhere else that had an SVCD compatible DVD player.
It's just another option... For a little more upfront cost, your entertainemnt is much more flexible.
Funny how some people just don't get it, huh?
I agree. Why is there a need to have a DVD player at all? One could construct a near-silent(with a little more work, it could be inaudible) set-top PC with a Mini-ITX motherboard for very little cost. It varies, but Mini-ITX mobos have everthing from S-video, LAN, to firewire and USB2. Couple the above with a 800-1.0Ghz VIA C3 processor, a largish hard drive, and you have a cute little box that can play DIVXs, MPEGs, or whatever.
Heck, it also has a PCI slot, so you could make this little beast full-function; record, rip, play, burn CDs even. The only problem I see is that the VIA C3 is a bit short of FPU power, which would obviously make for slowish encoding. One would have to do the test with his own hardware and software to be sure it would work.
I think I would have to go with the Viewsonic VX800 if I were in the market for a killer LCD right now (or maybe a Samsung in the same range.) It has essentially all the same specs as the VA800 (25ms pixel times, etc.), but is a tad larger with 18" diagonal, and with DVI and analog inputs. It's a bit more expensive, at ~$825 retail, but that's not a large concern, if one is already spending $700.
DVI is the clincher for me. All the LCDs I have looked at just seem so much more crisp and vibrant when using DVI. Aside from the quality aspect, I figure that if you are already half way to having a real digital display, you might as well go the next step.
That's one nice chunk of hardware. But, did you happen to checkout the power consumption on that bad boy? 135W! That's a tremendous ammount of power for an LCD! IIRC, Viewsonic's 19" LCD eats about 50 watts, which was about on average for LCDs that size when I was researching my next purchase.
Heck.. My Viewsonic P220F 22" CRT is rated at 160W average, just 25 watts more than the IBM LCD.. Still, I would not mind at all, if one landed on my lap.
Not being an aerospace engineer, I would guess that they made use of the fuselage of the aircraft for some lift as well. In this picture it looks like the body is aerofoil shaped (from nose to stern). I doubt the performance envelope is anywhere close to that of a fighter aircraft, though.
Just about everyone experiences benefits from open-source products...
/dev/null. Incidentally, that's where most of our argument will go. Perhaps if we use some big named stars in a "save the children" type broadcast, it might get into some of their heads. Thing is, the media companies have more to gain of they go with MS. I guess we will just have to cross that road when we come to it.
Yes, many businesses do experience savings due to OSS products. The point is: MS looses more revenue due to migration than it saves using OSS code. They don't like that. While I may have speculated what they might do to advert this, there is an abundance of evidence that supports that outcome.
While a PR-mass media campaign might help, the demographics that Microsoft and OSS targets are often quite different. If a bunch of geeks get on prime time TV and try to tell eveyone that MS is out for their souls, people's eyes will glass over faster than you can say
No, I understand that point all too clearly. If the media, hardware and software people team up to radically change the way things work, you will have four choices (as far as I can see). Number one: being a nice cooperative consumer of DRM enabled hardware, software and media. Number 2: using systems that have no DRM (older platforms, Chineese Dragon* chips, etc.) Number 3: be a cracker of DRM computers, and fraglantly ignore the law (DMCA, etc.) Number 4: do any of the above, and remain to be a strong critic of DRM, and make sure the people who matter know what you and the rest of the people like you feel about DRM.
:) On the other hand, pizza with Sesame Chicken, Lo Mein, and some cabbage might be pretty good!
*You want to buy silicon designed by a country that is probably most well known for ignoring the human rights of their enormous population? Sounds like bargining with the devil to me. They censor everything; what makes you think their chips won't have some nasty stuff in them as well? It's too early to say they do, but you must admit, the possibility is there. In any case, with this Palladium free computer you may be missing out on your media of choice. You'd better get used to Chineese Pop Culture
I realize I paint an apocalyptic picture here. It might happen, and it might not. The thing is, there are people out there who want to see this scenario unfold (the faster the better.) On the other side of the coin, there are people who don't care (lets face it, some people have more to worry about besides computers and technology.)
While being outsiders, castaways and criminals may be ok for some of the Open Source community, the vast majority of people don't know anything outside of AOL, MSN, Internet Explorer, Brittney Spheres, etc. To them, Linux is not an option at the moment; perhaps that will start to change in the near future, perhaps not. If (when) DRM gains steam, these people will be a fulcrum for the crowbar that will pry many more into the grasps of Evil. *insert melodramatic music*
I agree whole-heartedly that DRM will piss the public off eventually. My worry is that it might get stuck under their noses while they look eastward, and they will have little recourse. If the computing public doesn't have a choice but to upgrade to a DRM enabled platform --because of various influences (media availability, wide passport acceptance, compatibility, etc.)-- then that's what they will do. Unless there is unilateral opposition against the new hardware/software, we are in trouble. We know that's not going to happen, though. People (Americans, especially) want the newest/biggest/fastest products--despite aesthetics, despite good reason, despite efficiency. It will take a very strong individual to convince them that the newest Windows incarnation, with the 5.9Ghz processor will be worse for them than what they already have. I'm not sure such a person exists.
Fair use is a big thing, no doubt. However, I think there are larger things at stake than Suzie Stevens from Middle Town, USA copying her new Boy Band of the Week® CD to her MP3 player.
It's not the business model I'm concerned about; it's the industry movement that makes it just a little bit harder for me to sleep at night. If it gains enough momentum, with the right legislation, the right people in the right places, it could be here before we blink. Maybe I'm being a bit pessimistic in my evaluation of people, the system and business. However, they haven't done much to make me feel otherwise recently.