Great point! I wondered about this, too. Could anybody with more knowledge comment?
I've got some ideas about making software less buggy and faster+easier to program. If somebody reads this, maybe he could comment?
- A lot of time is spent trying to get the syntax right. By moving software development away from pure-text writing and towards a more humane form (like dragging widgets together), the head could be freed up so that we don't have to think about adding ; at every line end and focus more on the problem. - The form of source code (text) today doesn't reflect the complexity of the problem behind it. Surely there are tools that overcome some of these problems, but since they still work on the basis of a text document, they are error prone and won't free our heads. A good example for this is CVS: it compares *lines*, but it should compare the syntax - so it sees differences where there are none.
I feel that programming is held back in the era of the "command line" while all other fields have long moved to some sort of GUI.
I've got a list of dozens of ways to improve programming and making it humane without changing the syntax/language... does anybody know if there is research / finished products in this field? What have others already tried out?
Are you absolutely sure about what you are saying? Because if yes, this is freaking hilarious - breaking the DRM without actually decoding / descrambling anything... Wow!
If something major is in the works, like 9/11, what are the odds that someone, somewhere along the line wouldn't have placed some serious bets
That's exactly one of the biggest problems of this new system: That it is modeled too closely to the 9/11 events. There are many attacks that were planned and executed by single lone person, like Timothy McVeigh. Terrorism cannot be stopped using this system at all, because once this market is out in the plain, the terrorist groups just get smaller, like 1 or 2 people, and then nobody will talk.
I think the BitPass Approach is not new at all: With PayPal, one can put money into a "online repository" as well and then spend small parts of it at will.
The only difference that I see is that PayPal has 10 Million members that you can send your money too, while BitPass currently only has three.
There is another service that follows a different, more radical approach: Ipaya. Will be interesting to see what happens with them...
I just installed everything and tried it out, and here are a few things nobody else has noted yet:
People outside the US cannot buy music yet
As of right now, the "Music Store" (the Start page) is unavailable, despite the claims of Apple to be ready for many people
Apple claims the Previews are full quality. But they sound really bad (like a 32kbit MP3), so I hope this is not what they call "full quality".
All this is not too bad, however, since Weblisten just started a very attractive counter-offer: Download as many MP3s as you want, including from every big-name artist, for a flat fee of $32 per month. Sounds like a cool deal to me:-D
Hmm... looks like your movie is broken. Quicktime tells me "there is some additional software to download to view this movie, but unfortunately this software is not available on the Quicktime server"...
This is all good and well, but I'm very sure that lyrics are a big factor in determining the hit factor of a song. And what artists wear. And what they say. Which social group they address them too. And if they got airtime on MTV or not.
So, while an interesting theoretical experiment, I don't think this will change the way hits are made at all.
As I see it, the biggest problem in micropayment is the large amout of time each user has to spend by deciding if a certain page is worth clicking, and the technical means that require plugins or other stuff. I highly suggest everybody to read Clay Shirky's The Case Against Micropayments for more infos about the problems micropayments have today.
All this prior art stuff... I wonder if I could put together any patentworthy idea I've ever had and put it on the usenet encrypted... So anytime a phony patent claim comes up and I thought about prior art, I could point to my post at the google usenet archive and provide the key.
Would this help? And would it help even more if all of us would do it?
I think what the original poster meant was: By using rtsp instead of http to transfer stuff, this content can not be downloaded and saved as easy. We also remember a cool tool that allowed saving a rtsp stream which was killed by RealNetworks.
Now that RealNetworks open source both server and client, they essentially open up the rtsp protocol and anybody can create a small app that just saves a rtsp stream.
With rtsp streamsaving made so easy, will content providers move their streams over to the wmp format?
I think that this won't be the case since Real is basically just copying what Apple did to Quicktime a few years ago, and QT is still used a lot for streaming, just look at the Madonna website.
Don't move the disc and don't move the laser around. Instead, use a swiveling mirror to direct the laser to the disc from a fixed point. After bouncing off the mirror and the CD, the laser will then go to all sorts of directions, but with a correctly shaped mirror, you can bring it back to one point where you place a sensor. Pretty simple.
I think, frankly, that the discussion here has been mostly unrelated to the possibilities and dangers of liberty alliance so far.
Here's something to consider: Is there an Authentication Network Operator that you would *really* trust?
So far, you hadn't much of a choice: For payments, you could choose between MC and AMEX, and one of these two would handle the whole shopping side of your life.
But now, with the Liberty Alliance Projekt, you can choose a company that covers your whole online life. Would you trust MC or AMEX again? Better not, they already know too much of you. IBM? How do they guarantee you that your data will be safe? Yahoo - bad track record, no way. Google - no experience in the field but good track record.
I think that we would need a new type of company for this, under close inspection by the public - does anybody agree?
Really cool tool if you have your own webserver, thanks mentioning it!
I can see a future where more and more people get rid of their Yahoo/Lycos/whatever accounts because they can't stand the ads - and at this moment, Gallery can find its place as a replacement for "Yahoo Photos".
Actually, I'm right now in this process (because of the ads and because I wanna own+control my stuff). I'm still looking for other "My Yahoo! Organzer" clones to use with Perl/PHP: - notepad - calendar - address - briefcase (file upload/download) - bookmarks - webmail
There are tools for most of these tasks, but what I'm really looking for is an integrated thing that has the same usability in all tools and allows to jump from one tool to the other in some cases (like clicking an email address in the address tool would bring you to the webmail tool and has already filled out the "to:" field). Is anybody aware of such a program?
If you don't like buying a printer for 80$ with refills for 50$, don't buy it. Go look for a printer for 200$ compatible with 25$ refills. Nobody's pushing you, dude!
I guess this could make implementing a fully AIM-compatible chat app simpler: When implementing a client, you currently have to fool the AOL-server that you are a real AOL-client, not a copy, to get all the features. AOL does twists and turns to complicate such fooling, including prompting the client for a random bit of the AIM binary, making third party clients pretty difficult.
Apple will likely ask AOL to stick to simpler, fixed specs and abandon such funny tactics. If they do, any third party AIM client will have a much easier life by just fooling the AOL-server to think that it's a Mac client.
If you want to know more about the deeper meaning of the matrix, I truly recommend this critique. Beware, you will look at the film with other eyes afterwards.:-)
I would ask your advertisers for fallback media: - for audio/video go down to an image - for an image with 8bit transparency go down to an image with 1bit transparency - gif...
Slashdot Mirror
Why so complicated? Dude, just timestamp every page visit and sort the menu by timestamp. Simple, consistent, effective.
Cheers!
- A lot of time is spent trying to get the syntax right. By moving software development away from pure-text writing and towards a more humane form (like dragging widgets together), the head could be freed up so that we don't have to think about adding ; at every line end and focus more on the problem.
- The form of source code (text) today doesn't reflect the complexity of the problem behind it. Surely there are tools that overcome some of these problems, but since they still work on the basis of a text document, they are error prone and won't free our heads. A good example for this is CVS: it compares *lines*, but it should compare the syntax - so it sees differences where there are none.
I feel that programming is held back in the era of the "command line" while all other fields have long moved to some sort of GUI.
I've got a list of dozens of ways to improve programming and making it humane without changing the syntax/language... does anybody know if there is research / finished products in this field? What have others already tried out?
Thank you for any suggestions!
Are you absolutely sure about what you are saying? Because if yes, this is freaking hilarious - breaking the DRM without actually decoding / descrambling anything... Wow!
Will they hire Boies to prosecute their case?
Or will they hire Rumsfeld?
I think the BitPass Approach is not new at all: With PayPal, one can put money into a "online repository" as well and then spend small parts of it at will.
The only difference that I see is that PayPal has 10 Million members that you can send your money too, while BitPass currently only has three.
There is another service that follows a different, more radical approach: Ipaya. Will be interesting to see what happens with them...
Excellent point! I agree.
Arcor is pretty nice, they have ADSL going for ?68, which is roughly $68. Here's more (german page).
Hmm... looks like your movie is broken. Quicktime tells me "there is some additional software to download to view this movie, but unfortunately this software is not available on the Quicktime server"...
This is all good and well, but I'm very sure that lyrics are a big factor in determining the hit factor of a song. And what artists wear. And what they say. Which social group they address them too. And if they got airtime on MTV or not.
So, while an interesting theoretical experiment, I don't think this will change the way hits are made at all.
As I see it, the biggest problem in micropayment is the large amout of time each user has to spend by deciding if a certain page is worth clicking, and the technical means that require plugins or other stuff. I highly suggest everybody to read Clay Shirky's The Case Against Micropayments for more infos about the problems micropayments have today.
All this prior art stuff... I wonder if I could put together any patentworthy idea I've ever had and put it on the usenet encrypted... So anytime a phony patent claim comes up and I thought about prior art, I could point to my post at the google usenet archive and provide the key.
Would this help? And would it help even more if all of us would do it?
I think what the original poster meant was: By using rtsp instead of http to transfer stuff, this content can not be downloaded and saved as easy. We also remember a cool tool that allowed saving a rtsp stream which was killed by RealNetworks.
Now that RealNetworks open source both server and client, they essentially open up the rtsp protocol and anybody can create a small app that just saves a rtsp stream.
With rtsp streamsaving made so easy, will content providers move their streams over to the wmp format?
I think that this won't be the case since Real is basically just copying what Apple did to Quicktime a few years ago, and QT is still used a lot for streaming, just look at the Madonna website.
Don't move the disc and don't move the laser around. Instead, use a swiveling mirror to direct the laser to the disc from a fixed point. After bouncing off the mirror and the CD, the laser will then go to all sorts of directions, but with a correctly shaped mirror, you can bring it back to one point where you place a sensor. Pretty simple.
Smells like a cool business idea to me...
I think, frankly, that the discussion here has been mostly unrelated to the possibilities and dangers of liberty alliance so far.
Here's something to consider: Is there an Authentication Network Operator that you would *really* trust?
So far, you hadn't much of a choice: For payments, you could choose between MC and AMEX, and one of these two would handle the whole shopping side of your life.
But now, with the Liberty Alliance Projekt, you can choose a company that covers your whole online life. Would you trust MC or AMEX again? Better not, they already know too much of you. IBM? How do they guarantee you that your data will be safe? Yahoo - bad track record, no way. Google - no experience in the field but good track record.
I think that we would need a new type of company for this, under close inspection by the public - does anybody agree?
Really cool tool if you have your own webserver, thanks mentioning it!
I can see a future where more and more people get rid of their Yahoo/Lycos/whatever accounts because they can't stand the ads - and at this moment, Gallery can find its place as a replacement for "Yahoo Photos".
Actually, I'm right now in this process (because of the ads and because I wanna own+control my stuff). I'm still looking for other "My Yahoo! Organzer" clones to use with Perl/PHP:
- notepad
- calendar
- address
- briefcase (file upload/download)
- bookmarks
- webmail
There are tools for most of these tasks, but what I'm really looking for is an integrated thing that has the same usability in all tools and allows to jump from one tool to the other in some cases (like clicking an email address in the address tool would bring you to the webmail tool and has already filled out the "to:" field). Is anybody aware of such a program?
They list iMacs and Powermacs for "buy in any case" and "other apple boxes" as "buy only if you run MS software on them".
So I guess iBooks and Powerbooks fall into the second category even though they can more powerful than iMacs and Powermacs.
Looks like they don't really thought trought it...
If you don't like buying a printer for 80$ with refills for 50$, don't buy it. Go look for a printer for 200$ compatible with 25$ refills. Nobody's pushing you, dude!
"I hereby declare any text written on euro banknotes to not be free speech."
Whenever a new media comes out, is it the job of judges to decide if its usage is free speech? I think not.
Any media can be used to express one's opinion, therefore no media can be generally excluded from free speech protection.
I honestly ask myself what kind of legal system this is where a district judge can walk in and declare such basic things.
I guess this could make implementing a fully AIM-compatible chat app simpler: When implementing a client, you currently have to fool the AOL-server that you are a real AOL-client, not a copy, to get all the features. AOL does twists and turns to complicate such fooling, including prompting the client for a random bit of the AIM binary, making third party clients pretty difficult.
Apple will likely ask AOL to stick to simpler, fixed specs and abandon such funny tactics. If they do, any third party AIM client will have a much easier life by just fooling the AOL-server to think that it's a Mac client.
If you want to know more about the deeper meaning of the matrix, I truly recommend this critique. Beware, you will look at the film with other eyes afterwards. :-)
I would ask your advertisers for fallback media:
- for audio/video go down to an image
- for an image with 8bit transparency go down to an image with 1bit transparency - gif...
The official page is a bit on the lean side, but the "3d animation" (win only) allows you to get a good look at it.