The consistent message that we are sending the government these days is "fix our problems for us".
A few years ago, the ruling party in a certain small country lamented that the population were too dependent on the government to spoonfeed them - to help the population solve their own problems.
Assuming this is true (somehow I doubt so), I thought this is the only country in the world to have such a passive population.
DRM can be counter-productive, by making the legit copy seem like a bigger hassle than the cracked copy off Bittorrent.
I have a nagging suspicion that Young Joe Sixcola will play the DRM-infested game, just for pride's sake (of being able to afford an original game). Or at least he'll buy the original and play the pirated copy.
Because, the bankers would get to them before the scientists. And before you know, that poor alien world would be hit with Derivatives and a mortgage scandal of truly galactic proportions.
After reading the argument between macraig and 4D6963, I felt quite depressed. Until I read your post. You've made my morning. Thank you.
The sad truth is that much of that value of mass production, for humanity as a whole, is squandered by manufacturers when they employ proprietary tactics and unnecessary redesign cycles to thwart the standardization, all in the name of more profit for THEM and less savings in resources and manpower for society.
Proprietary tactics = I agree with you, on the power adapters.
Unnecessary redesign cycles = I believe even manufacturers know when not to do that, since redesigning is expensive due to the engineering expertise required. Most redesigns are R&D efforts to innovate stuff. Would you use a 5th Gen iPod that has the same internal parts as the 1st Gen iPod?
Finally, you as a consumer can generally vote with your wallet.
---
Many mass-produced things SHOULD be much cheaper than they are - cars, for instance - were it not for what manufacturers do to thwart too much of the savings trickling down to the rest of us.
Most manufacturers save costs by swapping parts.
Change suppliers: same parts, lesser cost.
Change parts: cheaper parts, lesser cost (e.g. metal to plastic, "they don't make them like they used to").
Change parts: better parts, same cost (e.g. upgrading to better ICs).
Would you shower using a water heater manufactured using the "cut corners" tactic?
--- Why has NASA's spacecraft and mission costs not came down? I believe you're better educated than me, but off the top of my head, I guess:
There are too few spacecraft manufactured to actually bring down the cost savings.
Most of the costs are spent on human beings and not manufacturing. Space missions are complex, after all.
Human beings are always demanding pay increases.
When we compare costs of space missions, we forget about inflation of money.
Stop saying that everyone trusts everyone on the internet!... I'm tired of hearing doomsday scenarios
Agree. However I must say: just because the parent post causes us to growl in disgust, doesn't mean they affect the rest.
Reason is, other Slashdot readers tend to be very mature, experienced and knowledgeable. They know the real vulnerabilities in the Internet (BGP and DNS), and they pay more attention to these matters. The doomsday speeches that annoy us to no end, doesn't affect them in the least bit.
---
The way most networks are run today is actually very secure.
Agree. The last time we had such an incident was a year ago (equivalent to 7 dog years) in the Hijacking of BGP routes to Youtube incident.
---
All we need is to shoot all the idiots who don't protect their computers and let them become a part of a botnet, because realistically that's by far the biggest danger for the Tubes right now.
Slashdot writers don't worry about botnets because they know how to
filter DDoS at the ISP level.
filter Worms at the Firewall/AntiVirus/Windows file sharing level.
On the other hand, Slashdot writers don't really have access to the BGP and DNS infrastructure. This worries them because they know the vulnerabilities in BGP and DNS. Therefore Slashdot people talk about BGP and DNS vulnerabilities, and "how tomorrow some 3 month old ISP in the Elbonia is going to bring down the whole internet".
Point taken. I promise to check all commands before issuing them on a production server.
However, I'm jobless now, so my Linux experience so far is limited to my own spare PC only. It contains no data, so I "blindly copied" instructions on compiling the kernel, in the process screwing it up.;)
Slashdot Mirror
The consistent message that we are sending the government these days is "fix our problems for us".
A few years ago, the ruling party in a certain small country lamented that the population were too dependent on the government to spoonfeed them - to help the population solve their own problems.
Assuming this is true (somehow I doubt so), I thought this is the only country in the world to have such a passive population.
Ironically, we'd want wireless router manufacturers to lobby, to stop this requirement...
The other worse thing, of course, is for wireless routers to send the log entries to... opps, I better not say it, don't give 'them' any ideas!
Your post is remarkably clueful, too!
DRM can be counter-productive, by making the legit copy seem like a bigger hassle than the cracked copy off Bittorrent.
I have a nagging suspicion that Young Joe Sixcola will play the DRM-infested game, just for pride's sake (of being able to afford an original game). Or at least he'll buy the original and play the pirated copy.
Or am I really off my cuckoo?
Because, the bankers would get to them before the scientists.
And before you know, that poor alien world would be hit with Derivatives and a mortgage scandal of truly galactic proportions.
After reading the argument between macraig and 4D6963, I felt quite depressed. Until I read your post. You've made my morning. Thank you.
Ummm ... galactic proportions?
The sad truth is that much of that value of mass production, for humanity as a whole, is squandered by manufacturers when they employ proprietary tactics and unnecessary redesign cycles to thwart the standardization, all in the name of more profit for THEM and less savings in resources and manpower for society.
Proprietary tactics = I agree with you, on the power adapters.
Unnecessary redesign cycles = I believe even manufacturers know when not to do that, since redesigning is expensive due to the engineering expertise required. Most redesigns are R&D efforts to innovate stuff. Would you use a 5th Gen iPod that has the same internal parts as the 1st Gen iPod?
Finally, you as a consumer can generally vote with your wallet.
---
Many mass-produced things SHOULD be much cheaper than they are - cars, for instance - were it not for what manufacturers do to thwart too much of the savings trickling down to the rest of us.
Most manufacturers save costs by swapping parts.
Would you shower using a water heater manufactured using the "cut corners" tactic?
---
Why has NASA's spacecraft and mission costs not came down? I believe you're better educated than me, but off the top of my head, I guess:
Would you like to educate me more?
These pickup lines work on female quantum physicists.
Or scientists. Or Hojima's "army of female scientists dedicated to the study of human reproduction in space"...
I control the butterfly, so there!
N.B. I live in Australia, so 'extremely large cap' means 100+ GB.
I studied in Australia for a year in the early 2000s, and the monthly cap for dial-up (OptusNet) was 350MB, and every additional MB cost 20 cents.
listening to us assholes
(Mob of people bringing pitchforks, torches, Goatse images and other USB devices, coming after you.)
(Only that it took a few years to get them to leave their basement dwellings. And yes, they all have too little sunlight exposure.)
I for one use TPB exclusively for HD documentaries.
Do your HD documentaries have a minimum age limit for watching?
Not sure ... how about general false proofs in math?
It was all laid out in the last 3 issues of Scientific American, I cant believe all of you missed it.
I was reading the American Journal of Mathematics, you insensitive clod!
I've read "The Machine Stops" in junior high. It's taught in literature class.
But I can't beat the AC who teaches "The Machine Stops" every year. Beaten again! Oh well...
And discover their long-lost free time.
I can imagine some of them, "There was an election?"
Uhura in pants? Heaven forbid!
$90 a month as a personal allowance.
Out of which will come your co-pays for therapy and drugs and blood work.
That's depressing.
Oh well, back to my TV. I've only watched 3 hours out of my daily 8 hours scheduled. Let's see what's on...
Don't forget the chewing gum.
"Saturday morning I woke up nestled in Martha's arms. We fooled around for a while..."
Oooooo, sexy!
the noun "bail" in the sense you use it means "handle in the shape of an arc".
May I "bail" out Joan of Arc while she is being imprisoned, then?
(Nouns and verbs confuse me.)
Stop saying that everyone trusts everyone on the internet! ... I'm tired of hearing doomsday scenarios
Agree. However I must say: just because the parent post causes us to growl in disgust, doesn't mean they affect the rest.
Reason is, other Slashdot readers tend to be very mature, experienced and knowledgeable. They know the real vulnerabilities in the Internet (BGP and DNS), and they pay more attention to these matters. The doomsday speeches that annoy us to no end, doesn't affect them in the least bit.
---
The way most networks are run today is actually very secure.
Agree. The last time we had such an incident was a year ago (equivalent to 7 dog years) in the Hijacking of BGP routes to Youtube incident.
---
All we need is to shoot all the idiots who don't protect their computers and let them become a part of a botnet, because realistically that's by far the biggest danger for the Tubes right now.
Slashdot writers don't worry about botnets because they know how to
On the other hand, Slashdot writers don't really have access to the BGP and DNS infrastructure. This worries them because they know the vulnerabilities in BGP and DNS. Therefore Slashdot people talk about BGP and DNS vulnerabilities, and "how tomorrow some 3 month old ISP in the Elbonia is going to bring down the whole internet".
Red shirts 'go' faster too.
There are several complaints in this story about posts marked unfairly as "Troll". Yours is one such unfortunate victim.
When's the meta-moderation feature coming back?
We've got just the experimental prosthetic products for you!
Remember, they're still experimental!
Point taken. I promise to check all commands before issuing them on a production server.
However, I'm jobless now, so my Linux experience so far is limited to my own spare PC only. It contains no data, so I "blindly copied" instructions on compiling the kernel, in the process screwing it up. ;)
I follow instructions blindly from websites (except filenames and error messages, of course). Am I still qualified to use Linux?
And does it run AbulÉdu?