The key to meeting my game-addiction needs, first formed around the time Space Invaders was new, has been the GBA I bought a while back. I can keep it with me wherever I go and whip it out whenever I have a five minute break. It usually* doesn't invade the time I'm spending at work or when I'm supposed to be hangin' with the Significant Other.
*Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission being exceptions. Not because there aren't enough save points -- there's one every couple of minutes if you need it -- but because they're just so damned addictive!
"we use oil for energy. Problem, oil is a finite resource, it WILL run out. Alternatives are needed. Okay, we agree so far."
Well, wait a second.
How do we know oil is non-renewable?
Let me ask a simpler question.
Why are large deposits of Helium found with oil deposits?
They're "fossil fuels," right? They're what you get after dinosaurs die and decompose and get subject to intense pressure. Right, now what part of the body uses Helium? I mean, besides the part for sucking on balloons and getting a funny-sounding voice.
Oh, that's right... Helium isn't part of biochem. So where did it come from, and why is it always there?
Thomas Gold has an interesting hypothesis on this. But it alone isn't enough to explain everything; we still know very little about what really goes on beneath the crust of the Earth.
Given the significance of these questions about our understanding of where petroleum comes from, it seems to me that we cannot definitively say whether or not oil is renewable.
So to then predict a date at which point we'll be "out" of oil is at best a Wild-Assed Guess.
Remember how during the Internet Bubble, people were saying that the speculation and rampant spending was because of the New Economy, and that the rules had all changed, and this was different from every other time in the past when they'd said "oh, the rules have changed" because it really, really was different?
And then the bubble burst, and it turns out that the old rules still applied, and it was no different from any other time?
Remember how people were saying that we'd run out in the 70's, and then we didn't, and now they're saying we're going to run out but hey, things are different from the 70's -- THIS time we really will run out? Well, maybe we will, but:
1. We really DON'T know where it comes from. 2. We've heard this alarmist politically-motivated song-and-dance before.
"The only two vehicles we tried that had enough room in back were the Ford Windstar van and [applause!] the tiny Toyota Echo. I'll be buying the Echo, but if you don't like Toyota and have big kids then you're kinda out of luck unless you are willing to accept something huge."
"As for the question the original poster asked? According to google measurements Windows is 95% of the market. A figure most people repeat. So no need to develop for anything else right?"
Also, note my little blurb above where I noted that most worms and viruses report themselves as IE when attempting Apache/IIS exploits. That seems to up the number of IE users quite a bit there.
Hmmm... I don't know what world you're living in where "Mac users have only used Macs and nothing else" and where small startups have their share of choices of sites, but OK.
In my world, the only Mac users I know have extensive experience with multiple versions of Windows, Linux, big *nixes like Solaris and small embedded OSes.
And the beta site finds you, not the other way around.
You know something interesting? I was tracking web stats on my web page. And no more than 60% of the traffic was IE. Then, I made it so that the root directory of the server (never published) is a redirect instead of a missing page. Guess what? Suddenly the hits go to 95% MSIE.
It seems that all of these viruses, web-crawlers, etc that attack random IP addresses actually report themselves as IE. Now I won't say IE's a worm itself, but clearly a significant amount of that "IE" traffic isn't coming from human users.
Yeah. "Requirements Analysis" is good talk, but when you're a dozen folks scrambling to meet different markets, sometimes you find time to do it right... sometimes you don't.
Yeah, I was aware of that when I posted it. That's why I wanted to see if anything like this had occurred elsewhere. I'm also curious to see if this is a likely trend.
One thing I will note is that this particular location is in a very trendy part of LA, which would suggest that the high number of Apple users are trend-followers, and probably aren't so interested in (or even aware of) IE exploits and the like.
Matrics is using the same radio waves, but the class 0 tag protocol is much more reliable than the class 1 -- it has less overhead, and is able to retry bad tag data at the bit level, so it makes sense that Matrics would work well. I haven't had the chance to play with one yet -- we just have a lone ThingMagic and a few Aliens.
We haven't done any formal distance testing (because for what we're doing, we don't care). We were able to get the Alien to read at about 2-3 feet as well, but I had to hold them there a few seconds, and it certainly wasn't reliable enough to be useful for surveying tags people walking past the antenna might have in their clothes.:)
"Now, how could such limited devices be of any use in retail?"
The main benefit of the RFID tag over the UPC label is that you don't have to have the tag aligned a certain way and visible to activate it.
In the supply chain leading to the store, lots of products are buried in a pallet, and organizations need to know what's in there (and how many) to track their shipments efficiently. With RFID tags, the pallet need not be opened to know exactly what's in it. In the warehouse, workers can remain a safe distance away from readers on conveyers, forklifts and the like.
Wal-Mart and the US military have immense supply-chain networks. If they save a fraction of a penny per item in their supply chains through better tracking, they can save hundreds of millions of dollars per year. That's why Wal-Mart and the US military are the first two organizations to sponsor supply-chain RFID pilots.
The other uses you mention are still possible, but require some good engineering work. For example, at the checkout counter, much lower-powered readers can be used, because the checker can put the tag on the reader's antenna at point-blank range, and it's not a problem to wait a second for the tag to slowly charge up and send its data.
Theft prevention would require the cooperation of security cameras. The idea is that store shelves would have readers and antennas, so that when someone would remove an item, there's a record of it leaving a shelf. Then, you would be able to go to the videotape and view the thief taking the item as it happens. So you don't see the item leave the store, but you can see it leave the shelf. Shelf-mounted readers can also help floor managers know when certain items are low on stock, and that sort of thing. Again, since the items sit on the shelf for long periods of time, and since we're talking about a short distance, this sort of thing can happen -- but it's going to take some good engineering work to get solid coverage of large shelves without nuking customers.
I believe the benefits of RFID inside the store have been oversold. I think that's the main reason why people are worried about their privacy now; RFID sounds a lot more powerful than it really is. The real applications will be in warehouses; Wal-Mart isn't going to get a lot of benefit from RFID in their stores, but they're going to save billions in the long run by making their supply chain to the stores more efficient.
I contribute monthly to the EFF, and I've spent the past 5 months working with and understanding RFID technology, right down to getting baked by a reader.
There are two types of RFID tags: Active and passive. Active tags have a battery and transmit a signal. They cost a few bucks apiece; they're cheap enough for a lot of good uses, such as locating expensive mobile equipment in hospitals ("Oh, the machine that goes, 'Ping!" is on the third floor women's bathroom!"), but far too expensive to track consumer items -- say, a can of soup. They're also pretty large, since they need an antenna and a battery.
Passive tags are powered by the radio waves themselves. These are the ones that will eventually be cheap enough that they can be put on individual cans of soup, maybe in two to three years.
In order for a passive tag to get enough power to transmit its unique identification number, a few things need to happen. The tag itself -- although it's a very small chip -- needs a rather large antenna to pick up enough energy to get power. The smallest ones I've seen are about 3" long. The RFID reader needs to have a VERY powerful microwave transmitter and antenna. The devices I worked with required me to be at least nine inches away from them most of the time to keep from getting cooked. Even with this powerful reader and large antenna, I've had to hold tags about a foot away from the antenna for a good second or three to see them show up.
Now what are we afraid of regarding RFID? Well, we're afraid that beyond the point of sale, someone will put a reader on us and know all about us or be able to track our movements, because we'll be covered in these RFID tags with unique identifiers.
Now we've seen technology advance, but Physics is Physics. A tag with an antenna no smaller than 3" in size has to be held within a foot of a reader powerful enough to warm your skin for a second to transmint 30-odd bits of data. This is not going to change unless the laws of Physics change first -- there is no technology to change this.
You're going to be able to find RFID tags in your stuff, because the large antenna will give itself away. And you're not going to patiently stand and pose next to a high-powered reader while it tries to sort out all of the tags you're wearing ("Excuse me, can you kneel down so I can get the one on your eyeglasses? Now lift your feet, I can't see your shoes..."), unless you're cold and want to warm up really fast.
What I've laid out here is not common knowledge. That's a big part of the reason I'm writing this now: I know that Slashdot readers are concerned about the issue and are capable of understanding the science behind the issue. Once you understand the issue, you realize that the government isn't going to be using this to track your movements -- from a foot away. People are not going to be able to surreptitiously scan you to learn all about you -- while asking you to stop and pose for the antenna. You're not going to be covered in three-inch-long RFID tag antennas without your knowledge.
I believe that you should be taking neither my word for it nor CASPIAN's. You should do your own research and learn. Don't co-opt someone else's point of view or trust that they've done their due diligence just because you share the same political point of view as he or she does. You may be pro-EFF, just like me -- that doesn't mean you should trust what I've said. You may have beliefs similar to Albrecht's -- but you shouldn't trust that she's done her homework, either!
In practice, you, me, and everyone else does trust the leaders of organizations we agree with to have done their due diligence and to know more than we do about issues. And we do co-opt their points of view. That is why IBM is speaking out: Because it's clear that although Albrecht doesn't understand RFID technology, people are listening to her.
I'm concerned enough about the preservation of civil liberties to donate regularly to the EFF. After working with RFID technology for the past several months and seeing its inherent limitations, I feel that we have little, if anything, to fear from this technology. But don't take my word for it because I claim this is true; do your own research.
"This is so wrong that I believe you must be paid to support these kinds of positions."
My website and e-mail are available for you whenever you want. You can read all about me. You can e-mail me if you like. Please do, in fact. I'd love to talk about this issue further. I'd like to bring together people who want to make real change to defend fair use rights, and get them to sit down with the industry, and figure out how to solve this problem together. Because if we don't have the industry on board with us, they will fight us to the death to prevent us from getting anything we want. That's why I talk about trying to find the win-win scenario.
"First of all, the job of these guys (people) is to make the legislative envrionment very favorable and to promote the interests of the movie/record companies in every forum."
Of course; it goes without saying. It's like any lobbyist job. If he was just a lobbyist, he could have worked for any other industry, any other company -- especially considering the influence he had. He could have been paid a lot more working for the tobacco industry. Compare the results of the tobacco industry Re: legislation to the MPAA. Do you think Big Tobacco wouldn't have paid whatever price he asked to have Valenti on their side?
Why do you think Valenti chose to stick with the MPAA?
"Its not required these guys even know who invented the motion picture."
True, it's not required. When the MPAA makes its decision to hire Valenti's replacement (if it hasn't happened already), I'm sure they won't require each applicant to know who invented the motion picture. If they ask, and the applicant doesn't know, they'll probably try to dig a little further to see how much the applicant DOES know about movies. If the applicant doesn't know much about movies, do you think they'll hire him to represent the movie industry?
To represent movies, the person needs to know movies -- he or she has to know what he or she represents. I won't say that to learn movies is to love them. Those who love movies will learn them. They don't need payment as motivation.
The most important knowledge related to your advancement at a job is knowing your industry. If you write code for a medical device manufacturer, and don't know anything about the healthcare industry or don't care to visit hospitals and doctor's offices... you're not going to get promoted very high. And we're talking about one of the most visible positions in the entire movie industry. Now I ask you; if Valenti doesn't care about movies, how did he get that job and keep it for a few decades? Don't you think he'd get bored with it, if he didn't really love watching movies? Don't you think he'd take a better-paying lobbying job somewhere?
You and I disagree with Valenti's actions; however, it only matters because you, Jack and I really care about the issue. We really care because all three of us are, first and foremost, movie lovers. Even now that Valenti's retired, he's no longer on the payroll of the MPAA, in this article he's still talking about movies and the industry, still defending his case.
"A free song from another bland RIAA-sponsored band?"
The Brobdingnagian Bards are about as indie as you can get, and they have over 25k downloads on iTMS. In fact, any independent artist selling through CD Baby has the option to have albums available on iTMS.
I don't agree. They want to destroy fair use, and are willing to criminalize general purpose computers in the process. There are some areas where there just isn't a middle ground. Either I can legally run an open source DVD player on Linux (or Mac OS X if I want to bypass the ads), or I can't.
What you're saying here is understandable, because Valenti certainly has done things to attack fair use. That's the actions they've taken. Do they see eliminating fair use as a goal, or is it just a means to an ends?
I think you'll agree that if the MPAA and RIAA eliminate fair use rights, that they're not likely to gain more profits or more control over their media. They will lose sales, in fact, to the 2 million Linux users* out there. They'll lose sales to people who aren't interested in the movies or music they're promoting. There isn't any real benefit to them to solely eliminate fair use rights, so why would they make that a goal?
Well, because they aren't aware that they're hurting themselves, and us in the process.
Now if you're telling Mr. Valenti that he's basically evil, do you think you're going to be able to convince him somehow that he's hurting everyone involved?
I've never seen anything in my thirtysomething years to suggest to me that life is a zero-sum game. The way you get what you want is you look for the win-win scenario. In this case, it's not hard to imagine at all. If CD sales increase when users are allowed to do file-sharing, then clearly there's a win-win scenario there. If DVD sales increase when we can use unlicensed DVD players, there's a big win-win scenario there, too. I could go on, but then this post is too overly talkative already.
I don't point out win-win scenarios to say, "Here's an alternative that might work, too." I point them out because they are the ONLY way to preserve fair use and our rights to music. There is no other way. Period. If you win at their expense, they will only regroup and start attacking on a new front. Look at what's happened in the War on Drugs: We're playing Kingpin Whack-A-Mole, capturing one only to see another take his place. Only there's no timer allowing the game to end some point and say, "Yay, you win!"
You're looking at the issue from your perspective and yours alone. That's fine, if you want to retain the status quo. If you want change, real change, you have to understand the other person's point of view. You have to find where you agree with that other person. And if you can't, find someone who can to act as your proxy. Both sides have to work together for change.
It doesn't matter who started the fight. We are going to end it. And we are only going to end it by learning to understand and appreciate the point of view of the organizations that produce the music and movies we enjoy.
I never believe in hostile debates. That's not my style. I believe that we ought to talk objectively about it. I think for anything that I'm advocating, I'm willing to be in an open debate with anybody about it.
Many of us wouldn't be too surprised if, shortly after retiring from their respective positions, Valenti and (former RIAA president) Hilary Rosen each were to sprout horns and a tail.
Hilary and Jack got their jobs, first and foremost, because they love music and movies. Just like you and I do. They went into the industry because they care about seeing creative people rewarded for their work. We certainly don't want to see our favorite musicians and directors starve, either -- yet all but the most elite barely carve out a living, even now.
We really do want the same things that they want. Where we have problems is that our understanding of the issues are lacking.
When people differ, it's easy to get hostile. One guy is the devil, the other's a lunatic, and once everybody's in that defensive mode nobody is open to hearing a new idea. As a result, nobody wins. You can't convince your enemy of anything, because you've made him your enemy!
The only way we are going to be able to change anything is by making friends with the industry executives we've until now demonized. As Valenti says here, we need to avoid hostile debate. To discuss things openly and honestly, we need to start with where we agree: We both love the art, and we want to see artists paid for their work. Get them saying, "Yes, yes," right from the start. So that we're not putting them on the defensive, but getting into a spirit of mutual cooperation.
Because that's the only way we can achieve any kind of change.
Other moves were tactical. The Word planning team discovered that the WordPerfect sales force was going around to customers and showing Word opening a complex WordPerfect file (printer.tst) to show how bad the conversion was, and therefore how pointless it would be to try to switch to Word. So the Word team organized a special dev team that focused entirely on WordPerfect document import, "reverse-engineering" the WordPerfect file format (documentation for which was jealously guarded, as was the norm back then). Their goal was to make any WordPerfect doc open flawlessly in Word, but in particular their goal was to have no errors at all on printer.tst. Later the Word sales force used that same file when talking to customers as proof that Word 6.0 could open WordPerfect files flawlessly.
For OpenOffice.org to achieve widespread adoption, this is something we need to start doing.
We need to take the most fucked-up Word.Doc files we can find, ones that even have problems opening up correctly in Word (you know the type), and show it opening up perfectly in OOo Writer.
There should be an OOo team dedicated to just this.
In fact, if I were in charge of the OOo 2.0 project, I'd put the bulk of my resources into it, and make everything else secondary.
A secondary group will be feature-tracking. If Office has a feature, OOo is going to have it. It doesn't have to be easier to use; most of Office's features are difficult to use as it is.
Once people are using OOo as much or more than Office, then you can start futzing with aesthetic concerns, code beautification, and other issues you like.
I understand Microsoft itself works something like this. Of course, that's the real reason they dominate the market, more than anything else!
"Thats like Apple's logic. The macintosh costs a lot more than a PC and its slower and runs hardly any software, but because it costs more its' better."
Well, a PC is like a tool, a piece of hardware you have in your garage for pounding nails through things or cutting 2x4's in half and the like; there are a lot of precautions and warnings and you kinda have to know what you're doing before you use one, now matter how many guards it seems -- but then you can do some really damned nifty things with 'em, although the results obtained by Joe Sixpack usually suck and he really just uses it to play around with.
An Apple is more like an appliance, something that sits in the living room that you expect to work right when you turn it on and somehow not be an eyesore either. Your wife has to approve of how it looks before she lets it sit there in the living room, and it pretty much just plugs in and goes but it's not all that versatile -- like you wouldn't use your toaster oven to fry an egg, would you? -- so you pretty much with it what it does built-in and be happy with that; it's got its things it does, and it does them real well, and it looks pretty doing it.
Slashdot Mirror
The key to meeting my game-addiction needs, first formed around the time Space Invaders was new, has been the GBA I bought a while back. I can keep it with me wherever I go and whip it out whenever I have a five minute break. It usually* doesn't invade the time I'm spending at work or when I'm supposed to be hangin' with the Significant Other.
*Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission being exceptions. Not because there aren't enough save points -- there's one every couple of minutes if you need it -- but because they're just so damned addictive!
Simple answer.
Unions demand a certain pay grade, and regular pay increases.
At a certain point, it becomes to expensive to hire a Unionized American.
So you hire an illegal, or you outsource.
"we use oil for energy. Problem, oil is a finite resource, it WILL run out. Alternatives are needed. Okay, we agree so far."
Well, wait a second.
How do we know oil is non-renewable?
Let me ask a simpler question.
Why are large deposits of Helium found with oil deposits?
They're "fossil fuels," right? They're what you get after dinosaurs die and decompose and get subject to intense pressure. Right, now what part of the body uses Helium? I mean, besides the part for sucking on balloons and getting a funny-sounding voice.
Oh, that's right... Helium isn't part of biochem. So where did it come from, and why is it always there?
Thomas Gold has an interesting hypothesis on this. But it alone isn't enough to explain everything; we still know very little about what really goes on beneath the crust of the Earth.
Given the significance of these questions about our understanding of where petroleum comes from, it seems to me that we cannot definitively say whether or not oil is renewable.
So to then predict a date at which point we'll be "out" of oil is at best a Wild-Assed Guess.
Remember how during the Internet Bubble, people were saying that the speculation and rampant spending was because of the New Economy, and that the rules had all changed, and this was different from every other time in the past when they'd said "oh, the rules have changed" because it really, really was different?
And then the bubble burst, and it turns out that the old rules still applied, and it was no different from any other time?
Remember how people were saying that we'd run out in the 70's, and then we didn't, and now they're saying we're going to run out but hey, things are different from the 70's -- THIS time we really will run out? Well, maybe we will, but:
1. We really DON'T know where it comes from.
2. We've heard this alarmist politically-motivated song-and-dance before.
Thanks.
"The only two vehicles we tried that had enough room in back were the Ford Windstar van and [applause!] the tiny Toyota Echo. I'll be buying the Echo, but if you don't like Toyota and have big kids then you're kinda out of luck unless you are willing to accept something huge."
Did you try a Camry perhaps?
No, this isn't a "shop" -- it's a residential area. (An apartment complex.)
zero relation
"As for the question the original poster asked? According to google measurements Windows is 95% of the market. A figure most people repeat. So no need to develop for anything else right?"
Also, note my little blurb above where I noted that most worms and viruses report themselves as IE when attempting Apache/IIS exploits. That seems to up the number of IE users quite a bit there.
Hmmm... I don't know what world you're living in where "Mac users have only used Macs and nothing else" and where small startups have their share of choices of sites, but OK.
In my world, the only Mac users I know have extensive experience with multiple versions of Windows, Linux, big *nixes like Solaris and small embedded OSes.
And the beta site finds you, not the other way around.
"Over the same period of time, what is the ratio of hits that you get on the unpublished root vs. the published one?"
;)
Something like 4:1. I don't get a lot of legit hits.
I mean seriously... who really wants to see brain farts, much less the lighting of them?
You know something interesting? I was tracking web stats on my web page. And no more than 60% of the traffic was IE. Then, I made it so that the root directory of the server (never published) is a redirect instead of a missing page. Guess what? Suddenly the hits go to 95% MSIE.
It seems that all of these viruses, web-crawlers, etc that attack random IP addresses actually report themselves as IE. Now I won't say IE's a worm itself, but clearly a significant amount of that "IE" traffic isn't coming from human users.
Heh. Our routers run embedded Linux. Hah! Eat that, competitor. :)
Yeah. "Requirements Analysis" is good talk, but when you're a dozen folks scrambling to meet different markets, sometimes you find time to do it right... sometimes you don't.
Yeah, I was aware of that when I posted it. That's why I wanted to see if anything like this had occurred elsewhere. I'm also curious to see if this is a likely trend.
One thing I will note is that this particular location is in a very trendy part of LA, which would suggest that the high number of Apple users are trend-followers, and probably aren't so interested in (or even aware of) IE exploits and the like.
Matrics is using the same radio waves, but the class 0 tag protocol is much more reliable than the class 1 -- it has less overhead, and is able to retry bad tag data at the bit level, so it makes sense that Matrics would work well. I haven't had the chance to play with one yet -- we just have a lone ThingMagic and a few Aliens.
:)
We haven't done any formal distance testing (because for what we're doing, we don't care). We were able to get the Alien to read at about 2-3 feet as well, but I had to hold them there a few seconds, and it certainly wasn't reliable enough to be useful for surveying tags people walking past the antenna might have in their clothes.
You managed to get 9-12 feet out of the Alien? What antenna are you using?
"Now, how could such limited devices be of any use in retail?"
The main benefit of the RFID tag over the UPC label is that you don't have to have the tag aligned a certain way and visible to activate it.
In the supply chain leading to the store, lots of products are buried in a pallet, and organizations need to know what's in there (and how many) to track their shipments efficiently. With RFID tags, the pallet need not be opened to know exactly what's in it. In the warehouse, workers can remain a safe distance away from readers on conveyers, forklifts and the like.
Wal-Mart and the US military have immense supply-chain networks. If they save a fraction of a penny per item in their supply chains through better tracking, they can save hundreds of millions of dollars per year. That's why Wal-Mart and the US military are the first two organizations to sponsor supply-chain RFID pilots.
The other uses you mention are still possible, but require some good engineering work. For example, at the checkout counter, much lower-powered readers can be used, because the checker can put the tag on the reader's antenna at point-blank range, and it's not a problem to wait a second for the tag to slowly charge up and send its data.
Theft prevention would require the cooperation of security cameras. The idea is that store shelves would have readers and antennas, so that when someone would remove an item, there's a record of it leaving a shelf. Then, you would be able to go to the videotape and view the thief taking the item as it happens. So you don't see the item leave the store, but you can see it leave the shelf. Shelf-mounted readers can also help floor managers know when certain items are low on stock, and that sort of thing. Again, since the items sit on the shelf for long periods of time, and since we're talking about a short distance, this sort of thing can happen -- but it's going to take some good engineering work to get solid coverage of large shelves without nuking customers.
I believe the benefits of RFID inside the store have been oversold. I think that's the main reason why people are worried about their privacy now; RFID sounds a lot more powerful than it really is. The real applications will be in warehouses; Wal-Mart isn't going to get a lot of benefit from RFID in their stores, but they're going to save billions in the long run by making their supply chain to the stores more efficient.
I contribute monthly to the EFF, and I've spent the past 5 months working with and understanding RFID technology, right down to getting baked by a reader.
There are two types of RFID tags: Active and passive. Active tags have a battery and transmit a signal. They cost a few bucks apiece; they're cheap enough for a lot of good uses, such as locating expensive mobile equipment in hospitals ("Oh, the machine that goes, 'Ping!" is on the third floor women's bathroom!"), but far too expensive to track consumer items -- say, a can of soup. They're also pretty large, since they need an antenna and a battery.
Passive tags are powered by the radio waves themselves. These are the ones that will eventually be cheap enough that they can be put on individual cans of soup, maybe in two to three years.
In order for a passive tag to get enough power to transmit its unique identification number, a few things need to happen. The tag itself -- although it's a very small chip -- needs a rather large antenna to pick up enough energy to get power. The smallest ones I've seen are about 3" long. The RFID reader needs to have a VERY powerful microwave transmitter and antenna. The devices I worked with required me to be at least nine inches away from them most of the time to keep from getting cooked. Even with this powerful reader and large antenna, I've had to hold tags about a foot away from the antenna for a good second or three to see them show up.
Now what are we afraid of regarding RFID? Well, we're afraid that beyond the point of sale, someone will put a reader on us and know all about us or be able to track our movements, because we'll be covered in these RFID tags with unique identifiers.
Now we've seen technology advance, but Physics is Physics. A tag with an antenna no smaller than 3" in size has to be held within a foot of a reader powerful enough to warm your skin for a second to transmint 30-odd bits of data. This is not going to change unless the laws of Physics change first -- there is no technology to change this.
You're going to be able to find RFID tags in your stuff, because the large antenna will give itself away. And you're not going to patiently stand and pose next to a high-powered reader while it tries to sort out all of the tags you're wearing ("Excuse me, can you kneel down so I can get the one on your eyeglasses? Now lift your feet, I can't see your shoes..."), unless you're cold and want to warm up really fast.
What I've laid out here is not common knowledge. That's a big part of the reason I'm writing this now: I know that Slashdot readers are concerned about the issue and are capable of understanding the science behind the issue. Once you understand the issue, you realize that the government isn't going to be using this to track your movements -- from a foot away. People are not going to be able to surreptitiously scan you to learn all about you -- while asking you to stop and pose for the antenna. You're not going to be covered in three-inch-long RFID tag antennas without your knowledge.
I believe that you should be taking neither my word for it nor CASPIAN's. You should do your own research and learn. Don't co-opt someone else's point of view or trust that they've done their due diligence just because you share the same political point of view as he or she does. You may be pro-EFF, just like me -- that doesn't mean you should trust what I've said. You may have beliefs similar to Albrecht's -- but you shouldn't trust that she's done her homework, either!
In practice, you, me, and everyone else does trust the leaders of organizations we agree with to have done their due diligence and to know more than we do about issues. And we do co-opt their points of view. That is why IBM is speaking out: Because it's clear that although Albrecht doesn't understand RFID technology, people are listening to her.
I'm concerned enough about the preservation of civil liberties to donate regularly to the EFF. After working with RFID technology for the past several months and seeing its inherent limitations, I feel that we have little, if anything, to fear from this technology. But don't take my word for it because I claim this is true; do your own research.
He wasn't talking about the program.
"This is so wrong that I believe you must be paid to support these kinds of positions."
My website and e-mail are available for you whenever you want. You can read all about me. You can e-mail me if you like. Please do, in fact. I'd love to talk about this issue further. I'd like to bring together people who want to make real change to defend fair use rights, and get them to sit down with the industry, and figure out how to solve this problem together. Because if we don't have the industry on board with us, they will fight us to the death to prevent us from getting anything we want. That's why I talk about trying to find the win-win scenario.
"First of all, the job of these guys (people) is to make the legislative envrionment very favorable and to promote the interests of the movie/record companies in every forum."
Of course; it goes without saying. It's like any lobbyist job. If he was just a lobbyist, he could have worked for any other industry, any other company -- especially considering the influence he had. He could have been paid a lot more working for the tobacco industry. Compare the results of the tobacco industry Re: legislation to the MPAA. Do you think Big Tobacco wouldn't have paid whatever price he asked to have Valenti on their side?
Why do you think Valenti chose to stick with the MPAA?
"Its not required these guys even know who invented the motion picture."
True, it's not required. When the MPAA makes its decision to hire Valenti's replacement (if it hasn't happened already), I'm sure they won't require each applicant to know who invented the motion picture. If they ask, and the applicant doesn't know, they'll probably try to dig a little further to see how much the applicant DOES know about movies. If the applicant doesn't know much about movies, do you think they'll hire him to represent the movie industry?
To represent movies, the person needs to know movies -- he or she has to know what he or she represents. I won't say that to learn movies is to love them. Those who love movies will learn them. They don't need payment as motivation.
The most important knowledge related to your advancement at a job is knowing your industry. If you write code for a medical device manufacturer, and don't know anything about the healthcare industry or don't care to visit hospitals and doctor's offices... you're not going to get promoted very high. And we're talking about one of the most visible positions in the entire movie industry. Now I ask you; if Valenti doesn't care about movies, how did he get that job and keep it for a few decades? Don't you think he'd get bored with it, if he didn't really love watching movies? Don't you think he'd take a better-paying lobbying job somewhere?
You and I disagree with Valenti's actions; however, it only matters because you, Jack and I really care about the issue. We really care because all three of us are, first and foremost, movie lovers. Even now that Valenti's retired, he's no longer on the payroll of the MPAA, in this article he's still talking about movies and the industry, still defending his case.
He does it because it's something he loves to do.
"A free song from another bland RIAA-sponsored band?"
The Brobdingnagian Bards are about as indie as you can get, and they have over 25k downloads on iTMS. In fact, any independent artist selling through CD Baby has the option to have albums available on iTMS.
What you're saying here is understandable, because Valenti certainly has done things to attack fair use. That's the actions they've taken. Do they see eliminating fair use as a goal, or is it just a means to an ends?
I think you'll agree that if the MPAA and RIAA eliminate fair use rights, that they're not likely to gain more profits or more control over their media. They will lose sales, in fact, to the 2 million Linux users* out there. They'll lose sales to people who aren't interested in the movies or music they're promoting. There isn't any real benefit to them to solely eliminate fair use rights, so why would they make that a goal?
Well, because they aren't aware that they're hurting themselves, and us in the process.
Now if you're telling Mr. Valenti that he's basically evil, do you think you're going to be able to convince him somehow that he's hurting everyone involved?
I've never seen anything in my thirtysomething years to suggest to me that life is a zero-sum game. The way you get what you want is you look for the win-win scenario. In this case, it's not hard to imagine at all. If CD sales increase when users are allowed to do file-sharing, then clearly there's a win-win scenario there. If DVD sales increase when we can use unlicensed DVD players, there's a big win-win scenario there, too. I could go on, but then this post is too overly talkative already.
I don't point out win-win scenarios to say, "Here's an alternative that might work, too." I point them out because they are the ONLY way to preserve fair use and our rights to music. There is no other way. Period. If you win at their expense, they will only regroup and start attacking on a new front. Look at what's happened in the War on Drugs: We're playing Kingpin Whack-A-Mole, capturing one only to see another take his place. Only there's no timer allowing the game to end some point and say, "Yay, you win!"
You're looking at the issue from your perspective and yours alone. That's fine, if you want to retain the status quo. If you want change, real change, you have to understand the other person's point of view. You have to find where you agree with that other person. And if you can't, find someone who can to act as your proxy. Both sides have to work together for change.
It doesn't matter who started the fight. We are going to end it. And we are only going to end it by learning to understand and appreciate the point of view of the organizations that produce the music and movies we enjoy.
*Source: RTFA
Many of us wouldn't be too surprised if, shortly after retiring from their respective positions, Valenti and (former RIAA president) Hilary Rosen each were to sprout horns and a tail.
Hilary and Jack got their jobs, first and foremost, because they love music and movies. Just like you and I do. They went into the industry because they care about seeing creative people rewarded for their work. We certainly don't want to see our favorite musicians and directors starve, either -- yet all but the most elite barely carve out a living, even now.
We really do want the same things that they want. Where we have problems is that our understanding of the issues are lacking.
When people differ, it's easy to get hostile. One guy is the devil, the other's a lunatic, and once everybody's in that defensive mode nobody is open to hearing a new idea. As a result, nobody wins. You can't convince your enemy of anything, because you've made him your enemy!
The only way we are going to be able to change anything is by making friends with the industry executives we've until now demonized. As Valenti says here, we need to avoid hostile debate. To discuss things openly and honestly, we need to start with where we agree: We both love the art, and we want to see artists paid for their work. Get them saying, "Yes, yes," right from the start. So that we're not putting them on the defensive, but getting into a spirit of mutual cooperation.
Because that's the only way we can achieve any kind of change.
For OpenOffice.org to achieve widespread adoption, this is something we need to start doing.
We need to take the most fucked-up Word
There should be an OOo team dedicated to just this.
In fact, if I were in charge of the OOo 2.0 project, I'd put the bulk of my resources into it, and make everything else secondary.
A secondary group will be feature-tracking. If Office has a feature, OOo is going to have it. It doesn't have to be easier to use; most of Office's features are difficult to use as it is.
Once people are using OOo as much or more than Office, then you can start futzing with aesthetic concerns, code beautification, and other issues you like.
I understand Microsoft itself works something like this. Of course, that's the real reason they dominate the market, more than anything else!
I suspect we'll be seeing a Slashdot posting soon for it?
:)
"G4 Cube turned into circular table saw"
"Thats like Apple's logic. The macintosh costs a lot more than a PC and its slower and runs hardly any software, but because it costs more its' better."
Well, a PC is like a tool, a piece of hardware you have in your garage for pounding nails through things or cutting 2x4's in half and the like; there are a lot of precautions and warnings and you kinda have to know what you're doing before you use one, now matter how many guards it seems -- but then you can do some really damned nifty things with 'em, although the results obtained by Joe Sixpack usually suck and he really just uses it to play around with.
An Apple is more like an appliance, something that sits in the living room that you expect to work right when you turn it on and somehow not be an eyesore either. Your wife has to approve of how it looks before she lets it sit there in the living room, and it pretty much just plugs in and goes but it's not all that versatile -- like you wouldn't use your toaster oven to fry an egg, would you? -- so you pretty much with it what it does built-in and be happy with that; it's got its things it does, and it does them real well, and it looks pretty doing it.
*gasp!* that was a lot to say in one breath