Well it's the resolution, not the screen size. With few exceptions, most streaming video I've seen has such poor resolution that making the window any bigger makes it so blurry it's unwatchable. VCDs are different; the bandwidth between your CD player and computer is a lot wider than broadband. But, I'm jumping to conclusions..the smart move would be just to make them downloadable, but the media seems to have an unwholesome obsession with webcasts. I just don't think the infrastructure can support it well enough right now.
Are they talking about streaming video? Because I don't know about you, but I think films lose some of their impact when shown on a 3 inch by 3 inch window pasted over a browser window...
I'm very much aware of the stress on the environment caused by large-scale ranching. However, the answer is not simply to move to a vegan diet, but to reduce the amount of meat in the diets of certain segments of the world population (i.e. westerners), and to introduce more environmentally friendly methods of beef production. Eating meat by itself is not ecologically harmful, it's just that the methods of producing it lead to environmental degradation. Insisting that everyone on earth eat only plants would lead to a lot of other problems; most notably that it's extremely difficult to obtain all your nutritional requirements from a purely vegan diet. Yes, it can be done (as it can with a purely meat-based diet, though that leads to other health problems), but it would be very difficult for people who don't have access to the variety of foods we have in our supermarkets.
That's a little culturally specific, isn't it? I mean, cultural ecology holds that a society's means of sustenance is dependent on economy. India possesses a relatively large agricultural capacity, and a large population; agriculture can support a higher population than a pastoral/hunting lifestyle, but you've got to have the capacity in the first place. This, some argue, forms the basis for meat avoidance in Indian culture/religion. For say an Inuit of any century before this one to refrain from eating meat would be a death sentence. As for the spiritual aspects of a strictly vegetarian existence, there are plenty of cultures which view meat and blood as spiritual as well. Personally I find meat necessary. But that's a matter of taste rather than religious beliefs...
Re:I don't think you get it.
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Actually, I was commenting only on some of the FSF's more radical philosophies rather than any specific distribution method.
Re:Free speech, not free beer!
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Those "freedoms" are common-sense until you get to the word "distribute". I think the restrictions on modifying/decompiling software are relatively ridiculous, but most software companies feel (and quite accurately I think) that this will take away any reason for people to actually pay them for their software. Let's say I grab a copy of some program cost a company 4 years and 10 million dollars to make. I change a variable. I distribute it freely. Now why should anyone buy it from the company for $300 when they can download mine for free?
nice, clear pictures, but I wonder how much postprocessing they actually did. The pictures would have looked a little more realistic if they actually showed the clouds...
Does this bring to anyone else's mind that hilarious section in one of Douglas Adam's books, where colonists on a new world decided that leaves were currency, then decided the only way to stop inflation was deforestation...
I don't know if I agree...I mean, look at how many new shows are pulled off the air after only a few episodes. And look how many 150 million dollar movies bomb, often because they expected the public to be swayed by a few special effects shots and some dramatic music..
Actually the American dollar has remained relatively trustworthy over the past 50 years. I'm not so sure if I trust the euro, however. As for the inflation-being-theft idea, I don't know if I agree. Inflation actually benefits you if you're in debt; something which applies to the vast majority of Americans. Which is why the powers-that-be hate it so much, and why the Federal Reserve think that inflation is a worse sin than unemployment (as in "The Federal Reserve raised interest rates today, claiming unemployment is too low).
"You're suggesting that there's not one single smart guy that works for any of these companies. I just take exception to you. I don't believe that" ................................................ The movie and TV industries? Of course they're filled with geniuses, look at the brilliant and informative programming that they create.
Why do they keep credit card numbers same database anyway? Wouldn't it be a lot more secure to move them to a separate billing database with much more restricted access?
Why don't we just stop using credit cards over the net, and start using good old reliable paper money... "But Teare said there was no evidence that any credit card numbers have been used" There's a nice way of putting it.."Yeah, they stole your money but we have no evidence that they're spending it.."
We could probably get the best legal support by filling law school with the right kind of people, i.e. hacker types who are more interested in the intellectual challenge than the money.
But in this case access is limited by expertise rather than any sort of copyright protection. Which, now that I think about it, is a lot like open source as well...but anyway, implementation still lies with the government, and the API calls are just for the most part documented; this project seems like just trying to rewrite the documentation into a more readable form..
There can be slight variation due to environmental factors in early development, but you're right, it wouldn't be nearly enough to differentiate. So I guess you wouldn't know. Would be kind of maddening though to know that one of two people committed a crime, but not being able to make the charges stick...
So why not just make all the tests 10 loci? or 20? Or 100? Even better, just do two separate 6-loci tests, which would knock the chances of a false match up quite a bit (what would it be, 1 in 136,900,000,000,000) I'd think if the case was important enough, the resources would be allocated.
I can think of a couple constitutional arguments against it; disabling the software might be interpreted as unlawful seizure; freedom of speech/press issues might come up; freedom of privacy. A stretch maybe, but I've seen some pretty thin arguments win in court...
It's the same justification that a lot of states have for passing anti-union, right-to-work laws; they think that this will draw companies into their area, and I'm quite sure the companies are implying that they'll do so. The idea, of course, is if you bring jobs and money into a region, all other problems magically vanish. Though personally, I don't really see this as a big deal; this kind of legislation would have to be tested in a court of law, and I don't think it would survive judicial review...
Been there. Believe me, it's extremely irritating, especially since when they fix it you still have to wait a while before all the nameservers have gotten the corrected version.
I first went on slashdot a couple years ago, and my memory might be a bit faulty but I seem to remember it having interesting, full-length articles, rather than paragraph-sized references to other sites...was kind of let down a little when I came back.
Slashdot Mirror
Well it's the resolution, not the screen size. With few exceptions, most streaming video I've seen has such poor resolution that making the window any bigger makes it so blurry it's unwatchable. VCDs are different; the bandwidth between your CD player and computer is a lot wider than broadband. But, I'm jumping to conclusions..the smart move would be just to make them downloadable, but the media seems to have an unwholesome obsession with webcasts. I just don't think the infrastructure can support it well enough right now.
Are they talking about streaming video? Because I don't know about you, but I think films lose some of their impact when shown on a 3 inch by 3 inch window pasted over a browser window...
I'm very much aware of the stress on the environment caused by large-scale ranching. However, the answer is not simply to move to a vegan diet, but to reduce the amount of meat in the diets of certain segments of the world population (i.e. westerners), and to introduce more environmentally friendly methods of beef production. Eating meat by itself is not ecologically harmful, it's just that the methods of producing it lead to environmental degradation. Insisting that everyone on earth eat only plants would lead to a lot of other problems; most notably that it's extremely difficult to obtain all your nutritional requirements from a purely vegan diet. Yes, it can be done (as it can with a purely meat-based diet, though that leads to other health problems), but it would be very difficult for people who don't have access to the variety of foods we have in our supermarkets.
That's a little culturally specific, isn't it? I mean, cultural ecology holds that a society's means of sustenance is dependent on economy. India possesses a relatively large agricultural capacity, and a large population; agriculture can support a higher population than a pastoral/hunting lifestyle, but you've got to have the capacity in the first place. This, some argue, forms the basis for meat avoidance in Indian culture/religion. For say an Inuit of any century before this one to refrain from eating meat would be a death sentence. As for the spiritual aspects of a strictly vegetarian existence, there are plenty of cultures which view meat and blood as spiritual as well. Personally I find meat necessary. But that's a matter of taste rather than religious beliefs...
Actually, I was commenting only on some of the FSF's more radical philosophies rather than any specific distribution method.
Those "freedoms" are common-sense until you get to the word "distribute". I think the restrictions on modifying/decompiling software are relatively ridiculous, but most software companies feel (and quite accurately I think) that this will take away any reason for people to actually pay them for their software. Let's say I grab a copy of some program cost a company 4 years and 10 million dollars to make. I change a variable. I distribute it freely. Now why should anyone buy it from the company for $300 when they can download mine for free?
nice, clear pictures, but I wonder how much postprocessing they actually did. The pictures would have looked a little more realistic if they actually showed the clouds...
Does this bring to anyone else's mind that hilarious section in one of Douglas Adam's books, where colonists on a new world decided that leaves were currency, then decided the only way to stop inflation was deforestation...
I don't know if I agree...I mean, look at how many new shows are pulled off the air after only a few episodes. And look how many 150 million dollar movies bomb, often because they expected the public to be swayed by a few special effects shots and some dramatic music..
Actually the American dollar has remained relatively trustworthy over the past 50 years. I'm not so sure if I trust the euro, however. As for the inflation-being-theft idea, I don't know if I agree. Inflation actually benefits you if you're in debt; something which applies to the vast majority of Americans. Which is why the powers-that-be hate it so much, and why the Federal Reserve think that inflation is a worse sin than unemployment (as in "The Federal Reserve raised interest rates today, claiming unemployment is too low).
"You're suggesting that there's not one single smart guy that works for any of these companies. I just take exception to you. I don't believe that".
...............................................
The movie and TV industries? Of course they're filled with geniuses, look at the brilliant and informative programming that they create.
Why do they keep credit card numbers same database anyway? Wouldn't it be a lot more secure to move them to a separate billing database with much more restricted access?
Good point. Or how about water? We can ditch our wallets and carry around flasks...
Why don't we just stop using credit cards over the net, and start using good old reliable paper money... "But Teare said there was no evidence that any credit card numbers have been used" There's a nice way of putting it.."Yeah, they stole your money but we have no evidence that they're spending it.."
We could probably get the best legal support by filling law school with the right kind of people, i.e. hacker types who are more interested in the intellectual challenge than the money.
So it's just a case of supplying better code to the judges in the hope that it will compile more favorably?
But in this case access is limited by expertise rather than any sort of copyright protection. Which, now that I think about it, is a lot like open source as well...but anyway, implementation still lies with the government, and the API calls are just for the most part documented; this project seems like just trying to rewrite the documentation into a more readable form..
Isn't law already open sourced? I mean, that's the whole point of bringing up precedence in a court...
There can be slight variation due to environmental factors in early development, but you're right, it wouldn't be nearly enough to differentiate. So I guess you wouldn't know. Would be kind of maddening though to know that one of two people committed a crime, but not being able to make the charges stick...
So why not just make all the tests 10 loci? or 20? Or 100? Even better, just do two separate 6-loci tests, which would knock the chances of a false match up quite a bit (what would it be, 1 in 136,900,000,000,000) I'd think if the case was important enough, the resources would be allocated.
I can think of a couple constitutional arguments against it; disabling the software might be interpreted as unlawful seizure; freedom of speech/press issues might come up; freedom of privacy. A stretch maybe, but I've seen some pretty thin arguments win in court...
It's the same justification that a lot of states have for passing anti-union, right-to-work laws; they think that this will draw companies into their area, and I'm quite sure the companies are implying that they'll do so. The idea, of course, is if you bring jobs and money into a region, all other problems magically vanish. Though personally, I don't really see this as a big deal; this kind of legislation would have to be tested in a court of law, and I don't think it would survive judicial review...
Been there. Believe me, it's extremely irritating, especially since when they fix it you still have to wait a while before all the nameservers have gotten the corrected version.
That was off-topic, wasn't it. Ignore it I guess.
I first went on slashdot a couple years ago, and my memory might be a bit faulty but I seem to remember it having interesting, full-length articles, rather than paragraph-sized references to other sites...was kind of let down a little when I came back.