Yup, in the left's worldview you are allowed to be any race, color, gender identity, etc. If you keep it in the closet and swear that it doesn't actually influence your behaviour you can even have a religion. But deviate from the accepted policy positions of the left and watch how little tolerance they have for that. They will violently suppress the slightest deviation from orthodox socialism.
Compare this with the other story posted today where US leftists are aiming to revoke the 1st Amendment in their continuing efforts to suppress political dissent during campaigns, reign in unregulated bloggers, the earlier story where they want to force changes in FCC rules to eliminate dissent on the airwaves, etc.
To a "progressive" diversity is looking as different as you want while thinking alike. Tolerance is a codeword for oppression. And of course "progressive" itself is a codeword for a retreat into failed 20th Century *isms. If anything Orwell was too optimistic.
> Huh. I thought it was only the Republicans who were after our 1st Amendment rights.
I know you are being sarcastic, but a lot of "Republicans" do want your 1st Amendment Rights. Almost no Conservatives do though. But RINOs like John McCain are happy to join forces with almost every single Democrat to shut down the 1st. Other RINOs like Rudy want to join forces with Democrats to eliminate the 2nd. But make no mistake, while you can almost always find a RINO to agree with any limitation of essential liberties, the bulk of the votes will come from Democrats. Hell, the Civil Rights act was passed over the opposition (including, I do seem to recall, a filibuster assisted in by none other than the current #3 in the chain of succession) of Democrats.
You think I'm being overly partisan, just slagging Democrats? Consider this then: They get back from the wilderness after a twelve year period out of power and look at the first thing out of the chute? This is Senate Bill #1. I.e. the very first thing they proposed after getting control over the agenda. Combine with the story on/. earlier in the week about Russ Feingold wanting the "Fairness Doctrine", otherwise known as the abolish talk radio law, back on the agenda and it is clear they simply desire to keep power this time by outlawing opposition.
Listen up folks, this is the big fight. None of the rest matters if we can't get the 1st Amendment back. McCain/Feingold already damned near voided it, this will finish the job. If we can't peacefully assemble (in places like blogs for example) and petition our government (i.e. lobby) for redress of our legitimate greivences then the only option left will be messy.
Reasonable people can argue whether the 1st Amendment protects some things, but if it doesn't protect political speech during an election season what the hell is it good for anyway? What sort of diseased mind can claim that the 1st protects porn but supports outlawing buying a billboard to support/oppose a candidate for political office?
> At 20GB this alone will limit pirates as having even 100 of these movies will take up about 2TB of space.
I'm sure people made the same observation when DVDs first became available a decade ago. 4.7 or 9GB over dialup or even early cable modems stored onto hard drives barely able to hold a single disc was not a threat to DVD sales either. But bandwidth and storage keep on improving while a media standard like DVD or HD-DVD remains constant for years. The reality is that if an HD movie is fixed at ~20GB the cost to move/store that will soon drop to managable costs.
With the copy restrictions removed it is an absolute certainly that they WILL be copied. For now just to prove it is possible, to stick it to the man and to prove 313t3 5k177z but eventually it will be as commonplace as Divx;) CD-R copies are now.
> This is a 270M large source package, have you even took the time SVN it?
Exactly. Even if I'd started pulling the source when the story was still in the mysterious future I probably wouldn't have a copy yet to look at. That was why my earlier question was based on a look at their website and a request for more information from anyone who had actual experience with it. Face it, these days companies dumping half baked code into open source is common so it pays to look before investing too much attention into one. And since I do follow PC virtualization fairly closely (bought VMWare 1.0 at a trade show when it first appeared) and had never heard of this one before today I was a little suspicious.
After poking some more and reading the other posts, looks like it is real but has some limitations. No USB support in 2007 is a big limit, no 64 bit hosts another. No downloadable binaries for the GPL edition is another red flag. The plus is a pretty full featured GUI control/config frontend. A remaining question is whether their kernel module will conflict with kqemu or vmware's module.
My day1 assessment though is that if they can demonstrate performance comparable to QEMU+KQEMU in the GPL edition the flaws will quickly be cleaned up and it will become the dominant Free solution, at least among those running processors predating hardware virtualization. KVM will own the future though, although it might get merged with the GUI tools from VirtualBox.
Just had a look at their site. Interesting that they claim contradictory things. Mainly that state that the source is the 'complete' program but also that their closed binaries have additional features. No.rpm or.spec in the source so I didn't bother to download it yet, certainly sounds like at least having a look at, heck maybe I could contribute a.spec at least. Of course I'll probably have to use a VM to do it because they don't have a stable 64bit host yet.:(
Before doing anything though, is this for real? Has anyone on/. actually used it already and can testify that it runs at good speed and doesn't crap itself every ten minutes?
>.. and filling your multi-terabyte RAID (you *do* have a multi-terabyte RAID, right?) with porn.
I'm too poor for that, and besides I built my RAID5 a couple of years ago... so mine is only.6TB. And it doesn't have much porn, too full of linux distro stuff, a bit of video and a fair number of mp3s and flacs. So do I qualify?
> I'm jealous that Steve Jobs is selling appealing technology products to the broad market.
No, I don't care what the 'broad market' likes. The broad market you worship likes Paris Hilton, Reality TV, Windows on low quality Dells, crappy beer and doesn't know enough to care about the closed DRM hell Apple wants them to live in. They can have all of it, glad it makes their ignorant crappy existence bearable.
> This may be because I feel challenged by common acceptance of complex technologies.
The iPod is the end product of decades of a trend for how new technology gets mass marketed. The Compact Disc was probably the last 'open' standard. Sony & Phillips didn't believe they could get away with a closed format so they licensed it to all and sundry, becoming rich in the process but not obscenely so. Then Sony tried the closed thing with their next few ideas and was slapped around by the market. But industry has been learning, and His Steveness is the clever one. The iPod is about as closed a platform as one can imagine but he has figured out how to get everyone to ignore that and do truly stupid things. Now most new things are coming out as closed as they can make them.
This is depressing. Knowledge brings fear. (nod to Futurama)
> I don't understand that, in spite of Paris Hilton being a waste of carbon, promoting a product > is wickedly important and most celebrities aren't even paid shills
The sort of ignorant people who follow the antics of Ms. Hilton are swayed by celebrities. I know better. I couldn't give a flying fuck what some actor thinks about tech, politics or anything else other than acting. Or what some jock thinks about anything other than sports. Now I did read today's/. article where Carmack was speaking out on the PS3 because he is competent to speak to the subject. By the same token I really wouldn't care what Mr. Carmack's views on the minimum wage happen to be.
> I'm hoping you won't notice that Apple is remarkably open in their standards choices. I will continue to > spread FUD about iTunes/iPod being 'closed' simply because I can't dump a huge folder of tunes onto a USB > mounted drive.
Exactly. When I can mount an iPod as a mass storage device, i'll call that part open. When I can replace the firmware I'll call the hardware open. (Yes I know old iPods could boot any software but ones for sale today can't.)
When I can buy tracks at the iTunes store and play them on other players I'll call iTunes open. (I'll even concede the FairPlay as needed to crack open the market.)
Seriously, you have drank so deeply from the Kool-Aid you think iPod/iTunes is an open platform? And anyone who doesn't agree is spreading fud? Get a clue.
> Remember the iPod? The iPod mini? Slashdot said they'd fail.
Slashdot slagging a product means only that Slashdot types don't see the value in it, not that 'consumers' won't buy the shit. We all understand that Steve Jobs could sell turds at 200% profit margins and more power to him. It is immoral to let suckers keep their money.
And you know what? I still don't own an Apple product, no iMac, no iPod and you can bet your ass it will be a cold day in hell before I'd buy a closed platform like the iPhone even if they solved the other flaws. And no I don't care that an ignorant slut like Paris Hilton will almost certainly have on on launch day.
Open standards and open platforms are important. If I buy an mp3 player it will probably be a Sandisk, after Rockbox porting reaching the plausible stage. First player that I like from a physical and raw specs view AND from the openness aspect. Others have been open enough but failed in other ways to win my coin.
But the iPhone not only fails the openness test it fails because of being bundled with Cingular for two years. Either leave the cellphone out like Nokia is doing or get the industry together and put the phone part into a seperately replacable module that everyone can standardize on. I want the ickiness of ALL of the cell carriers abstarcted away from teh computing parts.
> Any time I use a network that isn't my own, be it a hotel, restaurant, or even the public library, I just automatically > assume that someone who wants to remain unknown is taking an active interest in what I'm doing. Otherwise, why would > any of these places provide free networking in the first place. They aren't doing it out of the goodness of their heart > and so they can sleep warm and cuddly at night. They're doing it because they've found other ways to make a buck off of it.
Actually, if it weren't for laws like CIPA we wouldn't even filter our free internet access. I admin for public library, we offer free WiFi access from all six branches 24/7. Yes people are on the parking lot at night several times a week, go figure. We do run a transparent squid proxy, but that is because it is the best way to solve some problems.
1. It is where we could hook in the Federally mandated smut filter.
2. It lets us gain the bandwidth advantages of a cache.
3. It lets us do a stupid net trick (along with linux's advanced networking) to flip most (but not all, that is they tricky part) the http traffic out a DSL link to effectively double our available bandwidth.
> I am almost at the point of designing, possibly for commercial sale, a little box people can put under the > hood of their car with a small bullhorn attached. The remote button on the dashboard is pressed and it > blatts out 'Get off the phone and drive!' at high volume.
Add a couple of other sarcastic messages and I'll buy one if it is simple and cheep.:)
Here are a few suggestions for more messages.
1. Turn signals, read about em sometime asshole.
2. Remember kids, always come to a COMPLETE stop before turning....
> That this supposedly revolutionary device runs on Cingular's old 2G network is pitiful.
Shut up, this is Apple you are talking about. What they picked is GREAT, obviously the other options suck, otherwise Apple would have picked them.
Seriously, imagine the howls of laughter has Microsoft tied a major new product to an outdated technology. But it's different with Apple.
But your point just illustrates why putting a phone and a pda/mp3 player together is a bad idea. Both are evolving too fast, so any combined device is either obsolete at introduction (like iPhone) or you end up needing to replace them at double the speed to keep up. But with a cell phone in the mix you are stuck with the slow two year service contract cycle. Really, imagine the sort of clueless yuppie tech junkie with tons of disposable income who will be lining up in June to buy of these puppies. Anyone think they aren't going to be pissed when the realization sinks in they are stuck with it until June 2009 as new higher spec units roll out every six months?
> But package a computer -- a full blown one running Mac OS X -- into a tiny, shiny device, > and people complain about a $600 pricetag.
The mention of OS X was misdirection, that is why those of us with a clue ignored it. So it isn't a 'full blown computer running OS X for $600"
Fact 1: It isn't running a PPC or ia32 processor. So forget dragging photoshop onto it and doing 'real work'. Odds are it is also DRM locked because a) Apple is becoming DRM loving assholes and b) Cingular always has been.
Fact 2: It has no storage capacity. It is a freaking iPod nano with a phone glued on.
Fact 3: Touch screens suck as a sole input device. I'm sure Apple has spent the millions to invent/buy ways to mitigate the suckage to the extent it is possible but there it is. Yes for phone use poking yer finger on the screen is acceptable but not for writing. Onscreen keyboards are the worst possible option compared to flip out thumnboards or handwriting recognotion and a stylus.
Fact 4: This thing isn't being sold outright, it is being force bundled with Cingular/AT&T in a two year contract.
It is priced with a two year contract with Cingular. And when you play with Apple you play by Apple's rules. I doubt they will sell one unbundled.
Fairly nice hardware, but just another example why putting a phone and a computer together is crazy. Once you say cellphone you have to deal with the cell carriers and all they want to do is lock you into long contracts and screw you hard. Computers have hardware refresh cycles as do cell phones and the two are rarely in sync, and neither will be in sync with your contract expiration. Combine anything else you want into an integrated device but leave the phone seperate and linked via bluetooth.
Nokia is a cellphone company and they are the only one smart enough to leave a phone out of their entry in the portable computer/pda/internet device game. That is a clue Steve, and you missed it.
> There will be a developer's kit for it and what not.
Probably. But notice what wasn't said, always the thing to do at rah rah events like this. NOwhere did they even mention being able to install, run, use normal OS X applications on the thing. Considering what a coup it would be vs WinCE, if it could do it His Steveness would have crowed about it.
So will it be the typical mobile phone development deal, expensive development kit, massive legal hurdles in the NDA dept intended to make sure only select large development houses play and they play according to the mobile phone rules? Will the operating software in the thing be DRMed like the newest iPods so that only Apple signed binaries boot/run? Steve didn't say, and the silence is disturbing.
>..encapsulated in a separate piece of hardware running unmodifiable firmware, and the chip that actually runs linux (or whatever) would > get some sort of serial modem-like interface..
So if you stick a phone and the computer in the same housing but otherwise seperate them they will allow em to share the screen and battery. Wow. If your carrier even allows a phone they didn't sell onto their network... if it is compatible with their network. And when a new high speed service appears you replace both the phone AND the computer. Just doesn't make sense. Let it talk to the phone which can stay in your pocket, to a headset, keyboard, etc. Eventually it will talk to your iPod/portable hard drive, etc. It has enough screen real estate to host a good UI, it is what it is good at, don't pile on functions other things can do better.
> Here's a question, will it be a cellphone out of the box and take sim cards?
Your question is asked anytime this product is mentioned. NO! The second it is a cellphone it will be a closed platform, the cell carriers won't accept an open phone on their networks, period full stop. Use bluetooth to talk to a cellphone to get net or do VoIP via 802.11.
> And keyboards of some kind.
One word, BlueTooth. Really, this is why they invented Bluetooth, so why reinvent the wheel?
> Heck, even a video out port, use the thing like a tiny desktop at home plugged in to the wall.
It isn't a video iPod, it doesn't have a hard drive so it won't be carrying around your media library. From a multimedia pov it is a playback frontend.
I haven't bought one yet but I have been drooling. I like the fact they have now done a product refresh and avoided doing the kitchen sink thing, it keeps it small and allows reasonable battery life. They do appear to have heard the loudest complaints, memory and cpu speed.
Listen up folks, the limited viewings are not for DVD, read carefully because two seperate concepts got mangled in the summary.
What is interesting about this is that Hollywood is close to giving up on CSS. They are about to permit hardware makers to market a drive capable of writing the CSS blocks and writable media to leave a factory without the CSS blocks preburned to zeros. While I suspect they have a DRM trick up their sleeve we know it won't work in this case, as there really isn't a way to retrofit around the flaws in CSS and remian compatible with the installed base of DVD players.
Ding dong the witch is dead, but of course it has already been dead and the body is pretty smelly, enough that Hollywood couldn't ignore it anymore. I think this is a good idea actually. Not for everything and everybody, but I can imagine cases where I might actually use it.
Scenario 1: Downloads. I could see paying to download and burn vs paying to have physical media shipped. If there was a big enough price gap to make the slightly faster delivery enough better to offset the loss of the professional screen printed artwork and such. Or if it were used for obscure titles that wouldn't rate a production run and the choice is between a DVD-R and nothing.
Or try Scenario 2: Go to a website, pick the titles you want to purchase and pick up the media (which could even be dye sub printed and cased) at your friendly neighborhood retailer (the article mentions a deal in the works with Wallgreens) later the same day. Note that this scenario would even allow Hollywood to tightly control distribution of totally blank burnable media.
> On every TV I've owned in the last decade, DVD at 480i in S-Video has been awful compared to DVD at 480i in Component
I can barely notice a difference between S-Video and Component, but I would be hard pressed to declare one 'better'. Panasonic DVD player, JVC 32" 4:3 tube TV connected though a Sony Receiver. None state of the moment (TV doesn't support wide mode or 480p for example) but all good solid gear anyway. Component doesn't seem to matter much until you start pushing HD resolutions over it, something S-Video just can't do.
> Furthermore, they stretch standard TV to fill their wide screen which makes everyone look fat.
Yes, I HATE seeing a widescreen TV because I know 90% of the time it will be displaying a distorted picture. It is the industry's fault to a great extent because they didn't think things through and make it all automatic and NON USER SWITCHABLE. Sure those of us reading/. can figure out the maze of settings on the settop box/DVDgame console and the TV to get things correct but joe average user can't get it right and wants that widescreen filled damnit.
Try it yourself. Walk into a few stores selling widescreen. Check your non-tech friends. Bet you get that same 90% failure rate. Although with stores they usually aren't all hosed, some sets will be right and others wrong, with it varying as the content changes on different visits.
There are simply too many ways to get it wrong, and since equipment has no way of communicating capabilities (DDC anyone?) default to 4:3. So each user is expected to reprogram each piece of equipment if they own a wide tv. Of course this doesn't occur so you see double letterboxed movies zoomed to fill the screen, normal broadcast TV stretched all to hell and back, etc. It is horrid and isn't likely to get better anytime soon.
> Starting at the local level only elect people to office that have done real work.
Good idea.... but if you plan on trying em out a term or two and send the better ones to higher office, by the time you get to high statewide office you are talking about electing people who won't have worked in the private sector for at least a decade. By the time someone 'worked their way up through the ranks' to the US Senate they would have probably been a politician long enough politics would BE their career.
> Start at the state level, get the legislature to pass a Constitutional ammendment that makes the pay for > members of the House & Senate the median wage of the country.
And that would accomplish the exact opposite of your intended goal. I'd like more doctors, scientists, etc to run for and hold elected office. It is enough to ask them to put their career on hold for a decade, but to also impoverish their family is too much to ask. And we already have countless examples of the idle rich spending tens of millions of their own cash to win a job that pays a fraction of that. So your hatred of those who work hard and earn a good living would simply bar the middle and lower upper class from public service and leave it as the exclusive playground of the idle rich. Even worse than just the blueblood 'landed gentry' patrician politicians of yore.
Nope, the problem isn't in Washington. The problem is thee, me and the three hundred million government schooled morons who elect politicians on the basis of a thirty second commercial slagging their opponent. Solve that problem and the quality of pol in DC will rise to match the better Citizens.
> It all depends upon if the Democrats are serious about their real job; Restoring Democracy, Honor, and Sanity.
I don't know whether to laugh in your face or pat you on the head and send you on your way, as one would a child who still believes in Santa Claus.... at the age of fifteen.
The Democrats will be doing their "Real Job" with gusto, consolidating and keeping POWER. For Democrats it means creating more dependency on government, enlarging the set of people who 'vote for a living', threatening the corporations into contributing money and power to Democrat enhancing causes and throwing a bone to the hardcore nutjobs who send in money and volunteer for campaigning. In approximatly that order. After all, what the hell are you moveon types going to do, vote Republican?
When the Republicans have power they do likewise, although since they have different ideas about power and what it should be used for they serve different masters. But the idea is very similar, keeping the seat is job one for ANY politician.
> The free market? There isn't one in telecom and there simply can't be one.
Agree with the part about a lack of a Free Market. I'm amazed anyone can call two government granted monopolies pretending to fight 'competition.' But you are wrong in that there COULD be competition.
A bold statement, right? Almost every tech savvy type has admitted that telco competition just isn't possible so we are going to have to take it in the pooper from the government, the telcos, big media or somebody. Wrong.
The AT&T breakup was bungled because everyone missed the real monopoly and broke them up into the wrong pieces. AT&T's 'monopoly' on long distance didn't matter. The Baby Bell's monopoly on local calling was an annoyance at best and only because of the limits in the numbering plan. The monopoly was and is on the physical plant, the most importantly, the WIRES.
Imagine a new breakup order that took that reality into account. And we are going to have the opportunity because look out, Ma Bell is back and she is large and in charge again. Break them up into two parts, one part regulated as a utility that would own the wires, poles, right of ways and the central offices. This part would be a boring dividend paying entity, just owning and maintaining the wires and selling access at mandated rates to any and all who wished access. The second half would own the switches, dslams and the current customers and pay the first entity for the wires to get at them and rent for the facilities to house their switches.
Then impose a similar breakup on the other monopoly, the cable companies where once part keeps the monopoly right of way grant but looses the right to put a signal down the wire.
In the world I just described net neutrality would arise as a consequence of the Market because customers would have a choice.
> I'm guessing it will probably be about 20yrs before LED bulbs become cheap enough
Ignore Moore's Law at your peril. Ten years they will be competing with CFL and winning because CFL has too many issues to replace normal bulbs everywhere. Would be faster except Moore's Law isn't the only factor, Patents will probably slow things down a bit.
> While I'm at it, why don't we require any city with a population over 500,000 to have a mandatory recycling program.
Better question. Since you are so enlightened and care more than the rest of us, why aren't YOU setting up a recycling program in a >500,000 population area not currently served? Eh? Because there isn't a profit in it and you can't find a government teat to suckle? Ah. Explains everything.
You see, if it were profitable someone WOULD be doing it, millions have been brainwashed by the government schools to 'care' about environmental issues so somebody would be willing to go into the business just about anywhere to make a living doing something no 'noble'. Only problem is that except for a select few lines of recycling, ones where there ARE people in the business even in small 10,000 population towns like mine, recycling is not profitable. Lots of pilot programs, lots of government boondoggles, but most of it is about liberals/greens boosting their self esteem instead of actually helping the environment.
> I'd also like to see any new houses/buildings required to use solar power cells or solar furnaces.
My but aren't you just a freaking fascist power tripping menace to liberty. If it made economic sense people would be doing it. Yea long standing custom provides some intetia to the marketplace but let a solar system show up that actually makes economic sense and there WILL be buyers. Until then piss your own money away on whatever you want and let others do likewise.
> If that was in 1998, then at should be very feasible with current petrol costs,
Only if you can burn the product in current systems, otherwise you have to factor in the conversion costs. And you have to assume oil prices will still be insane when your production makes it online. I'd bet on oil remaining high for a while personally, not sure how many billions I'd bet though.
> especially taking into account the added value of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
How moronic do they make Greens these days? Yea that pond scum will absorb a lot of CO2... and release it right back when you burn it for fuel. So it is carbon neutral unless you plan to compact the algae into bricks and bury it. Of course neutral still beats burning dead dinosaurs who fixed their carbon millions of years ago.
Stories like this are why I don't worry about running out of oil or about global warming. Anytime the system begins to get unbalanced it forces a correction through the free market, and it works even faster and better when the government stays the hell out of things and allows nature to take its course. As oil becomes more expensive, potential replacements that used to be discarded as uncompetitive start looking viable. Once one gets established the intense competition that drove the cost of oil production down will make the new thing cheap and plentiful.
> Consumer electronics, including mobile phones, have a 5 year warranty on fixing 'production errors'.
And notice that in European countries things cost more, even after you factor in VAT and currency conversion. Guess what, you ain't getting a free lunch, you are getting an extended warranty bundled with the stuff you buy. Of course everyone knows extended warranties are a ripoff, too bad you don't get to choose whether to buy one, Big Mother Government made the decision for you. At least you might be getting a discount on that extended warranty by virtue of massive volume purchasing..... Sucker.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup, in the left's worldview you are allowed to be any race, color, gender identity, etc. If you keep it in the closet and swear that it doesn't actually influence your behaviour you can even have a religion. But deviate from the accepted policy positions of the left and watch how little tolerance they have for that. They will violently suppress the slightest deviation from orthodox socialism.
Compare this with the other story posted today where US leftists are aiming to revoke the 1st Amendment in their continuing efforts to suppress political dissent during campaigns, reign in unregulated bloggers, the earlier story where they want to force changes in FCC rules to eliminate dissent on the airwaves, etc.
To a "progressive" diversity is looking as different as you want while thinking alike. Tolerance is a codeword for oppression. And of course "progressive" itself is a codeword for a retreat into failed 20th Century *isms. If anything Orwell was too optimistic.
> Huh. I thought it was only the Republicans who were after our 1st Amendment rights.
/. earlier in the week about Russ Feingold wanting the "Fairness Doctrine", otherwise known as the abolish talk radio law, back on the agenda and it is clear they simply desire to keep power this time by outlawing opposition.
I know you are being sarcastic, but a lot of "Republicans" do want your 1st Amendment Rights. Almost no Conservatives do though. But RINOs like John McCain are happy to join forces with almost every single Democrat to shut down the 1st. Other RINOs like Rudy want to join forces with Democrats to eliminate the 2nd. But make no mistake, while you can almost always find a RINO to agree with any limitation of essential liberties, the bulk of the votes will come from Democrats. Hell, the Civil Rights act was passed over the opposition (including, I do seem to recall, a filibuster assisted in by none other than the current #3 in the chain of succession) of Democrats.
You think I'm being overly partisan, just slagging Democrats? Consider this then: They get back from the wilderness after a twelve year period out of power and look at the first thing out of the chute? This is Senate Bill #1. I.e. the very first thing they proposed after getting control over the agenda. Combine with the story on
Listen up folks, this is the big fight. None of the rest matters if we can't get the 1st Amendment back. McCain/Feingold already damned near voided it, this will finish the job. If we can't peacefully assemble (in places like blogs for example) and petition our government (i.e. lobby) for redress of our legitimate greivences then the only option left will be messy.
Reasonable people can argue whether the 1st Amendment protects some things, but if it doesn't protect political speech during an election season what the hell is it good for anyway? What sort of diseased mind can claim that the 1st protects porn but supports outlawing buying a billboard to support/oppose a candidate for political office?
> At 20GB this alone will limit pirates as having even 100 of these movies will take up about 2TB of space.
I'm sure people made the same observation when DVDs first became available a decade ago. 4.7 or 9GB over dialup or even early cable modems stored onto hard drives barely able to hold a single disc was not a threat to DVD sales either. But bandwidth and storage keep on improving while a media standard like DVD or HD-DVD remains constant for years. The reality is that if an HD movie is fixed at ~20GB the cost to move/store that will soon drop to managable costs.
With the copy restrictions removed it is an absolute certainly that they WILL be copied. For now just to prove it is possible, to stick it to the man and to prove 313t3 5k177z but eventually it will be as commonplace as Divx;) CD-R copies are now.
> This is a 270M large source package, have you even took the time SVN it?
Exactly. Even if I'd started pulling the source when the story was still in the mysterious future I probably wouldn't have a copy yet to look at. That was why my earlier question was based on a look at their website and a request for more information from anyone who had actual experience with it. Face it, these days companies dumping half baked code into open source is common so it pays to look before investing too much attention into one. And since I do follow PC virtualization fairly closely (bought VMWare 1.0 at a trade show when it first appeared) and had never heard of this one before today I was a little suspicious.
After poking some more and reading the other posts, looks like it is real but has some limitations. No USB support in 2007 is a big limit, no 64 bit hosts another. No downloadable binaries for the GPL edition is another red flag. The plus is a pretty full featured GUI control/config frontend. A remaining question is whether their kernel module will conflict with kqemu or vmware's module.
My day1 assessment though is that if they can demonstrate performance comparable to QEMU+KQEMU in the GPL edition the flaws will quickly be cleaned up and it will become the dominant Free solution, at least among those running processors predating hardware virtualization. KVM will own the future though, although it might get merged with the GUI tools from VirtualBox.
Just had a look at their site. Interesting that they claim contradictory things. Mainly that state that the source is the 'complete' program but also that their closed binaries have additional features. No .rpm or .spec in the source so I didn't bother to download it yet, certainly sounds like at least having a look at, heck maybe I could contribute a .spec at least. Of course I'll probably have to use a VM to do it because they don't have a stable 64bit host yet. :(
/. actually used it already and can testify that it runs at good speed and doesn't crap itself every ten minutes?
Before doing anything though, is this for real? Has anyone on
> .. and filling your multi-terabyte RAID (you *do* have a multi-terabyte RAID, right?) with porn.
.6TB. And it doesn't have much porn, too full of linux distro stuff, a bit of video and a fair number of mp3s and flacs. So do I qualify?
I'm too poor for that, and besides I built my RAID5 a couple of years ago... so mine is only
> I'm jealous that Steve Jobs is selling appealing technology products to the broad market.
/. article where Carmack was speaking out on the PS3 because he is competent to speak to the subject. By the same token I really wouldn't care what Mr. Carmack's views on the minimum wage happen to be.
No, I don't care what the 'broad market' likes. The broad market you worship likes Paris Hilton, Reality TV, Windows on low quality Dells, crappy beer and doesn't know enough to care about the closed DRM hell Apple wants them to live in. They can have all of it, glad it makes their ignorant crappy existence bearable.
> This may be because I feel challenged by common acceptance of complex technologies.
The iPod is the end product of decades of a trend for how new technology gets mass marketed. The Compact Disc was probably the last 'open' standard. Sony & Phillips didn't believe they could get away with a closed format so they licensed it to all and sundry, becoming rich in the process but not obscenely so. Then Sony tried the closed thing with their next few ideas and was slapped around by the market. But industry has been learning, and His Steveness is the clever one. The iPod is about as closed a platform as one can imagine but he has figured out how to get everyone to ignore that and do truly stupid things. Now most new things are coming out as closed as they can make them.
This is depressing. Knowledge brings fear. (nod to Futurama)
> I don't understand that, in spite of Paris Hilton being a waste of carbon, promoting a product
> is wickedly important and most celebrities aren't even paid shills
The sort of ignorant people who follow the antics of Ms. Hilton are swayed by celebrities. I know better. I couldn't give a flying fuck what some actor thinks about tech, politics or anything else other than acting. Or what some jock thinks about anything other than sports. Now I did read today's
> I'm hoping you won't notice that Apple is remarkably open in their standards choices. I will continue to
> spread FUD about iTunes/iPod being 'closed' simply because I can't dump a huge folder of tunes onto a USB
> mounted drive.
Exactly. When I can mount an iPod as a mass storage device, i'll call that part open. When I can replace the firmware I'll call the hardware open. (Yes I know old iPods could boot any software but ones for sale today can't.)
When I can buy tracks at the iTunes store and play them on other players I'll call iTunes open. (I'll even concede the FairPlay as needed to crack open the market.)
Seriously, you have drank so deeply from the Kool-Aid you think iPod/iTunes is an open platform? And anyone who doesn't agree is spreading fud? Get a clue.
> Remember the iPod? The iPod mini? Slashdot said they'd fail.
Slashdot slagging a product means only that Slashdot types don't see the value in it, not that 'consumers' won't buy the shit. We all understand that Steve Jobs could sell turds at 200% profit margins and more power to him. It is immoral to let suckers keep their money.
And you know what? I still don't own an Apple product, no iMac, no iPod and you can bet your ass it will be a cold day in hell before I'd buy a closed platform like the iPhone even if they solved the other flaws. And no I don't care that an ignorant slut like Paris Hilton will almost certainly have on on launch day.
Open standards and open platforms are important. If I buy an mp3 player it will probably be a Sandisk, after Rockbox porting reaching the plausible stage. First player that I like from a physical and raw specs view AND from the openness aspect. Others have been open enough but failed in other ways to win my coin.
But the iPhone not only fails the openness test it fails because of being bundled with Cingular for two years. Either leave the cellphone out like Nokia is doing or get the industry together and put the phone part into a seperately replacable module that everyone can standardize on. I want the ickiness of ALL of the cell carriers abstarcted away from teh computing parts.
> Any time I use a network that isn't my own, be it a hotel, restaurant, or even the public library, I just automatically
> assume that someone who wants to remain unknown is taking an active interest in what I'm doing. Otherwise, why would
> any of these places provide free networking in the first place. They aren't doing it out of the goodness of their heart
> and so they can sleep warm and cuddly at night. They're doing it because they've found other ways to make a buck off of it.
Actually, if it weren't for laws like CIPA we wouldn't even filter our free internet access. I admin for public library, we offer free WiFi access from all six branches 24/7. Yes people are on the parking lot at night several times a week, go figure. We do run a transparent squid proxy, but that is because it is the best way to solve some problems.
1. It is where we could hook in the Federally mandated smut filter.
2. It lets us gain the bandwidth advantages of a cache.
3. It lets us do a stupid net trick (along with linux's advanced networking) to flip most (but not all, that is they tricky part) the http traffic out a DSL link to effectively double our available bandwidth.
> I am almost at the point of designing, possibly for commercial sale, a little box people can put under the
:)
> hood of their car with a small bullhorn attached. The remote button on the dashboard is pressed and it
> blatts out 'Get off the phone and drive!' at high volume.
Add a couple of other sarcastic messages and I'll buy one if it is simple and cheep.
Here are a few suggestions for more messages.
1. Turn signals, read about em sometime asshole.
2. Remember kids, always come to a COMPLETE stop before turning....
3. Speed on brother, Hell ain't half full yet!
> That this supposedly revolutionary device runs on Cingular's old 2G network is pitiful.
Shut up, this is Apple you are talking about. What they picked is GREAT, obviously the other options suck, otherwise Apple would have picked them.
Seriously, imagine the howls of laughter has Microsoft tied a major new product to an outdated technology. But it's different with Apple.
But your point just illustrates why putting a phone and a pda/mp3 player together is a bad idea. Both are evolving too fast, so any combined device is either obsolete at introduction (like iPhone) or you end up needing to replace them at double the speed to keep up. But with a cell phone in the mix you are stuck with the slow two year service contract cycle. Really, imagine the sort of clueless yuppie tech junkie with tons of disposable income who will be lining up in June to buy of these puppies. Anyone think they aren't going to be pissed when the realization sinks in they are stuck with it until June 2009 as new higher spec units roll out every six months?
> But package a computer -- a full blown one running Mac OS X -- into a tiny, shiny device,
> and people complain about a $600 pricetag.
The mention of OS X was misdirection, that is why those of us with a clue ignored it. So it isn't a 'full blown computer running OS X for $600"
Fact 1: It isn't running a PPC or ia32 processor. So forget dragging photoshop onto it and doing 'real work'. Odds are it is also DRM locked because a) Apple is becoming DRM loving assholes and b) Cingular always has been.
Fact 2: It has no storage capacity. It is a freaking iPod nano with a phone glued on.
Fact 3: Touch screens suck as a sole input device. I'm sure Apple has spent the millions to invent/buy ways to mitigate the suckage to the extent it is possible but there it is. Yes for phone use poking yer finger on the screen is acceptable but not for writing. Onscreen keyboards are the worst possible option compared to flip out thumnboards or handwriting recognotion and a stylus.
Fact 4: This thing isn't being sold outright, it is being force bundled with Cingular/AT&T in a two year contract.
It is priced with a two year contract with Cingular. And when you play with Apple you play by Apple's rules. I doubt they will sell one unbundled.
Fairly nice hardware, but just another example why putting a phone and a computer together is crazy. Once you say cellphone you have to deal with the cell carriers and all they want to do is lock you into long contracts and screw you hard. Computers have hardware refresh cycles as do cell phones and the two are rarely in sync, and neither will be in sync with your contract expiration. Combine anything else you want into an integrated device but leave the phone seperate and linked via bluetooth.
Nokia is a cellphone company and they are the only one smart enough to leave a phone out of their entry in the portable computer/pda/internet device game. That is a clue Steve, and you missed it.
> There will be a developer's kit for it and what not.
Probably. But notice what wasn't said, always the thing to do at rah rah events like this. NOwhere did they even mention being able to install, run, use normal OS X applications on the thing. Considering what a coup it would be vs WinCE, if it could do it His Steveness would have crowed about it.
So will it be the typical mobile phone development deal, expensive development kit, massive legal hurdles in the NDA dept intended to make sure only select large development houses play and they play according to the mobile phone rules? Will the operating software in the thing be DRMed like the newest iPods so that only Apple signed binaries boot/run? Steve didn't say, and the silence is disturbing.
> ..encapsulated in a separate piece of hardware running unmodifiable firmware, and the chip that actually runs linux (or whatever) would
> get some sort of serial modem-like interface..
So if you stick a phone and the computer in the same housing but otherwise seperate them they will allow em to share the screen and battery. Wow. If your carrier even allows a phone they didn't sell onto their network... if it is compatible with their network. And when a new high speed service appears you replace both the phone AND the computer. Just doesn't make sense. Let it talk to the phone which can stay in your pocket, to a headset, keyboard, etc. Eventually it will talk to your iPod/portable hard drive, etc. It has enough screen real estate to host a good UI, it is what it is good at, don't pile on functions other things can do better.
> Here's a question, will it be a cellphone out of the box and take sim cards?
Your question is asked anytime this product is mentioned. NO! The second it is a cellphone it will be a closed platform, the cell carriers won't accept an open phone on their networks, period full stop. Use bluetooth to talk to a cellphone to get net or do VoIP via 802.11.
> And keyboards of some kind.
One word, BlueTooth. Really, this is why they invented Bluetooth, so why reinvent the wheel?
> Heck, even a video out port, use the thing like a tiny desktop at home plugged in to the wall.
It isn't a video iPod, it doesn't have a hard drive so it won't be carrying around your media library. From a multimedia pov it is a playback frontend.
I haven't bought one yet but I have been drooling. I like the fact they have now done a product refresh and avoided doing the kitchen sink thing, it keeps it small and allows reasonable battery life. They do appear to have heard the loudest complaints, memory and cpu speed.
Listen up folks, the limited viewings are not for DVD, read carefully because two seperate concepts got mangled in the summary.
What is interesting about this is that Hollywood is close to giving up on CSS. They are about to permit hardware makers to market a drive capable of writing the CSS blocks and writable media to leave a factory without the CSS blocks preburned to zeros. While I suspect they have a DRM trick up their sleeve we know it won't work in this case, as there really isn't a way to retrofit around the flaws in CSS and remian compatible with the installed base of DVD players.
Ding dong the witch is dead, but of course it has already been dead and the body is pretty smelly, enough that Hollywood couldn't ignore it anymore. I think this is a good idea actually. Not for everything and everybody, but I can imagine cases where I might actually use it.
Scenario 1: Downloads. I could see paying to download and burn vs paying to have physical media shipped. If there was a big enough price gap to make the slightly faster delivery enough better to offset the loss of the professional screen printed artwork and such. Or if it were used for obscure titles that wouldn't rate a production run and the choice is between a DVD-R and nothing.
Or try Scenario 2: Go to a website, pick the titles you want to purchase and pick up the media (which could even be dye sub printed and cased) at your friendly neighborhood retailer (the article mentions a deal in the works with Wallgreens) later the same day. Note that this scenario would even allow Hollywood to tightly control distribution of totally blank burnable media.
> On every TV I've owned in the last decade, DVD at 480i in S-Video has been awful compared to DVD at 480i in Component
I can barely notice a difference between S-Video and Component, but I would be hard pressed to declare one 'better'. Panasonic DVD player, JVC 32" 4:3 tube TV connected though a Sony Receiver. None state of the moment (TV doesn't support wide mode or 480p for example) but all good solid gear anyway. Component doesn't seem to matter much until you start pushing HD resolutions over it, something S-Video just can't do.
> Furthermore, they stretch standard TV to fill their wide screen which makes everyone look fat.
/. can figure out the maze of settings on the settop box/DVDgame console and the TV to get things correct but joe average user can't get it right and wants that widescreen filled damnit.
Yes, I HATE seeing a widescreen TV because I know 90% of the time it will be displaying a distorted picture. It is the industry's fault to a great extent because they didn't think things through and make it all automatic and NON USER SWITCHABLE. Sure those of us reading
Try it yourself. Walk into a few stores selling widescreen. Check your non-tech friends. Bet you get that same 90% failure rate. Although with stores they usually aren't all hosed, some sets will be right and others wrong, with it varying as the content changes on different visits.
There are simply too many ways to get it wrong, and since equipment has no way of communicating capabilities (DDC anyone?) default to 4:3. So each user is expected to reprogram each piece of equipment if they own a wide tv. Of course this doesn't occur so you see double letterboxed movies zoomed to fill the screen, normal broadcast TV stretched all to hell and back, etc. It is horrid and isn't likely to get better anytime soon.
> Starting at the local level only elect people to office that have done real work.
Good idea.... but if you plan on trying em out a term or two and send the better ones to higher office, by the time you get to high statewide office you are talking about electing people who won't have worked in the private sector for at least a decade. By the time someone 'worked their way up through the ranks' to the US Senate they would have probably been a politician long enough politics would BE their career.
> Start at the state level, get the legislature to pass a Constitutional ammendment that makes the pay for
> members of the House & Senate the median wage of the country.
And that would accomplish the exact opposite of your intended goal. I'd like more doctors, scientists, etc to run for and hold elected office. It is enough to ask them to put their career on hold for a decade, but to also impoverish their family is too much to ask. And we already have countless examples of the idle rich spending tens of millions of their own cash to win a job that pays a fraction of that. So your hatred of those who work hard and earn a good living would simply bar the middle and lower upper class from public service and leave it as the exclusive playground of the idle rich. Even worse than just the blueblood 'landed gentry' patrician politicians of yore.
Nope, the problem isn't in Washington. The problem is thee, me and the three hundred million government schooled morons who elect politicians on the basis of a thirty second commercial slagging their opponent. Solve that problem and the quality of pol in DC will rise to match the better Citizens.
> It all depends upon if the Democrats are serious about their real job; Restoring Democracy, Honor, and Sanity.
I don't know whether to laugh in your face or pat you on the head and send you on your way, as one would a child who still believes in Santa Claus.... at the age of fifteen.
The Democrats will be doing their "Real Job" with gusto, consolidating and keeping POWER. For Democrats it means creating more dependency on government, enlarging the set of people who 'vote for a living', threatening the corporations into contributing money and power to Democrat enhancing causes and throwing a bone to the hardcore nutjobs who send in money and volunteer for campaigning. In approximatly that order. After all, what the hell are you moveon types going to do, vote Republican?
When the Republicans have power they do likewise, although since they have different ideas about power and what it should be used for they serve different masters. But the idea is very similar, keeping the seat is job one for ANY politician.
> The free market? There isn't one in telecom and there simply can't be one.
Agree with the part about a lack of a Free Market. I'm amazed anyone can call two government granted monopolies pretending to fight 'competition.' But you are wrong in that there COULD be competition.
A bold statement, right? Almost every tech savvy type has admitted that telco competition just isn't possible so we are going to have to take it in the pooper from the government, the telcos, big media or somebody. Wrong.
The AT&T breakup was bungled because everyone missed the real monopoly and broke them up into the wrong pieces. AT&T's 'monopoly' on long distance didn't matter. The Baby Bell's monopoly on local calling was an annoyance at best and only because of the limits in the numbering plan. The monopoly was and is on the physical plant, the most importantly, the WIRES.
Imagine a new breakup order that took that reality into account. And we are going to have the opportunity because look out, Ma Bell is back and she is large and in charge again. Break them up into two parts, one part regulated as a utility that would own the wires, poles, right of ways and the central offices. This part would be a boring dividend paying entity, just owning and maintaining the wires and selling access at mandated rates to any and all who wished access. The second half would own the switches, dslams and the current customers and pay the first entity for the wires to get at them and rent for the facilities to house their switches.
Then impose a similar breakup on the other monopoly, the cable companies where once part keeps the monopoly right of way grant but looses the right to put a signal down the wire.
In the world I just described net neutrality would arise as a consequence of the Market because customers would have a choice.
> I'm guessing it will probably be about 20yrs before LED bulbs become cheap enough
Ignore Moore's Law at your peril. Ten years they will be competing with CFL and winning because CFL has too many issues to replace normal bulbs everywhere. Would be faster except Moore's Law isn't the only factor, Patents will probably slow things down a bit.
> While I'm at it, why don't we require any city with a population over 500,000 to have a mandatory recycling program.
Better question. Since you are so enlightened and care more than the rest of us, why aren't YOU setting up a recycling program in a >500,000 population area not currently served? Eh? Because there isn't a profit in it and you can't find a government teat to suckle? Ah. Explains everything.
You see, if it were profitable someone WOULD be doing it, millions have been brainwashed by the government schools to 'care' about environmental issues so somebody would be willing to go into the business just about anywhere to make a living doing something no 'noble'. Only problem is that except for a select few lines of recycling, ones where there ARE people in the business even in small 10,000 population towns like mine, recycling is not profitable. Lots of pilot programs, lots of government boondoggles, but most of it is about liberals/greens boosting their self esteem instead of actually helping the environment.
> I'd also like to see any new houses/buildings required to use solar power cells or solar furnaces.
My but aren't you just a freaking fascist power tripping menace to liberty. If it made economic sense people would be doing it. Yea long standing custom provides some intetia to the marketplace but let a solar system show up that actually makes economic sense and there WILL be buyers. Until then piss your own money away on whatever you want and let others do likewise.
> If that was in 1998, then at should be very feasible with current petrol costs,
Only if you can burn the product in current systems, otherwise you have to factor in the conversion costs. And you have to assume oil prices will still be insane when your production makes it online. I'd bet on oil remaining high for a while personally, not sure how many billions I'd bet though.
> especially taking into account the added value of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
How moronic do they make Greens these days? Yea that pond scum will absorb a lot of CO2... and release it right back when you burn it for fuel. So it is carbon neutral unless you plan to compact the algae into bricks and bury it. Of course neutral still beats burning dead dinosaurs who fixed their carbon millions of years ago.
Stories like this are why I don't worry about running out of oil or about global warming. Anytime the system begins to get unbalanced it forces a correction through the free market, and it works even faster and better when the government stays the hell out of things and allows nature to take its course. As oil becomes more expensive, potential replacements that used to be discarded as uncompetitive start looking viable. Once one gets established the intense competition that drove the cost of oil production down will make the new thing cheap and plentiful.
> Consumer electronics, including mobile phones, have a 5 year warranty on fixing 'production errors'.
And notice that in European countries things cost more, even after you factor in VAT and currency conversion. Guess what, you ain't getting a free lunch, you are getting an extended warranty bundled with the stuff you buy. Of course everyone knows extended warranties are a ripoff, too bad you don't get to choose whether to buy one, Big Mother Government made the decision for you. At least you might be getting a discount on that extended warranty by virtue of massive volume purchasing..... Sucker.