SCO has announced an agreement with the Business Software Alliance to raid data backup centers. SCO CEO Darl McBride was quoted as saying "These renegade 'backup' centers are no more than a front for illegitimate software duplication. Any customers who are found to have multiple 'backup' copies of any of SCO's intellectual property will be required to pay additional licensing fees, according to the number of processors in the machine that served as the source for these illicit duplicates."
Future targets, according to the press release, may include schools, small businesses, and FTP 'mirrors', which not only house myriad copies of copyrighted works, but also make them available to further illegal duplication by end users.
SCO Claims that copyright law prohibiting multiple backups of information may also cover music, movies, and published works. The RIAA and MPAA were reportedly intrigued, but unavailable for comment.
Brings up an interesting point, though. Even at low power, it'd rock to power electronics with your body's own energy. I wonder if I could donate processing power to SETI@Home and lose weight at the same time... or maybe/. could use it to load-balance all those poor, overworked servers they prey upon. Talk about a Karma Bonus!
Co-Worker 1: "THREE crullers? You'd better overclock there, buddy!" Co-Worker 2: "Yeah. I'll up the multiplier starting tomorrow." Co-Worker 1: "You *always* say that."
A few interesting points with regard to your rant:
1. Many people understand basic things about copyright law. For example, many people understand that even under the strictest legal scrutiny, it should be fully legal to download music from a P2P net, as long as you burn it to a "certified audio" CD. After all, you've bought the right to copy the music with the CD's! What people don't understand is that this is a losing game, since your money goes to the RIAA and NOT to the artists. DRM shouldn't be used to bring citizens to account for bogus laws -- how about implementing it to bring the RIAA to task for paying artists?
2. Maybe this rash of lawsuits will come back to bite the RIAA in the backside. You're probably right that the American Public doesn't understand copyright law, but what will interest them in it? The media can't generate interest in a story -- they won't captivate Joe Public with an exposee' on copyright without some stunning, simple proof of relevance to precede their arguments. "Why does our elected government consider 1/5 of US Citizens unindicted felons? Could you be sent to prison or sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by the corporations that paid congressmen to pass these laws against voter resistance?" Story at 11...
Maybe I'm understanding this incorrectly, but I find it odd that this discriminatory pricing is a "holy grail of capitalism". I can understand how it would benefit a corporation (at least in the short run) to wring every last penny out of its customers, but think about it from a slightly different angle:
Assume for a moment that consumers place the highest value on specific goods, like water, food, housing, and transportation. Assume also that fringe goods (computers, clothes, entertainment) must, by definition, be valued lower than more basic goods. In an economy where pricing of basic services is discriminatory, the providers of basic goods will be able to raise their prices on an individual basis, according to the consumer's ability to pay.
Given the nature of these goods, the providers should be able to raise their prices to consume all of their customers' available income. There are no substitutes for these goods, and if there were, presumably they would be priced similarly.
In this extremist's scenario, *everyone* would be living below the poverty level, with NO discretionary income. All of their income would be consumed in purchasing these most basic services. And what would the companies be gaining from this? Nothing -- all their money would just mean they pay more for their basic goods and services. Sounds a lot like communism to me, but this would gradually degrade into an agricultural society as people lose their jobs when no one buys their products.
In a less extreme scenario, the disparate discretionary income of consumers at different income levels would, in theory, be able to purchase only the exact same relative value of goods and services, even the CEO's of the megalithic corporations with all their money. Wow. That still sounds like communism.
Capitalism is built on my ability to consume more than you because I (presumably) contribute more to society than you, or vice versa. Anything that upsets this delicate imbalance undermines our very way of life. I will grant you, though, that this is a great argument against Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand".
DPDT is a Double-pole, Double-throw relay. It means that there are two switched contacts, and that there are two contacts for each, one normally-open and one normally-closed. A single-pole, single-throw relay just has one pair of pins that are (usually) normally open, but that close when current is applied to its magnetic coil. The terminology also applies to manual switches.
I left something out in the above, too. You can make the button activate on power-on, too, by rearranging the circuit. You can make the capacitor's initial absorption of current useful, too. I made a diagram (more like an illustration) of it: Diagram for momentary Power-button circuit. Come to think of it, you'd only really need a SPDT relay with this design...
You might want to put a switch on the power button leads, so you can enable and disable auto-power as necessary. You probably won't want the PC to be always off when you cut the ignition, or to hibernate when you turn the car on, if it was already on.
>
Next task is throwing an battery on it and gettting it to hybernate/come out of hibernation when the car is turned off/on.
Not too tough; You just need a DPDT relay, a capacitor, and an SPST relay.
Bridge the input terminals of the DPDT relay with the capacitor. Connect the 'on' pair of outputs to the car battery, and the 'off' pair to the SPST relay's coil. Then use the SPST connection to connect the wires from the Power or Sleep button on the mobo. When the ignition cuts out, it'll disconnect the cap from the car's power, and connect it to the coil on the SPST relay. The capacitor will then power the coil on the other relay long enough to connect the power switch for 1/4 or 1/2 second before it releases, and viola!
I totally agree. But, the problem is that Mini-ITX boards, (like the VIA EPIA with 533MHz fanless EDEN) which support faster processors, are slightly too large to fit the In-Car position. The width of the board is fine, but unless you're willing to gut your dash and saw out a few supporting structures, the motherboard's dimension of 6.7" (it's square) is a bit too much for an in-dash application.
They're probably using the P266MMX because it's the coolest processor that will run on the board available to them. The note at the bottom of the page says:
We are currently working on a version with faster processor speed. Please check back with us in a couple of months for more information.
In the meantime, you can build a rockin' CarPC for a heckuva lot less money by visiting www.caseoutlet.com and hitting their barebones section. Just remember that you'll probably want to get an offboard DAC (USB or Digital Coaxial) if you'll be stringing the audio forward from the trunk. It's much better to spend some money on a DAC than spending lots of money on fancy cables that won't perform as well and still carry noise from inside the PC.
So, to play devil's advocate, is it more wrong for:
A Large Company with an installed userbase to steal a startup's product and integrate it with their own
-or-
A smalller company to take a big company's product and reproduce it to challenge them?
I think we'll all agree that, while there is little legal difference, the former case is much more ire-raising than the latter. Why? Because the little guy stands to lose, in relative terms, a lot more.
As the law concerns itself, though, this is crap. The judge has obviously taken the moral high ground, but in doing so with such faulty logic, has opened the door for a grave number of misdeeds. If he wants to protect the little guy, maybe provisions could be made to define and protect product designers "at risk"...
I think that this case should have been more about illegal anticompetitive practices and inappropriate theft of trade secrets, (maybe) patent infringement. I don't know what to call it, but they should be shot through the forehead for refusing to hire the guy and then stealing his ideas when he took out a second mortgage to write his software.
Anyway, the judge's logic is abhorrent. I object to the concept of shrink-wrap EULA's. Why shouldn't we have real, 'signed' contracts? The shrink-wrap license should say something like,
"By opening this package and installing this software, you agree that you have absolutely no rights to the software herein until you have agreed to the EULA contained herein and/or included electronically with the software. These include, but are not limited to, publishing benchmarks and graphical depictions of the product ("Screenshots"), and publishing/distributing materials produced through or by the use of the Product. After an evaluation period of 5 (five) days of active use, you will be required to accept or reject the terms of this software's EULA by electronically transmitting or mailing a personally identifiable signature to the company. Should you reject the EULA, the software will be automatically removed from your system. A refund will be provided to you, minus packaging and duplication costs ($X.XX). Thank you for trying our software."
Yes, it could potentially be more restrictive than current EULA's, but at least it'd be straightforward and honest. After all, if the gov't is going to say "anything goes" for EULA's anyway, I'd rather have a chance not to agree. And a way to prove that I did/didn't.
--Jasin Natael
Yeah, yeah. That's what they said about handwriting. Oh, wait. They were right. Maybe I'm agreeing with you.
Just like my beloved Apple Newton -- It got the handwriting right 98% of the time, but for the other 2%, you'd find yourself double-tapping the word to see what else it thought you might have written. I'd be surprised to learn that this isn't the way most firms are implementing the technology. After all, "Blocks more than 98% of intruders" isn't a great advertising slogan unless you plan to use another system to back up that 2%.
To sum up: You'll probably see it used in non-critical places (like advertisements), as supplementary ID (like at an ATM, but you'll still need your PIN), and as an entertainment enhancement (your TV recognizing who's in the room and recommending shows everyone is likely to enjoy). Just don't use it to lock your car, and certainly don't deploy it at work unless there's a real brain behind it.
...Rowling's campaign destroys the market for international follow-ons, since Rowling could never write a Potter book that could capture the Russian spirit the way Grotter does. Rowling is using the cudgel of international copyright not to destroy something she could have created, but to destroy something she could never create.
You're damn right. She's destroying the culture of every country in which she brandishes this cudgel. Why shouldn't Russian children be able to read books that draw from their history, culture, and politics, and that interest them in their own country's writing? Why shouldn't Indian children be enticed to read their country's classical works of literature?
Every kid, all over the world, becoming part of American monoculture is a horrific thought. But, if you believe it will happen anyway, you might as well get on board with J.K. Rowling, et al. Why not throw away the culture of our world now, and reap the profits while we're at it...
--Jasin Natael
Re:Learned Professionals?
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 1
Florida's doing the same thing with University Tuition. Our voters passed a law to limit class size in our public schools. Which, while it's a good thing (my parents are both teachers, as are many aunts, uncles, and my father's parents), takes a great deal of funding away from the Universities without solving the real problems in our public schools. Our provost at UF has talked about 15% increases in tuition not being "adequate". While it may just be a ploy to re-spark waning alumni contributions, they'll get their money somehow. I'd simply prefer that it not be from me -- I'm living in poverty already so I can attend school.
The result? Ever-greater stratification of society. A greater separation between the rich and the poor.
Which is why I'm glad I'm in school now. A few more years, and I may find myself on the wrong side of the dividing line. Readers: Don't let the impending doom blind you from the obvious truth: whether things will get better or worse, there will never be a better time than now to learn. You can always learn more later, but the penalties of not learning acrue interest at an alarming rate. Whereas interest rates on student loans have never been lower.
In your example, though, the PC in your basement can use both the 100BaseT LAN, and by extension, the T3. I've recently bought the new Color Sidekick, aka Danger Hiptop, and am starting to see why that kind of diversity would be greatly desired. It'd be awesome if a device like this could get data access through an existing WiFi network when available -- coverage is often spotty, or at least markedly slower, indoors. I wouldn't even mind having it use the WiFi for a VoIP session every now and then (count on using your wireless minutes though).
Unlimited data plans are what will drive the adoption of dual-radio technology. In my case, T-Mobile would benefit when I use DSL bandwidth at home, since they can't charge me more for higher data use anyway. As long as they charge by the kilobyte, though (like with all the Palm, PocketPC, and Symbian phones' rate plans), 802.11 support will undermine their business model.
Try telling your cellular company you want unlimited data, but you'd prefer to use WiFi on your smartphone when available. It won't save you a lot of money in the long run, but it should work out better for everyone. Blazing fast broadband at home/office, GPRS or 1xRTT speeds everywhere else, and no stress about exceeding your data plan. The carrier benefits from charging you $15-20 for unlimited data instead of 5MB, but you only use 1 or 2 MB...
(Oh, and slightly off-topic: Re: my previous Ask Slashdot post about complex character sets on a PDA/Smartphone, the Sidekick displays Unicode systemwide, at least for Japanese.)
While that's cool, It's not quite the same thing. The Visym product is a screen with an integrated powerpoint viewer, Image viewer, and a remote. You dock it on its base (optional), and use it as a monitor while it charges its internal battery. While it's in its base, you can also load it up with files, either to its internal 1MB of storage, or to a memory card in its PCMCIA slot (Smart Media, SD, CF, and Memory Stick supported with adapters).
This is a true lightweight at 1.9kg (4.3 lbs) and probably a lot more newsworthy, but I can't find a Japanese release date on the site, much less a US availability. Plus this one doesn't fold up; it just pops out of its cradle and into a slipcase.
Which is why it'll probably never become common on the web. It doesn't really seem to be a replacement for static content, but it could provide some added value to applications where video is already used. Having said that, I still don't think it'll become common on the internet.
It *would* be a really great way to handle keynote speeches from conferences, etc. Like, if Lessig is lecturing, and mentions an historic copyright incident you hadn't heard of, you could click a link and it would pause the video while you read up on it.
A technology like this, however, could be a boon for info-kiosks in places like malls, theme parks, universities, etc. As long as you're storing video locally or transmitting it over a fast intranet, you're in business. Production costs shouldn't be any higher than for other ways of integrating video into a presentation. Plus, you're no longer limited by the embed tag.
The development package that installed with Linux... my first thought was "Dang, if I paid money for all of this, it would cost me tens of thousands of dollars!".
AMEN! I can't begin to express how great Linux is for developers. It's like you said... The OS is becoming a commodity. But vertical market applications are NOT, nor will they likely ever be. Right now, you're fighting against a HUGE range of incompatibilities. Not the least of which are hundreds of complicated online services that run only on IE.
Entrenched vertical market apps mean that organizations have no flexiblity in choosing a new platform -- heck, most of my big jobs over the past two years have been cleaning up, patching, and rewriting apps so they'll run under Win2000, since the companies couldn't keep running Windows 95 anymore. Nowhere has there been discussion of an OS change, for two reasons: (1)Porting the app to another, less familiar platform would have been much more work, and a lot more debugging, and (2)many sites needed for daily business were IE-Only.
There's got to be a way to get the developers on your side for this. Help them understand Linux well enough that the development costs for (re)writing vertical market apps is not so much higher than for Win32, and make sure IE isn't the only working browser:)
It can be done. And the best way to produce the desired effect, is to make current Windows developers more familiar with Linux. Give stuff away on physical media; Force them to think about Linux whether they want to or not. Make them realize that Linux has value, even if they don't have to pay for it. It'll help your cause to do the same with browsers. Give away a copy of Mozilla Firebird on CD, or Opera. --And while you're at it, get ready to do the same for OpenBEOS; It looks like it's gonna rock--
It was amazing to me that I could get a lot of high quality help out of people for just a little public recognition, or some free software, or a nice gadget.
I think this is a very important point, and one that explains why Microsoft has the upper hand on Linux. These things all generate mindshare and loyalty, whereas just paying someone to do the same work won't produce the same results. For you developers: Would you be more inclined to start programming for Linux if your product got mentioned in a press release? If you were given a suite of otherwise expensive development tools? Or a Sharp Zaurus? I know I would be.
When Microsoft gives away products, people think they're getting something valuable. When users download a Linux ISO, it's something that, legally, isn't allowed to carry a measurable, monetary value. Finding a way to make people think about your product as something with intrinsic, definable value makes it more valuable, for everyone involved.
It's all about I/O speed, not the raw pace of calculations. Programming DNA chemically in a lab is very time-consuming, and the hassle overcomes the utility of doing so for all but the very most specific applications. A computer without a usable interface is hardly a computer at all, is it? Until we've programmed biological computers to be sufficiently complex, they'll need to rely on a lot of things that silicon does better.
I have to think that both technologies will come to a point where they can't advance without the other, at least in the medium-term. We know (or think we know) that silicon will reach barriers it can't overcome. And at this point, we don't have a way to create complex biological computers without using existing complex organisms and therefore shooting ourselves in the foot politically. Before real-world interfaces to biological computers can be developed, we need an efficient way to interface with the biology at a low level. Traditional computers will have to provide this for us.
We may even see a true, permanent mesh of the technologies. Silicon is extremely good at some things (communications; providing an interface to mechanical items -- keyboards & mice, monitors, speakers, solar panels, servos, etc.), while it's hard to imagine really good natural language processing, learning, and nonlinear problem solving, much less a modicum of emotion to enhance usability, occuring without biology.
Who knows? My prediction is as follows:
Machines give us a way to program biological computers, and develop enough utility to make them commercially viable.
Products are released that use simple biological computers to enhance existing mechanical products, such as auxiliary processors for supercomputers.
Biological components gradually take a more active role in defining the behavior of gadgets and make it to consumers, in things like electronic pets and home security systems.
Biological elements become avatars for their integrated electronic functionality. Instead of an electronic pet with a biological brain, you have a real pet that accesses the internet and communicates with your home via its built-in Wi-Fi and stores your finances on removable storage.
If social attitude allows, humans become the avatars for their own integrated electronic functionality.
Does this mean that the government might stop the subsidization of corn, to keep up with increased demand?
It just irks me every single time I think that my tax dollars are paying someone good money not to grow corn/sugar, etc. Like unemployment benefits, subsidy should only last long enough to get these people out of the farming business and into another job.
Can't you just do that with a browser-detect script? Like, tell them that since Netscape 4 is so old, and there have been so many problems fixed since its release, that users should *really* upgrade their browser? Let them access the site if they want, but provide a list of links to MozillaFirebird, Opera, IE, and Safari, Chimera, etc... Sounds like these people really do need a helping hand.
So you think the grass roots internet will have people who DON'T mind that their neighbor is pumping out gigatons of spam through them?
You think noone will notice and do something about it?
No, I think they'd only have to walk a few blocks or drive across town to find a new node, or else find one of the "Grass Roots Internet" people's friends and family who aren't so savvy.
You think in that climate a new email protocol won't spring up?
Well, the current climate is bad enough, and it hasn't happened yet. People are decrying the "Death of E-Mail", but nobody's switching to a different protocol!
Everything would still inevitably be regulated by the government, and would certainly be more of a headache. For example, rural users might have to apply for a government grant to install wireless transceivers along the path to their homes instead of making a simple call to the telcos. When your network piggybacks signal from your neighbor, and his cat chews through the repeater's power cord while he's on vacation, you have no recourse. And with everything ad-hoc, any spammer with a laptop could send whatever he/she wants, to whomever. You're paying the telcos a lot for accountability, false contrition, and some measure of reliability, not just for the data that streams into your house.
You have to ask yourself, "Is it worth the hassle?" If so, get one of those fancy 5-km WiFi antennas, mount it next to your satellite dish on the roof, and just leach.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm trying to get back into programming for PalmOS, and am appalled at the high ($400) price of development for such a cheap machine. My old version of CodeWarrior won't run on my current version of Windows, and demo versions are no longer available without a personal phone call to Metrowerks' sales department.
I know PRC-Tools is free and available, but it's wounded without a good front-end and graphical form / resource editor under (Cyg)Windows. I don't feel like anyone (specifically me) should have to install another OS just to write software for a third OS!
Call me a wuss, but I'm a seasoned programmer who doesn't want to deal with this hassle, and certainly wouldn't expect a middle school student to. I know in my heart that the Palm would be a wonderful first platform for young programmers. Some of my best learning was done on an Apple Newton in its own self-hosted development environment (Steve Weyer's NEWT), and my earliest assembly was done for my TI-85. Handheld gadgets are captivating, are simpler than desktops, and make it easy and fun to show off your 1337 5k1lZ to your friends and family.
Let's do something to reduce the barrier to entry. Until then, let your kids sharpen their teeth on a TI calculator with TI-BASIC. You won't get any closer to the old command-line machines of yesteryear unless you happen to have one in your attic.
And why *would* you be able to write in cursive? It's just not something you see every day. If cursive was as flexible, legible, or just plain useful as printed writing, you'd expect to see it as often as printed writing -- On billboards, store signs, flyers, reports & essays, technical manuals, and even the fine print at the foot of legal documents.
Instead, I'd venture a guess that no one here has seen cursive used extensively outside of school, save for the occasional greeting card or love letter. In simple fact, it's not as legible, not as easy to write, and not as flexible as printed writing.
On a side note, however, I would be interested to know how common cursive writing is in languages other than English. I wouldn't mind advocating it as a piece of language history, but I can't stomach the thought of decrying 'woe to the children' over its plummet to obscurity.
Slashdot Mirror
Please. The PalmOS is Totally not secure. Just hook it up to a Hotsync port and run debug. :-P
--Jasin Natael
SCO has announced an agreement with the Business Software Alliance to raid data backup centers. SCO CEO Darl McBride was quoted as saying "These renegade 'backup' centers are no more than a front for illegitimate software duplication. Any customers who are found to have multiple 'backup' copies of any of SCO's intellectual property will be required to pay additional licensing fees, according to the number of processors in the machine that served as the source for these illicit duplicates."
Future targets, according to the press release, may include schools, small businesses, and FTP 'mirrors', which not only house myriad copies of copyrighted works, but also make them available to further illegal duplication by end users.
SCO Claims that copyright law prohibiting multiple backups of information may also cover music, movies, and published works. The RIAA and MPAA were reportedly intrigued, but unavailable for comment.
--Jasin Natael
Brings up an interesting point, though. Even at low power, it'd rock to power electronics with your body's own energy. I wonder if I could donate processing power to SETI@Home and lose weight at the same time... or maybe /. could use it to load-balance all those poor, overworked servers they prey upon. Talk about a Karma Bonus!
Co-Worker 1: "THREE crullers? You'd better overclock there, buddy!"
Co-Worker 2: "Yeah. I'll up the multiplier starting tomorrow."
Co-Worker 1: "You *always* say that."
--Jasin Natel
A few interesting points with regard to your rant:
1. Many people understand basic things about copyright law. For example, many people understand that even under the strictest legal scrutiny, it should be fully legal to download music from a P2P net, as long as you burn it to a "certified audio" CD. After all, you've bought the right to copy the music with the CD's! What people don't understand is that this is a losing game, since your money goes to the RIAA and NOT to the artists. DRM shouldn't be used to bring citizens to account for bogus laws -- how about implementing it to bring the RIAA to task for paying artists?
2. Maybe this rash of lawsuits will come back to bite the RIAA in the backside. You're probably right that the American Public doesn't understand copyright law, but what will interest them in it? The media can't generate interest in a story -- they won't captivate Joe Public with an exposee' on copyright without some stunning, simple proof of relevance to precede their arguments. "Why does our elected government consider 1/5 of US Citizens unindicted felons? Could you be sent to prison or sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by the corporations that paid congressmen to pass these laws against voter resistance?" Story at 11...
--Jasin Natael
Maybe I'm understanding this incorrectly, but I find it odd that this discriminatory pricing is a "holy grail of capitalism". I can understand how it would benefit a corporation (at least in the short run) to wring every last penny out of its customers, but think about it from a slightly different angle:
Assume for a moment that consumers place the highest value on specific goods, like water, food, housing, and transportation. Assume also that fringe goods (computers, clothes, entertainment) must, by definition, be valued lower than more basic goods. In an economy where pricing of basic services is discriminatory, the providers of basic goods will be able to raise their prices on an individual basis, according to the consumer's ability to pay.
Given the nature of these goods, the providers should be able to raise their prices to consume all of their customers' available income. There are no substitutes for these goods, and if there were, presumably they would be priced similarly.
In this extremist's scenario, *everyone* would be living below the poverty level, with NO discretionary income. All of their income would be consumed in purchasing these most basic services. And what would the companies be gaining from this? Nothing -- all their money would just mean they pay more for their basic goods and services. Sounds a lot like communism to me, but this would gradually degrade into an agricultural society as people lose their jobs when no one buys their products.
In a less extreme scenario, the disparate discretionary income of consumers at different income levels would, in theory, be able to purchase only the exact same relative value of goods and services, even the CEO's of the megalithic corporations with all their money. Wow. That still sounds like communism.
Capitalism is built on my ability to consume more than you because I (presumably) contribute more to society than you, or vice versa. Anything that upsets this delicate imbalance undermines our very way of life. I will grant you, though, that this is a great argument against Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand".
--Jasin Natael
DPDT is a Double-pole, Double-throw relay. It means that there are two switched contacts, and that there are two contacts for each, one normally-open and one normally-closed. A single-pole, single-throw relay just has one pair of pins that are (usually) normally open, but that close when current is applied to its magnetic coil. The terminology also applies to manual switches.
I left something out in the above, too. You can make the button activate on power-on, too, by rearranging the circuit. You can make the capacitor's initial absorption of current useful, too. I made a diagram (more like an illustration) of it: Diagram for momentary Power-button circuit. Come to think of it, you'd only really need a SPDT relay with this design...
You might want to put a switch on the power button leads, so you can enable and disable auto-power as necessary. You probably won't want the PC to be always off when you cut the ignition, or to hibernate when you turn the car on, if it was already on.
--Jasin Natael
Bridge the input terminals of the DPDT relay with the capacitor. Connect the 'on' pair of outputs to the car battery, and the 'off' pair to the SPST relay's coil. Then use the SPST connection to connect the wires from the Power or Sleep button on the mobo. When the ignition cuts out, it'll disconnect the cap from the car's power, and connect it to the coil on the SPST relay. The capacitor will then power the coil on the other relay long enough to connect the power switch for 1/4 or 1/2 second before it releases, and viola!
--Jasin Natael
Come on, Apple.
I see you jockin' me.
Tryin' to play like you know me.
Man, Apple, you're just making yourself look worse.
You know?
I mean, Everybody's just gonna feel sorry for me.
I mean, I do.
fhqwhgads
--Jasin Natael
They're probably using the P266MMX because it's the coolest processor that will run on the board available to them. The note at the bottom of the page says:In the meantime, you can build a rockin' CarPC for a heckuva lot less money by visiting www.caseoutlet.com and hitting their barebones section. Just remember that you'll probably want to get an offboard DAC (USB or Digital Coaxial) if you'll be stringing the audio forward from the trunk. It's much better to spend some money on a DAC than spending lots of money on fancy cables that won't perform as well and still carry noise from inside the PC.
--Jasin Natael
- A Large Company with an installed userbase to steal a startup's product and integrate it with their own
- A smalller company to take a big company's product and reproduce it to challenge them?
I think we'll all agree that, while there is little legal difference, the former case is much more ire-raising than the latter. Why? Because the little guy stands to lose, in relative terms, a lot more. As the law concerns itself, though, this is crap. The judge has obviously taken the moral high ground, but in doing so with such faulty logic, has opened the door for a grave number of misdeeds. If he wants to protect the little guy, maybe provisions could be made to define and protect product designers "at risk"...-or-
I think that this case should have been more about illegal anticompetitive practices and inappropriate theft of trade secrets, (maybe) patent infringement. I don't know what to call it, but they should be shot through the forehead for refusing to hire the guy and then stealing his ideas when he took out a second mortgage to write his software. Anyway, the judge's logic is abhorrent. I object to the concept of shrink-wrap EULA's. Why shouldn't we have real, 'signed' contracts? The shrink-wrap license should say something like, Yes, it could potentially be more restrictive than current EULA's, but at least it'd be straightforward and honest. After all, if the gov't is going to say "anything goes" for EULA's anyway, I'd rather have a chance not to agree. And a way to prove that I did/didn't. --Jasin Natael
Yeah, yeah. That's what they said about handwriting. Oh, wait. They were right. Maybe I'm agreeing with you.
Just like my beloved Apple Newton -- It got the handwriting right 98% of the time, but for the other 2%, you'd find yourself double-tapping the word to see what else it thought you might have written. I'd be surprised to learn that this isn't the way most firms are implementing the technology. After all, "Blocks more than 98% of intruders" isn't a great advertising slogan unless you plan to use another system to back up that 2%.
To sum up: You'll probably see it used in non-critical places (like advertisements), as supplementary ID (like at an ATM, but you'll still need your PIN), and as an entertainment enhancement (your TV recognizing who's in the room and recommending shows everyone is likely to enjoy). Just don't use it to lock your car, and certainly don't deploy it at work unless there's a real brain behind it.
--Jasin Natael
Every kid, all over the world, becoming part of American monoculture is a horrific thought. But, if you believe it will happen anyway, you might as well get on board with J.K. Rowling, et al. Why not throw away the culture of our world now, and reap the profits while we're at it...
--Jasin Natael
Florida's doing the same thing with University Tuition. Our voters passed a law to limit class size in our public schools. Which, while it's a good thing (my parents are both teachers, as are many aunts, uncles, and my father's parents), takes a great deal of funding away from the Universities without solving the real problems in our public schools. Our provost at UF has talked about 15% increases in tuition not being "adequate". While it may just be a ploy to re-spark waning alumni contributions, they'll get their money somehow. I'd simply prefer that it not be from me -- I'm living in poverty already so I can attend school.
The result? Ever-greater stratification of society. A greater separation between the rich and the poor.
Which is why I'm glad I'm in school now. A few more years, and I may find myself on the wrong side of the dividing line. Readers: Don't let the impending doom blind you from the obvious truth: whether things will get better or worse, there will never be a better time than now to learn. You can always learn more later, but the penalties of not learning acrue interest at an alarming rate. Whereas interest rates on student loans have never been lower.
--Jasin Natael
In your example, though, the PC in your basement can use both the 100BaseT LAN, and by extension, the T3. I've recently bought the new Color Sidekick, aka Danger Hiptop, and am starting to see why that kind of diversity would be greatly desired. It'd be awesome if a device like this could get data access through an existing WiFi network when available -- coverage is often spotty, or at least markedly slower, indoors. I wouldn't even mind having it use the WiFi for a VoIP session every now and then (count on using your wireless minutes though).
Unlimited data plans are what will drive the adoption of dual-radio technology. In my case, T-Mobile would benefit when I use DSL bandwidth at home, since they can't charge me more for higher data use anyway. As long as they charge by the kilobyte, though (like with all the Palm, PocketPC, and Symbian phones' rate plans), 802.11 support will undermine their business model.
Try telling your cellular company you want unlimited data, but you'd prefer to use WiFi on your smartphone when available. It won't save you a lot of money in the long run, but it should work out better for everyone. Blazing fast broadband at home/office, GPRS or 1xRTT speeds everywhere else, and no stress about exceeding your data plan. The carrier benefits from charging you $15-20 for unlimited data instead of 5MB, but you only use 1 or 2 MB...
(Oh, and slightly off-topic: Re: my previous Ask Slashdot post about complex character sets on a PDA/Smartphone, the Sidekick displays Unicode systemwide, at least for Japanese.)
--Jasin Natel
While that's cool, It's not quite the same thing. The Visym product is a screen with an integrated powerpoint viewer, Image viewer, and a remote. You dock it on its base (optional), and use it as a monitor while it charges its internal battery. While it's in its base, you can also load it up with files, either to its internal 1MB of storage, or to a memory card in its PCMCIA slot (Smart Media, SD, CF, and Memory Stick supported with adapters).
This is a true lightweight at 1.9kg (4.3 lbs) and probably a lot more newsworthy, but I can't find a Japanese release date on the site, much less a US availability. Plus this one doesn't fold up; it just pops out of its cradle and into a slipcase.
--Jasin Natel
Which is why it'll probably never become common on the web. It doesn't really seem to be a replacement for static content, but it could provide some added value to applications where video is already used. Having said that, I still don't think it'll become common on the internet.
It *would* be a really great way to handle keynote speeches from conferences, etc. Like, if Lessig is lecturing, and mentions an historic copyright incident you hadn't heard of, you could click a link and it would pause the video while you read up on it.
A technology like this, however, could be a boon for info-kiosks in places like malls, theme parks, universities, etc. As long as you're storing video locally or transmitting it over a fast intranet, you're in business. Production costs shouldn't be any higher than for other ways of integrating video into a presentation. Plus, you're no longer limited by the embed tag.
--Jasin Natael
The development package that installed with Linux... my first thought was "Dang, if I paid money for all of this, it would cost me tens of thousands of dollars!".
:)
AMEN! I can't begin to express how great Linux is for developers. It's like you said... The OS is becoming a commodity. But vertical market applications are NOT, nor will they likely ever be. Right now, you're fighting against a HUGE range of incompatibilities. Not the least of which are hundreds of complicated online services that run only on IE.
Entrenched vertical market apps mean that organizations have no flexiblity in choosing a new platform -- heck, most of my big jobs over the past two years have been cleaning up, patching, and rewriting apps so they'll run under Win2000, since the companies couldn't keep running Windows 95 anymore. Nowhere has there been discussion of an OS change, for two reasons: (1)Porting the app to another, less familiar platform would have been much more work, and a lot more debugging, and (2)many sites needed for daily business were IE-Only.
There's got to be a way to get the developers on your side for this. Help them understand Linux well enough that the development costs for (re)writing vertical market apps is not so much higher than for Win32, and make sure IE isn't the only working browser
It can be done. And the best way to produce the desired effect, is to make current Windows developers more familiar with Linux. Give stuff away on physical media; Force them to think about Linux whether they want to or not. Make them realize that Linux has value, even if they don't have to pay for it. It'll help your cause to do the same with browsers. Give away a copy of Mozilla Firebird on CD, or Opera.
--And while you're at it, get ready to do the same for OpenBEOS; It looks like it's gonna rock--
--Jasin Natael
It was amazing to me that I could get a lot of high quality help out of people for just a little public recognition, or some free software, or a nice gadget.
I think this is a very important point, and one that explains why Microsoft has the upper hand on Linux. These things all generate mindshare and loyalty, whereas just paying someone to do the same work won't produce the same results. For you developers: Would you be more inclined to start programming for Linux if your product got mentioned in a press release? If you were given a suite of otherwise expensive development tools? Or a Sharp Zaurus? I know I would be.When Microsoft gives away products, people think they're getting something valuable. When users download a Linux ISO, it's something that, legally, isn't allowed to carry a measurable, monetary value. Finding a way to make people think about your product as something with intrinsic, definable value makes it more valuable, for everyone involved.
--Jasin Natael
I have to think that both technologies will come to a point where they can't advance without the other, at least in the medium-term. We know (or think we know) that silicon will reach barriers it can't overcome. And at this point, we don't have a way to create complex biological computers without using existing complex organisms and therefore shooting ourselves in the foot politically. Before real-world interfaces to biological computers can be developed, we need an efficient way to interface with the biology at a low level. Traditional computers will have to provide this for us.
We may even see a true, permanent mesh of the technologies. Silicon is extremely good at some things (communications; providing an interface to mechanical items -- keyboards & mice, monitors, speakers, solar panels, servos, etc.), while it's hard to imagine really good natural language processing, learning, and nonlinear problem solving, much less a modicum of emotion to enhance usability, occuring without biology.
Who knows? My prediction is as follows:
Just a little fantastic speculation...
--Jasin Natael
Does this mean that the government might stop the subsidization of corn, to keep up with increased demand?
It just irks me every single time I think that my tax dollars are paying someone good money not to grow corn/sugar, etc. Like unemployment benefits, subsidy should only last long enough to get these people out of the farming business and into another job.
--Jasin Natael
Can't you just do that with a browser-detect script? Like, tell them that since Netscape 4 is so old, and there have been so many problems fixed since its release, that users should *really* upgrade their browser? Let them access the site if they want, but provide a list of links to MozillaFirebird, Opera, IE, and Safari, Chimera, etc... Sounds like these people really do need a helping hand.
--Jasin Natael
So you think the grass roots internet will have people who DON'T mind that their neighbor is pumping out gigatons of spam through them?
You think noone will notice and do something about it?
No, I think they'd only have to walk a few blocks or drive across town to find a new node, or else find one of the "Grass Roots Internet" people's friends and family who aren't so savvy.
You think in that climate a new email protocol won't spring up?
Well, the current climate is bad enough, and it hasn't happened yet. People are decrying the "Death of E-Mail", but nobody's switching to a different protocol!
--Jasin Natael
Everything would still inevitably be regulated by the government, and would certainly be more of a headache. For example, rural users might have to apply for a government grant to install wireless transceivers along the path to their homes instead of making a simple call to the telcos. When your network piggybacks signal from your neighbor, and his cat chews through the repeater's power cord while he's on vacation, you have no recourse. And with everything ad-hoc, any spammer with a laptop could send whatever he/she wants, to whomever. You're paying the telcos a lot for accountability, false contrition, and some measure of reliability, not just for the data that streams into your house.
You have to ask yourself, "Is it worth the hassle?" If so, get one of those fancy 5-km WiFi antennas, mount it next to your satellite dish on the roof, and just leach.
--Jasin Natael
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm trying to get back into programming for PalmOS, and am appalled at the high ($400) price of development for such a cheap machine. My old version of CodeWarrior won't run on my current version of Windows, and demo versions are no longer available without a personal phone call to Metrowerks' sales department.
I know PRC-Tools is free and available, but it's wounded without a good front-end and graphical form / resource editor under (Cyg)Windows. I don't feel like anyone (specifically me) should have to install another OS just to write software for a third OS!
Call me a wuss, but I'm a seasoned programmer who doesn't want to deal with this hassle, and certainly wouldn't expect a middle school student to. I know in my heart that the Palm would be a wonderful first platform for young programmers. Some of my best learning was done on an Apple Newton in its own self-hosted development environment (Steve Weyer's NEWT), and my earliest assembly was done for my TI-85. Handheld gadgets are captivating, are simpler than desktops, and make it easy and fun to show off your 1337 5k1lZ to your friends and family.
Let's do something to reduce the barrier to entry. Until then, let your kids sharpen their teeth on a TI calculator with TI-BASIC. You won't get any closer to the old command-line machines of yesteryear unless you happen to have one in your attic.
--Jasin Natael
And why *would* you be able to write in cursive? It's just not something you see every day. If cursive was as flexible, legible, or just plain useful as printed writing, you'd expect to see it as often as printed writing -- On billboards, store signs, flyers, reports & essays, technical manuals, and even the fine print at the foot of legal documents.
Instead, I'd venture a guess that no one here has seen cursive used extensively outside of school, save for the occasional greeting card or love letter. In simple fact, it's not as legible, not as easy to write, and not as flexible as printed writing.
On a side note, however, I would be interested to know how common cursive writing is in languages other than English. I wouldn't mind advocating it as a piece of language history, but I can't stomach the thought of decrying 'woe to the children' over its plummet to obscurity.
--Jasin Natael