Lots of users here are complaining that VCD format discs don't meet the quality of the still-standard VHS tape for personal recording. I agree. SVCD, however, is a tremendous step forward in quality.
Even though it is more expensive, if you're a geek looking for GOOD quality and compatibility in a recording device, without spending gobs of money on DVD-R's every time you want to record "Smallville", try one of these set-tops that supports SVCD: http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvr.php
Although, personally, I'm waiting for a DVD-Recorder that supports SVCD format on DVD-R's. Four hours of record time would rock. That, and the ability to record at DVD quality on a DVD...
I seem to remember a recent/. article on how you can already perform near-renderman level rendering at incredible, up to half real-time speeds on an ATI Radeon 9000, with the new 128-bit floating point datatypes. Now all we need is a renderman plugin for (insert favorite encoder) to go straight from these files into MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 files by way of the video card.
Production-Quality rendering all around! No more waiting days upon days for a distribution-quality movie file. Next year, preview your work in real time, full-quality! w00t!
Berate these asinine characters in the RIAA and MPAA all you want. Sure, they're stupid. But Congress is hearing the voice of your wallet. And guess what? You're not choosing the words.
Even if you support an organization like the EFF, or any other consumer-advocacy group, your contribution is almost certainly dwarfed by your contribution to the opposition. Figure out how much you pay for movies. Figure out how much you pay for music. But, more importantly, figure out WHO you pay each time you see a movie in the theater, buy a CD in the store, or purchase a product you saw in an ad on cable TV. Chances are your money not only pays for the police officer and the handcuffs, but pays to pass an unconstitutional law that makes you the criminal.
It seems difficult at first, because these companies have thrived throughout most of our lives by creating the illusion that they alone can provide us with something we'd rather not live without. Noble sacrifice still exists -- even if you don't affect a change, you can still feel secure that you haven't *supported* the destruction of the American Dream. It's time WE started saying something relevant and unambiguous with our wallets!
I've seen a few short posts on the "Cookie-Cutter" implementation slant, alleging that Apple could just go out and have products made to fit its needs. Apple doesn't do that. At least, they probably wouldn't slap an Apple logo on it.:)
However, Apple may see a significant opportunity by providing manufacturers with a mobile platform, and a hardware reference spec. Microsoft already does this, in a way that not only does not compete with its core platform, but enhances it. Think about the following points:
1. Apple's Mac OS X is Unix-based, and is therefore (unlike previous versions of the MacOS), theoretically, largely processor- and chipset-agnostic. It should be able to take advantage of available hardware. After all, can't you already run Linux on an iPaq? Who's stopping Apple?
2. Apple may not license or co-brand the desktop MacOS, but there is nothing to prevent them from licensing an accessory platform. They cut the Mac clones for two reasons: Quality and Competition. Since Apple won't be competing with their licensees, they only have to worry about device quality. And not only can they enforce this to some degree through restrictive platform specifications, I'd figure the carriers themselves would help enforce product quality.
3. If Apple does introduce an iPhone, it makes an absolute certainty that all the features of the device will be available to Mac users. Imagine something with functionality like the Panasonic eWear -- MP3, HDD-based DV Cam, 3G wireless, internet-enabled PDA, with bluetooth to sync and Firewire to transfer A/V data with your Mac. iWear. There's an opportunity to do some very cool things and grab a lot of attention doing them.
4. Even if they don't produce a phone, Apple has still just ensured that their platform has compatibility with such devices. Sony-Ericsson is obviously more friendly to Apple now that their products are being supported by Apple. That can't be a bad thing. Expect to see more 'relationship-building' exercises to build potential partners.
What am I saying? Only this: The idea of Apple producing an iPhone is not ludicrous, but neither is it an absolute. Don't complain when Steve Jobs doesn't announce it at the next MacWorld, but don't dismiss it either. Apple, behind all their tree-hugging hippie artsy crap, IS a publicly traded company. Their goal is PROFIT. They are smart people, and if there is money to be made, maybe they can find a way to direct some of it into their coffers. I'll bet they've done more market research in this segment than any poster here, and certainly more than the NY Times author.
It's heartening to see people pondering these questions. I've often wondered what would happen to our world if too many people decided to take up jobs that never really produced something useful: food and shelter immediately come to mind.
Working on projects that have long hours, high stress, and questionable usefulness is nothing new to Corporate America. We're just seeing the corporatization of the IT and tech industries in general. Even Apple, the flower child of the computer industry, has had to change their whole business model around.
I'm still in school to get my CISE degree, but I've thought long and hard about taking a job as a translator for a few years. And, if I wait too long, I may never get a chance to do that kind of work. I'll be replaced by code.
I've designed several, IMHO (and that of my users), very user-friendly programs for general vertical-market use. The key to making something both 'easy to use' and 'easy to learn' is to find ways to constantly and *unobtrusively* (Die, Office Assistant, DIE!!!) provide the user with feedback, and make the most common choices apparent visually and functionally.
For example, each time a user presses a key on the keyboard in one of these programs, the field they're typing in checks to see if the input is appropriate. If not, it doesn't distract the user from their task. It doesn't beep. It doesn't present a dialog box. It doesn't flash a message in the status bar. Most importantly, some little paperclip cartoon doesn't tap on my screen and pop up a balloon covering half the document. It dynamically turns the field's label red, instead of black.
Since I began using this feedback system, I've only received two support calls, from users whose input wouldn't validate because they put foreign currency symbols in with their amounts (which has since been fixed).
Buttons should be obvious, and have little pictures. Wizards seem to, in my experience, frustrate the user because if they're not going to read the manual, why would they want to read the same amount of text to walk them through the same process on-screen? Wizards seem to be bogged down with too much textual explanation and too few obvious visual hints. For a good example of a Wizard-type interface that works, check out Nero Express from Ahead Software.
I think that what is driving Americans' fear of wiretapping, eMail privacy revocation, public surveillance, and airport bag-sifting stems from our incredibly litigious nature. It's very true that criminals no longer adequately suffer for their crimes, but it's also true that legal cases can be the ruination of anyone, regardless of whether they are truly in the wrong or not, as long as someone cares enough to make a case out of it.
How would any of you feel if your personal activities, which may now be perfectly legal if not savoury, were recorded, tracked, and filed? Furthermore, what would happen should these activities be made illegal in the future? While I'm certain no one would be prosecuted for such actions, such records would provide perfect opportunity for one's enemies to cast aspersions and defame one's character.
While it may be necessary to give up certain conveniences in order to regain our former safety, it is certainly not wise to give up our freedom and privacy for such comfort.
The deaths in the WTC and Pentagon crashes were not the attack. As confusing as this may be to some, American deaths were only symbolic. The true damage the attack is producing could very well have been done without large loss of human life. We have been emotionally crushed, and made to feel afraid. Economic damage was the target of the terrorists' actions, and it is now quite apparent that the terrorists intended to profit from the damage dealt to our national economy.
Surrendering our civil rights and the privacy afforded us by our lawmakers and constitution is only able to cause more damage -- not anything as grand as the loss of life, but most certainly the lessening thereof.
You guys are looking to the wrong idea for your dream system... I have a conspiracy theory for you to chew on.
Current Macs ship with 2 processors, and Mac OS X is going to be released with full support for two processors. This doesn't seem like much, until we come up with the ultimate piece of vaporware. Make me right, Connectix!
How difficult would it be to provide:
1. Realtime linking of core OS files from a full, licensed install of Win95/98 or Linux (most likely installed to a virtual drive for reference use only)
2. Dynamic, uniprocessor binary code conversion for x86 binaries (Windows and Linux)
3. Execution of dynamically converted code on second processor
MacOS and Be are currently the only Operating Systems with a tight enough control over distribution configuration to make this viable, but it IS a viable option. I want someone to do this! We've had VirtualPC for years, so why can't we do multiprocessor support and OS integration?
This is where SMP starts to make sense...
Well, I AM a guy, but I think that the Legos had something to do with my aptitude in language and in computers, too. I mean, for those of us who code, how is our job different from simply speaking another language? As children, with Legos, we learned how to take the simple building blocks that we were given and use them in all the ways they would fit together to accomplish our goals. Both of these processes are just a metaphor for the underlying thinking that one does to become CREATIVE.
"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. "
Read it as two sentences: (according to the explicit rules of this language called English)
1. No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium.
2. No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium [as stated above] for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
So, everyone that believes the RIAA is right is misinterpreting this passage, by a very simple error. The act (as seen in reconstruction #2) explicitly exempts consumers from ANY action of the act provided they used it for noncommercial uses. This does NOT mean that the copies are fair use, but it does mean that no laws are broken with regard to copyright protection.
I use MP3's so I can keep all my CD's in my car and not have to walk them back and forth from the house just to listen to my music. How is this hurting the RIAA? I have personally spent more on music annually since I began using MP3's than I ever did before.
I think it was on/., but I remember reading an article on "VDMA Technology" -- Basically, the Virtual Division Multiple Access allows exactly that scheme, and uses MIR technology (still tied up in court battles, I think) to do low-power routing even while the phones are off.
I dunno if that's 'too futuristic'... Did you see the pic of Qualcomm's proposed 3G cellphone? The one that uses the e.Ink LCD that kind of bends up under the keypad when the phone is closed? They're obviously thinking along those lines.
I intend in this post to address the same problem as all of the others here, but from a different viewpoint. This post is intended to build on others here. I beleive that the lives of children are, in fact, sacred. Those that are living should be allowed to live -- but not to produce offspring. To murder living beings for any reason is, from a logical standpoint, calling for extremists to end the practice, in addition to being morally offensive and violating the principles on which our nation (for those of us in the US) was built. Our biggest problem as human beings rests not in our compassion for the lives of the living, but in our desire to violate the principle "If a man works not, neither let him eat." This is a RELIGIOUS principle that keeps people that are not favored for survival in an economic world from surviving. By this rule, an individual is always given the opportunity to obtain subsistence by becoming a productive member of socitey. The survival of productive individuals is not in question here, though... what is, is the continued support of nonproductive individuals. Just as shepherds remove sheep with undesirable traits from the flock to remove them from the breeding cycle, we are removing people from the lineages of the future, often by our own devices, while at the same time introducing stimuli to make other individuals produce offspring. The difference here is that in our society, those traits that are favorable to our offspring's survival are removed while emphasizing unfavorable traits. I think that a good idea along the lines of this argument would be to have a/. poll to see what the average number of children is for/. readers. An honest, straight poll this time (no silly answers), with everyone answering. What you will find is that, statstically, as people become more fit for survival in our world, their likelihood to have offspring decreases tremendously. (/. readers will have fewer children than the average individual.) However, even as this occurs, those with undesirable traits, both genetically and culturally, are given incentive to produce offspring. In the United States, welfare is despicable for its damaging effects to the next generation. In what other institution do we find clear incentive for the least productive members of socitey, those that could not survive without government support, to reproduce in large numbers? I will not even attempt to approach this subject from a genetic viewpoint, as I beleive that there is not a genetic connection to poverty in the least. I will, however, state that the majority of our behaviors are, in fact, learned from our parents. There are (depending on the argument you support) between one and ten instincts for humans. Every other behaviour that we may treat as an instinct is merely a preference that has been trained into us by society. In this practice, we are giving a considerable portion of our youth to training by those that have lost in life, that demonstrate social traits that inhibit our progress as human beings.
I found that article to be very 'dumbed down' on the technical end of things, but what he's essentially saying rings true: 'Generations' are no longer defined by who you are, but by how you think. Now more than ever, because of the long time (To me, 10 years is a long time) I've spent communicating online and through simply having the resources to work through interpersonal relationships more quickly (telephones, cellular phones, pagers, eMail, as well as computers), I feel less and less at home with people my own age. I can personally attest to the effect he notes in his article. People who try to guess my age often guess as much as ten years too old, but never less than five. I'll be nineteen Sunday. A girl I'm talking to now is 9 years older than I, but people ask me how much older I am. Advancements in technology have really allowed us all to grow at our own pace, and it's going to turn our society inside out before we can make sense of it.
There were a number of small things in the test that disturbed me: 1. They compiled their own kernel. Whether through inclusion of unnecessary components, exclusion of required features, or simple misconfiguration, it's unlikely that a bunch of testers got kernel compilation right the first time. Wouldn't you choose a system that didn't have a precompiled source system if you were going to hide some fishy results? 2. The NT server had more RAM in its configuration. It was only 44MB more, but on peak-load, it can make a diff. 3. MinSpareServers=1//No comment needed 4. ALL the boxes were running Windows 5. It was not a LIVE network. Only Benchmarking was used. If they'd set it as a web server, or used STMP, maybe we'd be laughing from the other side of the fence 6. Normally, I'd say M$ sponsoring is not that big of a deal, except for the antitrust reports that they have told companies what they want to see in the tests. I would say that the Network Card is an issue, and certainly it would affect performance, but let's face one thing: The 3Com cards are bought more often than any other, despite crappy, buggy performance even on windows boxes (in my experience). They're out there and people WILL try to use them. If this is really a bottleneck to performance, then someone should really do something about the drivers for it.
That's it for my current rant. "What's evil? What's good? There's no concrete standard for business ethics"
I can say that the AMD processors perform much better than anything Intel has made. For apps, who cares about speed? When you're online or typing in a WP, disk access is usually your greatest bottleneck. But IF you want to play games, buy AMD. If you get a newer K6-2 (with an MX core), there's even a program that will remap your L1 cache to improve your graphics speed by up to 70%!! (My system is a straight 300Mhz K6-II with a 4MB RIVA 128, but the 3D bench goes head-to-head with a 400A Celeron/16MB TNT)... I'm just holding out on the k6-3.
I found a nice little program called total recorder on the download.com website. It only records 40sec. at a time until you register it, but it basically installs itself as a windows sound system device. When you're not recording, it simply changes its pointers to send it to your soundcard like normal, but when you have total recorder open, it takes the data to disk in real time while redirecting it to the speakers as well. Excellent program.
If they're putting multile processing schemes on a single chip, then wouldn't you just about have to run linux (for speed, at least)? Seeing a kernel that changed its own memory addresses, register references, and instruction sets on the fly would help to bolster my faith in such a device's usefulness on the desktop. As of now, I HAVE a Mac, PC, an X86 Linux System, Access to various SPARC and UNIX Boxes, and two ARM-Based Handhelds. I can Run N64, SNES, GameBoy, Genesis, Arcade, and Playstation Games emulated, and I have three calculators. Who needs a multi-mode processor? Now that I think of it, that crap does take up an awful lot of space, and I don't know of anyone close to me that knows how to use them, much less that does... Maybe a single multi-mode system with a flat-panel monitor would help me throw some of that stuff out...
Asmodean "It disgusts me to see the half-trained children they call Aes Sedai..."
This comes back to a classic argument that I've seen on slashdot, and in many other places: Is digital _really_ better than analog? When was the last time that you saw an object move in digital space? We have determined taht the primary cause of human intelligence is not genetics or design, but the training that goes into it. Until we truly understand how our own brains work and can selectively train individuals to be intelligent, there is not a reason in this world to beleive that computers can attain any measure of intelligence. Excuse the coldness of this example, but I can buy a dog for $35 from the humane society, and it can actually interact with me and understand what I say. It's also completely devoted to me (not like windows...). My point is this: We've been studying lab mice for how many years, and we can't even understand how the intelligence of a mouse works? How, then, do we presume to say that we will understand the nature of our own intelligence well enough to duplicate it in a machine? The computer has its purpose, but I doubt that digital technology will be able to produce a machine with the intelligence of my cocker spaniel, much less that will rival my own. And, if the day arrives, hopefully I'll have perished.
This guy's apparently given more thought to dominating the universe than Gates... I guess the big question is: If the Earth is supposed to be held in a delicate balance of gravitational forces, then couldn't the loss of enough mass to construct and launch such a vessel, propel it continuously, and support its inhabitants throw the earth out of orbit, hurtling it through the solar system at about the same speed as the ship itself? I guess it's an all-or-nothing travel package...
Slashdot Mirror
Lots of users here are complaining that VCD format discs don't meet the quality of the still-standard VHS tape for personal recording. I agree. SVCD, however, is a tremendous step forward in quality.
Even though it is more expensive, if you're a geek looking for GOOD quality and compatibility in a recording device, without spending gobs of money on DVD-R's every time you want to record "Smallville", try one of these set-tops that supports SVCD:
http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvr.php
Although, personally, I'm waiting for a DVD-Recorder that supports SVCD format on DVD-R's. Four hours of record time would rock. That, and the ability to record at DVD quality on a DVD...
I seem to remember a recent /. article on how you can already perform near-renderman level rendering at incredible, up to half real-time speeds on an ATI Radeon 9000, with the new 128-bit floating point datatypes. Now all we need is a renderman plugin for (insert favorite encoder) to go straight from these files into MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 files by way of the video card.
Production-Quality rendering all around! No more waiting days upon days for a distribution-quality movie file. Next year, preview your work in real time, full-quality! w00t!
Berate these asinine characters in the RIAA and MPAA all you want. Sure, they're stupid. But Congress is hearing the voice of your wallet. And guess what? You're not choosing the words.
Even if you support an organization like the EFF, or any other consumer-advocacy group, your contribution is almost certainly dwarfed by your contribution to the opposition. Figure out how much you pay for movies. Figure out how much you pay for music. But, more importantly, figure out WHO you pay each time you see a movie in the theater, buy a CD in the store, or purchase a product you saw in an ad on cable TV. Chances are your money not only pays for the police officer and the handcuffs, but pays to pass an unconstitutional law that makes you the criminal.
It seems difficult at first, because these companies have thrived throughout most of our lives by creating the illusion that they alone can provide us with something we'd rather not live without. Noble sacrifice still exists -- even if you don't affect a change, you can still feel secure that you haven't *supported* the destruction of the American Dream. It's time WE started saying something relevant and unambiguous with our wallets!
I've seen a few short posts on the "Cookie-Cutter" implementation slant, alleging that Apple could just go out and have products made to fit its needs. Apple doesn't do that. At least, they probably wouldn't slap an Apple logo on it. :)
However, Apple may see a significant opportunity by providing manufacturers with a mobile platform, and a hardware reference spec. Microsoft already does this, in a way that not only does not compete with its core platform, but enhances it. Think about the following points:
1. Apple's Mac OS X is Unix-based, and is therefore (unlike previous versions of the MacOS), theoretically, largely processor- and chipset-agnostic. It should be able to take advantage of available hardware. After all, can't you already run Linux on an iPaq? Who's stopping Apple?
2. Apple may not license or co-brand the desktop MacOS, but there is nothing to prevent them from licensing an accessory platform. They cut the Mac clones for two reasons: Quality and Competition. Since Apple won't be competing with their licensees, they only have to worry about device quality. And not only can they enforce this to some degree through restrictive platform specifications, I'd figure the carriers themselves would help enforce product quality.
3. If Apple does introduce an iPhone, it makes an absolute certainty that all the features of the device will be available to Mac users. Imagine something with functionality like the Panasonic eWear -- MP3, HDD-based DV Cam, 3G wireless, internet-enabled PDA, with bluetooth to sync and Firewire to transfer A/V data with your Mac. iWear. There's an opportunity to do some very cool things and grab a lot of attention doing them.
4. Even if they don't produce a phone, Apple has still just ensured that their platform has compatibility with such devices. Sony-Ericsson is obviously more friendly to Apple now that their products are being supported by Apple. That can't be a bad thing. Expect to see more 'relationship-building' exercises to build potential partners.
What am I saying? Only this: The idea of Apple producing an iPhone is not ludicrous, but neither is it an absolute. Don't complain when Steve Jobs doesn't announce it at the next MacWorld, but don't dismiss it either. Apple, behind all their tree-hugging hippie artsy crap, IS a publicly traded company. Their goal is PROFIT. They are smart people, and if there is money to be made, maybe they can find a way to direct some of it into their coffers. I'll bet they've done more market research in this segment than any poster here, and certainly more than the NY Times author.
It's heartening to see people pondering these questions. I've often wondered what would happen to our world if too many people decided to take up jobs that never really produced something useful: food and shelter immediately come to mind.
Working on projects that have long hours, high stress, and questionable usefulness is nothing new to Corporate America. We're just seeing the corporatization of the IT and tech industries in general. Even Apple, the flower child of the computer industry, has had to change their whole business model around.
I'm still in school to get my CISE degree, but I've thought long and hard about taking a job as a translator for a few years. And, if I wait too long, I may never get a chance to do that kind of work. I'll be replaced by code.
I've designed several, IMHO (and that of my users), very user-friendly programs for general vertical-market use. The key to making something both 'easy to use' and 'easy to learn' is to find ways to constantly and *unobtrusively* (Die, Office Assistant, DIE!!!) provide the user with feedback, and make the most common choices apparent visually and functionally.
For example, each time a user presses a key on the keyboard in one of these programs, the field they're typing in checks to see if the input is appropriate. If not, it doesn't distract the user from their task. It doesn't beep. It doesn't present a dialog box. It doesn't flash a message in the status bar. Most importantly, some little paperclip cartoon doesn't tap on my screen and pop up a balloon covering half the document. It dynamically turns the field's label red, instead of black.
Since I began using this feedback system, I've only received two support calls, from users whose input wouldn't validate because they put foreign currency symbols in with their amounts (which has since been fixed).
Buttons should be obvious, and have little pictures. Wizards seem to, in my experience, frustrate the user because if they're not going to read the manual, why would they want to read the same amount of text to walk them through the same process on-screen? Wizards seem to be bogged down with too much textual explanation and too few obvious visual hints. For a good example of a Wizard-type interface that works, check out Nero Express from Ahead Software.
--Jasin Natael
I think that what is driving Americans' fear of wiretapping, eMail privacy revocation, public surveillance, and airport bag-sifting stems from our incredibly litigious nature. It's very true that criminals no longer adequately suffer for their crimes, but it's also true that legal cases can be the ruination of anyone, regardless of whether they are truly in the wrong or not, as long as someone cares enough to make a case out of it.
How would any of you feel if your personal activities, which may now be perfectly legal if not savoury, were recorded, tracked, and filed? Furthermore, what would happen should these activities be made illegal in the future? While I'm certain no one would be prosecuted for such actions, such records would provide perfect opportunity for one's enemies to cast aspersions and defame one's character.
While it may be necessary to give up certain conveniences in order to regain our former safety, it is certainly not wise to give up our freedom and privacy for such comfort.
The deaths in the WTC and Pentagon crashes were not the attack. As confusing as this may be to some, American deaths were only symbolic. The true damage the attack is producing could very well have been done without large loss of human life. We have been emotionally crushed, and made to feel afraid. Economic damage was the target of the terrorists' actions, and it is now quite apparent that the terrorists intended to profit from the damage dealt to our national economy.
Surrendering our civil rights and the privacy afforded us by our lawmakers and constitution is only able to cause more damage -- not anything as grand as the loss of life, but most certainly the lessening thereof.
You guys are looking to the wrong idea for your dream system... I have a conspiracy theory for you to chew on.
Current Macs ship with 2 processors, and Mac OS X is going to be released with full support for two processors. This doesn't seem like much, until we come up with the ultimate piece of vaporware. Make me right, Connectix!
How difficult would it be to provide:
1. Realtime linking of core OS files from a full, licensed install of Win95/98 or Linux (most likely installed to a virtual drive for reference use only)
2. Dynamic, uniprocessor binary code conversion for x86 binaries (Windows and Linux)
3. Execution of dynamically converted code on second processor
MacOS and Be are currently the only Operating Systems with a tight enough control over distribution configuration to make this viable, but it IS a viable option. I want someone to do this! We've had VirtualPC for years, so why can't we do multiprocessor support and OS integration?
This is where SMP starts to make sense...
Well, I AM a guy, but I think that the Legos had something to do with my aptitude in language and in computers, too. I mean, for those of us who code, how is our job different from simply speaking another language? As children, with Legos, we learned how to take the simple building blocks that we were given and use them in all the ways they would fit together to accomplish our goals. Both of these processes are just a metaphor for the underlying thinking that one does to become CREATIVE.
"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. "
Read it as two sentences:
(according to the explicit rules of this language called English)
1. No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium.
2. No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium [as stated above] for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
So, everyone that believes the RIAA is right is misinterpreting this passage, by a very simple error. The act (as seen in reconstruction #2) explicitly exempts consumers from ANY action of the act provided they used it for noncommercial uses. This does NOT mean that the copies are fair use, but it does mean that no laws are broken with regard to copyright protection.
I use MP3's so I can keep all my CD's in my car and not have to walk them back and forth from the house just to listen to my music. How is this hurting the RIAA? I have personally spent more on music annually since I began using MP3's than I ever did before.
I think it was on /., but I remember reading an article on "VDMA Technology" -- Basically, the Virtual Division Multiple Access allows exactly that scheme, and uses MIR technology (still tied up in court battles, I think) to do low-power routing even while the phones are off.
I dunno if that's 'too futuristic'... Did you see the pic of Qualcomm's proposed 3G cellphone? The one that uses the e.Ink LCD that kind of bends up under the keypad when the phone is closed? They're obviously thinking along those lines.
Asmodean
I intend in this post to address the same problem as all of the others here, but from a different viewpoint. This post is intended to build on others here. I beleive that the lives of children are, in fact, sacred. Those that are living should be allowed to live -- but not to produce offspring. /. poll to see what the average number of children is for /. readers. An honest, straight poll this time (no silly answers), with everyone answering. What you will find is that, statstically, as people become more fit for survival in our world, their likelihood to have offspring decreases tremendously. (/. readers will have fewer children than the average individual.)
To murder living beings for any reason is, from a logical standpoint, calling for extremists to end the practice, in addition to being morally offensive and violating the principles on which our nation (for those of us in the US) was built.
Our biggest problem as human beings rests not in our compassion for the lives of the living, but in our desire to violate the principle "If a man works not, neither let him eat." This is a RELIGIOUS principle that keeps people that are not favored for survival in an economic world from surviving. By this rule, an individual is always given the opportunity to obtain subsistence by becoming a productive member of socitey. The survival of productive individuals is not in question here, though... what is, is the continued support of nonproductive individuals.
Just as shepherds remove sheep with undesirable traits from the flock to remove them from the breeding cycle, we are removing people from the lineages of the future, often by our own devices, while at the same time introducing stimuli to make other individuals produce offspring. The difference here is that in our society, those traits that are favorable to our offspring's survival are removed while emphasizing unfavorable traits.
I think that a good idea along the lines of this argument would be to have a
However, even as this occurs, those with undesirable traits, both genetically and culturally, are given incentive to produce offspring.
In the United States, welfare is despicable for its damaging effects to the next generation. In what other institution do we find clear incentive for the least productive members of socitey, those that could not survive without government support, to reproduce in large numbers? I will not even attempt to approach this subject from a genetic viewpoint, as I beleive that there is not a genetic connection to poverty in the least. I will, however, state that the majority of our behaviors are, in fact, learned from our parents. There are (depending on the argument you support) between one and ten instincts for humans. Every other behaviour that we may treat as an instinct is merely a preference that has been trained into us by society. In this practice, we are giving a considerable portion of our youth to training by those that have lost in life, that demonstrate social traits that inhibit our progress as human beings.
I found that article to be very 'dumbed down' on the technical end of things, but what he's essentially saying rings true: 'Generations' are no longer defined by who you are, but by how you think. Now more than ever, because of the long time (To me, 10 years is a long time) I've spent communicating online and through simply having the resources to work through interpersonal relationships more quickly (telephones, cellular phones, pagers, eMail, as well as computers), I feel less and less at home with people my own age. I can personally attest to the effect he notes in his article. People who try to guess my age often guess as much as ten years too old, but never less than five. I'll be nineteen Sunday. A girl I'm talking to now is 9 years older than I, but people ask me how much older I am. Advancements in technology have really allowed us all to grow at our own pace, and it's going to turn our society inside out before we can make sense of it.
There were a number of small things in the test that disturbed me: //No comment needed
1. They compiled their own kernel. Whether through inclusion of unnecessary components, exclusion of required features, or simple misconfiguration, it's unlikely that a bunch of testers got kernel compilation right the first time. Wouldn't you choose a system that didn't have a precompiled source system if you were going to hide some fishy results?
2. The NT server had more RAM in its configuration. It was only 44MB more, but on peak-load, it can make a diff.
3. MinSpareServers=1
4. ALL the boxes were running Windows
5. It was not a LIVE network. Only Benchmarking was used. If they'd set it as a web server, or used STMP, maybe we'd be laughing from the other side of the fence
6. Normally, I'd say M$ sponsoring is not that big of a deal, except for the antitrust reports that they have told companies what they want to see in the tests.
I would say that the Network Card is an issue, and certainly it would affect performance, but let's face one thing: The 3Com cards are bought more often than any other, despite crappy, buggy performance even on windows boxes (in my experience). They're out there and people WILL try to use them. If this is really a bottleneck to performance, then someone should really do something about the drivers for it.
That's it for my current rant.
"What's evil? What's good? There's no concrete standard for business ethics"
I can say that the AMD processors perform much better than anything Intel has made. For apps, who cares about speed? When you're online or typing in a WP, disk access is usually your greatest bottleneck. But IF you want to play games, buy AMD. If you get a newer K6-2 (with an MX core), there's even a program that will remap your L1 cache to improve your graphics speed by up to 70%!! (My system is a straight 300Mhz K6-II with a 4MB RIVA 128, but the 3D bench goes head-to-head with a 400A Celeron/16MB TNT)... I'm just holding out on the k6-3.
Asmodean
I found a nice little program called total recorder on the download.com website. It only records 40sec. at a time until you register it, but it basically installs itself as a windows sound system device. When you're not recording, it simply changes its pointers to send it to your soundcard like normal, but when you have total recorder open, it takes the data to disk in real time while redirecting it to the speakers as well. Excellent program.
Asmodean
If they're putting multile processing schemes on a single chip, then wouldn't you just about have to run linux (for speed, at least)? Seeing a kernel that changed its own memory addresses, register references, and instruction sets on the fly would help to bolster my faith in such a device's usefulness on the desktop. As of now, I HAVE a Mac, PC, an X86 Linux System, Access to various SPARC and UNIX Boxes, and two ARM-Based Handhelds. I can Run N64, SNES, GameBoy, Genesis, Arcade, and Playstation Games emulated, and I have three calculators. Who needs a multi-mode processor?
Now that I think of it, that crap does take up an awful lot of space, and I don't know of anyone close to me that knows how to use them, much less that does... Maybe a single multi-mode system with a flat-panel monitor would help me throw some of that stuff out...
Asmodean
"It disgusts me to see the half-trained children they call Aes Sedai..."
This comes back to a classic argument that I've seen on slashdot, and in many other places: Is digital _really_ better than analog? When was the last time that you saw an object move in digital space?
We have determined taht the primary cause of human intelligence is not genetics or design, but the training that goes into it. Until we truly understand how our own brains work and can selectively train individuals to be intelligent, there is not a reason in this world to beleive that computers can attain any measure of intelligence. Excuse the coldness of this example, but I can buy a dog for $35 from the humane society, and it can actually interact with me and understand what I say. It's also completely devoted to me (not like windows...).
My point is this: We've been studying lab mice for how many years, and we can't even understand how the intelligence of a mouse works? How, then, do we presume to say that we will understand the nature of our own intelligence well enough to duplicate it in a machine?
The computer has its purpose, but I doubt that digital technology will be able to produce a machine with the intelligence of my cocker spaniel, much less that will rival my own. And, if the day arrives, hopefully I'll have perished.
This guy's apparently given more thought to dominating the universe than Gates...
I guess the big question is: If the Earth is supposed to be held in a delicate balance of gravitational forces, then couldn't the loss of enough mass to construct and launch such a vessel, propel it continuously, and support its inhabitants throw the earth out of orbit, hurtling it through the solar system at about the same speed as the ship itself? I guess it's an all-or-nothing travel package...