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User: kaisyain

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  1. Try READING the article. on MP3 Firms Clash Over Copyrighted Code · · Score: 1

    I read the article. Does the article say that RIAA has anything to do with this whatsoever?

    According to your logic:

    China is part of the UN. France is part of the UN. Ergo, France is behind all those human rights violations in East Timor.

  2. Play Media a part of RIAA? on MP3 Firms Clash Over Copyrighted Code · · Score: 1

    What does the RIAA have to do with this? Or is this just more geek conspiracy theory?

  3. Stallman is a hypocritical, attention seeking twit on Free software's Brave GNU world · · Score: 1

    Isn't it more like, "Without Minix, Linux would never have been possible."

    Or how about, "Without PCs, Linux would never have been possible."

    Or even better, "Without electricity, Linux would never have been possible."

    I think it should, therefore it should be called Minix/PC/elec/Linux. I mean, give credit where credit is due.

    Oh, and don't forget to give credit to those guys who came up with multitasking. And protected memory. And filesystems.

    Gee, isn't this starting to sound like a BSD license? I thought that Stallman advocated against the name clause in the BSD license.

  4. quit your day job and contribute to GNU then on MP3 Dead? What, Already? · · Score: 1

    Why would someone buy the CD if they can get the MP3 for free?

    Isn't using MP3 selling out anyway? Or do you honestly think that the ISO/IEC working committee isn't composed of, and funded by, "industry"? Do you think the patents surrounding MP3 aren't owned by "industry"?

    Maybe the RIAA doesn't want to get involved with MP3 because there is a monopoly in the MP3 licensing business? People complain that they don't like Microsoft because of the lack of choice. What choice is there when it comes to licensing MP3 patents?

    Besides, I thought AAC was going to fix all of these problems. If it does then isn't MP3, in fact, quite dead?

  5. Highly kewl- now what about the PS2's OS? on Linux to be Development Environment for PS2 · · Score: 1

    The article says that when Phil Harrison (a Sony VP) was asked if Linux would be used as the OS he responded by saying, "We do not intend to use an inefficient multipurpose operating system."

    It would seem that Sony has pretty much already said they aren't going to be using Linux as the OS.

    I can see, though, how you might have missed that since it's way down in the third paragraph of the article. Easy to overlook.

  6. Speculation. on New Evidence for Life on Mars · · Score: 1

    I am confused about how a program virtually guaranteed to be massively funded by government(s) and multinational monopolies is going in any way to be affected by free market forces. Especially since they are going to be a welfare colony for a good long time.

    If you want free market forces to determine the fate of Mars then I have to ask, "What are they going to sell to Earth to pay their way?" (Oh and don't forget to subtract launch and retrieval costs, risk, and time of transit. By the time that He-3 has arrived maybe the world market for energy crashed and it's worth about four cents a ton.)

    Terraformed dirt? The rich people who could afford land on Mars can already afford land on Earth. It's the poor (and increasingly middle class) who can't afford housing in modern America. Perhaps corporations are going to give the land away to them? Or maybe you think the rich and spoiled will really give up their society life, their parties and galas, their fancy sports cars, their palatial estates, their gardens, their transcontinental jet setting, and all the other perks of wealth so that they can get a little more land on Mars? Gonna be one tough commute from Mars if you want to hang out at the Oscars.

    All of the technological developments that people claims will develop from going to Mars are a) contigent benefits and b) not limited to just Mars. I would bet that an orbital lab would result in virtually the same developments at a much lower cost.

    So far I haven't heard a single reason why we should send people and start a colony on Mars. Virtually everything of worth we could do on Mars can be done, cheaper, faster, and more efficiently by robots.

    People don't say, "Hey let's colonize the inside of a volcano! Just think, a new land of liberty. All those technological developments. Lots of land. And then we could terraform it and sell hotel rooms to tourists!!"

  7. Enquiring minds want to know. on New Evidence for Life on Mars · · Score: 1

    Raccoons are curious. Are they intelligent? My cat is curious sometimes too. Does that mean it is intelligent sometimes too?

    Some people suggest that even though neurons are biologically "expensive", it may be easier to develop greater intelligence than new physical adaptations. If this is indeed the case then intelligence has nothing to do with curiosity whatsoever.

    I think equating intelligence with curiosity is just another example of how we anthropomorphize intelligence and change it to mean "human intelligence".

  8. Let's go there now. on New Evidence for Life on Mars · · Score: 1

    And what are we going to do when we get there? Why should my tax money pay for someone to dig up Martian dirt? Seriously, I'm not trying to be argumentative just curious what the Mars advocates answer is.

    Or is this more of a "manifest destiny" kind of thing that just can't be explained in terms of logic?

  9. Nice. Very nice. on New Evidence for Life on Mars · · Score: 1

    life everywhere != intelligent life everywhere
    intelligent life everywhere != radio using life everywhere

    And even if intelligent life is everywhere AND they are all using radios AND they don't use compression or spread spectrum AND they happen to congregate around 1400-1800 MHz they might still just not be bothering to transmit actively in the same way are. Maybe we haven't met them because they just really don't care about talking to anyone else.

    And all of that is even if you believe the proposition that life is out there. Last time I checked it was based on a formula that Frank Drake wrote up that had mostly guesses and wishes rather than actual (omigod) scientific, empirically derived numbers.

    Kinda hard to get your hopes up about that :-)

  10. Hard to track IP addresses? on Anonymous Coward Sued for Slander · · Score: 1

    Actually it shouldn't be that hard to track down who owns a dynamic ip address. If you are dialing in then the dialup server knows what ip address it gave which user id. If you are using DHCP then the DHCP server knows what machines had which IP addresses when. Maybe dialup servers and DHCP don't keep track of this information but it doesn't mean they can't very easily. Tracking people down through their IP address isn't that hard. And if companies start bringing lawsuits you can bet more and more people will track IP addresses to help limit their liability.

  11. What does this mean? on Escient (CDDB company) trying to monopolize market? · · Score: 1

    It says I have to connect directly to the CDDB server. Does this mean I have to dial in directly? :-) I can't use the firewall at work, can't use my masquerading linux box at home. Can't use the routers inbetween here and there.

    Also what counts as a "personal" computer. Is my work machine a "personal" computer...even though it's not owned by me and it is technically a "workstation"?

    What if a player doesn't have an "About Box" a "Help File" or a GUI interface to display the icon? What if they don't provide an icon in a format that you can read?

    Is it your responsibility to write your program such that it can read an icon in a format they provide or do they have to provide the icon in a format you can read? I mean, what if I use PNG and they don't give me a PNG?

    If Escient doesn't provide an icon in a format you can use then have they failed to live up to their side of the license? Can you sue them? Use the the database however you want (e.g. copy and redistribute it)?

    Just curious about these things....

  12. Why PERL? on Unix in Perl · · Score: 1

    I'd have to say that Perl is every bit as overhyped as Java is. :-)

  13. Recompile FUD on Microsoft-Compaq-BeOS · · Score: 1

    There was a similar article in ComputerWorld this week claiming that apps would have to be "rebuilt or even rewritten" to run on Win2000. On closer inspection the article says you only need to do that if you want to use new features like ActiveDirectory or COM+.

    Well, duh.

    First off, I am a little confused why you would have to recompile. Dynamic linking should take care of this. I mean, if you don't change a line of code and recompile then isn't this just relinking?

    Secondly, last time I checked I usually had to rewrite code if I wanted to take advantage of the lastest gee whiz stuff. You had to recode mainframe apps if you wanted a spiffy HTML front end didn't you? So why weren't there articles about how AS/400 forced you to recompile or rewrite apps if you wanted to take advantage of the Internet?

  14. Where has my FF gone? on Pirates Crack FF8 3 Times Over · · Score: 1

    Remember, Japanese is one *hard* language to translate. Wakarimasuka?

    Hai yoku wakatte iru kedo ne.

  15. Where has my FF gone? on Pirates Crack FF8 3 Times Over · · Score: 1

    It is somewhat amusing that when Wing Commander drops in tons of FMV everyone screams and cries and demands the return of "gameplay". But when Final Fantasy does it people call it the greatest game of all time (despite the fact that the dialog and plot suck, the story is completely linear, and the characters are cardboard). Go figure....

  16. I'll tell you what scared me... on Advanced Anti Electronic Weapons · · Score: 1

    There's a whole ton of psychotropic devices that have been developed. Stuff that can (allegedly) cause seizures, flu like symptoms, vomiting, death, etc. Somewhere on www.infowar.com they have some papers/links about this stuf.

    As for planes, someone told me once that airplanes can act like faraday cages and that turning on certain devices (like portable TVs) on a plane causes the instruments to go haywire and spin randomly. But that's third hand stuff so take it with a grain of salt.

  17. Not just HLE source on Source for N64 Emulator Released (sort of) · · Score: 1

    The article (and CmdrTaco's synopsis) clearly stated that there was more info in it than just the UltraHLE source story.

  18. Glad to see this lawsuit on Nintendo Confirms It Will Sue UltraHLE Creators · · Score: 1

    I for one am glad to see this lawsuit happen. With any luck Nintendo will lose and it will set a precedent for other emulator writers. I thought it was pretty damn sissy of the UltraHLE authors to pull their work rather than stand up for what they wrote. I think this, along with the Sony lawsuit, have a chance of setting some decent legal precedents.

  19. Don't like the man - don't use the software. on Is Red Hat becoming too powerful? · · Score: 1

    RMS didn't write any of the router software that the Internet runs on. He didn't write any of the switching software. He didn't write Apache. He didn't author any internet protocol that I'm aware of. What did he write that "the Internet runs on." Most of the Internet runs on proprietary stuff like Cisco routers and Ascend switches.

    And I highly doubt he's the greatest programmer ever. Even if you could come up with a list of criteria....

  20. Immigration laws on Sun's Scott McNealy's advice: "get over" privacy · · Score: 1

    I heard (don't know if it's true) that the US admits more immigrants each year than all other "western" countries combined.

    Granted, I still think our immigration policy is stupid. How many people living in America today would be here if their ancestors had to deal with similar policies?

  21. Brain on Review:The Age of Spiritual Machines · · Score: 1

    > ... increase the speed of the signal. Is the speed of light fast enough for you?

    Electrical energy already travels at the speed of light. Optical computing has problems of its own, however (not the least of which is the fact that it is difficult to make it do digital cheap and fast).