This reminds me of work I did as an undergrad in my advanced database class. At the end of the term we were given group projects to research and present "future" database concepts. One of them was unstructured data. The conclusions drawn were that right now unstructured data has no real value. The value assigned to a particular element can only be assigned by the human who assesses those values. My group was assigned the task of making unstructured data available to standard databases.
Consider: 3822 North Fickle, Frequent Customer - solicit often.
The inherent meaning is obvious to a human. Most likely a street address followed by a remark of some type. For a computer to correctly (and in a real world industry, the demand is that it be 100% correct, always, or forget it) establish the meanings would require some serious AI.
Enter XML. As it exists now, XML is the bridge between unstructured data and data which can be formalized into a structured format. As other people have pointed out, XML does solve some of these issues. Semistructured data via XML is a fairly recent innovation and does a nice job adding meaning and definition to otherwise cryptic (to a computer) strings of ASCII characters.
Going back to the original problem however, XML must be inserted by a human. Until such time as a machine can *establish* intrinsic value on data, there needs to be an intermediate platform. This doesn't help in the example provided where a company keeps data in a Word document. That data is truly unstructured and random. Human interaction can easily destroy the meaning of a document to a computer, without affecting (and perhaps increasing) the comprehension by other people.
In the near future, it looks like the closest we will truly get is semi-structured, not un-structured data. He who ultimately solves this problem will also solve AI.
Yeah on the surface, it seems to be. There are a lot of misconceptions about that ruling. A significant part of the ruling was that SCOTUS declared that the government saying that they couldn't look at intimate details of your home (ie - are you growing pot in your underwear or in a body suit?), they didn't need a warrant. The court reaffirmed that "Such an approach would be wrong in principle because, in the sanctity of the home, all details are intimate details." (United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705).
Interesting to note however, is that it is still a gray area as to whether stuff that is in "plain view" from the outside can be considered private. If I am correct, in order for this technology to work, they essentially need to be within line of sight of your monitor. To do this would require an open blind. That's the same as me (as police officer) walking by and seeing three teenagers drinking beer in the front window. Not only could you not accuse me of breaking in to look at you, I would have the right to inquire about whether underage drinking was occuring (since it was observed in plain view from a public place). Given that, I don't know that the thermal imaging case is 100% applicable because a large part of the technology is dependent on plain view.
Now, having said that: You might have an affirmative defense in saying that such an evesdropping technology is not in the public domain. While anybody can walk by and see your underage beer party, its doubtful that Bill Public would have the resources to just walk by, pull out his imager and see what's going on.
Am I unsure of what to say? Yeah pretty much, like anything else, this specific use of technology will be taken to the courts by one side or another. In the meantime, pull the blinds Mr. Tin Foil man:)
Nice to know, not only did he hire people to break the law he hired minors to do so. Excellent, courts sometimes overlook the piddly petty-theft stuff but "Corruption of a minor" is hardly looked upon lightly almost anywhere. Or are we going to be told that he had been licensed by the individual copyright holders to do the downloads?
What's the number on all the Microsoft CD's? 1-800-IS-Legit? I wonder if RIAA has one too:P
WHoohoo... Maybe, just maybe, with more rulings like this a little personal responsibility might be in order. I'd love to see the day when those dumb enough to put a hot beverage between their legs and drive around, yet manage to sue for burning themselves in the spill, are told "Yeah, life sucks doesn't it. Dismissed"
It would be funny now for the video game companies to turn around and sue the former plantiffs for affecting their ability to sell a legal product.
I think Microsoft is aware of this, and they are trying their hardest to avoid it. Consider the following. I attend a medium sized (16,000 students) Midwestern University. While our CS department isn't world-renowned, there are about 400 people majoring in it. Tomorrow (The 4th) we've got Microsoft coming to town for the VS.NET "launch party"
No big deal you'd say...Here's what they're ponying up:
* Up to 700 people can attend, Students, Faculty, Staff
* Everyone who goes gets a full version of XP professional, full version of VS.NET Academic, plus who knows how much other Microsoft "Stuff" (Lots of Xboxes floating around)
Here's the kicker. I was talking to our secretary the other day and she said the whole thing basically went like this: Microsoft calls and says they want to have a launch party, we get $50,000 to spend for $700 people, plus the department gets $10,000 in discretionary "thanks" cash.
We're having a hard time racking up over $15,000 in expenses for this three hour event. We simply can't find $35,000 in other things to buy for this room! I might add also, all 700 slots were filled in less than a day.
Is it just me, or does this smack of a company that really, really, wants to protect its future interests?
Yes, you can submit answering machine tapes as evidence because if it is a true answering machine "Leave a message after the beep..." you are more or less informed that what you say is going to be recorded. In order to deliver your message, you must actively consent to it being recorded (done by continuing to leave a message, and not hanging up). It goes without saying that leave a message means that your message will be recorded in some form to be retreived at a later time by the called-party (who also gave consent to recording the 'conversation' because they installed the thing in the first place!)
OTOH, if you were to *secretly* use your answering machine's Record feature while engaged in a coversation without consent of the other party, it would likely not be considered admissable.
I think in reference to the issue at hand, sending an email may be akin to leaving a message on an answering machine. It is inherent in the nature of the protocol that your message will be STORED for the recipient to obtain at a later time.
In this case the girl provided copies of her email. I believe that this is OK, one expects that email is stored/printed/whatever by the recipient. Yet if the police were to set up a packet sniffer to intercept all conversations coming out of my box, they should have to jump through the same legal hoops as if they were going to put a wiretap on the phone line I use to call and leave you harassing voice messages, but the person I harass would of course be free to provide (and more likely want to give) that to the police.
I don't see the use of an actual 'wiretap', rather a private submission of evidence.
While they don't do video games very often, I have always prefered Consumer Reports consumerreports.org for my big purcahses. They are a non-profit group, there is no advertising, and everything they review, whether it be DVD players, cars, or stereo system, they send an anonymous Joe Public to buy one from a store shelf. This gives you unbiased reporting, because they really don't have anything to gain. Depending on how you look at it, this could be good or bad: They only buy products that are in the stores. That means no early previews, but it also means reviews of what you can really get. No Vaporware here.
In fact in one case, a product maker was not pleased with the review they got, so they sent the usual C&D orders and then went legal with the slander suits. Rather than settle on it, CR went on to keep everyone informed of who this company was, and vigoriously defended themselves in court, and I believe they won.
I wish they or someone else had a similar product for reviewing software of all types. Right now CR has done just a couple software reviews. The problem, as I think we've discovered, is that unless you have a large bankroll and aren't in it [the media business] to make money, it's really hard to BUY and test lots of products, let alone do unbiased reviews.
Re:Am I the only person who is hesitent about this
on
.NETly News
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· Score: 3, Insightful
No, you're not. I think that the overall concept might have some promise, but I do have a problem with the idea that an entity will running the whole show. What scares me most is that ultimately, we are moving towards zero human contact. No longer do you go to the grocery store and run into your old friend from across town and chit chat for 15 minutes while making your selections.
I'm reminded of the movie Sneakers when Martin and his old friend (the villian) are on the roof and the villian is going on about how it's a new world, it's all electrons, just little ones and zeros. Everything is the information, the information is everything. It's a brave new world for humanity.. Martin's response is 'yeah, and there's nobody there' -- So we'll all have our PDAs and phones and everything, but who is there really to talk to? Get out, get some air, meet some REAL people and have some fun the old way.
Not does the technology have the ability to move our lives into greater convenience, but at the same time, to isolate us from ourselves and each other.
That, to me, is the scary part - not so much some marketer having a profile on me.
So let's see... I work as an independent contractor and have to file a Schedule SE (self-employment tax) and pay an extra 7.65% of my income than a person working for a company that has to pay that portion. Since I am working for myself, I'm the company (or could easily become one if I wanted, a la LLP)...Them taking my tax money is hurting my profits. My having to charge in state customers sales tax when more of them can just go to out of state consultants who don't charge sales tax is hurting my profit!
Finally! Whooo
Yes, I think it's all getting a little ridiculus.
In all seriousness, treaties that become overly unfavorable have a tendacy to either be forgotten or unratified, so much for the arms agreement with the Soviet Union. Really, I don't think this will become an issue. Consider that this would be happening in all member countries, so chances are it would be pretty soon that an amendment would be passed, perhaps requiring compensated parties to give the money back.
Not to mention what irks me the most about these 'basic needs', what is basic to another is luxurious to another. The telephone companies are always told that they must provide service to those in dire need who simply cannot afford a line. Reasonable enough idea until the lineman shows up to install the line and they're all lying around during the middle of the work day watching premimum dish/cable tv! I'm not trying to overly generalize, but I have a family member who works for a utility and he sees this all the time.
That and the friend of mine who just found out that the reason a hosting check for a MUD was late is because the guy's unemployment check hadn't come on time like it usually does.
Public access to the internet does already exist, libraries are just one place. There's a million and one companies willing to provide you with free whatever (email, chatting) at the library if you're willing to fill out their little surveys...
I should mention that we already sort of have this on some DVD's..you know, the previews you can't skip through? Hit FF and the little hand comes up, but if you hit stop or rewind it's more than happy to oblige.
That's nice. In the scheme of things, isn't everything supposed to be integrated back together? With all these new formats coming out, may of which are darn-near mirror images of other technologies, you need a player for this, a player for that, blah blah blah. Hell to you if you try to create an integrated player that handles them all, don't want to head down that DMCA strewn patent road.
This one just strikes me as even more stupid, linear tape access to data of any format has all but been rid of because it's difficult to actively operate. Everything must be done sequentially, direct access is impossible. Of course, maybe if they have their way you will only be able to watch your DVD the way the director intended it, straight through, no skipping scenes. So I guess if that's the plan a tape makes sense.:)
Oh I believe wholeheartedly that they already don't care about what comes back, it's just the symbolism. Then when it comes time to issue the public report you toss the report down the stairs, and from everything that lands on the bottom step you grab a quote or two..."And while good argument could be made towards X, it was also the opinion of other respondents that Y, so we're just going to do Y, which happens to have been our plan all along."
Course you don't insert the last part about your real plan is, that's too obvious.:)
"And of particular note was a period of mass submission by a seemingly very informed public, although one must wonder if these are the so-called 'seminar emailers' because they all had the same browser referer. Upon following the referer [salshdot.org], we were directed to a nice news site surrounded in porno banners, led by leather pimp CowboyNeal. Interesting"
Flame Disclaimer: I know that site doesn't do that anymore, thanks
I agree that it's highly unlikely that NASA will jump right out and do 'survey says....we go to ___'. But....programs need to be popular in order to continue existing. Given all the bad PR NASA has gotten lately with their failed missions (over sometimes outright stupid mistakes, like forgetting that 1 Newton of does not equal 1 lbft/s etc).
So you put out a little survey, people respond, but most importantly they feel as if they participated. Just the feeling of being involved or "being heard" might be enough to convince a few minds in the public that NASA isn't a total waste of taxpayer money.
Sure is. Consider this: http://www.TinyAps.org The notepad replacement I'm using is a grand total of 6k, written in assembler, yet it has word wrap and full search and replace. Jeez, at that rate you could write an entire kernel in the 60k download here.
Part of the reason many professional groups are unwilling to use open-source programs is because they just don't know what they're getting. If I, as a business owner am told that the product will be supported by a group of volunteers, I may be willing to go spend $100 for a product that will be supported. But, *ahem*, many pay software companies expire out their old versions so you're stuck with the product at some point anyway.
This is document was very well laid out, and might help to increase the popularity of open source stuff. Sure most of us just know how it all works, but unless Joe Public does, he won't see any reason to consider OSS. Probably the best line of this notice would be "We believe, however, that it's only because most newcomers do not realize what to expect - hopefully this text will set that right." Amen to that. Even if I had never used OSS before, I might be willing to give it a shot after all this has been laid out.
The text also does a very nice job dispelling the common myth held by regular software users that OSS requires you to be actively involved in the programming to use it. A very welcoming sense of "everybody can join, if you can, please help out in one of several ways."
If nothing else, this type of text should cut down on the number of bitch-outs directed towards OSS due to false expectations.
In a world where it's take 'em or lose 'em, can they really be blamed? Often times products are mass patented like this, only to have reasonable licenses come out in the future to the makers (in this case PVR makers). The idea being that if you don't patent it now, someone else will and screw you out of everything.
Why should you let someone else screw everyone when you can do it yourself;)
I can't say what company I am involved in, but we spend a large amount of our patent money purely on defensive applications. In the end, we don't plan to rape the general public to use it, but we would like to retain rights as the creator.
I've seen a little bit of GD myself, and it does look like it has a lot of promise. That will be one sweet game once it is up and running. Any idea about a timeline for going public?
OK....So I guess I'm a bit confused at this point, or maybe I don't understand the entire bill. What happens when a piece of software is distributed in other forms as well? For example....if I download Aol 5.0 from their site and it doesn't work, I can hold AOL legally liable? What about Microsoft service packs? Those always seem to mess something up in my system.
Granted what this means is that eventually you will have to buy everything, although that goes very contrary to the internet which has made both of them so rich, and I don't think they'd be dumb enough to jeopardize that. Face it...Joe AOL is probably not going to buy every single upgrade, when he's used to them happening every other time he logs off. Even if they are sold "at-cost" (the cost of the CD, the shrink wrapping, and don't forget anyone who will sell it will demand to make a profit on it as well), it isn't very appealing to either the consumer or the distributor.
Anyone have any ideas about these "other" little things which both companies rely on to (somewhat) keep their customer base happy?
Oh it is very possible that something like this will be proposed in the US in the near future. I can just picture it now "I have introduced a package of legislation that will make the Internet safer and more reliable for our children..." I'm not surprised, coming from an administration who's bewildered response to the DoS attacks is that they "APPEAR to be aimed at distrupting legitiment e-commerce."
In regards to the 5th ammendment, it is very important that the only place your key is stored is a machine you have direct ownership of. While I'm not a lawyer, I'm pretty sure that while the government couldn't sit on you to give the key up, they could sit on someone else to give your key up if it was on their machine.
Hypothetical example. You encrypt your personal files at work and leave the key sitting on the company owned hard drive. When you get arrested, you would be within your rights to refuse to give them your key. Tough nuts for you though, whoever owned the machine (in this case, your company) could probably be compelled to give it up.
Never give your key to someone else (except your spouse [although even that could be risky;) ]) for "safekeeping", or leave it anywhere except where you have direct ownership of it.
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of work I did as an undergrad in my advanced database class. At the end of the term we were given group projects to research and present "future" database concepts. One of them was unstructured data. The conclusions drawn were that right now unstructured data has no real value. The value assigned to a particular element can only be assigned by the human who assesses those values. My group was assigned the task of making unstructured data available to standard databases.
Consider:
3822 North Fickle, Frequent Customer - solicit often.
The inherent meaning is obvious to a human. Most likely a street address followed by a remark of some type. For a computer to correctly (and in a real world industry, the demand is that it be 100% correct, always, or forget it) establish the meanings would require some serious AI.
Enter XML. As it exists now, XML is the bridge between unstructured data and data which can be formalized into a structured format. As other people have pointed out, XML does solve some of these issues. Semistructured data via XML is a fairly recent innovation and does a nice job adding meaning and definition to otherwise cryptic (to a computer) strings of ASCII characters.
Going back to the original problem however, XML must be inserted by a human. Until such time as a machine can *establish* intrinsic value on data, there needs to be an intermediate platform. This doesn't help in the example provided where a company keeps data in a Word document. That data is truly unstructured and random. Human interaction can easily destroy the meaning of a document to a computer, without affecting (and perhaps increasing) the comprehension by other people.
In the near future, it looks like the closest we will truly get is semi-structured, not un-structured data. He who ultimately solves this problem will also solve AI.
Yeah on the surface, it seems to be. There are a lot of misconceptions about that ruling. A significant part of the ruling was that SCOTUS declared that the government saying that they couldn't look at intimate details of your home (ie - are you growing pot in your underwear or in a body suit?), they didn't need a warrant. The court reaffirmed that "Such an approach would be wrong in principle because, in the sanctity of the home, all details are intimate details." (United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705).
:)
Interesting to note however, is that it is still a gray area as to whether stuff that is in "plain view" from the outside can be considered private. If I am correct, in order for this technology to work, they essentially need to be within line of sight of your monitor. To do this would require an open blind. That's the same as me (as police officer) walking by and seeing three teenagers drinking beer in the front window. Not only could you not accuse me of breaking in to look at you, I would have the right to inquire about whether underage drinking was occuring (since it was observed in plain view from a public place). Given that, I don't know that the thermal imaging case is 100% applicable because a large part of the technology is dependent on plain view.
Now, having said that: You might have an affirmative defense in saying that such an evesdropping technology is not in the public domain. While anybody can walk by and see your underage beer party, its doubtful that Bill Public would have the resources to just walk by, pull out his imager and see what's going on.
Am I unsure of what to say? Yeah pretty much, like anything else, this specific use of technology will be taken to the courts by one side or another. In the meantime, pull the blinds Mr. Tin Foil man
Nice to know, not only did he hire people to break the law he hired minors to do so. Excellent, courts sometimes overlook the piddly petty-theft stuff but "Corruption of a minor" is hardly looked upon lightly almost anywhere. Or are we going to be told that he had been licensed by the individual copyright holders to do the downloads?
:P
What's the number on all the Microsoft CD's? 1-800-IS-Legit? I wonder if RIAA has one too
WHoohoo... Maybe, just maybe, with more rulings like this a little personal responsibility might be in order. I'd love to see the day when those dumb enough to put a hot beverage between their legs and drive around, yet manage to sue for burning themselves in the spill, are told "Yeah, life sucks doesn't it. Dismissed"
It would be funny now for the video game companies to turn around and sue the former plantiffs for affecting their ability to sell a legal product.
I think Microsoft is aware of this, and they are trying their hardest to avoid it. Consider the following. I attend a medium sized (16,000 students) Midwestern University. While our CS department isn't world-renowned, there are about 400 people majoring in it. Tomorrow (The 4th) we've got Microsoft coming to town for the VS .NET "launch party"
.NET Academic, plus who knows how much other Microsoft "Stuff" (Lots of Xboxes floating around)
No big deal you'd say...Here's what they're ponying up:
* Up to 700 people can attend, Students, Faculty, Staff
* Everyone who goes gets a full version of XP professional, full version of VS
Here's the kicker. I was talking to our secretary the other day and she said the whole thing basically went like this: Microsoft calls and says they want to have a launch party, we get $50,000 to spend for $700 people, plus the department gets $10,000 in discretionary "thanks" cash.
We're having a hard time racking up over $15,000 in expenses for this three hour event. We simply can't find $35,000 in other things to buy for this room! I might add also, all 700 slots were filled in less than a day.
Is it just me, or does this smack of a company that really, really, wants to protect its future interests?
Yes, you can submit answering machine tapes as evidence because if it is a true answering machine "Leave a message after the beep..." you are more or less informed that what you say is going to be recorded. In order to deliver your message, you must actively consent to it being recorded (done by continuing to leave a message, and not hanging up). It goes without saying that leave a message means that your message will be recorded in some form to be retreived at a later time by the called-party (who also gave consent to recording the 'conversation' because they installed the thing in the first place!)
OTOH, if you were to *secretly* use your answering machine's Record feature while engaged in a coversation without consent of the other party, it would likely not be considered admissable.
I think in reference to the issue at hand, sending an email may be akin to leaving a message on an answering machine. It is inherent in the nature of the protocol that your message will be STORED for the recipient to obtain at a later time.
In this case the girl provided copies of her email. I believe that this is OK, one expects that email is stored/printed/whatever by the recipient. Yet if the police were to set up a packet sniffer to intercept all conversations coming out of my box, they should have to jump through the same legal hoops as if they were going to put a wiretap on the phone line I use to call and leave you harassing voice messages, but the person I harass would of course be free to provide (and more likely want to give) that to the police.
I don't see the use of an actual 'wiretap', rather a private submission of evidence.
While they don't do video games very often, I have always prefered Consumer Reports consumerreports.org for my big purcahses. They are a non-profit group, there is no advertising, and everything they review, whether it be DVD players, cars, or stereo system, they send an anonymous Joe Public to buy one from a store shelf. This gives you unbiased reporting, because they really don't have anything to gain. Depending on how you look at it, this could be good or bad: They only buy products that are in the stores. That means no early previews, but it also means reviews of what you can really get. No Vaporware here.
In fact in one case, a product maker was not pleased with the review they got, so they sent the usual C&D orders and then went legal with the slander suits. Rather than settle on it, CR went on to keep everyone informed of who this company was, and vigoriously defended themselves in court, and I believe they won.
I wish they or someone else had a similar product for reviewing software of all types. Right now CR has done just a couple software reviews. The problem, as I think we've discovered, is that unless you have a large bankroll and aren't in it [the media business] to make money, it's really hard to BUY and test lots of products, let alone do unbiased reviews.
No, you're not. I think that the overall concept might have some promise, but I do have a problem with the idea that an entity will running the whole show. What scares me most is that ultimately, we are moving towards zero human contact. No longer do you go to the grocery store and run into your old friend from across town and chit chat for 15 minutes while making your selections.
I'm reminded of the movie Sneakers when Martin and his old friend (the villian) are on the roof and the villian is going on about how it's a new world, it's all electrons, just little ones and zeros. Everything is the information, the information is everything. It's a brave new world for humanity.. Martin's response is 'yeah, and there's nobody there' -- So we'll all have our PDAs and phones and everything, but who is there really to talk to? Get out, get some air, meet some REAL people and have some fun the old way.
Not does the technology have the ability to move our lives into greater convenience, but at the same time, to isolate us from ourselves and each other.
That, to me, is the scary part - not so much some marketer having a profile on me.
So let's see... I work as an independent contractor and have to file a Schedule SE (self-employment tax) and pay an extra 7.65% of my income than a person working for a company that has to pay that portion. Since I am working for myself, I'm the company (or could easily become one if I wanted, a la LLP)...Them taking my tax money is hurting my profits. My having to charge in state customers sales tax when more of them can just go to out of state consultants who don't charge sales tax is hurting my profit!
Finally! Whooo
Yes, I think it's all getting a little ridiculus.
In all seriousness, treaties that become overly unfavorable have a tendacy to either be forgotten or unratified, so much for the arms agreement with the Soviet Union. Really, I don't think this will become an issue. Consider that this would be happening in all member countries, so chances are it would be pretty soon that an amendment would be passed, perhaps requiring compensated parties to give the money back.
Not to mention what irks me the most about these 'basic needs', what is basic to another is luxurious to another. The telephone companies are always told that they must provide service to those in dire need who simply cannot afford a line. Reasonable enough idea until the lineman shows up to install the line and they're all lying around during the middle of the work day watching premimum dish/cable tv! I'm not trying to overly generalize, but I have a family member who works for a utility and he sees this all the time.
That and the friend of mine who just found out that the reason a hosting check for a MUD was late is because the guy's unemployment check hadn't come on time like it usually does.
Public access to the internet does already exist, libraries are just one place. There's a million and one companies willing to provide you with free whatever (email, chatting) at the library if you're willing to fill out their little surveys...
I should mention that we already sort of have this on some DVD's..you know, the previews you can't skip through? Hit FF and the little hand comes up, but if you hit stop or rewind it's more than happy to oblige.
That's nice. In the scheme of things, isn't everything supposed to be integrated back together? With all these new formats coming out, may of which are darn-near mirror images of other technologies, you need a player for this, a player for that, blah blah blah. Hell to you if you try to create an integrated player that handles them all, don't want to head down that DMCA strewn patent road.
:)
This one just strikes me as even more stupid, linear tape access to data of any format has all but been rid of because it's difficult to actively operate. Everything must be done sequentially, direct access is impossible. Of course, maybe if they have their way you will only be able to watch your DVD the way the director intended it, straight through, no skipping scenes. So I guess if that's the plan a tape makes sense.
Oh I believe wholeheartedly that they already don't care about what comes back, it's just the symbolism. Then when it comes time to issue the public report you toss the report down the stairs, and from everything that lands on the bottom step you grab a quote or two..."And while good argument could be made towards X, it was also the opinion of other respondents that Y, so we're just going to do Y, which happens to have been our plan all along."
:)
Course you don't insert the last part about your real plan is, that's too obvious.
"And of particular note was a period of mass submission by a seemingly very informed public, although one must wonder if these are the so-called 'seminar emailers' because they all had the same browser referer. Upon following the referer [salshdot.org], we were directed to a nice news site surrounded in porno banners, led by leather pimp CowboyNeal. Interesting"
Flame Disclaimer: I know that site doesn't do that anymore, thanks
I agree that it's highly unlikely that NASA will jump right out and do 'survey says....we go to ___'. But....programs need to be popular in order to continue existing. Given all the bad PR NASA has gotten lately with their failed missions (over sometimes outright stupid mistakes, like forgetting that 1 Newton of does not equal 1 lbft/s etc).
So you put out a little survey, people respond, but most importantly they feel as if they participated. Just the feeling of being involved or "being heard" might be enough to convince a few minds in the public that NASA isn't a total waste of taxpayer money.
Sure is. Consider this: http://www.TinyAps.org The notepad replacement I'm using is a grand total of 6k, written in assembler, yet it has word wrap and full search and replace. Jeez, at that rate you could write an entire kernel in the 60k download here.
Part of the reason many professional groups are unwilling to use open-source programs is because they just don't know what they're getting. If I, as a business owner am told that the product will be supported by a group of volunteers, I may be willing to go spend $100 for a product that will be supported. But, *ahem*, many pay software companies expire out their old versions so you're stuck with the product at some point anyway.
This is document was very well laid out, and might help to increase the popularity of open source stuff. Sure most of us just know how it all works, but unless Joe Public does, he won't see any reason to consider OSS. Probably the best line of this notice would be "We believe, however, that it's only because most newcomers do not realize what to expect - hopefully this text will set that right." Amen to that. Even if I had never used OSS before, I might be willing to give it a shot after all this has been laid out.
The text also does a very nice job dispelling the common myth held by regular software users that OSS requires you to be actively involved in the programming to use it. A very welcoming sense of "everybody can join, if you can, please help out in one of several ways."
If nothing else, this type of text should cut down on the number of bitch-outs directed towards OSS due to false expectations.
In a world where it's take 'em or lose 'em, can they really be blamed? Often times products are mass patented like this, only to have reasonable licenses come out in the future to the makers (in this case PVR makers). The idea being that if you don't patent it now, someone else will and screw you out of everything.
;)
Why should you let someone else screw everyone when you can do it yourself
I can't say what company I am involved in, but we spend a large amount of our patent money purely on defensive applications. In the end, we don't plan to rape the general public to use it, but we would like to retain rights as the creator.
I've seen a little bit of GD myself, and it does look like it has a lot of promise. That will be one sweet game once it is up and running. Any idea about a timeline for going public?
Granted what this means is that eventually you will have to buy everything, although that goes very contrary to the internet which has made both of them so rich, and I don't think they'd be dumb enough to jeopardize that. Face it...Joe AOL is probably not going to buy every single upgrade, when he's used to them happening every other time he logs off. Even if they are sold "at-cost" (the cost of the CD, the shrink wrapping, and don't forget anyone who will sell it will demand to make a profit on it as well), it isn't very appealing to either the consumer or the distributor.
Anyone have any ideas about these "other" little things which both companies rely on to (somewhat) keep their customer base happy?
In regards to the 5th ammendment, it is very important that the only place your key is stored is a machine you have direct ownership of. While I'm not a lawyer, I'm pretty sure that while the government couldn't sit on you to give the key up, they could sit on someone else to give your key up if it was on their machine.
Hypothetical example. You encrypt your personal files at work and leave the key sitting on the company owned hard drive. When you get arrested, you would be within your rights to refuse to give them your key. Tough nuts for you though, whoever owned the machine (in this case, your company) could probably be compelled to give it up.
Never give your key to someone else (except your spouse [although even that could be risky ;) ]) for "safekeeping", or leave it anywhere except where you have direct ownership of it.