My roommate has done something similar. I'm not certain of the details (it involves a Perl script and the speechd script), but he has his firewall logs tied into the festival text-to-speech engine via a Perl script. Any time his firewall rejets a packet, the Perl script takes note, formats the firewall log entry into a nice speech friendly format, and passes it off to the speechd script. So at random we will hear his computer say
hisservername has rejected packet from 123.456.789.123 inbound to 987.654.321.98. (IPs faked so that he doesn't get/.ed:-)
It's really rather cool, and takes almost zero CPU power except when it's actually speaking.
The industry isn't moving to digital because of increased quality, whatever the pundits say. They're moving to digital because it's (A) easier (B) faster (C) cheaper.
(A) Remember, live actor footage for SW Ep. II has already been completed. It's long over. Lucas (and company) are spending the next year or two on post-production and effects. For analog film, how do you add in laser blasts, matte shots, lightsaber blades, and other fun stuff? The traditional way involves someone sitting down on the film with a very expensive crayola marker, while the more modern version involves transfering the footage to a computer, doing it digitally, and then spooling it back out. Either way is substantially more difficult than just taking it digital all the way through. It's the same issue as with analog vs. digital LCD monitors. The digital ones have fewer steps, so they are faster, cheaper, and have better pictures.
(B) It takes time to paint in all of those blasters/phasers/lasers. And it takes even more time to piece together all of the various scenes, especially when each scene exists in seven different pieces. Remember the brief shot in the original Star Wars, where Luke is practicing with his lightsaber against the robot ball while Chewie and the droids are playing chess in the background? That shot contained over five different "layers" that had to be put together and synched, and then all alligned with the rest of the footage. That takes a fraction as much time to do when it's all in Adobe Premier (or whatever program LucasFilm uses) than when it's all on celluloid rolls.
(C) Time is money, or so say the beancounters. The time you save by doing development and post production digitally will translate into less money you have to pay your post-production people (good for the studio, bad for the post-production people, which means the major studios will go with it every time), which means higher net profit. In addition, chemical film costs a lot of money. So does the development cost. And then you need the storage space to archive all of it until the movie is finished, and sometimes even then you keep all the bits and pieces. (Lucas did for the original trilogy, which is why they were able to do the Special Edition release.) Digital equipment is not cheap, but once you have your cameras and a few (dozen) DV tapes, you're set. All you need for storage then is a ton of hard disk space, which is now going for a song. You then have perfect reproduction copies of all your footage, and you can reuse the tapes for the next scene, or the next movie. Over the long run, that brings the cost of production down substantially, just as digital still cameras do compared to 35mm film cameras, even if the quality isn't quite as good yet.
We can argue until we're blue in the face about whether the quality of digital film (that's a fairly big misnomer, isn't it?) is noticibly poorer or better than traditional film. But to a studio, quality is irrelevant. (Just look at some of the stuff coming out in theaters.) Time, money, and simplicity are what they work on, and in all three of those categories digital video wins hands down. I expect that for art films and movies without many FX, traditional film or even the "enhansed" film we're starting to see will continue for a long time. But for anything requiring substantial FX or post-production, digital is going to take over, whether we like it or not.
Then it's not the concept of a Start-esque menu that you object to. It's the concept of dragging. You don't have to setup a Start menu to requre Mac-like dragging, or have submenus pop out when the mouse hovers too long. The Mac, with its sad devotion to the single-button mouse, is still the worst in the "little things" department, such as dragging within menus. Windows 9x and KDE/GNOME are are only marginally better.
I've used many desktop interfaces, and by far the best Startmenu-style system was OS/2 Warp version 4.0. It has the thing you like, where you click once to open the menu, click a second time to execute your choice after moving the mouse to wherever you damn wall want to. It also cascaded folders automatically, shortcut or not, and you could open or expand any subfolder in the menu with a left or right click. It also included a button to allow you to navigate straight from any drive straight through to any directory on the disk.
I have yet to find a menu interface on any system on any OS since that is as good as it, although GeoWorks Ensemble was close. (Although it predated it.)
OK, Qt is all well and good. But why? X Windows programming, via any system, is already a big, convoluted mess, whether you use GNOME, Qt, or whatever. Why bring any of that to the palmtop? You have a tiny memory space, a tiny processor, and very limited screen space. 99.9% of the Qt programs out there wouldn't be able to port to the PDA form factor anyway, regardless of what code support there is. Maybe X Bill, but that's about it.
Please, we need to stop thinking of the Palmtop as just a PC with a small screen. It is a completely different way of thinking. Take 95% of what you know about desktop programming and design and throw it out the window. Now you can start designing for the PDA. Microsoft forgot to do that, and guess what? 3rd time, and it's still not charmed.
--GrouchoMarx
My other account is CmdrTaco
Voting should require effort
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 2
Even though it may be technologically possible, I don't want people to be able to vote from home.
A few people have pointed out the equality question already. Those with computers would have an easier time voting in the nude than those without. (Unless they wanted to walk into the polling place naked, in which case they would probably be arrested for public indecency.) That is certainly a valid issue, but I would take it a step further. Voting should require effort.
If you care enough about your country and who the President/Senator/Congressman/Mayor/whoever is up for election this time is, walking or driving 2 blocks to the polling place is not a huge favor to ask. If you don't have the mental fortitude or interest to stand up, put on clothing other than your pajamas, and travel a whole 5 minutes (very often considerably less, about 30 seconds for me) to the polling place, then I don't want you voting. If you are that disinterested, then go away.
Yes, some people are unable to get to the polling place. People who are crippled, in the hospital, or otherwise incapacitated can't do that. Currently, they arrange to have an election judge come to their house and take their vote there. There's nothing wrong with that, as there aren't a huge number of people in that category. (And in the case of a hospital, they're all in the same place so they're easy to get to.) We can just continue doing that.
I do support a move to computerized voting, but not remotely. You should still have to come into a polling place. What computerized voting offers us is the ability to go to ANY polling place, not just the one that is next to your house but 50 miles from your place of work. Specifically:
All polling places have a series of terminals (booths) setup, all connected to a dedicated, private, county- or state-wide network (preferably state-wide). Someone above suggested using a token or disposeable smart card issued by the election judge at the polling place to grant access, and that works fine. You can then go to ANY polling place in your county/state, and present the election judge with your voter registration card. The judge then checks in the computer that you are a registered voter in the precinct that your card says you are, and if so hands you your smart card, which is automatically coded for your precinct. You then take that card to the booth/terminal, insert it, and the system displays the appropriate ballot for your area. (Remember, every ward had a slightly different ballot for more local elections like mayor, alderman, etc.) You select the candidates of your choice from the very well designed touch-screen interface, and it also confirms your choices for you. When you click submit, your vote is recorded back to the local server. The card is blanked, and you can even use it as your voting receipt.
The advantage is that since the ballot is targeted to you based on your precinct, you can vote from any precinct in the voting area. So you can vote from the polling place down the street from your house, OR the one next to the place where you have lunch downtown by your office, OR downstairs at the post office, OR at any polling place in the state. That makes it easier for those who DO WANT to vote to do so. It's also then equally accessible to any economic level, because no matter who you are, you have to walk at least/only 1-5 blocks to go vote.
Electronic voting would also get rid of the "double-punch" issue. There's one big button for each candidate that you select, and the software makes double-selecting impossible. (Except for those ballots where you are supposed to select X number, such as school board or park board.)
As long as you use a closed, prioprietary network, it would be no less secure than paper balloting. Yes, you could potentially steal some smart cards and code them yourself, but you can also steal punch cards. Yes, you could hack the network, if you could somehow get physical access to it (it's not connected to the Internet, the same way that the bank network is not connected), but you can also drill a hole in the wooden box and stick cards through. There is no 100% secure method, but it would be no less secure that what we do now, and if done right would be more secure.
As to the question of candidate pictures, I'd have to say no. Elections are enough of a popularity contest as is. Do you really want some backwoods hick from Podunk to refuse to vote for this "Colin Powel" person just because he's black? (Or a black racist refuse to vote for someone just because he's white? Both are equally a problem.) Yeah, you already have a problem with the name itself to an extent, but let's not make it any worse than it is already.
IF we do it right, computerized balloting can be extremely advantageous. Of course, that's a big if. That goes for any application of technology. It can be done right and make life easier for everyone, or can be done wrong and screw everyone over. That's why you have to be careful.
Palm: Low cost, low power, low heat, passable speed, huge user and programmer base.
I wonder what would happen if Transmeta and Palm ever hooked up? Could Transmeta's code-morphing answer the question that Palm users have been asking for months about Palm's eventual move to StrongARM chips? (Specifically: How to do it without locking out the millions of existing users and 100,000 existing developers.)
This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "boot camp."
Sargent: This is the chip for me and you.
Troops: This is the chip for me and you. Sargent: And its software is GNU.
Troops: And its software is GNU. Sargent: And if the OS code should crash.
Troops: And if the OS code should crash. Sargent: Recompile and kick some ass.
Troops: Recompile and kick some ass. Sargent: We all code for Uncle Sam.
Troops: We all code for Uncle Sam. Sargent: And our army runs a WAN.
Troops: And our army runs a WAN. Sargent: Sound off.
Troops: Zero, One. Sargent: Sound off.
Troops: Two, Three.
Why get off the grid? Why not stay on the grid and sell surplus electricity back to the power companies?
That would be a great idea, if we could get the power company to go along with it. As an engineering problem, it's fairly easy. All you need is a new power meter like the one you have now from the power company, that records the amount of power going in and out, rather than just in. You buy power at a given rate and get credit for power surplus at the same rate, and the power company sends you a bill/credit check every month that takes it all into account.
Of course, that requires the power company to install a meter that lets you "sell back" power. They have no interest in doing so, as it hurts their business. Why would they want to have your generating your own power? Then they can't raise the rates on you.
"Market forces" won't force power companies to open up their systems to reciprocal generation, because they are a natural monopoly. You really can't "take your business elsewhere." And the company won't do it out of the goodness of its heart, that's for sure. The only way to get such two-way power systems going would be government mandated equipment that allowed for it.
Of course, given the trend over the past 20 years to "Get the government off the back of big business" (a concept which brought us such wonders as the DMCA), what do you think the chances are of that happening?
That's a somewhat circular arguement. "Invent" something, then patent it, so that someone else doesn't write it, patent it, and sue you for it? That comes down to "hit him back first," which only worsens the problem.
A patent should be issued for an invention/creation/innovation which is different enough that it is not obvious, and useful enough that someone else would want to use it. A "better mousetrap" is such an invention. 1-click shopping is not. Patents are (supposedly) designed to protect the creator of an original idea from others who would see it, copy it, and then claim it was theirs to begin with. But if the idea/invention is so mundane that a dozen people working completely independent of each other come up with the exact same thing, then it's not "new and improved" enough to qualify as a patent in the first place.
For those who are still worried, there is an "open patent" available. I forget the exact name and procedure at the moment (check with the Patent Office at their website), but it is basically a legal statement of "I got here first" that doesn't carry any enforcement of who can or cannot use it. It does not give you any ability to "own" the idea, but it does keep someone else from claiming that they do later. I can see software "patents" in this category, certainly.
Well, if it doesn't exist, then I'm definitely not going to pay for it!
I wasn't arguing that you should.:-)
But the laws of phyics apply to everything in the universe, including information. Information cannot exist independent of some representation in matter and energy.
Exactly. What you are paying for is the transmission medium, not the message itself. You are paying for the book, for the floppy disk, for the matter and energy involved. I suppose you could argue that you are paying the author for the energy he expended by creating the data, and the matter he consumed in order to have the energy to expend. But you are not paying for the information itself, because it doesn't exist.
Gases don't "want" to spread out. They don't "want" to not all be in the same part of the room. That is a gross oversimplification of Thermodynamics. Individual molecules fly around at random and bang into each other, bouncing this way and that until their random distrobution becomes more or less uniform. The Nitrogen isn't "spreading" it's achieving pressure equilibrium with Oxygen.
Information is not a particle of matter. Information is not really energy, either. Information has no tangible existence at all. To say that "information wants to be free" gives this "information" thingie more credit than it is due.
In the simpliest sence of the word, "information" is simply data. You can use that data to choose a course of action, or you can not. You can present this data to others and allow them to choose a course of action based upon it, or you cannot. In either case, you still have this information. (Yes, information is created with no loss of matter or energy, it is therefore a completely different animal.) That does not mean that data "wants" to be "free." "Free" doesn't exist in this sense.
Things only become interesting when the data/information in question is desired, either for personal satisfaction, entertainment, or some other reason. You will only pay someone for their "information" if you have a desire to know that information. If you don't, you won't pay them for it and won't seek it out in the first place. Still, however, the information itself doesn't "want" or "need" to be "free." It doesn't exist in the first place, so the words have no meaning.
The concept of "information wants to be free" should really be more accurately stated "I believe information has value to everyone, and make the moral claim that it should therefore be equally available to everyone, regardless of the type of information." Is that moral claim "right?" Well, since the word "right" is so subjective, I really can't answer that question one way or the other.
Laws of Physics do not apply to something which does not exist as a physical body. Neither do laws of Supply and Demand apply to something for which there is no inherent "supply." (A book that is sold does have substance and supply, as there is a limited quantity of dead trees in the world.) It's the same difference between hardware and software (if you can drop it on your foot, it's hardware). None of the traditional models of looking at "stuff" apply to something which is not made up of "stuff" in the first place. The distrobution method maybe, as it does potentially involve "stuff." (ISPs charge for using their wires, which are stuff, book sellers charge for the paper, which is stuff, etc.) But the information itself does not exist in any corporeal sense, and to speak of it as if it does only clouds the issue, regardless of which side you take.
Universal Serial Bus is a master/slave bus. That is, everything that happens on the USB bus goes through the CPU. Ever notice how if you start doing something processor intensive while using your USB port, both processes slow down and get jerky? That's why. (The classic example is USB digital speakers. They sound great unless you are actually using the system, in which case the sounds skips badly.)
FireWire/IEEE 1394/iLink/HPSB/whatever the name is this week is a peer-to-peer bus. That is, HPSB devices communicate with each other without going through the CPU.
So why does Intel care? Because the more you use your USB bus, the more raw processing power you need to make everything work. Yes, you can use a video camera on your USB port and a USB-to-Ethernet bridge at the same time to get videoconfrencing. But that takes an enormous amount of crunching power on the part of the CPU, even with USB 2.0. That means you need a bigger, faster, and *more expensive* CPU. That means the CPU maker, Intel, makes more money by selling you a bigger chip.
FireWire/HPSB, on the other hand, being peer-to-peer, doesn't care about the CPU as much. The difference between a 500Mz PIII and a 1GHz PIII for a HPSB task is not that big, whereas it is huge for running multiple USB processes. With Microsoft falling behind on the software bloat front (you don't NEED the most expensive processor just to run Word any more), Intel needs some way to convince people to buy bigger, more expensive chips. USB provides that, FireWire doesn't. So Intel supports USB, and hates FireWire.
Just a quick note to the person who submitted this article: It's definitely an interesting concept, but not quite Trek-derived. Star Trek uses graviton-based shields, not plasma-based ones. Incoming weapons/space dust is deflected by graviton interference, a completely different realm of physics. Plasma is used as the power distrobution system, in place of electron-carrying metal wires.
Yes, I watch too much Star Trek myself, why do you ask?:-)
And how is researching something that could possibly be used as a weapon inately immoral? Nuclear research led to the atom bomb. It also led to nuclear power plants, which are one of the most efficent and enviornmentally-friendly methods of energy production around (beaten only by hydro-electric dams and solar power). The first use for advanced metalurgy was cannons for use in war. That paved the way for almost every major invention of the last two centuries, including the steam engine, trains, automobiles, airplanes, buildings taller than 3 stories, and the computer you are using now. Speaking of that computer, have you forgotten that the first general purpose digital computer, ENIAC, was built by the US Navy for calculating missile trajectories? Or how about the fact that the Internet itself was invented by the US Department of Defense (ARPANet) to maintain communication in the event of a nuclear war? I can create huge amounts of damage with the PC I'm on right now if I wanted to, all it takes is a few quick hacks. No, wait, someone's already done that.
Anything can be used for military applications, no matter how useful it is for benevolent endevours. If the fact that an invetion could potentially have a military "use" automatically means that moral scientists should avoid it like the plague, then the only "moral" scientists are those who limit themselves to stone knives and bearskins. (No, wait, stone knives can be used to kill people, too. I guess you're stuck with the bearskin, if you can get it away from the bear without using a stone knife, that is.)
Not so. These lawsuits loose money for Scour and for the MPAA. It makes a veritable fortune for the MPAA's legal department, who would love nothing more than to see these cases drag on for a decade.
Let us not forget when Disney's legal department sued a daycare center for showing Disney animanted films to kids, claiming they didn't have a multi-thousand dollar distrobution license. (The PR department got wind of it, and very quickly granted the daycare center a free license before the legal eagles made Disney look even worse than it already did for "suing children.") I'm not sure we can even blame the MBAs running the big studios. The ones behind frivolous lawsuits are the legal departments. It doesn't matter if the MPAA's case is thrown out of court, the laywers still make a cool couple of mil' on the deal.
As I predicted, the M100 (is that their new naming system? I hope not) is intended to be more sizzle than steak. It has funky curvy lines (like poorly designed and overpriced sports cars), neato snazzy colors for "customization," and a lower performance point than it's predecessor, the IIIe. Why?
Simple. "Power" users, who read SlashDot, want a Palm that does a lot, and generally know what they are talking about, don't want a IIIe, they want a IIIxe, a Vx, the new VIIx, a TRGpro, etc. PalmStation readers are not their target audience. The IIIe was/is most popular with people who just want "one of those 'Palm' things" to track their friends' phone numbers, and maybe their shopping list. They want a fancy organizer, not a Palmtop computer or communications device.
Palm realizes that. So they are taking their low-end products and saying "these people want sizzle, so let's give them sizzle." It sells Palms on the "funky colors are cool" crowd, including many, many teens. At only $150, it's cheap enough for them to afford as a fancy, high-end organizer. Then, 12 months from now when about half of those people realize that they do need more than 2 MB of RAM, or a larger screen, or what not, lo and behold there are the higher-end Palms like the IIIxe and IIIc ready and waiting for them to upgrade, but they loose nothing because their existing addressbook is perfectly compatable, any add-on programs they have will work, and the learning curve is virtually zero. Just a few hundred dollars for that upgraded device, junior.
As a wise man once said, "Get them while they're young." The M100 is an "on-ramp" product ("Gateway Palm?"). And I think it has a decent chance of succeeding as precisely that; a way to get people into the PalmOS market, so they can be sold future devices next year. The M100 is of absolutely no value to me, I'm perfectly happy with my TRGpro. But in terms of getting high school aged kids (or high-flying execs who would like to think they are high school aged kids) into the PalmOS world, which means creating more long term customers, Palm does know what they are doing.
I agree that cellphones can make life easier, and finding a payphone is a bear. But that doesn't mean that they are all perfect and wonderful.
I don't see why everyone here is so uptight about cel phones. I read the article, and looks to me like it's just trying to stir up controversy about cel phones. I firmly believe that if they were truly unsafe, the big companies would not have released cel phones to the market.
The tobacco companies were releasing cigarettes to the market for decades, knowing full well they were carcenogenic. While it would be nice if we could trust companies to police themselves and only release "safe" products, time and time again it is proved that "the Marketplace" will call for products regardless of their safety. Clothing manufacturers lobbied Congress long and hard to remove the requirement that all infant clothing be flame retardant, AND they're no longer required to say on the label of the clothing is flame retardant or not. I can't see the cellphone companies saying "Sorry, they're dangerous afterall, we're going to stop selling them."
I am fully confident that businesses will honestly address it and that medical science will immedietally find a cure for any illnesses or symptoms caused by cel phone usage
See above for comments on business. In a perfect world, yes, but in this world, no. And don't be so confident in medical science. Medical Professionals of some sort or another have been around for centuries, and modern doctors for a centurty and a half. We STILL have no way to cure cancer, other than (A) Cut out a piece of your body (B) Fill you with poison and hope that it kills the cancer before it kills you (Chemotheropy). Don't assume that doctors will find a magic cure in the nick of time. For all of the things that doctors can do, that is not one of them.
As for cellphones while driving, statistically, talking on a cellphone while driving increases the rate of accidents as much as driving while moderately intoxicated with alcohol. Does that mean you will always crash? Of course not, not everyone who drinks and drives gets into an accident either. It's not a matter of being intelligent or not intelligent, it's the fact that your attention is split between your phone conversation and the road, and in most cases you have only one hand on the wheel, and the other on your face. That reduces the control you have of the car, no matter how intelligent you are. And -- not to make this sound as an attack, which it isn't -- what ARE you talking about on the phone with your friends at age 16 that is so important that it can't wait 15 minutes for you to get to where you're going and call them from there? If even you admit there is a risk, what could you possibly talking about that is worth risking your life, AND the life of everyone else on the road? (Note this is not an attack on young people (I am one), or girls, or friends, I have the exact same comment for the high-flying busniessmen who close thousand dollar deals on the freeway from their cellphones.)
And at the risk of sounding adversarial, I rather take offense to your claim that those "guys" who disagree with you "just need a life so [we] can see how important a cel phone actually is." I have a life, thank you, as do all of my friends, male and female. I've considered getting a cell phone, but it simply does not offer any benefits to me at this point, especially at the cost. I'm just a poor college student, and I can't afford my own Chevy Tahoe, either. (</flamebait>) If you don't want to get flamed, the best way to avoid it is to not flame other people either.
As I understand it, this app can report user names and IPs of people who download boobie trapped files that the software pretends to serve. Yes, you to can be Lars!
Anyone know what the legal situation is on civilian entrapment?
Maybe part of it is also that Jackson is aware that the Presidential election is coming up fast. I have the distinct feeling that a Bush-appointed Attorney General will not be as interested in persuing the case "at voter expense" (and all that blather). If this case goes through the Appelate Courts, it could end up not makng it to the Supreme Court until the NEXT term after this one.
Of course, most of the Supreme Court now was appointed by Reagan or Bush I, and I have very little faith in them at all these days.
I was born in 1980, so I've grown up right along with the PC era. How had "digital" altered my life? A few examples...
My father typed his dissertation on an electric typewriter, then retyped it for the next draft. I've never had to use a typewriter for any paper I have ever done. That has saved me more hours than I want to count, especially since I've never been a superb typist.:-)
When I was in middle school and even my first few years of high school, if I had a paper to do I asked my parents to drive me to the local library, I flipped through the electronic catalog (already, something digital there), found some books that may or may not be of any use to me, took them home, poked through them, slowly, and eventually pulled out enough information to do my paper. These days, I go online, check the web site of a trusted newspaper or other news source, go to www.bluetooth.com for information for my tech reports, and otherwise do most of my research fro home.
I carry a TRGpro (PalmOS-based Palm Pilot clone) around with me everywhere. I now actually know the number of the person I need to call, have not forgotten an appointment in a very long time, and get the New York Times headline articles downloaded to me every morning, for free. Makes for great reading on the train.
My senior year of high school, I took the very-advanced Multi-Variable Calculus/Linear Algebra class we offered. In years past, homework assignments took two days, and the teacher told students to just set the problem up and not solve it, because doing so would simply take far too long, and if you understood what you were doing it was close enough. Then the TI-92 calculators came out, with symbolic recursive integration, and students were able to not only do their homework in a third the time, but that allowed us to cover the same material equally well if not better in half the time. That's when Linear Algebra was added to the course, because there was simply no time to do it before.
I'm a college undergrad right now, majoring in Human-Computer Interaction and doing web development on the side. I would be unimployed if it were not for digital technology.:-)
Speaking of the web, almost all political campaigns these days at the state level on up have a web site, and many make that their main push. It allows candidates and parties large and small to get their message out for minimal cost, and virtually for free compared to previous methods. (Mass mailings, armies of people beating the streets every day, etc.) Of course, that makes it possible for every "I hate *insert group or issue here*" yahoo to get his message out as well as legitimate parties, but it's a big impact either way. And let us not forget how easy it is to collect campaign donations over the web via credit card.
Now, you could argue about whether the above changes are good or bad things, but I won't get into that now. The simple fact is that the microchip has had an extremely large impact on my life, and most (not quite all, but most) of it I am very grateful for. (Thank god I never had to use whiteout sheets.:-)
It won't cure all ills, but an easy first step is to use 900 MHz cordless phones rather than 2.4 GHz ones. The quality is almost the same, and it's one less set of devices competing in the chaotic 2.4 GHz range, which is only going to get more crowded in the next 24 months.
A little piece of fun trivia. Last December 3Com was granted US Patent #6,000,000 on their HotSync technology (now owned by Palm). CNet has just been granted US Patent #6,073,241. That means that 73,241 patents were issued in the space of approximately 6 months.
Let's allow for a few small rounding errors for the sake of simplicity, and do a little math. In 200 years (1800-2000) the US Patent office issued 6 million patents. That's an overall average of 2500 patents per month (although in reality, the vast majority of those were issued in the past few decades). In the past six months, the US Patent office issued, let's round a bit, almost 75,000 patents. That's approximately 12500 patents per month, a 5 fold increase.
Slashdot Mirror
hisservername has rejected packet from 123.456.789.123 inbound to 987.654.321.98. /.ed :-)
(IPs faked so that he doesn't get
It's really rather cool, and takes almost zero CPU power except when it's actually speaking.
--GrouchoMarx
My other account is CmdrTaco
--GrouchoMarx
(A) Remember, live actor footage for SW Ep. II has already been completed. It's long over. Lucas (and company) are spending the next year or two on post-production and effects. For analog film, how do you add in laser blasts, matte shots, lightsaber blades, and other fun stuff? The traditional way involves someone sitting down on the film with a very expensive crayola marker, while the more modern version involves transfering the footage to a computer, doing it digitally, and then spooling it back out. Either way is substantially more difficult than just taking it digital all the way through. It's the same issue as with analog vs. digital LCD monitors. The digital ones have fewer steps, so they are faster, cheaper, and have better pictures.
(B) It takes time to paint in all of those blasters/phasers/lasers. And it takes even more time to piece together all of the various scenes, especially when each scene exists in seven different pieces. Remember the brief shot in the original Star Wars, where Luke is practicing with his lightsaber against the robot ball while Chewie and the droids are playing chess in the background? That shot contained over five different "layers" that had to be put together and synched, and then all alligned with the rest of the footage. That takes a fraction as much time to do when it's all in Adobe Premier (or whatever program LucasFilm uses) than when it's all on celluloid rolls.
(C) Time is money, or so say the beancounters. The time you save by doing development and post production digitally will translate into less money you have to pay your post-production people (good for the studio, bad for the post-production people, which means the major studios will go with it every time), which means higher net profit. In addition, chemical film costs a lot of money. So does the development cost. And then you need the storage space to archive all of it until the movie is finished, and sometimes even then you keep all the bits and pieces. (Lucas did for the original trilogy, which is why they were able to do the Special Edition release.) Digital equipment is not cheap, but once you have your cameras and a few (dozen) DV tapes, you're set. All you need for storage then is a ton of hard disk space, which is now going for a song. You then have perfect reproduction copies of all your footage, and you can reuse the tapes for the next scene, or the next movie. Over the long run, that brings the cost of production down substantially, just as digital still cameras do compared to 35mm film cameras, even if the quality isn't quite as good yet.
We can argue until we're blue in the face about whether the quality of digital film (that's a fairly big misnomer, isn't it?) is noticibly poorer or better than traditional film. But to a studio, quality is irrelevant. (Just look at some of the stuff coming out in theaters.) Time, money, and simplicity are what they work on, and in all three of those categories digital video wins hands down. I expect that for art films and movies without many FX, traditional film or even the "enhansed" film we're starting to see will continue for a long time. But for anything requiring substantial FX or post-production, digital is going to take over, whether we like it or not.
--GrouchoMarx
My other account is CmdrTaco
--GrouchoMarx
I've used many desktop interfaces, and by far the best Startmenu-style system was OS/2 Warp version 4.0. It has the thing you like, where you click once to open the menu, click a second time to execute your choice after moving the mouse to wherever you damn wall want to. It also cascaded folders automatically, shortcut or not, and you could open or expand any subfolder in the menu with a left or right click. It also included a button to allow you to navigate straight from any drive straight through to any directory on the disk.
I have yet to find a menu interface on any system on any OS since that is as good as it, although GeoWorks Ensemble was close. (Although it predated it.)
--GrouchoMarx
My other account is CmdrTaco
Please, we need to stop thinking of the Palmtop as just a PC with a small screen. It is a completely different way of thinking. Take 95% of what you know about desktop programming and design and throw it out the window. Now you can start designing for the PDA. Microsoft forgot to do that, and guess what? 3rd time, and it's still not charmed.
--GrouchoMarx
My other account is CmdrTaco
A few people have pointed out the equality question already. Those with computers would have an easier time voting in the nude than those without. (Unless they wanted to walk into the polling place naked, in which case they would probably be arrested for public indecency.) That is certainly a valid issue, but I would take it a step further. Voting should require effort.
If you care enough about your country and who the President/Senator/Congressman/Mayor/whoever is up for election this time is, walking or driving 2 blocks to the polling place is not a huge favor to ask. If you don't have the mental fortitude or interest to stand up, put on clothing other than your pajamas, and travel a whole 5 minutes (very often considerably less, about 30 seconds for me) to the polling place, then I don't want you voting. If you are that disinterested, then go away.
Yes, some people are unable to get to the polling place. People who are crippled, in the hospital, or otherwise incapacitated can't do that. Currently, they arrange to have an election judge come to their house and take their vote there. There's nothing wrong with that, as there aren't a huge number of people in that category. (And in the case of a hospital, they're all in the same place so they're easy to get to.) We can just continue doing that.
I do support a move to computerized voting, but not remotely. You should still have to come into a polling place. What computerized voting offers us is the ability to go to ANY polling place, not just the one that is next to your house but 50 miles from your place of work. Specifically:
All polling places have a series of terminals (booths) setup, all connected to a dedicated, private, county- or state-wide network (preferably state-wide). Someone above suggested using a token or disposeable smart card issued by the election judge at the polling place to grant access, and that works fine. You can then go to ANY polling place in your county/state, and present the election judge with your voter registration card. The judge then checks in the computer that you are a registered voter in the precinct that your card says you are, and if so hands you your smart card, which is automatically coded for your precinct. You then take that card to the booth/terminal, insert it, and the system displays the appropriate ballot for your area. (Remember, every ward had a slightly different ballot for more local elections like mayor, alderman, etc.) You select the candidates of your choice from the very well designed touch-screen interface, and it also confirms your choices for you. When you click submit, your vote is recorded back to the local server. The card is blanked, and you can even use it as your voting receipt.
The advantage is that since the ballot is targeted to you based on your precinct, you can vote from any precinct in the voting area. So you can vote from the polling place down the street from your house, OR the one next to the place where you have lunch downtown by your office, OR downstairs at the post office, OR at any polling place in the state. That makes it easier for those who DO WANT to vote to do so. It's also then equally accessible to any economic level, because no matter who you are, you have to walk at least/only 1-5 blocks to go vote.
Electronic voting would also get rid of the "double-punch" issue. There's one big button for each candidate that you select, and the software makes double-selecting impossible. (Except for those ballots where you are supposed to select X number, such as school board or park board.)
As long as you use a closed, prioprietary network, it would be no less secure than paper balloting. Yes, you could potentially steal some smart cards and code them yourself, but you can also steal punch cards. Yes, you could hack the network, if you could somehow get physical access to it (it's not connected to the Internet, the same way that the bank network is not connected), but you can also drill a hole in the wooden box and stick cards through. There is no 100% secure method, but it would be no less secure that what we do now, and if done right would be more secure.
As to the question of candidate pictures, I'd have to say no. Elections are enough of a popularity contest as is. Do you really want some backwoods hick from Podunk to refuse to vote for this "Colin Powel" person just because he's black? (Or a black racist refuse to vote for someone just because he's white? Both are equally a problem.) Yeah, you already have a problem with the name itself to an extent, but let's not make it any worse than it is already.
IF we do it right, computerized balloting can be extremely advantageous. Of course, that's a big if. That goes for any application of technology. It can be done right and make life easier for everyone, or can be done wrong and screw everyone over. That's why you have to be careful.
--GrouchoMarx
My other account is CmdrTaco
Palm: Low cost, low power, low heat, passable speed, huge user and programmer base.
I wonder what would happen if Transmeta and Palm ever hooked up? Could Transmeta's code-morphing answer the question that Palm users have been asking for months about Palm's eventual move to StrongARM chips? (Specifically: How to do it without locking out the millions of existing users and 100,000 existing developers.)
--GrouchoMarx
My other account is CmdrTaco
--GrouchoMarx
My other account is CmdrTaco
Sargent: This is the chip for me and you.
Troops: This is the chip for me and you.
Sargent: And its software is GNU.
Troops: And its software is GNU.
Sargent: And if the OS code should crash.
Troops: And if the OS code should crash.
Sargent: Recompile and kick some ass.
Troops: Recompile and kick some ass.
Sargent: We all code for Uncle Sam.
Troops: We all code for Uncle Sam.
Sargent: And our army runs a WAN.
Troops: And our army runs a WAN.
Sargent: Sound off.
Troops: Zero, One.
Sargent: Sound off.
Troops: Two, Three.
--GrouchoMarx
That would be a great idea, if we could get the power company to go along with it. As an engineering problem, it's fairly easy. All you need is a new power meter like the one you have now from the power company, that records the amount of power going in and out, rather than just in. You buy power at a given rate and get credit for power surplus at the same rate, and the power company sends you a bill/credit check every month that takes it all into account.
Of course, that requires the power company to install a meter that lets you "sell back" power. They have no interest in doing so, as it hurts their business. Why would they want to have your generating your own power? Then they can't raise the rates on you.
"Market forces" won't force power companies to open up their systems to reciprocal generation, because they are a natural monopoly. You really can't "take your business elsewhere." And the company won't do it out of the goodness of its heart, that's for sure. The only way to get such two-way power systems going would be government mandated equipment that allowed for it.
Of course, given the trend over the past 20 years to "Get the government off the back of big business" (a concept which brought us such wonders as the DMCA), what do you think the chances are of that happening?
--GrouchoMarx
A patent should be issued for an invention/creation/innovation which is different enough that it is not obvious, and useful enough that someone else would want to use it. A "better mousetrap" is such an invention. 1-click shopping is not. Patents are (supposedly) designed to protect the creator of an original idea from others who would see it, copy it, and then claim it was theirs to begin with. But if the idea/invention is so mundane that a dozen people working completely independent of each other come up with the exact same thing, then it's not "new and improved" enough to qualify as a patent in the first place.
For those who are still worried, there is an "open patent" available. I forget the exact name and procedure at the moment (check with the Patent Office at their website), but it is basically a legal statement of "I got here first" that doesn't carry any enforcement of who can or cannot use it. It does not give you any ability to "own" the idea, but it does keep someone else from claiming that they do later. I can see software "patents" in this category, certainly.
--GrouchoMarx
I wasn't arguing that you should. :-)
But the laws of phyics apply to everything in the universe, including information. Information cannot exist independent of some representation in matter and energy.
Exactly. What you are paying for is the transmission medium, not the message itself. You are paying for the book, for the floppy disk, for the matter and energy involved. I suppose you could argue that you are paying the author for the energy he expended by creating the data, and the matter he consumed in order to have the energy to expend. But you are not paying for the information itself, because it doesn't exist.
--GrouchoMarx
Gases don't "want" to spread out. They don't "want" to not all be in the same part of the room. That is a gross oversimplification of Thermodynamics. Individual molecules fly around at random and bang into each other, bouncing this way and that until their random distrobution becomes more or less uniform. The Nitrogen isn't "spreading" it's achieving pressure equilibrium with Oxygen.
Information is not a particle of matter. Information is not really energy, either. Information has no tangible existence at all. To say that "information wants to be free" gives this "information" thingie more credit than it is due.
In the simpliest sence of the word, "information" is simply data. You can use that data to choose a course of action, or you can not. You can present this data to others and allow them to choose a course of action based upon it, or you cannot. In either case, you still have this information. (Yes, information is created with no loss of matter or energy, it is therefore a completely different animal.) That does not mean that data "wants" to be "free." "Free" doesn't exist in this sense.
Things only become interesting when the data/information in question is desired, either for personal satisfaction, entertainment, or some other reason. You will only pay someone for their "information" if you have a desire to know that information. If you don't, you won't pay them for it and won't seek it out in the first place. Still, however, the information itself doesn't "want" or "need" to be "free." It doesn't exist in the first place, so the words have no meaning.
The concept of "information wants to be free" should really be more accurately stated "I believe information has value to everyone, and make the moral claim that it should therefore be equally available to everyone, regardless of the type of information." Is that moral claim "right?" Well, since the word "right" is so subjective, I really can't answer that question one way or the other.
Laws of Physics do not apply to something which does not exist as a physical body. Neither do laws of Supply and Demand apply to something for which there is no inherent "supply." (A book that is sold does have substance and supply, as there is a limited quantity of dead trees in the world.) It's the same difference between hardware and software (if you can drop it on your foot, it's hardware). None of the traditional models of looking at "stuff" apply to something which is not made up of "stuff" in the first place. The distrobution method maybe, as it does potentially involve "stuff." (ISPs charge for using their wires, which are stuff, book sellers charge for the paper, which is stuff, etc.) But the information itself does not exist in any corporeal sense, and to speak of it as if it does only clouds the issue, regardless of which side you take.
--GrouchoMarx
FireWire/IEEE 1394/iLink/HPSB/whatever the name is this week is a peer-to-peer bus. That is, HPSB devices communicate with each other without going through the CPU.
So why does Intel care? Because the more you use your USB bus, the more raw processing power you need to make everything work. Yes, you can use a video camera on your USB port and a USB-to-Ethernet bridge at the same time to get videoconfrencing. But that takes an enormous amount of crunching power on the part of the CPU, even with USB 2.0. That means you need a bigger, faster, and *more expensive* CPU. That means the CPU maker, Intel, makes more money by selling you a bigger chip.
FireWire/HPSB, on the other hand, being peer-to-peer, doesn't care about the CPU as much. The difference between a 500Mz PIII and a 1GHz PIII for a HPSB task is not that big, whereas it is huge for running multiple USB processes. With Microsoft falling behind on the software bloat front (you don't NEED the most expensive processor just to run Word any more), Intel needs some way to convince people to buy bigger, more expensive chips. USB provides that, FireWire doesn't. So Intel supports USB, and hates FireWire.
--GrouchoMarx
Yes, I watch too much Star Trek myself, why do you ask? :-)
--GrouchoMarx
--GrouchoMarx
Anything can be used for military applications, no matter how useful it is for benevolent endevours. If the fact that an invetion could potentially have a military "use" automatically means that moral scientists should avoid it like the plague, then the only "moral" scientists are those who limit themselves to stone knives and bearskins. (No, wait, stone knives can be used to kill people, too. I guess you're stuck with the bearskin, if you can get it away from the bear without using a stone knife, that is.)
--GrouchoMarx
Let us not forget when Disney's legal department sued a daycare center for showing Disney animanted films to kids, claiming they didn't have a multi-thousand dollar distrobution license. (The PR department got wind of it, and very quickly granted the daycare center a free license before the legal eagles made Disney look even worse than it already did for "suing children.") I'm not sure we can even blame the MBAs running the big studios. The ones behind frivolous lawsuits are the legal departments. It doesn't matter if the MPAA's case is thrown out of court, the laywers still make a cool couple of mil' on the deal.
--GrouchoMarx
Simple. "Power" users, who read SlashDot, want a Palm that does a lot, and generally know what they are talking about, don't want a IIIe, they want a IIIxe, a Vx, the new VIIx, a TRGpro, etc. PalmStation readers are not their target audience. The IIIe was/is most popular with people who just want "one of those 'Palm' things" to track their friends' phone numbers, and maybe their shopping list. They want a fancy organizer, not a Palmtop computer or communications device.
Palm realizes that. So they are taking their low-end products and saying "these people want sizzle, so let's give them sizzle." It sells Palms on the "funky colors are cool" crowd, including many, many teens. At only $150, it's cheap enough for them to afford as a fancy, high-end organizer. Then, 12 months from now when about half of those people realize that they do need more than 2 MB of RAM, or a larger screen, or what not, lo and behold there are the higher-end Palms like the IIIxe and IIIc ready and waiting for them to upgrade, but they loose nothing because their existing addressbook is perfectly compatable, any add-on programs they have will work, and the learning curve is virtually zero. Just a few hundred dollars for that upgraded device, junior.
As a wise man once said, "Get them while they're young." The M100 is an "on-ramp" product ("Gateway Palm?"). And I think it has a decent chance of succeeding as precisely that; a way to get people into the PalmOS market, so they can be sold future devices next year. The M100 is of absolutely no value to me, I'm perfectly happy with my TRGpro. But in terms of getting high school aged kids (or high-flying execs who would like to think they are high school aged kids) into the PalmOS world, which means creating more long term customers, Palm does know what they are doing.
--GrouchoMarx
I don't see why everyone here is so uptight about cel phones. I read the article, and looks to me like it's just trying to stir up controversy about cel phones. I firmly believe that if they were truly unsafe, the big companies would not have released cel phones to the market.
The tobacco companies were releasing cigarettes to the market for decades, knowing full well they were carcenogenic. While it would be nice if we could trust companies to police themselves and only release "safe" products, time and time again it is proved that "the Marketplace" will call for products regardless of their safety. Clothing manufacturers lobbied Congress long and hard to remove the requirement that all infant clothing be flame retardant, AND they're no longer required to say on the label of the clothing is flame retardant or not. I can't see the cellphone companies saying "Sorry, they're dangerous afterall, we're going to stop selling them."
I am fully confident that businesses will honestly address it and that medical science will immedietally find a cure for any illnesses or symptoms caused by cel phone usage
See above for comments on business. In a perfect world, yes, but in this world, no. And don't be so confident in medical science. Medical Professionals of some sort or another have been around for centuries, and modern doctors for a centurty and a half. We STILL have no way to cure cancer, other than (A) Cut out a piece of your body (B) Fill you with poison and hope that it kills the cancer before it kills you (Chemotheropy). Don't assume that doctors will find a magic cure in the nick of time. For all of the things that doctors can do, that is not one of them.
As for cellphones while driving, statistically, talking on a cellphone while driving increases the rate of accidents as much as driving while moderately intoxicated with alcohol. Does that mean you will always crash? Of course not, not everyone who drinks and drives gets into an accident either. It's not a matter of being intelligent or not intelligent, it's the fact that your attention is split between your phone conversation and the road, and in most cases you have only one hand on the wheel, and the other on your face. That reduces the control you have of the car, no matter how intelligent you are. And -- not to make this sound as an attack, which it isn't -- what ARE you talking about on the phone with your friends at age 16 that is so important that it can't wait 15 minutes for you to get to where you're going and call them from there? If even you admit there is a risk, what could you possibly talking about that is worth risking your life, AND the life of everyone else on the road? (Note this is not an attack on young people (I am one), or girls, or friends, I have the exact same comment for the high-flying busniessmen who close thousand dollar deals on the freeway from their cellphones.)
And at the risk of sounding adversarial, I rather take offense to your claim that those "guys" who disagree with you "just need a life so [we] can see how important a cel phone actually is." I have a life, thank you, as do all of my friends, male and female. I've considered getting a cell phone, but it simply does not offer any benefits to me at this point, especially at the cost. I'm just a poor college student, and I can't afford my own Chevy Tahoe, either. (</flamebait>) If you don't want to get flamed, the best way to avoid it is to not flame other people either.
--GrouchoMarx
--GrouchoMarx
Anyone know what the legal situation is on civilian entrapment?
Of course, most of the Supreme Court now was appointed by Reagan or Bush I, and I have very little faith in them at all these days.
--GrouchoMarx, voting Gore
Now, you could argue about whether the above changes are good or bad things, but I won't get into that now. The simple fact is that the microchip has had an extremely large impact on my life, and most (not quite all, but most) of it I am very grateful for. (Thank god I never had to use whiteout sheets. :-)
--GrouchoMarx
--GrouchoMarx
Let's allow for a few small rounding errors for the sake of simplicity, and do a little math. In 200 years (1800-2000) the US Patent office issued 6 million patents. That's an overall average of 2500 patents per month (although in reality, the vast majority of those were issued in the past few decades). In the past six months, the US Patent office issued, let's round a bit, almost 75,000 patents. That's approximately 12500 patents per month, a 5 fold increase.
Am I the only one who is worried?
--GrouchoMarx