Plays DivX (3.11, 4 and 5), Xvid, mpeg, whatever else you can toss at it. Has ethernet and streams all formats over it directly from your computer. Also plays mp3s, wmas, flacs, wavs and oggs in the same way (or from a burnt cd/dvd ofcourse).
And as if this was all not enough, the thing is StrongArm-based and runs Linux (though you'd never know unless you poked at it), making it very hackable.
Nothing stops them from doing so. But nothing stops them from using onlz pirated versions of MS-Windows either. *shrug*
If they did we'd be loosing out on any improvements they make, but on the other hand, their version would probably quickly diverge enough that it becomes a hassle for them to apply our improvements. Thus the end result will be duplication of effort, for them and for us. I don't think they're that stupid. There's no gain in it and plenty of hurt.
To get even closer to this ideal, it's becoming increasingly common in Europe (atleast in Norway, Denmark and Germany which is what I've visited lately) for all goods to have price given for a decadic unit.
So, a price-label will typically say something along the lines of: "3.22 pr. 3dl bottle (10.73/liter)" which makes it a lot easier to compare the real price to other bottles of different size.
Most human beings would also assume that the brand new 80GB harddisk they just bougth can, infact, store 80 1GB files (well, perhaps minus a tiny amount for filesystem-overhead).
Infact, it can store only 74. The difference is clear. In the computer-industry we *have* to use 2*x for a number of things, for example a 256MB block of memory can be adressed by 28 bits, from 0 to 111...111, this is significantly more logical than the result if we started using decimal, in which case we'd still need 28 bits, but the allowable adresses would be from 0 to:
1111010000100100000000000000 a fully arbitrary number.
It's not unreasonable to assume that a harddisk "GB" is the same as a memory-module "GB".
I've always found the aversion to mandatory ID requirements strange, since in the current situation, you can't really live any sort of normal life without some form of government identification (ie, state driver's license or ID card).
Why not ? Seriously. I live in Germany (though I am Norwegian) thus I know both german and scandinavian situation well.
It is true that Norwegians (and I presume other scandinawians) have a personal id-number, much like the US SSN I believe. There exists no official ID-card. Other than passports which pretty much all countries have I think. There is no requirement to always have some sort of id with you, though ofcourse in a given situation you migth need one. If you drive a car you need a drivers license. If you want to withdraw money from the bank, you need id to proove you're the account-holder. I can't imagine this is different anywhere else.
But despite this, it is *not* difficult to live a "normal life" without showing id in day-to-day situations. I have a passport, it's in a drawer, I use it when going on vacations abroad, but even then it's mostly not checked, there's pass-freedom inside of the EU.
I withdraw money with my atm-card. What else would I need id for ?
People have told me that it's illegal in germany to have no id on you at all times. I've ignored it. If I ever get asked about it, I'll pretend I never heard such a ridiculous thing. Infact, I never DID hear such a ridiculous thing. This far this has never been a problem.
People are innocent until proven otherwise. I don't see why I should be required to proove who I am to any policeman who asks. I accept that I need to proove I'm authorised to do certain things. But as long as I don't do those things, who I am is my own bussiness.
Yes. Esperanto is real, though I admit to cheating sligthly: several of the Nordic languages I mentioned (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) are similar enough that knowing one of them well is sufficient to understand any of them (if not talk it).
Still, the arrogance of someone who critisizes the english of someone talking english as his (in my case) third language while himself being unable to produce anything legible in his second language is hard to overrate.
I wasn't implying you're arrogant by the way, neither where you flaming me. But it's happened in the past, and I'm sure it'll happen again in the future.
Interestingly this seems to only be done by Americans, British also talk english, but I guess them being part of (and not dominant) Europe is sufficient to teach them the idea that english is not the only language in the world.
Not really, they know it doesn't work in many devices (because it's freaking DESIGNED not to work there.
This crap that they're "working on" improving compatibility is a lie. From their perspective it's not a "bug" that the disc doesn't play in my PS2. It's not a "bug" that it doesn't play in my CD-rom drive at work. It's not a "bug" that it doesn't play in my EXCELLENT DVD-player, the Kiss DP-500 (as an aside, check it out, it supports Ogg, Divx, mp3, all the usual works, it's got a ethernet-port and can stream all media from your computer, and best of all, it's really a StrongARM-computer running Linux, though you'd never guess just from using it.)
These are FEATURES from their perspective, they spent a lot of money to make sure the disc doesn't work in these situations. (and many more) They have no intentions whatsoever of "fixing" any of this.
Seriously, I could care less, but not much less. 9 out of 10 english-grammar-nazis (or spelling-nazis or whatever) are themselves unable to produce anything legible (much less correct) in any other language than their own.
Let's say you're free to flame me, provided you flame me in French, German, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Icelandic, Danish or Esperanto.:-)
Sure. But the mainstream doesn't understand uncertanity, or statistics.
Based on what we currently know, there's 1 chanse in 900K that it'll hit.
This also means that there's 899.999 in 900.000 chanse that it will NOT hit, and probably 850.000 in 900.000 that it'll miss by so large a margin that even a bit more observation now will tell us for sure that it'll miss.
So the article is likely rigth, if silly, the chanses really probably ARE very high that after a bit more observation, we'll be able to say for sure that it'll miss.
Actually, all agreements where all involved parties agree and are aware that they're entering an agreement are legally binding. Yes, even a verbal agreement is fully legally binding.
The problem, ofcourse, is to prove exactly what was being said, with enough of a context that it's clear that all parties understood they where entering an agreement.
Paper and signatures are useful because it's a traditional method of finalising an agreement, thus when someone is asked to sign a contract, it's assumed that they understand this means entering an agreement
Any other method would be similarily ok IF it was well-recognized in society that going trough this spesific ritual means entering an agreement, and going trough the ritual leaves some sort of physical evidence that can be atleast to some degree proven later.
So what you're saying is that the rest of the world is absolutely 100% correct in changing to OSS ?
I agree. It's a complete waste of money to send license-money to the USA for programs that could be better and cheaper made at home.
Take Germany as an example. There's around 80 million people, and around 50 million computers. The average cost for Windows and Office alone is something like 400.
If you assume the average user buys a new version of software from MS every 3 years on the average, then this works out as 6.6 billion a year.
For this money you could hire about 130.000 full time programmers permanently. Read that again.
It gets worse: Even if you *did* need 130.000 programmers permanently to keep Linux and OpenOffice competitive for the tasks you need, it would *still* be preferable to hire them, rather than buy the software from MS.
You see, those programmers would pay taxes. They would also do most of their shopping in Germany, paying VAT. They'd hire german carpenters and electricians to build them houses etc etc.
In reality, it'd probably be cheaper and better for the local economy of Germany to hire a quarter million coders permanently instead of buying the software from MS.
Your numbers are off by a order of magnitude. I suspect you're confusing the total max effect of the power-supply with the consumption of the CPU.
Hint: The big box on your floor is not your "CPU". A modern CPU migth use 50 to 100W. There is no CPU in existence that consumes 300 to 450 watts like you claim.
"What more is there to say, a collection of superlatives, makes me want to cry."
Or something in this direction, the Babelfish isn't soo bad actually. Sahne is literally cream, but sometimes, like here, used to mean only "excellent"
Sure, a more reliable power-grid is desireable, but this can be achieved *MUCH* cheaper than letting each household produce hydrogen.
Storage as H2 is pretty suck-poor anyway, with todays best technology you are lucky if you get back out half of the energy you put in.
Much better is pumping water uphill to a pool of some sort, then letting it run back down trough generators to release power. If it rains you even get energy for free this way. If not, efficiency is typically over 80%. Most practical in hilly terrain ofcourse.
This is indeed how things are organized in Mandrake.
If you want to burn a CD, you need to look in the menu under Archiving/CD-burning, there you'll find the CD-burning programs that are installed. This migth be one, or it migth be more, depending on your choises during installation.
It's probably not a stretch to have a novice user guess that the program located as: Archiving/CD-burning/eroaster is some sort of cd-burning program, same for Archiving/CD-burning/k3b
Sure "k3b" alone isn't going to tell anyone anything, but the fact that it's placed where it is will help a lot.
Actually, the normal procedure is even simpler, you don't go looking for k3b at all. Instead you simply use your normal file-browser to look for files or directories you want to burn. When you found them, you rigth-click on them and select "Burn data-cd" from the context-menu.
That is, zero. SCO does not have a leg to stand on, and they know it. It's the only reasonable explanation why we STILL haven't even been told exactly what we're supposed to have done wrong.
It MIGTH have the impact of scaring some people, if they are sufficiently easily scared that they wet their pants when faced with a near-bankrupt desperate firm, and a 800 pound gorilla is figthing on your side.
Patent law is irrelevant, SCO has not even claimed that they own patents on anything in Linux (they couldn't, patents are public). Nor have they claimed to have copyrigth on anything in Linux. They do however claim to have a contract with IBM that prevents IBM from doing some things (unspecified ones!) that IBM then went ahead and did anyway.
This is not surprising. What Adobe is trying to do is fundamentally impossible to do as long as the users still have ultimate control over their computers.
Adobe is trying to tell customers that they have a format in which you can send a document to someone, and that document will only be readable on that one computer, or will not be printable, or will not be copyable to the clipboard or whatever.
This is fundamentally impossible. If my computer can display the document on screen for me, then this means that the computer MUST have all the required information to do so. This includes any and all secret keys if the document is encrypted and so on.
This implies that the computer also has all the info needed to print the document, or copy it to the clipboard or whatever. Now, Adobes product could only work if the computer "knew" how to do this, but refused to do it anyway, in other words, if the computer was not obeying the end-user.
This is possible with secure hardware and similar that refuse to run code that is not digitally signed by the real master (not the end-user and owner!). But with the current computers that happily run anything you the user want in priviledged mode it is not possible.
Sure they could, and probably should, patch this spesific hole. But there's nothing Adobe can do to make they so-called "secure pdf" actually do what they claim it will do. And they know it.
Absolutely. Let's not stick our heads in the sand for the next 10 years like we have for the last 10. The answer is to dramaticly increase the size and number of our highways.
Yeah, because everzone knows that no city is as human-friendly as the one criss-crossed by 14-lane highways in a grid. For that matter, 14-lane highways in a grid is not exactly my idea of a dream-environment for a car-owner either.
Just exactly how big a part of the city do you want to use for autos anyway ? 75% for autos, the rest shared between shopping, factories, homes and parks ?
You're on crack. I'm *fully* aware of the distinction between Europe and the EU (infact I'm from Norway which is in Europe, but not in EU). But the UK *is* a member of the EU. They are *not* a participant in the European monetary union, in other words they still use pund sterling and not euros. (as do a number of other EU-countries)
Reminds me, DRM in concept, in my opinion, does not benefit the world and should be fought. Linus was talking about (I think, it's been a few hours since I read the post) how the technology itself wasn't inherently evil and presented at least one case where it might actually be good.
No he wasn't. He was only saying that a) he thinks it is allowed by the current licensing, and b) he thinks it should remain legal.
And since most proposed DRM schemes involve letting some 3rd party corporation manage your digital rights without your consent, then there's yet to be a good reason to have it.
DRM is not intended to protect (or manage) your rigths. It is intended to protect and manage the rigths of the creators of various forms of copyrigthed material. The protection it offers is protection from you. It does so by running only programs trusted by the copyrigth-holders. If *you* trust the programs or not is irrelevant. (you already have the choise not to run untrusted programs today: Simply don't install them.)
Ofcourse along the way DRM also "protects" many non-rigths. That is, it makes many perfectly legal activities impossible or impractical. For example, in none of the systems I have seen is there a provision for allowing unfettered access once copyrigth expires. Many schemes also impose additional restrictions like only being able to play the media in one region of the world, or not being able to resell the media should you get tired of it.
The point is that there isn't any reason to use killing for the benefit of the world, because it will almost never benefit the world. Therefore, it makes pragmatic sense to outlaw it.
The point is that there isn't any reason to use DRM for the benefit of the world, because it will almost never benefit the world. Therefore it makes pragmatic sense to outlaw it.
Your argument brings nothing. You would have to argue your claimed fact that killing almost never brings benefits to the world. Maybe it's true, maybe not. (some countries still have the middle-age custom of executing people, they must think it provides some benefit.)
You'd also have to explain precisely in which way DRM brings benefit to the world. For that matter, I'd also like to see an analysis showing how a copyrigth-extension from life+70 to life+90 benefits the world.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure it is. Have a look here..
Plays DivX (3.11, 4 and 5), Xvid, mpeg, whatever else you can toss at it. Has ethernet and streams all formats over it directly from your computer. Also plays mp3s, wmas, flacs, wavs and oggs in the same way (or from a burnt cd/dvd ofcourse).
And as if this was all not enough, the thing is StrongArm-based and runs Linux (though you'd never know unless you poked at it), making it very hackable.
About $250.
If they did we'd be loosing out on any improvements they make, but on the other hand, their version would probably quickly diverge enough that it becomes a hassle for them to apply our improvements. Thus the end result will be duplication of effort, for them and for us. I don't think they're that stupid. There's no gain in it and plenty of hurt.
To get even closer to this ideal, it's becoming increasingly common in Europe (atleast in Norway, Denmark and Germany which is what I've visited lately) for all goods to have price given for a decadic unit.
So, a price-label will typically say something along the lines of: "3.22 pr. 3dl bottle (10.73/liter)" which makes it a lot easier to compare the real price to other bottles of different size.
Infact, it can store only 74. The difference is clear. In the computer-industry we *have* to use 2*x for a number of things, for example a 256MB block of memory can be adressed by 28 bits, from 0 to 111...111, this is significantly more logical than the result if we started using decimal, in which case we'd still need 28 bits, but the allowable adresses would be from 0 to: 1111010000100100000000000000 a fully arbitrary number.
It's not unreasonable to assume that a harddisk "GB" is the same as a memory-module "GB".
Why not ? Seriously. I live in Germany (though I am Norwegian) thus I know both german and scandinavian situation well.
It is true that Norwegians (and I presume other scandinawians) have a personal id-number, much like the US SSN I believe. There exists no official ID-card. Other than passports which pretty much all countries have I think. There is no requirement to always have some sort of id with you, though ofcourse in a given situation you migth need one. If you drive a car you need a drivers license. If you want to withdraw money from the bank, you need id to proove you're the account-holder. I can't imagine this is different anywhere else.
But despite this, it is *not* difficult to live a "normal life" without showing id in day-to-day situations. I have a passport, it's in a drawer, I use it when going on vacations abroad, but even then it's mostly not checked, there's pass-freedom inside of the EU.
I withdraw money with my atm-card. What else would I need id for ?
People have told me that it's illegal in germany to have no id on you at all times. I've ignored it. If I ever get asked about it, I'll pretend I never heard such a ridiculous thing. Infact, I never DID hear such a ridiculous thing. This far this has never been a problem.
People are innocent until proven otherwise. I don't see why I should be required to proove who I am to any policeman who asks. I accept that I need to proove I'm authorised to do certain things. But as long as I don't do those things, who I am is my own bussiness.
Yes. Esperanto is real, though I admit to cheating sligthly: several of the Nordic languages I mentioned (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) are similar enough that knowing one of them well is sufficient to understand any of them (if not talk it).
Still, the arrogance of someone who critisizes the english of someone talking english as his (in my case) third language while himself being unable to produce anything legible in his second language is hard to overrate.
I wasn't implying you're arrogant by the way, neither where you flaming me. But it's happened in the past, and I'm sure it'll happen again in the future.
Interestingly this seems to only be done by Americans, British also talk english, but I guess them being part of (and not dominant) Europe is sufficient to teach them the idea that english is not the only language in the world.
This crap that they're "working on" improving compatibility is a lie. From their perspective it's not a "bug" that the disc doesn't play in my PS2. It's not a "bug" that it doesn't play in my CD-rom drive at work. It's not a "bug" that it doesn't play in my EXCELLENT DVD-player, the Kiss DP-500 (as an aside, check it out, it supports Ogg, Divx, mp3, all the usual works, it's got a ethernet-port and can stream all media from your computer, and best of all, it's really a StrongARM-computer running Linux, though you'd never guess just from using it.)
These are FEATURES from their perspective, they spent a lot of money to make sure the disc doesn't work in these situations. (and many more) They have no intentions whatsoever of "fixing" any of this.
Seriously, I could care less, but not much less. 9 out of 10 english-grammar-nazis (or spelling-nazis or whatever) are themselves unable to produce anything legible (much less correct) in any other language than their own.
Let's say you're free to flame me, provided you flame me in French, German, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Icelandic, Danish or Esperanto. :-)
Based on what we currently know, there's 1 chanse in 900K that it'll hit.
This also means that there's 899.999 in 900.000 chanse that it will NOT hit, and probably 850.000 in 900.000 that it'll miss by so large a margin that even a bit more observation now will tell us for sure that it'll miss.
So the article is likely rigth, if silly, the chanses really probably ARE very high that after a bit more observation, we'll be able to say for sure that it'll miss.
The problem, ofcourse, is to prove exactly what was being said, with enough of a context that it's clear that all parties understood they where entering an agreement.
Paper and signatures are useful because it's a traditional method of finalising an agreement, thus when someone is asked to sign a contract, it's assumed that they understand this means entering an agreement
Any other method would be similarily ok IF it was well-recognized in society that going trough this spesific ritual means entering an agreement, and going trough the ritual leaves some sort of physical evidence that can be atleast to some degree proven later.
I agree. It's a complete waste of money to send license-money to the USA for programs that could be better and cheaper made at home.
Take Germany as an example. There's around 80 million people, and around 50 million computers. The average cost for Windows and Office alone is something like 400.
If you assume the average user buys a new version of software from MS every 3 years on the average, then this works out as 6.6 billion a year.
For this money you could hire about 130.000 full time programmers permanently. Read that again.
It gets worse: Even if you *did* need 130.000 programmers permanently to keep Linux and OpenOffice competitive for the tasks you need, it would *still* be preferable to hire them, rather than buy the software from MS.
You see, those programmers would pay taxes. They would also do most of their shopping in Germany, paying VAT. They'd hire german carpenters and electricians to build them houses etc etc.
In reality, it'd probably be cheaper and better for the local economy of Germany to hire a quarter million coders permanently instead of buying the software from MS.
Something to think about indeed.
Some examples:
Hint: The big box on your floor is not your "CPU". A modern CPU migth use 50 to 100W. There is no CPU in existence that consumes 300 to 450 watts like you claim.
"What more is there to say, a collection of superlatives, makes me want to cry."
Or something in this direction, the Babelfish isn't soo bad actually. Sahne is literally cream, but sometimes, like here, used to mean only "excellent"
Add DVD-sales, rental income, Europe-cinemas, rest of the world....
I do not know what the end numbers are, even very conservative guesses would indicate they get back at the very least 2 times their investment.
Storage as H2 is pretty suck-poor anyway, with todays best technology you are lucky if you get back out half of the energy you put in.
Much better is pumping water uphill to a pool of some sort, then letting it run back down trough generators to release power. If it rains you even get energy for free this way. If not, efficiency is typically over 80%. Most practical in hilly terrain ofcourse.
If you want to burn a CD, you need to look in the menu under Archiving/CD-burning, there you'll find the CD-burning programs that are installed. This migth be one, or it migth be more, depending on your choises during installation.
It's probably not a stretch to have a novice user guess that the program located as: Archiving/CD-burning/eroaster is some sort of cd-burning program, same for Archiving/CD-burning/k3b
Sure "k3b" alone isn't going to tell anyone anything, but the fact that it's placed where it is will help a lot.
Actually, the normal procedure is even simpler, you don't go looking for k3b at all. Instead you simply use your normal file-browser to look for files or directories you want to burn. When you found them, you rigth-click on them and select "Burn data-cd" from the context-menu.
Really ?
Here in Bergen CompSci students come pretty close to use nothing but open source software, and when I say pretty close, the main exception is Solaris.
Windows was never popular, why would it be, it does not even come with a usable development-toolchain.
That is, zero. SCO does not have a leg to stand on, and they know it. It's the only reasonable explanation why we STILL haven't even been told exactly what we're supposed to have done wrong.
It MIGTH have the impact of scaring some people, if they are sufficiently easily scared that they wet their pants when faced with a near-bankrupt desperate firm, and a 800 pound gorilla is figthing on your side.
Patent law is irrelevant, SCO has not even claimed that they own patents on anything in Linux (they couldn't, patents are public). Nor have they claimed to have copyrigth on anything in Linux. They do however claim to have a contract with IBM that prevents IBM from doing some things (unspecified ones!) that IBM then went ahead and did anyway.
They're bogus. Ignore them. Sleep calmly.
Adobe is trying to tell customers that they have a format in which you can send a document to someone, and that document will only be readable on that one computer, or will not be printable, or will not be copyable to the clipboard or whatever.
This is fundamentally impossible. If my computer can display the document on screen for me, then this means that the computer MUST have all the required information to do so. This includes any and all secret keys if the document is encrypted and so on.
This implies that the computer also has all the info needed to print the document, or copy it to the clipboard or whatever. Now, Adobes product could only work if the computer "knew" how to do this, but refused to do it anyway, in other words, if the computer was not obeying the end-user.
This is possible with secure hardware and similar that refuse to run code that is not digitally signed by the real master (not the end-user and owner!). But with the current computers that happily run anything you the user want in priviledged mode it is not possible.
Sure they could, and probably should, patch this spesific hole. But there's nothing Adobe can do to make they so-called "secure pdf" actually do what they claim it will do. And they know it.
Just exactly how big a part of the city do you want to use for autos anyway ? 75% for autos, the rest shared between shopping, factories, homes and parks ?
It's a fact that with all software, linux or windows, you are going to need qualified personnel for running it. What's so inflammatory about it ?
You're on crack. I'm *fully* aware of the distinction between Europe and the EU (infact I'm from Norway which is in Europe, but not in EU). But the UK *is* a member of the EU. They are *not* a participant in the European monetary union, in other words they still use pund sterling and not euros. (as do a number of other EU-countries)
No he wasn't. He was only saying that a) he thinks it is allowed by the current licensing, and b) he thinks it should remain legal.
And since most proposed DRM schemes involve letting some 3rd party corporation manage your digital rights without your consent, then there's yet to be a good reason to have it.
DRM is not intended to protect (or manage) your rigths. It is intended to protect and manage the rigths of the creators of various forms of copyrigthed material. The protection it offers is protection from you. It does so by running only programs trusted by the copyrigth-holders. If *you* trust the programs or not is irrelevant. (you already have the choise not to run untrusted programs today: Simply don't install them.)
Ofcourse along the way DRM also "protects" many non-rigths. That is, it makes many perfectly legal activities impossible or impractical. For example, in none of the systems I have seen is there a provision for allowing unfettered access once copyrigth expires. Many schemes also impose additional restrictions like only being able to play the media in one region of the world, or not being able to resell the media should you get tired of it.
The point is that there isn't any reason to use DRM for the benefit of the world, because it will almost never benefit the world. Therefore it makes pragmatic sense to outlaw it.
Your argument brings nothing. You would have to argue your claimed fact that killing almost never brings benefits to the world. Maybe it's true, maybe not. (some countries still have the middle-age custom of executing people, they must think it provides some benefit.)
You'd also have to explain precisely in which way DRM brings benefit to the world. For that matter, I'd also like to see an analysis showing how a copyrigth-extension from life+70 to life+90 benefits the world.