But if you want to be serious,I was originally responding to the guy that said that the problem was that there was Gigabytes of code to go through leading to overly complex code. Which is rediculous, overly complex code is not NASA's problem. Overly complex beaurocracy, maybe, but not code. Since the software being produced is naturally constrained by the size limitations of older hardware. This is simply because it takes NASA so friggin long to procure and test space worthy hardware.
Yes, my point was that NASA computer technology is not state of the art. It is specialized, sure, but definately not state of the art computing.
I guess I have to agree though, it would be state of the art on Mars... if they could just get the damn things there.
"As I said, follow the money. I look forward to the day when some unassuming student, that was doing nothing wrong, takes the major labels for a few billion. Yes, with a B."
Can libel be a class action lawsuit? I think the RIAA has libeled each and everyone of us and if we could get a hundred thousand people together and sue them for $10,000 each. That might get them to stop their groundless accusations.
no, for instance the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft had "128 Mbyte mass memory" and used a R6000 computer. While the rover had "0.5 Mbyte RAM mass storage" The R6000 is much less powerful than the original pentium.
NASA computer technology has for the past decade or two been a few or more years behind the state of the art in consumer electronics. Largely because they have to put the electronics through more testing and only use chips that will withstand possible radiation with low power consumption. Plus add on the years of development of the spacecraft itself... means that your desktop probably (Anyone want to do the math?) has more computing power than all the deep space explorers ever launched, combined.
I think options should be considered in this order: First, Open free communications, next licensed communications sevices, next broadcast.
If we decide to make it an open communication services with only power restrictions, then it would be much like the current open bands and give more opurtunity for different products to be created. If we were to license certain corporations or individuals to have exclusive use of the bands they should provide a unique service such as unviversal data communications at a regulated price. Or if we should continue to license these bands to individual actors for broadcast, we should have more say over the content that we want.
thank you and the other post for pointing out that challenger accident was not a surprise to some people within NASA either.
You make the point I was trying to make, bad management tries to shift responsiblity down to committees of engineers. Seems more like people are trying to cover themselves rather than let reason prevail.
I would have rather have had a single person stand up and say "I decided that there was not enough risk to justify further investigation of the foam problem" rather than have several layers of management pointing fingers at groups of engineers at a subcontractor and saying that they didn't think there was a problem and just leaving it at that. the physics, the material science, even common sense all say that when an aircraft get's hit with something going very fast, then there could be damage. So, given that foam had fallen off before and hit the shuttle, and that they had video of it hitting the shuttle Columbia could they not turn the Military spy cameras onto the shuttle? Are we missing something here?
Maybe it is too harsh to think that any reasonable decision making would have saved those lives, but I have to believe that reason should have led to a greater effort at many of points along the way.
"I think foam hitting the shuttle not doing any damage was a classic case of wishful thinking. Good engineers like this are exactly the people not suppose to do that kind of thinking."
The fact is that some engineers thought that it might be a problem. And from what I have heard they also had computer simulations showing that the impact could have caused damage. So what happened?
The publicity for this would suggest that as a whole NASA just didn't figure that this foam hit was a problem. The problem I see is that their minority opinions didn't float up along with the majority report. This is very human, either managment wanted to or was under pressure to give a definative statement or else the engineers with the dissenting view points decided they weren't sure enough of their positions to take a stand.
But why should any engineer have to be sure about their analysis? They are dealing with a limited amount of data with a large number of unknown variables. So perhaps the minority engineers figured that they were just really making an educated guess, but then so were the majority engineers. What basis would they have for disagreement, so if a conclusion was asked for then it makes sense to go with the conclusions of the majority, very simple and in most cases most of the time it will give you a good result. But they had the resources and time to continue to analyze this and it would make sense to continue to do so if a real worst case scenario had emerged.
Seems to be that this type of bad decision making is what needs to be addressed at NASA. Yes, the foam needs to be fixed, but it wasn't like the O-Ring problem in the Challenger accident when the weather conditions caused a catastrophic failure of the seal. Rather this was a catastrophe that unfolded over many years and culminated when a NASA spokesman told reporters that the falling foam was not a problem.
This foam accident had happened before and could have been fixed, before the columbia even flew. But like the drunk that decides that they have driven home before without a problem so why should tonight be any different, they largely decided to rely upon experience. But this is not the type of problem where experience can be used. This wasn't even really engineering, they were being asked to solve a mystery.
Analysis by consensus with a single conclusion was a bad idea in this situation. If you are going to take a vote and then report the result as a conclusion, then that is a fundamental mistake. Like asking a roomful of people if God really exists. The majority might say yes or no, but won't you still want a few people praying just in case.
If the initial analysis of the foam strike had included the minority opinions then NASA management could have directed more resources towards the analysis, they would have gotten the military to take a picture of the wing and then perhaps had the astronauts do and EVA to take a look and then perhaps launched the Discovery for a rescue mission and this could have had a very happy ending. If the initial analysis had included any indication that the conclusions were not certain, then it seems likely and obvious that these additional steps would have been taken. In fact the military had already been put on standby to take some pictures of the affected area, but it wasn't to be.
So, it isn't clear to me if the engineers were truly at fault here or if it was the management process that was in place. Certainly engineers could have expressed certainty in their concerns, but why express certainty when there is none? Seems to me the problem here was that the engineers were asked to reach a conclusion and they did. They clearly did not have enough evidence to be certain of what effect the hit would have on the shuttle. Unless another timeline comes to light, I have to conclude that the faulty analysis came from the management of the engineering group or from the nature of the directive that that group received. This is what should be addressed, anomali
Doesn't the web site just have to affirm in writing to the ISP that they are not infringing upon the copyright of the claimant and the ISP has to turn them back on? That was my reading of the DMCA a while back.
And if the ISP refuses to turn them back on, then they could just sue the ISP for damages under the DMCA also.
So, although it is bad that anyone can stop the publishing of a web site by claiming infringment without needing to show any evidence, the DMCA allows the accused to continue to publish once they make their counter claim to the ISP. So to say that a site can be shutdown is true, but it should be noted that it is temporary, and could be very temporary, ie just a few minutes, if the accused defend themselves.
No it wouldn't. It would just make more work for lawyers.
The nice thing about Copyright law is it's passive nature. If a work is worth publishing, then get permission or wait...
and if you can't find the person to secure permission from then it would be more in keeping with philosphy of copyrights to create some sort of fair use provision that makes the person give some sort of public notice of their intent to distribute copyrighted material and then after 30 days or something, then the original copyright holder can't sue for damages. Forcing people to register their works just puts an unfair burden on individuals and makes it harder for smaller companies with lots of IP to manage it properly.
"Requiring registration on the backend is nonsensical and the Copyright Office will be unable to validate existence of a valid copyright when granting the extension."
You are right. This scheme complicates copyright law unnecessarily. And having to register your ideas with some central authority after fifty years seems prone to corruption.
The nice thing about copyright law is it's simplicity. And it is enforced completely by the copyright holder. The biggest complaint today is that its length has been extended too much by Congress.
It might be good to look at the fair use exclusions to copyright. But Please, don't muck around with some sort of fascist registration system for content!
"Do something ORIGINAL! Do something new that is Linix/OSS from the ground up. Stop playing catch up and take the lead for once!"
Why?
Seriously, very few people have original ideas. And even fewer have original ideas that might benefit others. What is wrong in taking the works of others and building upon them? Everyday I use tools created by others, these tools lend themselves to solve problems certain ways, I doubt that many of my solutions are unique. In fact I can accept that some solutions are probably better than mine and I am willing to learn from them. Some solutions are probably the best they can be and I am willing to share them with others.
I am familiar enough with the BeOS to know that some things they did were done well and it would be a shame to not learn from them and even incorporate some of their ideas into Linux where they can be.
Children are sometimes told it is wrong to copy other people's work, really it is only wrong to lie about it. It is the sythesis of ideas that defines learning and science.
no, I still believe copy is the right word here because were are talking about the content and not the raw data.
Of course the word 'protection' is one of the words that marketing folks would choose because it sounds good. Like a mother protecting her child... even more accurate would be 'copy prevention'
"The remainder is accurate and well-put, but irrelevant to this discussion, since violation of contract or copyright laws (or any other law, for that matter) is not the intended use of DeCSS."
Sure it is relevant, DeCSS is primarily meant to help Linux users watch DVDs on their computers, which requires that the content be copied off of the DVD and into a bitstream. Physically, any playback device has to 'copy' the content in order to function, really, reading/playing/viewing and copying content are just forms of the same activity.
That, to me, is the essence of fair use. Once I have purchased content I have a license to view, read, listen to it and copy it for my personal use or distribute copies of it after the exclusion term has expired.
"As long as it is used for congestion identification, and possibly tracking of stolen vehicles/people who have committed a crime and the police which to facilitate their capture. I cannot see a bad side to this."
or perhaps when I think my girlfriend is cheating on me I can track her movements... find out where her new boyfriend lives... very useful.
Or whatever somebody who happens to have the keys to the police station decides is good and moral.
This would seem to be in the breaking into someone's house category of government behavior. We wouldn't want "regular" citizens to be able to do this, so it should be only done with accountability, such as with a warrant. Either that or we really should just open these types of systems up to public use. That way we could at least be open about the way the system is abused
"Right, however, in order to VIEW an encrypted DVD you MUST bypass the copyright protections"
words are legally very meaningful here, really what you meant to say is that you must 'bypass the COPY protections'
Copyright is a legal right to copy and should have nothing to do with ones ability to copy.
Most of us here are arguing that one way or another we should be allowed the ability to copy content, while understanding that we don't have right to copy, until the copyright expires, except maybe for personal use once we have purchased a copy.
This should be a simple case of reason, copyright law gives us a right to copy content after a certain period of time... this right cannot be realized unless we have the ability to copy that content. So, in a very real and basic way copy controls deprive people of their right to copy. The laws that prevent people from circumventing these copy controls are inherently corrupt.
Corrupt doesn't mean that people were paid off to push these laws through, which may or may not have happened, but they are corrupt laws because they contradict the very basis of our understanding of Copyright. Creators have a time limited right to legally control and profit from the distribution by copy of their work. After this period of time it is part of the public domain and we have a legal right to copy it and distribute it if we please.
A consistent and equitable law would ban copy controls all together, not seek to outlaw their circumvention.
"Come on, why would any nation with the technology to go to the moon and hurl rocks at us not just use nuclear weapons instead? They surely provide far more bang for the buck."
Why bother with nukes when you can make it look like an act of god?
"And what could the moon possibly do for an expansionist nation?"
Having a Billion people under your control probably makes one think about expanding. Propaganda aside, the Chinese seem more war averse than the US. Antarctica might make more sense, logistically, to colonize than the moon, but it is covered by international treaty and the US already has de facto control of it and the ocean and airspace in between china and Antarctica. So unless the Chinese decide war is an acceptable risk, then the logical place to expand is the moon. Since it is really not covered by strong treaties and nobody has any real presence there.
And there are plenty of mineral resources to keep it interesting.
This is just like putting a telephone booth on top of MIT's dome or that security car. Those events too caused MIT to spend money on cleaning up the prank, but nobody called the Department of Motherland Security about it.
People, this is funny. Laugh Damn it. I hope they don't get caught.
Sounds a bit like big media has made a strategic decision to criticise file sharing whenever their revenues don't meet initial estimates. Works nicely to cover their own overblown estimates and lays the groundwork for more federal intelectual property laws. While in reality the file trading has a negligable effect on their revenues and really they are just seeking legal controls on the medium which will maintain the high equipment costs that will keep the barriers to entry high for small movie makers. This is restraint of competition at it's simplest and most underhanded.
Also, if they are so concerned about the state of their art, why don't they focus on making the movie theatres enforce a modicum of civility. Last time I went to the movies (for the matrix reloaded) two people's cell phones rang and they answered them... they had conversations that went something like "hey"... "I'm at the movies"... "Watching matrix reloaded"... "yup"... "right"... "uh huh" "do you think I can call you later?"... "oh okay"... "yup"... "alright"... "I'll call you tonight, or maybe tomorrow"... "bye" And that was the shorter of the two. Not to mention the man that seemed to have no understanding that his constant commentary might disturb those around him... We ended up moving only to suffer the constant questions of a confused 10 year old kid with his father, I can't blame the kid, but the father should have known better.
A company can't charge $10 a pop for that kind of experience and then complain that they aren't getting all the money you deserve. You deserve what you get.
Rambus tried to sue everyone a few years back, they didn't benefit and neither will SCO. Regardless of how "dispassionate" business is supposed to be, people remember how you treat other people, a litigious company is not someone you want to do business with bcause they might just turn around and bite you too.
This time hopefully SCO will not survive the bad publicity. Just don't buy any of their products and they will shut up or shut down. Leaving Microsoft to do their own dirty work.
This is not a problem. Back in 97 or so most people were moving to electronic storage. My company was an outsourced provider of electronic resume storage and we could store hundreds of thousands of resumes without problem. With todays storage capacity, millions should be easy too. For paper versions, just scan them in and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) them to reduce the file sizes, unless the law specifically requires paper copies, then this is not a major problem for large companies.
If someone needs some help with this, then you should contact me and I'll set you up. The software cost about 10-20k at the time and hardware was about 5k, running it was a minimum wage job mostly. My consulting charge is negotiable depending on the requirements. But there were plenty of companies doing this sort of thing just a few years ago, I have to think someone is still providing this service.
Slashdot Mirror
I was being sarcastic.
But if you want to be serious,I was originally responding to the guy that said that the problem was that there was Gigabytes of code to go through leading to overly complex code. Which is rediculous, overly complex code is not NASA's problem. Overly complex beaurocracy, maybe, but not code. Since the software being produced is naturally constrained by the size limitations of older hardware. This is simply because it takes NASA so friggin long to procure and test space worthy hardware.
Yes, my point was that NASA computer technology is not state of the art. It is specialized, sure, but definately not state of the art computing.
I guess I have to agree though, it would be state of the art on Mars... if they could just get the damn things there.
"As I said, follow the money. I look forward to the day when some unassuming student, that was doing nothing wrong, takes the major labels for a few billion. Yes, with a B."
Can libel be a class action lawsuit? I think the RIAA has libeled each and everyone of us and if we could get a hundred thousand people together and sue them for $10,000 each. That might get them to stop their groundless accusations.
"State of the art is not always measured in Gigahertz."
Ummm... I was measuring it in MIPS.
"Yes, but can your computer recover from a triple memory failure?"
I have three computers...does that count?
"Can you rewire your computer remotely to fall back on a redundent system?"
If one breaks I stop using it... The only thing I don't really have is NASA's really cool case mods.
"gigabytes of ram"
l #S CCHAR
no, for instance the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft had "128 Mbyte mass memory" and used a R6000 computer. While the rover had "0.5 Mbyte RAM mass storage" The R6000 is much less powerful than the original pentium.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/mpf/fact_sheet.htm
NASA computer technology has for the past decade or two been a few or more years behind the state of the art in consumer electronics. Largely because they have to put the electronics through more testing and only use chips that will withstand possible radiation with low power consumption. Plus add on the years of development of the spacecraft itself... means that your desktop probably (Anyone want to do the math?) has more computing power than all the deep space explorers ever launched, combined.
I think options should be considered in this order: First, Open free communications, next licensed communications sevices, next broadcast.
If we decide to make it an open communication services with only power restrictions, then it would be much like the current open bands and give more opurtunity for different products to be created. If we were to license certain corporations or individuals to have exclusive use of the bands they should provide a unique service such as unviversal data communications at a regulated price. Or if we should continue to license these bands to individual actors for broadcast, we should have more say over the content that we want.
thank you and the other post for pointing out that challenger accident was not a surprise to some people within NASA either.
You make the point I was trying to make, bad management tries to shift responsiblity down to committees of engineers. Seems more like people are trying to cover themselves rather than let reason prevail.
I would have rather have had a single person stand up and say "I decided that there was not enough risk to justify further investigation of the foam problem" rather than have several layers of management pointing fingers at groups of engineers at a subcontractor and saying that they didn't think there was a problem and just leaving it at that. the physics, the material science, even common sense all say that when an aircraft get's hit with something going very fast, then there could be damage. So, given that foam had fallen off before and hit the shuttle, and that they had video of it hitting the shuttle Columbia could they not turn the Military spy cameras onto the shuttle? Are we missing something here?
Maybe it is too harsh to think that any reasonable decision making would have saved those lives, but I have to believe that reason should have led to a greater effort at many of points along the way.
"I think foam hitting the shuttle not doing any damage was a classic case of wishful thinking. Good engineers like this are exactly the people not suppose to do that kind of thinking."
The fact is that some engineers thought that it might be a problem. And from what I have heard they also had computer simulations showing that the impact could have caused damage. So what happened?
The publicity for this would suggest that as a whole NASA just didn't figure that this foam hit was a problem. The problem I see is that their minority opinions didn't float up along with the majority report. This is very human, either managment wanted to or was under pressure to give a definative statement or else the engineers with the dissenting view points decided they weren't sure enough of their positions to take a stand.
But why should any engineer have to be sure about their analysis? They are dealing with a limited amount of data with a large number of unknown variables. So perhaps the minority engineers figured that they were just really making an educated guess, but then so were the majority engineers. What basis would they have for disagreement, so if a conclusion was asked for then it makes sense to go with the conclusions of the majority, very simple and in most cases most of the time it will give you a good result. But they had the resources and time to continue to analyze this and it would make sense to continue to do so if a real worst case scenario had emerged.
Seems to be that this type of bad decision making
is what needs to be addressed at NASA. Yes, the foam needs to be fixed, but it wasn't like the O-Ring problem in the Challenger accident when the weather conditions caused a catastrophic failure of the seal. Rather this was a catastrophe that unfolded over many years and culminated when a NASA spokesman told reporters that the falling foam was not a problem.
This foam accident had happened before and could have been fixed, before the columbia even flew. But like the drunk that decides that they have driven home before without a problem so why should tonight be any different, they largely decided to rely upon experience. But this is not the type of problem where experience can be used. This wasn't even really engineering, they were being asked to solve a mystery.
Analysis by consensus with a single conclusion was a bad idea in this situation. If you are going to take a vote and then report the result as a conclusion, then that is a fundamental mistake. Like asking a roomful of people if God really exists. The majority might say yes or no, but won't you still want a few people praying just in case.
If the initial analysis of the foam strike had included the minority opinions then NASA management could have directed more resources towards the analysis, they would have gotten the military to take a picture of the wing and then perhaps had the astronauts do and EVA to take a look and then perhaps launched the Discovery for a rescue mission and this could have had a very happy ending. If the initial analysis had included any indication that the conclusions were not certain, then it seems likely and obvious that these additional steps would have been taken. In fact the military had already been put on standby to take some pictures of the affected area, but it wasn't to be.
So, it isn't clear to me if the engineers were truly at fault here or if it was the management process that was in place. Certainly engineers could have expressed certainty in their concerns, but why express certainty when there is none? Seems to me the problem here was that the engineers were asked to reach a conclusion and they did. They clearly did not have enough evidence to be certain of what effect the hit would have on the shuttle. Unless another timeline comes to light, I have to conclude that the faulty analysis came from the management of the engineering group or from the nature of the directive that that group received. This is what should be addressed, anomali
Doesn't the web site just have to affirm in writing to the ISP that they are not infringing upon the copyright of the claimant and the ISP has to turn them back on? That was my reading of the DMCA a while back.
And if the ISP refuses to turn them back on, then they could just sue the ISP for damages under the DMCA also.
So, although it is bad that anyone can stop the publishing of a web site by claiming infringment without needing to show any evidence, the DMCA allows the accused to continue to publish once they make their counter claim to the ISP. So to say that a site can be shutdown is true, but it should be noted that it is temporary, and could be very temporary, ie just a few minutes, if the accused defend themselves.
"This change to the law would fix that problem."
No it wouldn't. It would just make more work for lawyers.
The nice thing about Copyright law is it's passive nature. If a work is worth publishing, then get permission or wait...
and if you can't find the person to secure permission from then it would be more in keeping with philosphy of copyrights to create some sort of fair use provision that makes the person give some sort of public notice of their intent to distribute copyrighted material and then after 30 days or something, then the original copyright holder can't sue for damages. Forcing people to register their works just puts an unfair burden on individuals and makes it harder for smaller companies with lots of IP to manage it properly.
"Requiring registration on the backend is nonsensical and the Copyright Office will be unable to validate existence of a valid copyright when granting the extension."
You are right. This scheme complicates copyright law unnecessarily. And having to register your ideas with some central authority after fifty years seems prone to corruption.
The nice thing about copyright law is it's simplicity. And it is enforced completely by the copyright holder. The biggest complaint today is that its length has been extended too much by Congress.
It might be good to look at the fair use exclusions to copyright. But Please, don't muck around with some sort of fascist registration system for content!
damn strait!
"Besides, most mail is local. It's like dialing the country code and area code just to order a pizza."
Here in eastern Massachusetts we have to dial the area code just to order a pizza.
Let's not forget to use an "E" prefix, so that when we move to Mars or the Moon, then we can start using "M" and... oh... wait a second.
"Do something ORIGINAL! Do something new that is Linix/OSS from the ground up. Stop playing catch up and take the lead for once!"
Why?
Seriously, very few people have original ideas. And even fewer have original ideas that might benefit others. What is wrong in taking the works of others and building upon them? Everyday I use tools created by others, these tools lend themselves to solve problems certain ways, I doubt that many of my solutions are unique. In fact I can accept that some solutions are probably better than mine and I am willing to learn from them. Some solutions are probably the best they can be and I am willing to share them with others.
I am familiar enough with the BeOS to know that some things they did were done well and it would be a shame to not learn from them and even incorporate some of their ideas into Linux where they can be.
Children are sometimes told it is wrong to copy other people's work, really it is only wrong to lie about it. It is the sythesis of ideas that defines learning and science.
no, I still believe copy is the right word here because were are talking about the content and not the raw data.
Of course the word 'protection' is one of the words that marketing folks would choose because it sounds good. Like a mother protecting her child... even more accurate would be 'copy prevention'
"The remainder is accurate and well-put, but irrelevant to this discussion, since violation of contract or copyright laws (or any other law, for that matter) is not the intended use of DeCSS."
Sure it is relevant, DeCSS is primarily meant to help Linux users watch DVDs on their computers, which requires that the content be copied off of the DVD and into a bitstream. Physically, any playback device has to 'copy' the content in order to function, really, reading/playing/viewing and copying content are just forms of the same activity.
That, to me, is the essence of fair use. Once I have purchased content I have a license to view, read, listen to it and copy it for my personal use or distribute copies of it after the exclusion term has expired.
"As long as it is used for congestion identification, and possibly tracking of stolen vehicles/people who have committed a crime and the police which to facilitate their capture. I cannot see a bad side to this."
or perhaps when I think my girlfriend is cheating on me I can track her movements... find out where her new boyfriend lives... very useful.
Or whatever somebody who happens to have the keys to the police station decides is good and moral.
This would seem to be in the breaking into someone's house category of government behavior. We wouldn't want "regular" citizens to be able to do this, so it should be only done with accountability, such as with a warrant. Either that or we really should just open these types of systems up to public use. That way we could at least be open about the way the system is abused
MMmmmmm... by the hour.
no, not really
Will sell my Slashdot "avatar" for no less than $5000.
Many Insightful and Funny posts, not many Informative ones though. Currently one Moderator point left.
"Right, however, in order to VIEW an encrypted DVD you MUST bypass the copyright protections"
words are legally very meaningful here, really what you meant to say is that you must 'bypass the COPY protections'
Copyright is a legal right to copy and should have nothing to do with ones ability to copy.
Most of us here are arguing that one way or another we should be allowed the ability to copy content, while understanding that we don't have right to copy, until the copyright expires, except maybe for personal use once we have purchased a copy.
This should be a simple case of reason, copyright law gives us a right to copy content after a certain period of time... this right cannot be realized unless we have the ability to copy that content. So, in a very real and basic way copy controls deprive people of their right to copy. The laws that prevent people from circumventing these copy controls are inherently corrupt.
Corrupt doesn't mean that people were paid off to push these laws through, which may or may not have happened, but they are corrupt laws because they contradict the very basis of our understanding of Copyright. Creators have a time limited right to legally control and profit from the distribution by copy of their work. After this period of time it is part of the public domain and we have a legal right to copy it and distribute it if we please.
A consistent and equitable law would ban copy controls all together, not seek to outlaw their circumvention.
"Come on, why would any nation with the technology to go to the moon and hurl rocks at us not just use nuclear weapons instead? They surely provide far more bang for the buck."
Why bother with nukes when you can make it look like an act of god?
"And what could the moon possibly do for an expansionist nation?"
Having a Billion people under your control probably makes one think about expanding. Propaganda aside, the Chinese seem more war averse than the US. Antarctica might make more sense, logistically, to colonize than the moon, but it is covered by international treaty and the US already has de facto control of it and the ocean and airspace in between china and Antarctica. So unless the Chinese decide war is an acceptable risk, then the logical place to expand is the moon. Since it is really not covered by strong treaties and nobody has any real presence there.
And there are plenty of mineral resources to keep it interesting.
"It's not just a game"
ummm... yes it is.
This is just like putting a telephone booth on top of MIT's dome or that security car. Those events too caused MIT to spend money on cleaning up the prank, but nobody called the Department of Motherland Security about it.
People, this is funny. Laugh Damn it. I hope they don't get caught.
Sounds a bit like big media has made a strategic decision to criticise file sharing whenever their revenues don't meet initial estimates. Works nicely to cover their own overblown estimates and lays the groundwork for more federal intelectual property laws. While in reality the file trading has a negligable effect on their revenues and really they are just seeking legal controls on the medium which will maintain the high equipment costs that will keep the barriers to entry high for small movie makers. This is restraint of competition at it's simplest and most underhanded.
... "I'm at the movies" ... "Watching matrix reloaded"... "yup"... "right"... "uh huh" "do you think I can call you later?"... "oh okay" ... "yup" ... "alright" ... "I'll call you tonight, or maybe tomorrow" ... "bye" And that was the shorter of the two. Not to mention the man that seemed to have no understanding that his constant commentary might disturb those around him... We ended up moving only to suffer the constant questions of a confused 10 year old kid with his father, I can't blame the kid, but the father should have known better.
Also, if they are so concerned about the state of their art, why don't they focus on making the movie theatres enforce a modicum of civility. Last time I went to the movies (for the matrix reloaded) two people's cell phones rang and they answered them... they had conversations that went something like "hey"
A company can't charge $10 a pop for that kind of experience and then complain that they aren't getting all the money you deserve. You deserve what you get.
Rambus tried to sue everyone a few years back, they didn't benefit and neither will SCO. Regardless of how "dispassionate" business is supposed to be, people remember how you treat other people, a litigious company is not someone you want to do business with bcause they might just turn around and bite you too.
This time hopefully SCO will not survive the bad publicity. Just don't buy any of their products and they will shut up or shut down. Leaving Microsoft to do their own dirty work.
This is not a problem. Back in 97 or so most people were moving to electronic storage. My company was an outsourced provider of electronic resume storage and we could store hundreds of thousands of resumes without problem. With todays storage capacity, millions should be easy too. For paper versions, just scan them in and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) them to reduce the file sizes, unless the law specifically requires paper copies, then this is not a major problem for large companies.
If someone needs some help with this, then you should contact me and I'll set you up. The software cost about 10-20k at the time and hardware was about 5k, running it was a minimum wage job mostly. My consulting charge is negotiable depending on the requirements. But there were plenty of companies doing this sort of thing just a few years ago, I have to think someone is still providing this service.