Personally I think that Leo is actually a very good actor, but at the same time, I can't imagine him being Annakin for even a second. This is going to be a mighty difficult role to cast I suspect...
What they can do is make sure that any players that play the SDMI music will only play MP3s that have been encoded using a particular encoder. They can use a sort of watermark, etc, to insure that only RIAA sanctioned recordings can be played on those players.
Of course there are any number of ways around this problem. The most obvious is that anybody can buy a player that doesn't care about watermarking and just plays MP3 in whatever format you want (RIO's, etc). Now, admittedly, since SDMI stuff has to be licensed by RIAA, you won't be able to find a player that will play both SDMI and non-RIAA mp3s, but you just re-encode the SDMI stuff as mp3 and you are good to go.
Actually the closest thing you'll find for a parallel in US history is the native americans. Let's face it folks our country perfected the art of ethnic cleansing a long time ago.
I would suggest that murder and killing are far more scary forms of warfare than shutting off Yugoslavia's internet connection. You've got a country full of people being bombed, and full of people shooting and raping other people just because they are of a different ethnicity. The internet connection should be the least of our concerns...
I'm so unused to handwriting now, that I find it requires significant exertion to even write a simple sentance. I've just switched to doing only printing, which, although slower, is much more readable in the long run. The only thing I use cursive for is signing things. God help me if I every change my name:)
Your comments validate the fact that Linux can make far better use of a lower end box, but it MIGHT indicate that Linux SMP is not too impressive. The Mindcraft box appears to be roughly four times the machine that you tested with. Yet the number of connections is only about 1.7 times as much. Granted you tuned your box and they didn't tune their box and may very well have crippled it, but still it may indicate some lack of SMP efficiency.
If somebody will buy me a system like Mindcraft used, I'll be more than happy to benchmark it myself! It might take me a while though, so be patient with me. If I have the box back to you in say 5 years, is that sufficient?:)
One thing that stands out at me in this report is the comments about some products being too complex to be free. He says that simple things like word processors and spread sheets can be free, but after a point it can't survive as free. He also pointed specifically to the development of web browsers as a good example of that evolution from free to commercial.
I think web browsers provide possibly the best illustration of how wrong he is. Yes, they started off free and open source, and then a couple people decided to try to make money off of it and they went commercial. But now look at the state of things. IE is being given away and Netscape has gone open source. It is worth noting that the open source version of netscape appears to be vastly superior to the old version upon initial impressions. So this doesn't hold true at all.
Linux vs. Microsoft is another good example of how wrong this notion is. Certainly an OS is one of the more complicated things somebody can develop and yet Linux is far superior in every way to Windows NT where it even attempts to compete. Linux may lack in the GUI department but that's because the GUI is a completely seperate project (which by all rights it should be). Without a GUI, the ease of use issue is somewhat hard to compare, but I've generally found Unix much easier to deal with than DOS.
Ironically the things that Bill indicated as being simple (word processing, spread sheets), are the things that he makes the most money on.
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Technology=Evolution and the EOTWAWKI
on
Gene Leakage
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· Score: 1
Technology is really just an extension of the evolutionary process. We as a civilization decided some time ago that we wanted to control our own destiny and try to get a one-up on the natural evolutionary process. This is our adaptation to the enviroment around us, and as with all evolutionary processes before us, eventually it will be our downfall.
The natural process of evolution is that every species will eventuall evolve to be absolutely ideally adapted for a given environment. The major side effect of this is that eventually the species becomes so well adapated to that envrionment that if the environment changes they will die off.
We have built up our society on technology, and as our technology has evolved we've become ever more dependent on it. As we build layer upon layer of technology upon eachother, eventually some layer will give and the rest will come crashing down.
A good example of this playing out is that people with a proneness to diseases can be treated and procreate and spread their genetic limitation throughout the gene pool. Over time, more and more people become disease prone, but as long as technology is there it is all okay. If that technology breaks down though, the entirety of the species may be at risk.
We can be faster than nature at adapting for a little while, but eventually it will catch up with us. The house of cards will come tumbling down just as it has for every other species who has come and gone on this planet before us.
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Caution warranted but side effects unlikely
on
Gene Leakage
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· Score: 1
One thing interesting about this article was the tie in between the eventual failure of penicillin as a useful drug. The failure of penicillin seems evidence to me that the concept of insect RESISTANT crops killing off all insects is quite ludicrous.
The reason that anitibiotics lose their effectiveness is that when they are used, they kill off ALMOST all of the bacteria. Thanks to the wonders of natural selection that means that those few bacteria left after exposure will multiply and of course all of the offspring will also be resistant to that bacteria. For crops, the insect resistant crops will drive away the insects that can't eat them, but those few that can (remember, resistant crops, not impervious), will multiply. In fact they will get the evolutionary one-up of being the only insect capable of eating those crops.
In the United States, farmers are in fact required to plant 10% (I may be off on the exact number) regular crops with their GM crops so that they prevent the scenario I just outlined from happening. Thus the few resistant insects breed with the non-resistant insects and keep the resistant genes relatively diluted.
My thought is that caution is warranted if only because time and time again it has been prooven that we never see the other edge of technology's double edged sword.
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Distinction between hacking and cracking
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CNN on "hackers"
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· Score: 1
Well, another journalist has concocted an article on how evil hackers are without really researching it. And I quote from the article, "That's where 'crackers' hackers who break software security -- come in."
Maybe sometime the media will get it through their thick skulls that a cracker is somebody who uses hacker skills to break into other people's systems, etc. Hackers are merely those with a desire to push the limits of their own knowledge and the technology around them.
One thing that seems to have been glazed over is that the amount of bandwidth available to a given person depends entirely on their location relative to a major market. If you live in a big metropolitan area you probably can get access to cable modems, DSL, etc. If you live out in the boonies, you are probably relegated to 56K dialup or maybe a DSS dish.
This is one thing that will proove very interesting as the rate of innovation increases. It is a general trend that those who live closest to the big cities get the innovations first, but I wonder how the rate of increase is outside that area. If an innovation requires an upgrade to existing infrastructures, then the likelyhood of them getting out to the most remote areas is pretty small. If it is something that can work on existing infrastructure (pots, or wireless), then it can be expanded very easily to those outlying areas.
I wonder how long it is before a net provide realizes they can be the Walmart of ISP's. Rather than developing technologies that are only useful in the highly competitive metropolitan areas, somebody should work to bypass geographic boundaries and make money off the relative monopoly they would posess in the more remote locations.
I think at one point Star Trek tried to use pseudo-physics and keep it relatively realistic but as time went on they began to make use of it as a plot device far too often. Usually a conversation like this would happen:
Riker: Well, it looks like we are all going to be violently killed by the
Geordi: Actually we could use Tachyons to . Then we could and get away.
Then they would whip up some cool special effect and be done with it
There is no such thing as a free lunch, that is true. Ultimately if you have an operation that runs on Linux, or an operation that runs on NT, you still have support costs. The linux folks who are trying to make money just shift their profit strategy to just using support costs whereas NT tries to get people on both sides.
As for the big event that can make the shift to Linux stronger, I think the release of Windows 2000 will be a cusp. If Microsoft can actually deliver on its promises (this would be a new thing for them), then they be able to push Linux back out the door. If Windows 2000 prooves to be robust and stable, then much of the argument for Linux may dissapear (except for the noteworthy price difference).
If on the other hand Windows 2000 is a big flop, and gets drowned by its own complexity, then Microsoft has nowhere to go. If it flops, it would be years before they could take a different approach and by that time its too late, and Linux will continue to spread like wildfire.
Generally I like the motives of Richard Stallman, but he wreaks of arrogance and an absolute belief that he's right and everybody else is wrong. But what makes open source such a wonderful thing is that it doesn't matter one bit what Richard Stallman thinks about Linux or Emacs or anything else because they are open and he has no control over them.
Just think of what would happen if you had such an egomaniac in charge of a software company that lived off closed proprietary code. Well, I suppose we don't have to imagine this since we have a shining example in the industry, but I'm not going to mention any names *cough* Microsoft *cough*:)
What you might do is consider blocking off outside access to all "non-certified" systems. You set up some sort of process by which somebody had to demonstrate that they are capable of handling the responsibility. Perhaps you could have some sort of seminar on basic system security, and show them how to get information about security breaches (check your local postings, get on the CERT mailing list, etc). Make attendance of that seminar mandatory for anybody who wants the access, then have the user sign an agreement which puts the burden of responsibility on them for keeping their system secured. So if they get hacked into and that system is used to take out other systems, they are held responsible for what they caused.
This way, only the people who are willing to go out of their way to set it up will get the services they want. Also as a part of this you might want to offer some sort of official security testing procedure where if soembody wants to, they can call you up and ask you to run SATAN, etc, and make sure that they are in good shape.
In general it sounds like this is more of an issue to be solved through policy and communication and less through technical means.
The natural process of evolution is that a given species through the process of mutation and natural selection eventually adapts to operate best in the environment it is in. The unfortunate side effect of this is that when the environment changes (and it always does), the better adapated a species is to that environment, the less likely it will be able to survive after the fact.
The Recording Industry has evolved and refined its money-making techniques to best suit the enviroment that existed about 5 years ago. They managed to develop a superior media delivery mechanism and they were able to drive down the manufacturing costs to such levels that they could make huge profits. They then became dependent on those margins, and have thus left themselves very vulnerable now that music can be so easily distributed for free.
The Recording Industry as we have known it will continue for a while, but as bandwidth costs drop and the percentage of connected individuals goes up, their profit margins are going to shrink and they will either be forced to completely rethink how they do things or they will die.
Slashdot Mirror
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Of course there are any number of ways around this problem. The most obvious is that anybody can buy a player that doesn't care about watermarking and just plays MP3 in whatever format you want (RIO's, etc). Now, admittedly, since SDMI stuff has to be licensed by RIAA, you won't be able to find a player that will play both SDMI and non-RIAA mp3s, but you just re-encode the SDMI stuff as mp3 and you are good to go.
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If somebody will buy me a system like Mindcraft used, I'll be more than happy to benchmark it myself! It might take me a while though, so be patient with me. If I have the box back to you in say 5 years, is that sufficient?
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I think web browsers provide possibly the best illustration of how wrong he is. Yes, they started off free and open source, and then a couple people decided to try to make money off of it and they went commercial. But now look at the state of things. IE is being given away and Netscape has gone open source. It is worth noting that the open source version of netscape appears to be vastly superior to the old version upon initial impressions. So this doesn't hold true at all.
Linux vs. Microsoft is another good example of how wrong this notion is. Certainly an OS is one of the more complicated things somebody can develop and yet Linux is far superior in every way to Windows NT where it even attempts to compete. Linux may lack in the GUI department but that's because the GUI is a completely seperate project (which by all rights it should be). Without a GUI, the ease of use issue is somewhat hard to compare, but I've generally found Unix much easier to deal with than DOS.
Ironically the things that Bill indicated as being simple (word processing, spread sheets), are the things that he makes the most money on.
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The natural process of evolution is that every species will eventuall evolve to be absolutely ideally adapted for a given environment. The major side effect of this is that eventually the species becomes so well adapated to that envrionment that if the environment changes they will die off.
We have built up our society on technology, and as our technology has evolved we've become ever more dependent on it. As we build layer upon layer of technology upon eachother, eventually some layer will give and the rest will come crashing down.
A good example of this playing out is that people with a proneness to diseases can be treated and procreate and spread their genetic limitation throughout the gene pool. Over time, more and more people become disease prone, but as long as technology is there it is all okay. If that technology breaks down though, the entirety of the species may be at risk.
We can be faster than nature at adapting for a little while, but eventually it will catch up with us. The house of cards will come tumbling down just as it has for every other species who has come and gone on this planet before us.
---
The reason that anitibiotics lose their effectiveness is that when they are used, they kill off ALMOST all of the bacteria. Thanks to the wonders of natural selection that means that those few bacteria left after exposure will multiply and of course all of the offspring will also be resistant to that bacteria. For crops, the insect resistant crops will drive away the insects that can't eat them, but those few that can (remember, resistant crops, not impervious), will multiply. In fact they will get the evolutionary one-up of being the only insect capable of eating those crops.
In the United States, farmers are in fact required to plant 10% (I may be off on the exact number) regular crops with their GM crops so that they prevent the scenario I just outlined from happening. Thus the few resistant insects breed with the non-resistant insects and keep the resistant genes relatively diluted.
My thought is that caution is warranted if only because time and time again it has been prooven that we never see the other edge of technology's double edged sword.
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Maybe sometime the media will get it through their thick skulls that a cracker is somebody who uses hacker skills to break into other people's systems, etc. Hackers are merely those with a desire to push the limits of their own knowledge and the technology around them.
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This is one thing that will proove very interesting as the rate of innovation increases. It is a general trend that those who live closest to the big cities get the innovations first, but I wonder how the rate of increase is outside that area. If an innovation requires an upgrade to existing infrastructures, then the likelyhood of them getting out to the most remote areas is pretty small. If it is something that can work on existing infrastructure (pots, or wireless), then it can be expanded very easily to those outlying areas.
I wonder how long it is before a net provide realizes they can be the Walmart of ISP's. Rather than developing technologies that are only useful in the highly competitive metropolitan areas, somebody should work to bypass geographic boundaries and make money off the relative monopoly they would posess in the more remote locations.
---
Riker: Well, it looks like we are all going to be violently killed by the
Geordi: Actually we could use Tachyons to . Then we could and get away.
Then they would whip up some cool special effect and be done with it
---
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As for the big event that can make the shift to Linux stronger, I think the release of Windows 2000 will be a cusp. If Microsoft can actually deliver on its promises (this would be a new thing for them), then they be able to push Linux back out the door. If Windows 2000 prooves to be robust and stable, then much of the argument for Linux may dissapear (except for the noteworthy price difference).
If on the other hand Windows 2000 is a big flop, and gets drowned by its own complexity, then Microsoft has nowhere to go. If it flops, it would be years before they could take a different approach and by that time its too late, and Linux will continue to spread like wildfire.
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Just think of what would happen if you had such an egomaniac in charge of a software company that lived off closed proprietary code. Well, I suppose we don't have to imagine this since we have a shining example in the industry, but I'm not going to mention any names *cough* Microsoft *cough*
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This way, only the people who are willing to go out of their way to set it up will get the services they want. Also as a part of this you might want to offer some sort of official security testing procedure where if soembody wants to, they can call you up and ask you to run SATAN, etc, and make sure that they are in good shape.
In general it sounds like this is more of an issue to be solved through policy and communication and less through technical means.
---
The Recording Industry has evolved and refined its money-making techniques to best suit the enviroment that existed about 5 years ago. They managed to develop a superior media delivery mechanism and they were able to drive down the manufacturing costs to such levels that they could make huge profits. They then became dependent on those margins, and have thus left themselves very vulnerable now that music can be so easily distributed for free.
The Recording Industry as we have known it will continue for a while, but as bandwidth costs drop and the percentage of connected individuals goes up, their profit margins are going to shrink and they will either be forced to completely rethink how they do things or they will die.
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