Look around sometime and notice how many people are wearing glasses or contacts. I'd bet that as little as 200 years ago the numbers were less than 10% of what we have now. I always picture this as the distribution of eyesight in the population widening as the evolutionary pressure to keep eyesight good is taken away. I.e., you don't die any more if you need glasses.
This is interesting, but I don't think it's relevant. Glasses and contacts have been around for at most a few hundred years, and that timescale is simply not enough to have a significant impact on evolution. I think the fact that fewer people had glasses 200 years ago has more to do with technology than anything else. Simply put, glasses were not available or affordable like they are today. But, fewer people needed them in the first place. You don't need 20/20 vision to plough the land. All you need to be able to do is distinguish a horse from a cow. In our times, good eyesight probably is an evolutionary advantage (intellectual skills -> need to be able to read -> more salary -> more free time to reproduce). However, the time scale is probably insufficient to have a big impact (for now).
True, but that's because computers (or robots, same difference) work inherently different from human brains. A 3-month old infant can recognize her mother at a fair distance. Computers have big problems doing such seemingly simple tasks. On the other hand, a computer can calculate the square root of a 100-digit number in a fraction of a second. There's not a whhole lot of humans that can do that. Playing chess is an interesting example. Computers are very good at it now, but they tackle the problem in a completely different manner than human chess players. To overstate the obvious, computers are very good at doing simple, repetetive tasks very quickly, but not so good at things that we regard as intuitive. Might be our lack of programming skill, of course...
Having said all that, I agree with you that true AI is probably far away, since it is so hard to implement it as a sequence of simple tasks.
It would be better if it was more like Asimov's rule and read: Never harm, or through inaction allow harm to come to, a human. That keeps the robot from watching a person drown and doing nothing.
There's a great robot story by Asimov (sorry, can't remember what is was called) where a modified robot type was built that had the "inaction" part disabled, because the robots interfered with humans that were working in a slightly harmful situation (exposed to UV rays, if I remember correctly). The story addresses the 'Frankenstein' aspect of robots. One example was where a robot could drop a heavy object on a human and not violate the crippled 1st law, since the robot knew he had the strength and speed to grab the object before it would hit the human. So, the robot did not harm the human. After dropping the object however, gravity took over and the robot did not have to save the human according to the crippled 1st law.
Life is just a little too short to spend most of it playing video games.
Bollocks. It's called recreation. Some people watch football, or soap operas, or go fishing, or whatever. And I'm going to play Civilization as soon as my computer is done ripping my legally bought audio CD.
Just a theory: maybe they think that people who buy classical music don't copy it? I think classical music lovers are a little older than average, and also a little less computer literate. Nothing wrong with being old or loving classical music, of course.
Also, it seems the list of corrupted discs consists mainly of popular stuff, therefore more copies sold. If you think you're losing money due to pirating, better corrupt the best selling stuff first, right?
Gimme a break. How do you prevent terrorists from suicide bombing the Space Shuttle? The Superbowl? Nuclear plants? The [fill in your favorite target]? It's all about security, and in the end, about acceptable risk. You can't completely eliminate all threats, just minimize them. Letting fear of a terrorist attack getting in the way of projects like this is letting the terrorists win.
Yes, and according to some people the first trains could never carry people because all of the air would be sucked out of it at the lethal speeds of 20mph.
As I see it, there are three types of reasons that can stop projects like these from being realized.
1. Fundamental (physical) problems. Like traveling faster than the speed of light. You have to overturn the laws of physics to make it possible. Unlikely, but not completely impossible (it's been done before).
2. Engineering problems. Some things are theoretically possible, but there's a lot of work to be done before it can be realized.
3. Financial problems. If 1. and 2. are solved, you still have to find the money/resources to actually do it. Example: traveling to Mars. No fundamental problems, and the technology is there. Just add money.
It seems that this particular plan needs a lot of engineering and a lot of money. But there's nothing fundamental stopping it. And that's what is meant by "theoretically possible".
Sorry to burst some people's bubble, but obese people almost certainly cannot go into space...
Why not? All they need to be able to do is survive 4 or 5 Gs for a few minutes. They could use the Orlando theme parks to prepare them.
Incredibly tall/wide people probably still can't fit into seats/suits/you name it
Nah, those space suits are tailored to fit anyway. The issue with the early astronauts was that they were not supposed to gain or lose weight after the suits were made. As for seats, incredibly big people will have to buy two, just like on an airplane.
On a slightly more serious matter (but only slightly), some years ago some people did a study on whether it was such a great idea to send only super-fit athletes up into space. One of the tests involved making strange movements (like rolling over on your head) in the dark, and see if that caused nausea. Supposedly this was an indication for space sickness. Interestingly enough it turned out that somewhat scruffy, totally out of shape couch potatoes did much better on this than the supermen (Boy, did I feel vindicated!).
That is exactly true. I already pay subscription fees to get cable in the first place, why should I have to pay again?
Apparently ReplayTV does not have a subscription, but their boxes are a bit pricey. I may consider a PVR, if the price drops under $200, with no subscriptions.
About skipping commercials: you can also do that with a VCR, admittedly in a slightly less sophisticated way. My wife loves to watch figure skating, but she prefers to tape it, and then fast forward through the commercials and interviews with the skaters. Save at least 50% of the time, which is good for everybody, since I'm not too crazy about figure skating.
A few years ago, when everybody was downloading Mars pictures from the Rover (is the horse still there, by the way?), Jerry Pournelle (see www.byte.com) was suggesting an interesting way to fund these probes: ask everyone to donate 0.1 cents per downloaded picture (voluntarily). At 10 million downloads a day, this could add up to serious money.
None. Because without defense, there is no country to make the space probes.
You can't state that for a fact without trying it, i.e., abolish defense and see if the country survives.
On a more serious note, how about $60 billion for a missile defense system that most likely will not work? Recent events have shown that there are more ways of attacking a country than just nuclear missiles. I think the $60 billion could be spent in a more useful way on space projects. Money goes to the same companies as the money for the missile shield (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.), so the only difference is that the money is spent on something useful.
We're throwing probe after probe at Mars (and consequently billions and billions of dollars) yet we haven't even seen Pluto.
Well, it seems you have some expertise, so maybe you can enlighten me. Wouldn't a trip to Pluto take an awful long time, like 10+ years or so with all the laps around Jupiter and the Sun to gain speed? In our society, people want instant results. The moon is only a couple of days away, Mars several months, and that's about all the patience the average taxpayer has (maybe the time has to be shorter than the average politician's term in office...). Also, there might not be a convenient launch time any time soon, given Pluto's orbital period of 247 years and change?
Then again, maybe that's an excellent argument to get funding: "Better launch it soon, folks, or else wait another 250 years".
I have yet to be proven wrong that developing using C++ is any harder or time consuming than writing in Java.
Hmm. Do you include debugging and maintenance as part of development? I'm sure you can type C++ about as fast as you can Java, but the work doesn't end there. One of Java's advantages is the vast reduction of memory leaks (not elimination, some guys can leak resources in any language...). In my opinion memory mismanagement is largely responsible for the typical C/C++ bug.
1) "Java classes are well-organized and well-documented and all-in-one-place." Not a language mertit! You can learn C++ classes as well.
Yes, of course you can learn C++ classes. However, they don't usually come with the language (for free). Having the Java libraries ensures a certain degree of standardization. I think a lot of Java's strength comes from the bundled libraries (reuse at work...).
2) "Java stops you from your own stupidity by not allowing pointers and has garbage collection."
That's a valid point, I think. An awful lot of hard to find bugs are caused by memory mismanagement. Not to mention all these security holes that allow buffer overflow exploits.
If you REALLY hated pointers that much you could write C++ code without pointers and write your own garbage collector
Writing your own garbage collector ain't all that simple if you want it to be safe and efficient. A lot of research has gone into the Java GC, you don't write something like that on a rainy afternoon.
(not to mention that LISP does garbage collection too -- nothing new).
Sure. The fact that it's nothing new doesn't take away its value, though.
3) "Java is cross-platform." I haven't seen too many implementations when cross-platform is needed at run-time. The browser cross-platform stuff seems to have died in the browser wars and Java incompatibilities in browser implementations, thus most Java developers that I know are making JSPs. You know the platform of your server (it won't randomly change without you knowing) so why not write in a higher-level language such as C++ and skip all the platform-dependant code (or do ifdefs) and have it run natively faster? If your platform changes you just re-compile. ..this article about native Java code is just this. . . .
I agree with you here to a certain degree. Cross-platform often is not needed, and 100% cross-platform rarely happens anyway. Java code is a little easier to port than most languages, but it's more of a convenience than a compelling advantage.
4) "Java has a cross-platform GUI". So is GTK and QT.
Again, that doesn't mean it's not an advantage.
5) "Java is easy to learn". I'll skip that.
Why? I've programmed in about a dozen different languages, and I kind of like Java, without being a zealot about it. In my opinion, Java is indeed somewhat easier to learn than most languages, especially if you come from a C/C++ background. Of course the challenge then is to avoid all you bad C/C++ habits...
6) "Java has javabeans, etc". Not a language merit!
That's basically a repitition of your argument about the libraries. Again, it may not be part of the core language, but it sure can be useful in certain circumstances.
Why program in Java when you can achieve the same result faster in another language?
Ahh, but that is interesting! You say you're not a Java programmer, and yes, in that case programming in a language that you do know will be faster, obviously.
However, I can assure you that developing a solution with Java is generally faster than doing it in, say, C++ (assuming you have roughly the same knowledge of both languages). A large part of this is due to the libraries.
A small example: some time ago I had to write a C program to manipulate an Oracle database. It took me a whole week just to write 1200 lines, mainly because of the horrible API calling conventions. I think I could have done the same thing in half a day , in 100 lines, using Java and the JDBC classes.
Granted, Java is not the optimal solution for all problems. Some string manipulation stuff is probably easier done in Perl (or another language optimized for string manipulation). Every problem has its own optimal solution, but as a general-purpose language, Java is pretty good.
Maybe this is redundant and posted many times already, but I simply don't have the energy to go through all posts right now.
Anyway, one thing you really should consider is that you choose a major that you think is fun! In other words, does electrical engineering/physics/computer science really interest you? Career perspectives are nice, but job markets change, and if you choose something you don't really like but has great career opportunities, you may find that the job market in that area isn't so hot any more when you graduate. So then you have unmarketable skills in an area that you don't like anyway.
Also, actually graduating is easier if you like your major. It's far easier to motivate yourself if you like the subject (rather obvious, I guess).
My own experiences are that you can't tell what will happen with your career many years down the road. I have an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering (thought it was fun, never regretted it), got into Computer Science, worked as a programmer in the space business, gradually moved to architecture and design, was a consultant for some years (in the land of the blind, he who has one eye is king), and am working on a (SW/HW) test system for hardware right now. Part of my current job is to manage contacts with customers and suppliers. Not my favorite thing, but hey, it's part of the job. Being a little flexible goes a long way.
Bottom line is that you can't control your future career anyway, so you might as well do something you like. But that's just my 2 cents.
Yes. Judging by the space occupied at my local Blockbuster outlet, I estimate it's about 30% DVDs versus 70% VHS tapes. My own experience is that tapes that have been rented a lot tend to be of degraded quality, and I'm not the most critical person when it comes to that sort of thing.
Furthermore, DVDs sometimes have a lot more content. If you can believe the reviews, Star Wars -- The Phantom Menace is a so-so movie, but the greatest DVD released so far.
Then there are the people who have a DVD player, but no VCR. Sounds hard to believe, but I know one guy who has a 40" LCD HDTV and a LaserDisc/DVD player, and no VCR. I know another guy who has no VCR, but he plays DVDs on his laptop to watch on TV.
Likewise, the argument that a computer program *is* software is absurd - a Windows-Executable is data for a fixed interpreter algorithm, encoded in the hardware of the AMD Athlon and Intel Pentium IV processors.
Ah, interesting analogy, but I think there are some subtle differences. Your typical.EXE allows for a lot more interaction with the user than your typical DVD data (yes, DVD players are interactive as well, but that is controlled by the player's firmware, and not by the DVD data. Right?). I'll change my mind about this as soon as I hear of the first DVD movie virus.
Nitpick: Of course, DVD data is software, it's just not computer software as we normally understand the meaning of "software", but that's a different kettle of fish.
You'd think that people reading slashdot would realize that the Internet goes beyond the U.S. of A. That's actually what a great deal of the stories are about: Sklyarov being prosecuted for something that is legal in his home country, strong cryptography software being developed outside the USA to circumvent export regulations (now lifted), pirate sites hosted in other countries, etc. It's not just that people world wide access slashdot, a lot of the stories are exacly amout these issues.
Slashdot Mirror
Look around sometime and notice how many people are wearing glasses or contacts. I'd bet that as little as 200 years ago the numbers were less than 10% of what we have now. I always picture this as the distribution of eyesight in the population widening as the evolutionary pressure to keep eyesight good is taken away. I.e., you don't die any more if you need glasses.
This is interesting, but I don't think it's relevant. Glasses and contacts have been around for at most a few hundred years, and that timescale is simply not enough to have a significant impact on evolution. I think the fact that fewer people had glasses 200 years ago has more to do with technology than anything else. Simply put, glasses were not available or affordable like they are today. But, fewer people needed them in the first place. You don't need 20/20 vision to plough the land. All you need to be able to do is distinguish a horse from a cow. In our times, good eyesight probably is an evolutionary advantage (intellectual skills -> need to be able to read -> more salary -> more free time to reproduce). However, the time scale is probably insufficient to have a big impact (for now).
AIDS is disappearing, smallpox is dead, anthrax is nothing to worry about, ebola - isolated, bubonic plague - gone, etc.
And tuberculosis is back, thanks to irresponsible use of antibiotics, so that bacteria can actually evolve to resistant strains.
Have any antibacterial soap in your house? Get rid of it. It helps to select the 0.0001% of bacteria that are not affected by it.
True, but that's because computers (or robots, same difference) work inherently different from human brains. A 3-month old infant can recognize her mother at a fair distance. Computers have big problems doing such seemingly simple tasks. On the other hand, a computer can calculate the square root of a 100-digit number in a fraction of a second. There's not a whhole lot of humans that can do that. Playing chess is an interesting example. Computers are very good at it now, but they tackle the problem in a completely different manner than human chess players. To overstate the obvious, computers are very good at doing simple, repetetive tasks very quickly, but not so good at things that we regard as intuitive. Might be our lack of programming skill, of course...
Having said all that, I agree with you that true AI is probably far away, since it is so hard to implement it as a sequence of simple tasks.
While it is true that no sane person is likely to design a robot to kill everyone and "take over the world",...
And no sane person is likely to design a bomb that can wipe out entire cities, or a weapon that spreads an uncurable infectious disease...
It would be better if it was more like Asimov's rule and read: Never harm, or through inaction allow harm to come to, a human. That keeps the robot from watching a person drown and doing nothing.
There's a great robot story by Asimov (sorry, can't remember what is was called) where a modified robot type was built that had the "inaction" part disabled, because the robots interfered with humans that were working in a slightly harmful situation (exposed to UV rays, if I remember correctly). The story addresses the 'Frankenstein' aspect of robots. One example was where a robot could drop a heavy object on a human and not violate the crippled 1st law, since the robot knew he had the strength and speed to grab the object before it would hit the human. So, the robot did not harm the human. After dropping the object however, gravity took over and the robot did not have to save the human according to the crippled 1st law.
Life is just a little too short to spend most of it playing video games.
Bollocks. It's called recreation. Some people watch football, or soap operas, or go fishing, or whatever. And I'm going to play Civilization as soon as my computer is done ripping my legally bought audio CD.
Just a theory: maybe they think that people who buy classical music don't copy it? I think classical music lovers are a little older than average, and also a little less computer literate. Nothing wrong with being old or loving classical music, of course.
Also, it seems the list of corrupted discs consists mainly of popular stuff, therefore more copies sold. If you think you're losing money due to pirating, better corrupt the best selling stuff first, right?
Gimme a break. How do you prevent terrorists from suicide bombing the Space Shuttle? The Superbowl? Nuclear plants? The [fill in your favorite target]? It's all about security, and in the end, about acceptable risk. You can't completely eliminate all threats, just minimize them. Letting fear of a terrorist attack getting in the way of projects like this is letting the terrorists win.
Yes, and according to some people the first trains could never carry people because all of the air would be sucked out of it at the lethal speeds of 20mph.
As I see it, there are three types of reasons that can stop projects like these from being realized.
1. Fundamental (physical) problems. Like traveling faster than the speed of light. You have to overturn the laws of physics to make it possible. Unlikely, but not completely impossible (it's been done before).
2. Engineering problems. Some things are theoretically possible, but there's a lot of work to be done before it can be realized.
3. Financial problems. If 1. and 2. are solved, you still have to find the money/resources to actually do it. Example: traveling to Mars. No fundamental problems, and the technology is there. Just add money.
It seems that this particular plan needs a lot of engineering and a lot of money. But there's nothing fundamental stopping it. And that's what is meant by "theoretically possible".
Sorry to burst some people's bubble, but obese people almost certainly cannot go into space...
Why not? All they need to be able to do is survive 4 or 5 Gs for a few minutes. They could use the Orlando theme parks to prepare them.
Incredibly tall/wide people probably still can't fit into seats/suits/you name it
Nah, those space suits are tailored to fit anyway. The issue with the early astronauts was that they were not supposed to gain or lose weight after the suits were made. As for seats, incredibly big people will have to buy two, just like on an airplane.
On a slightly more serious matter (but only slightly), some years ago some people did a study on whether it was such a great idea to send only super-fit athletes up into space. One of the tests involved making strange movements (like rolling over on your head) in the dark, and see if that caused nausea. Supposedly this was an indication for space sickness. Interestingly enough it turned out that somewhat scruffy, totally out of shape couch potatoes did much better on this than the supermen (Boy, did I feel vindicated!).
Yes! We can start the Open Source Cuisine! Oops, I mean Free Grubware Foundation (sorry, RMS :-). GNU/Recipes, anyone? Better stop myself now...
That is exactly true. I already pay subscription fees to get cable in the first place, why should I have to pay again?
Apparently ReplayTV does not have a subscription, but their boxes are a bit pricey. I may consider a PVR, if the price drops under $200, with no subscriptions.
About skipping commercials: you can also do that with a VCR, admittedly in a slightly less sophisticated way. My wife loves to watch figure skating, but she prefers to tape it, and then fast forward through the commercials and interviews with the skaters. Save at least 50% of the time, which is good for everybody, since I'm not too crazy about figure skating.
Now is time to travel with Amtrak more than ever...
Amtrak told Congress today that it wants $1.2 billion, or else they are going to stop long distance train service in October...
A few years ago, when everybody was downloading Mars pictures from the Rover (is the horse still there, by the way?), Jerry Pournelle (see www.byte.com) was suggesting an interesting way to fund these probes: ask everyone to donate 0.1 cents per downloaded picture (voluntarily). At 10 million downloads a day, this could add up to serious money.
So stfu.
You're proving his point. You disagree with him, so you want him to shut up.
None. Because without defense, there is no country to make the space probes.
You can't state that for a fact without trying it, i.e., abolish defense and see if the country survives.
On a more serious note, how about $60 billion for a missile defense system that most likely will not work? Recent events have shown that there are more ways of attacking a country than just nuclear missiles. I think the $60 billion could be spent in a more useful way on space projects. Money goes to the same companies as the money for the missile shield (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.), so the only difference is that the money is spent on something useful.
We're throwing probe after probe at Mars (and consequently billions and billions of dollars) yet we haven't even seen Pluto.
Well, it seems you have some expertise, so maybe you can enlighten me. Wouldn't a trip to Pluto take an awful long time, like 10+ years or so with all the laps around Jupiter and the Sun to gain speed? In our society, people want instant results. The moon is only a couple of days away, Mars several months, and that's about all the patience the average taxpayer has (maybe the time has to be shorter than the average politician's term in office...). Also, there might not be a convenient launch time any time soon, given Pluto's orbital period of 247 years and change?
Then again, maybe that's an excellent argument to get funding: "Better launch it soon, folks, or else wait another 250 years".
I have yet to be proven wrong that developing using C++ is any harder or time consuming than writing in Java.
Hmm. Do you include debugging and maintenance as part of development? I'm sure you can type C++ about as fast as you can Java, but the work doesn't end there. One of Java's advantages is the vast reduction of memory leaks (not elimination, some guys can leak resources in any language...). In my opinion memory mismanagement is largely responsible for the typical C/C++ bug.
1) "Java classes are well-organized and well-documented and all-in-one-place." Not a language mertit! You can learn C++ classes as well.
.this article about native Java code is just this. . . .
Yes, of course you can learn C++ classes. However, they don't usually come with the language (for free). Having the Java libraries ensures a certain degree of standardization. I think a lot of Java's strength comes from the bundled libraries (reuse at work...).
2) "Java stops you from your own stupidity by not allowing pointers and has garbage collection."
That's a valid point, I think. An awful lot of hard to find bugs are caused by memory mismanagement. Not to mention all these security holes that allow buffer overflow exploits.
If you REALLY hated pointers that much you could write C++ code without pointers and write your own garbage collector
Writing your own garbage collector ain't all that simple if you want it to be safe and efficient. A lot of research has gone into the Java GC, you don't write something like that on a rainy afternoon.
(not to mention that LISP does garbage collection too -- nothing new).
Sure. The fact that it's nothing new doesn't take away its value, though.
3) "Java is cross-platform." I haven't seen too many implementations when cross-platform is needed at run-time. The browser cross-platform stuff seems to have died in the browser wars and Java incompatibilities in browser implementations, thus most Java developers that I know are making JSPs. You know the platform of your server (it won't randomly change without you knowing) so why not write in a higher-level language such as C++ and skip all the platform-dependant code (or do ifdefs) and have it run natively faster? If your platform changes you just re-compile. .
I agree with you here to a certain degree. Cross-platform often is not needed, and 100% cross-platform rarely happens anyway. Java code is a little easier to port than most languages, but it's more of a convenience than a compelling advantage.
4) "Java has a cross-platform GUI". So is GTK and QT.
Again, that doesn't mean it's not an advantage.
5) "Java is easy to learn". I'll skip that.
Why? I've programmed in about a dozen different languages, and I kind of like Java, without being a zealot about it. In my opinion, Java is indeed somewhat easier to learn than most languages, especially if you come from a C/C++ background. Of course the challenge then is to avoid all you bad C/C++ habits...
6) "Java has javabeans, etc". Not a language merit!
That's basically a repitition of your argument about the libraries. Again, it may not be part of the core language, but it sure can be useful in certain circumstances.
Why program in Java when you can achieve the same result faster in another language?
Ahh, but that is interesting! You say you're not a Java programmer, and yes, in that case programming in a language that you do know will be faster, obviously.
However, I can assure you that developing a solution with Java is generally faster than doing it in, say, C++ (assuming you have roughly the same knowledge of both languages). A large part of this is due to the libraries.
A small example: some time ago I had to write a C program to manipulate an Oracle database. It took me a whole week just to write 1200 lines, mainly because of the horrible API calling conventions. I think I could have done the same thing in half a day , in 100 lines, using Java and the JDBC classes.
Granted, Java is not the optimal solution for all problems. Some string manipulation stuff is probably easier done in Perl (or another language optimized for string manipulation). Every problem has its own optimal solution, but as a general-purpose language, Java is pretty good.
Maybe this is redundant and posted many times already, but I simply don't have the energy to go through all posts right now.
Anyway, one thing you really should consider is that you choose a major that you think is fun! In other words, does electrical engineering/physics/computer science really interest you? Career perspectives are nice, but job markets change, and if you choose something you don't really like but has great career opportunities, you may find that the job market in that area isn't so hot any more when you graduate. So then you have unmarketable skills in an area that you don't like anyway.
Also, actually graduating is easier if you like your major. It's far easier to motivate yourself if you like the subject (rather obvious, I guess).
My own experiences are that you can't tell what will happen with your career many years down the road. I have an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering (thought it was fun, never regretted it), got into Computer Science, worked as a programmer in the space business, gradually moved to architecture and design, was a consultant for some years (in the land of the blind, he who has one eye is king), and am working on a (SW/HW) test system for hardware right now. Part of my current job is to manage contacts with customers and suppliers. Not my favorite thing, but hey, it's part of the job. Being a little flexible goes a long way.
Bottom line is that you can't control your future career anyway, so you might as well do something you like. But that's just my 2 cents.
Do people actually rent DVD's?
Yes. Judging by the space occupied at my local Blockbuster outlet, I estimate it's about 30% DVDs versus 70% VHS tapes. My own experience is that tapes that have been rented a lot tend to be of degraded quality, and I'm not the most critical person when it comes to that sort of thing.
Furthermore, DVDs sometimes have a lot more content. If you can believe the reviews, Star Wars -- The Phantom Menace is a so-so movie, but the greatest DVD released so far.
Then there are the people who have a DVD player, but no VCR. Sounds hard to believe, but I know one guy who has a 40" LCD HDTV and a LaserDisc/DVD player, and no VCR. I know another guy who has no VCR, but he plays DVDs on his laptop to watch on TV.
In a free market, the consumers determine the price. If they overcharge, then they will go out of business.
Unless somebody has a monopoly. But then it's not a free market anymore, I guess. So, anybody know of a true, 100% free market?
Likewise, the argument that a computer program *is* software is absurd - a Windows-Executable is data for a fixed interpreter algorithm, encoded in the hardware of the AMD Athlon and Intel Pentium IV processors.
.EXE allows for a lot more interaction with the user than your typical DVD data (yes, DVD players are interactive as well, but that is controlled by the player's firmware, and not by the DVD data. Right?). I'll change my mind about this as soon as I hear of the first DVD movie virus.
Ah, interesting analogy, but I think there are some subtle differences. Your typical
Nitpick: Of course, DVD data is software, it's just not computer software as we normally understand the meaning of "software", but that's a different kettle of fish.
You'd think that people reading slashdot would realize that the Internet goes beyond the U.S. of A. That's actually what a great deal of the stories are about: Sklyarov being prosecuted for something that is legal in his home country, strong cryptography software being developed outside the USA to circumvent export regulations (now lifted), pirate sites hosted in other countries, etc. It's not just that people world wide access slashdot, a lot of the stories are exacly amout these issues.
Somebody mod the parent up, please. If this is not informative, I don't know what is.