I also happen to think if a VC invested money in a concern whose business model relied on giving people cancer, it ought to be liable too. If I invest in a narcostics dealing corporation down the street, I ought to be liable there too.
So what you're saying is that if you happen to have some Philip Morris or Pernod Ricard stock in your investment portfolio, you should potentially face unlimited liability? Little harsh, don't you think? Especially these days you can wind up with all kinds of stock from mergers and acquisitions.
4Gb should be plenty for you too, including OS, applications and your own data.
Troll much? [Insert 640K RAM joke here]
My email directory is over 1 Gb in size. Legally bought and paid for applications (not data) take up 8.3 Gb Offline usenet messages take up about 2.5 Gb.
Not to mention that a large fraction of people who use their PCs for professional/serious amateur work will easily use GBs of space. To burn a DVD of the family's vacation takes up 5Gb. Dual booting Linux and Windows will take a couple of Gb. DTP, programming, photo editing, music composition, online gaming, PVR, all of these can use up a tremendous fraction of a hard drive.
Frankly, unless you're auditioning for a part in the RIAA follies, I don't see why you feel entitled to tell people how much HD space they should be using in the first place.
Star Wars and LOTR, on the other hand, used more timeless, classical designs for both costumes and music. They will "last" much, much longer.
Very true. Instead of waiting 10 years to look dated, Star Wars costumes will always be in a permanent state of unfashionability! (Okay, there was that "Leia-do" that was in style for about 5 minutes in 1977.)
Seriously though, when Matrix becomes retro, it will still be cool. In fact, the manner in which it revels in the zeitgeist of its age will, in time, be what makes it an enduring artifact. James Dean, anyone?
I'm not going to pretend that I'm wedded to any particular point of view just to get a religious war going. Intel has undoubtedly done some, er, intel on this subject and has reached the same conclusion you have.
But I think, possibly, that Intel is underestimating the disproportionate mindshare that the enthusiasts have over the market. Who writes the chip and motherboard reviews? Guys like "Anand" and "Tom" (funny how it's always guys, ain't it?) who will wet their pants when they can get their hands on a chip that overclocks to 10K PCMarks in room temperature. These guys have kept AMD alive despite its losing the raw GHz race long ago. These guys are making ATi look like a champ again with its $400 card that 98% of the computer buying public won't even glance at.
In the end, it will probably depend on how much FUD Intel can spread with a smearish campaign that goes something like, "How can you tell if you've been stuck with a grey market CPU? Used to be you couldn't, til it was too late...But with Intel(R) SafeStep(TM) technology, your data will be protected...with Anyother Microprocessor Distributor, it's a roll of the dice."
The solution, of course, is to keep the temperature in the "safe" range at the higher clock speed.
The whole point of this patent is that even though it borrows the temperature control circuitry to throttle the speed, it doesn't rely on measuring the chip's temperature to determine if the chip is being overclocked in the first place. In other words, it can't be tricked by keeping the chip cool.
In the final analysis, though, I think that having non-overclockable chips will backfire on Intel. Who wants a car that's been throttled to top off at 85 miles an hour, even if you might never have need to go faster in real life?
they'd have to prove that each album he offered caused 120,000 less copies of that album to be sold.
No, they don't have to prove that. All they have to do is prove to the judge that the copyright violation was "willful" and the Copyright Act allows for the judge, at his or her discretion, to impose up to $150,000 in statutory, (not compensatory or punitive) damages per infringement.
I happen to agree with you, but in court the arguement could be made that the "reasonable" man understands that knives are a dangerous weapon and so ought to treat them with care, but it's not "reasonable" to think that a toy/hobby robot will be used as a murder weapon. Hence the manufacturer ought to be held liable for negligently allowing this hazardous object to be misused by the public.
At the very least, it would probably need to come with multiple warnings. For example, right now I'm staring at a carton of soy milk upon which the following is prominently displayed: "NOT TO BE USED AS INFANT FORMULA" You would think someone would have to be an idiot to replace cow's milk with soy milk in a baby's diet, but, nevertheless, there you have it.
I wonder whether Fujitsu would be held liable if someone programmed one of these robots to kill somebody. I could see it argued in court that by using Linux, they made it "too easy" for any psychopath "hacker" or script kiddy to turn their toy into a dangerous weapon.
from what I understand, if you don't aggresively persue all potential infringements with legal action, you lose your copyright- its meaningless.
To put it bluntly, you are dead wrong, as are all the other of hundreds of posters who've said the same thing on/. over the years.
In the US as well as in other signatories of the Berne Convention, you don't give up your copyright through neglect. Further, you don't have to register or publish something in order for it to be copyrighted. (Although you do give up certain rights.) And finally, if you do publish a work, you're not required to place a copyright notice on it.
All of this info is available at the LOC Copyright Office. One would think that on a tech-savvy site such as this, such misinformation would stop being so glibly circulated. I guess one would be wrong.
So as not to be coy, I'll point out that what you were doubtless thinking about was trademarks. Unlike copyrights and patents, trademarks (and servicemarks) don't automatically expire after a set time. However, if you don't protect them from being diluted, they can lose value and once that occurs, it is possible for you to lose your ability to prosecute others for unauthorized use of them. Note that even so it is a distortion to claim that you must aggrgressively pursue "all" potential infringements. Toys"R"Us, Inc. doesn't have to go after every single nickel and dime "Junk 'R' Us" store in the entire world. To the extent that they choose to do so is a matter for their legal staff to decide.
At least, that's my understanding. IANAL, either, and even if I were, it wouldn't mean I was right.
??? Not sure if I understand your point. I don't see that your personal experience in any way contradicts the results of the study.
As long as we're talking anecdotal experience, here's a little experiment that anybody can try in the safety of their own home. Call up any of your friends during their favorite television program. (Don't tell them you are using them as labrats.) Talk to them about something else other than the show. After the show is over, see how much they can recall about what they saw. I think you'll find that results will vary. Some people will ask you to call them back -- they simply can't talk on the phone and watch TV at all and they're aware of it. Other people will talk with you but really won't remember any of the show -- they become oblivious to their surroundings. Others will remember some of the show but will have missed a lot of it. Others will interrupt the conversation frequently while things are happening on TV -- their conversations will be disjointed because they want to focus the bulk of their attention on the screen. And a few rare people will be able to successfully multitask, watch their show while holding a full conversation with you on the phone. The last two groups are probably reasonably safe phone drivers. As for your other friends, try not to get into their cars if you can help it!
Now can we please make the next taboo not having a hands-free headset while driving?
Irrelevant. At least one study seems to indicate that it doesn't matter whether the phones are hands-free or not, the risk is still there. According to the same link, a previous study revealed that talking on the phone impairs driving ability significantly more than talking to other passengers in your vehicle.
That doesn't work if it is 10 below zero outside, or you are old, or you are in a bad neighborhood, or you are on the New Jersey Turnpike...
So for those few Americans who are driving from their jobs at a Newark crack den on their way home to their Buffalo retirement communities in the dead of winter, then yes, I'd absolutely recommend they carry a cell phone at all times.
For everyone else, having a phone seems rather optional, and perhaps even a liability. I'd wager that far more people have been killed by bringing their car phones than by leaving them home.
I'm still wondering why there is no mention in any of the reports about playback capability (or lack thereof) of the write-once format DVD+R, which should be playable on this machine, and on virtually any machine that can handle stock DVDs. I suspect it plays DVD+R's just fine, and a clarification will come out on this shortly.
It wouldn't even surprise me (wishful thinking mode) if Reuters got the specs wrong and it plays +RW also.
That's a good point, but in addition to that there's a more basic reason.
It's art for art's sake.
It's the same reason that some people still take pictures with pinhole cameras or the cult favorite Polaroid SX-70 despite the existence of far more sophisticated modern machines, or directors shoot films following the spartan rules of Dogme 95, or contemporary poets still compose sonnets, despite the existence of free verse poetry.
One can create something of great beauty within severe constraints. It's as if the self-imposed limitations force you to focus on the Art more than on the mechanics. Douglas Hofstadter would say it has something to do with "stripping away irrelevancies to get at the gist of things."
In order for someone to successfully send you an email, they'd need a mailpassword which has been given to them by you. The mailpassword can be a general/universal password (anyone who knows that mailpass can send you email), or it can be a mailpass specific to the sender (the mailpass "crackhead" would only work if the sender was whittney@houstonn.com)
So for example, if I sign up for a mailing list at nytimes.com, I would have to give them both email address xqwaqa@xqwaqa.com, and a mailpassword "nytimespass". (Conversely, nytimes.com could auto-generate a random string and tell me to set my email program to receive mail from them with that auto-generated mailpass.) I'd only get email if they used the right address, xqwaqa@xqwaqa.com. On top of that, my email program would only open their email if the mailpass is correct. If, somehow, someone harvests the mailpass or guesses it, I can simply invalidate that mailpass and issue a new one to nytimes.com. Ideally, your email program would store your friends' mailpasses in its address book, so the system would work transparently to the end user. (These could be stored in encrypted fashion.) To be more secure, the mailpass could also be automatically changed/updated each time you exchange an email with a recipient. E.g. nytimes sends you an email with mailpass nytimespass. Your program sends them a receipt saying, "Okay, now the new password is 'immutable-ivory.'"
All of this sounds rather complicated but in practice it need not be. Everything would work the same as it does now except in the initial contact, when you give out your email addy, you have to give a mailpass. And also, NO MORE SPAM.
I agree, somewhat. Basically what this article is saying is that they have $40K left over in spending money after every possible deduction has been taken.
Doesn't sound like much, but the average person, after payroll taxes, transportation costs, food, work equipment, repairs, and other necessary incidentals, is likely to be left with closer to $4K in their pockets. Plus they are usually stuck doing a job they hate, without the free booze, pot, sex and limo rides.
Really, although people unreasonably romanticize the amount of wealth it will generate, being a rock star isn't such a bad gig. You don't see too many successful musicians walking away from their careers to go wait tables.
Troll much? DRM technologies have been available for many years already. Did DAT eliminate audio piracy? Have DVDs eliminated video piracy? Has digital cable eliminated theft of services? Did XP stop OS piracy?
If there's one silver lining to all this it's that a heavily restrictive DRM technology will likely backfire upon those who use it. If you won't allow anybody to lend/trade/resell your creations, exposure will drop accordingly. Casual sharing is the grease that enables the small creator's works to spread about. Do you think AIM, ICQ, Napster, Kazaa, Linux, Gnome, Winamp, etc. would have achieved such widespread popularity without being freely available? Even Windows would never have gotten to where it is now without massive bootlegging. A lot of people who eventually paid for the ubiquitous Win95 and its successors "extensively previewed" Win 3.0, 3.1, and 3.11 for Workgroups for free first.
I was born in 1974. I wonder what happened in the 1950s - 1960s that caused such an upswing? I can't think of any popular celebrities named Ryan from that era. Any insights?
The upswing was in the 70's, likely due to the popularity of former heartthrob Ryan O'Neal.
FSAA, BTW, is tremendously difficult for video-cards to do (because they're actually rendering at 2x or greater resolutions): There is no current video card that could dream of doing even Urban Terror (a Q3 mod) at 1600x1200 with FSAA at acceptable frame-rates.
Sure. Just keep in mind that real-life video images automatically get "FSAA" when displayed on a TV screen, which is one reason why TV phosphors are nigh-invisible at much lower resolution than computer moniter pixels. The other reason is that you typically sit much closer to your computer monitor.
You're absolutely right about movies though. The pan-strobe effect is most noticeable if you're sitting in the first ten rows or so.
Re:The ./ obsession with a cashless society?
on
The Future of Money
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Oh, come on! The real reason they don't accept credit in Chinatown is that it would leave an indelible trail, and the marchants on Canal St. would be forced to declare their income and pay taxes on the sale of grey market and smuggled items.
And taxes, my friend are the reason why the government would love to have a non-anonymous (nymous? nymful? identible?) cashless society, and every small businessman in existence would hate it. As would lovers of privacy and freedom, but that goes without saying, I hope.
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I also happen to think if a VC invested money in a concern whose business model relied on giving people cancer, it ought to be liable too. If I invest in a narcostics dealing corporation down the street, I ought to be liable there too.
So what you're saying is that if you happen to have some Philip Morris or Pernod Ricard stock in your investment portfolio, you should potentially face unlimited liability? Little harsh, don't you think? Especially these days you can wind up with all kinds of stock from mergers and acquisitions.
4Gb should be plenty for you too, including OS, applications and your own data.
Troll much? [Insert 640K RAM joke here]
My email directory is over 1 Gb in size.
Legally bought and paid for applications (not data) take up 8.3 Gb
Offline usenet messages take up about 2.5 Gb.
Not to mention that a large fraction of people who use their PCs for professional/serious amateur work will easily use GBs of space. To burn a DVD of the family's vacation takes up 5Gb. Dual booting Linux and Windows will take a couple of Gb. DTP, programming, photo editing, music composition, online gaming, PVR, all of these can use up a tremendous fraction of a hard drive.
Frankly, unless you're auditioning for a part in the RIAA follies, I don't see why you feel entitled to tell people how much HD space they should be using in the first place.
Star Wars and LOTR, on the other hand, used more timeless, classical designs for both costumes and music. They will "last" much, much longer.
Very true. Instead of waiting 10 years to look dated, Star Wars costumes will always be in a permanent state of unfashionability! (Okay, there was that "Leia-do" that was in style for about 5 minutes in 1977.)
Seriously though, when Matrix becomes retro, it will still be cool. In fact, the manner in which it revels in the zeitgeist of its age will, in time, be what makes it an enduring artifact. James Dean, anyone?
I'm not going to pretend that I'm wedded to any particular point of view just to get a religious war going. Intel has undoubtedly done some, er, intel on this subject and has reached the same conclusion you have.
But I think, possibly, that Intel is underestimating the disproportionate mindshare that the enthusiasts have over the market. Who writes the chip and motherboard reviews? Guys like "Anand" and "Tom" (funny how it's always guys, ain't it?) who will wet their pants when they can get their hands on a chip that overclocks to 10K PCMarks in room temperature. These guys have kept AMD alive despite its losing the raw GHz race long ago. These guys are making ATi look like a champ again with its $400 card that 98% of the computer buying public won't even glance at.
In the end, it will probably depend on how much FUD Intel can spread with a smearish campaign that goes something like, "How can you tell if you've been stuck with a grey market CPU? Used to be you couldn't, til it was too late...But with Intel(R) SafeStep(TM) technology, your data will be protected...with Anyother Microprocessor Distributor, it's a roll of the dice."
Don't tell me you're one of those guys with the VTEC sticker and fat exhaust tip on your Honda Civic!
Dude, don't dis my hatchback Ford Focus!! SVT to tha max, bayyybeeeeee!
Um, no.
The solution, of course, is to keep the temperature in the "safe" range at the higher clock speed.
The whole point of this patent is that even though it borrows the temperature control circuitry to throttle the speed, it doesn't rely on measuring the chip's temperature to determine if the chip is being overclocked in the first place. In other words, it can't be tricked by keeping the chip cool.
In the final analysis, though, I think that having non-overclockable chips will backfire on Intel. Who wants a car that's been throttled to top off at 85 miles an hour, even if you might never have need to go faster in real life?
Not that it matters,
If you want it to matter, write or email the RIAA (snailmail is better) and tell them of your decision and the reason.
they'd have to prove that each album he offered caused 120,000 less copies of that album to be sold.
No, they don't have to prove that. All they have to do is prove to the judge that the copyright violation was "willful" and the Copyright Act allows for the judge, at his or her discretion, to impose up to $150,000 in statutory, (not compensatory or punitive) damages per infringement.
I happen to agree with you, but in court the arguement could be made that the "reasonable" man understands that knives are a dangerous weapon and so ought to treat them with care, but it's not "reasonable" to think that a toy/hobby robot will be used as a murder weapon. Hence the manufacturer ought to be held liable for negligently allowing this hazardous object to be misused by the public.
At the very least, it would probably need to come with multiple warnings. For example, right now I'm staring at a carton of soy milk upon which the following is prominently displayed: "NOT TO BE USED AS INFANT FORMULA" You would think someone would have to be an idiot to replace cow's milk with soy milk in a baby's diet, but, nevertheless, there you have it.
I wonder whether Fujitsu would be held liable if someone programmed one of these robots to kill somebody. I could see it argued in court that by using Linux, they made it "too easy" for any psychopath "hacker" or script kiddy to turn their toy into a dangerous weapon.
from what I understand, if you don't aggresively persue all potential infringements with legal action, you lose your copyright- its meaningless.
/. over the years.
To put it bluntly, you are dead wrong, as are all the other of hundreds of posters who've said the same thing on
In the US as well as in other signatories of the Berne Convention, you don't give up your copyright through neglect. Further, you don't have to register or publish something in order for it to be copyrighted. (Although you do give up certain rights.) And finally, if you do publish a work, you're not required to place a copyright notice on it.
All of this info is available at the LOC Copyright Office. One would think that on a tech-savvy site such as this, such misinformation would stop being so glibly circulated. I guess one would be wrong.
So as not to be coy, I'll point out that what you were doubtless thinking about was trademarks. Unlike copyrights and patents, trademarks (and servicemarks) don't automatically expire after a set time. However, if you don't protect them from being diluted, they can lose value and once that occurs, it is possible for you to lose your ability to prosecute others for unauthorized use of them. Note that even so it is a distortion to claim that you must aggrgressively pursue "all" potential infringements. Toys"R"Us, Inc. doesn't have to go after every single nickel and dime "Junk 'R' Us" store in the entire world. To the extent that they choose to do so is a matter for their legal staff to decide.
At least, that's my understanding. IANAL, either, and even if I were, it wouldn't mean I was right.
??? Not sure if I understand your point. I don't see that your personal experience in any way contradicts the results of the study.
As long as we're talking anecdotal experience, here's a little experiment that anybody can try in the safety of their own home. Call up any of your friends during their favorite television program. (Don't tell them you are using them as labrats.) Talk to them about something else other than the show. After the show is over, see how much they can recall about what they saw. I think you'll find that results will vary. Some people will ask you to call them back -- they simply can't talk on the phone and watch TV at all and they're aware of it. Other people will talk with you but really won't remember any of the show -- they become oblivious to their surroundings. Others will remember some of the show but will have missed a lot of it. Others will interrupt the conversation frequently while things are happening on TV -- their conversations will be disjointed because they want to focus the bulk of their attention on the screen. And a few rare people will be able to successfully multitask, watch their show while holding a full conversation with you on the phone. The last two groups are probably reasonably safe phone drivers. As for your other friends, try not to get into their cars if you can help it!
Now can we please make the next taboo not having a hands-free headset while driving?
Irrelevant. At least one study seems to indicate that it doesn't matter whether the phones are hands-free or not, the risk is still there. According to the same link, a previous study revealed that talking on the phone impairs driving ability significantly more than talking to other passengers in your vehicle.
That doesn't work if it is 10 below zero outside, or you are old, or you are in a bad neighborhood, or you are on the New Jersey Turnpike...
So for those few Americans who are driving from their jobs at a Newark crack den on their way home to their Buffalo retirement communities in the dead of winter, then yes, I'd absolutely recommend they carry a cell phone at all times.
For everyone else, having a phone seems rather optional, and perhaps even a liability. I'd wager that far more people have been killed by bringing their car phones than by leaving them home.
Thanks for that.
I'm still wondering why there is no mention in any of the reports about playback capability (or lack thereof) of the write-once format DVD+R, which should be playable on this machine, and on virtually any machine that can handle stock DVDs. I suspect it plays DVD+R's just fine, and a clarification will come out on this shortly.
It wouldn't even surprise me (wishful thinking mode) if Reuters got the specs wrong and it plays +RW also.
That's a good point, but in addition to that there's a more basic reason.
It's art for art's sake.
It's the same reason that some people still take pictures with pinhole cameras or the cult favorite Polaroid SX-70 despite the existence of far more sophisticated modern machines, or directors shoot films following the spartan rules of Dogme 95, or contemporary poets still compose sonnets, despite the existence of free verse poetry.
One can create something of great beauty within severe constraints. It's as if the self-imposed limitations force you to focus on the Art more than on the mechanics. Douglas Hofstadter would say it has something to do with "stripping away irrelevancies to get at the gist of things."
Another useful measure is the PoS, which is the amount of meaningless statistical crap dropped on average by each slashdotter per day.
E.G., this post contains one PoS, and so I've fulfilled my quotient.
That's all right. Frank Abate's response was EFFing great!
Kleenex has lost the ability to copyright/trademark (I never remember which) their name because it's become common usage.
This is patently false.
I would prefer a system like this:
In order for someone to successfully send you an email, they'd need a mailpassword which has been given to them by you. The mailpassword can be a general/universal password (anyone who knows that mailpass can send you email), or it can be a mailpass specific to the sender (the mailpass "crackhead" would only work if the sender was whittney@houstonn.com)
So for example, if I sign up for a mailing list at nytimes.com, I would have to give them both email address xqwaqa@xqwaqa.com, and a mailpassword "nytimespass". (Conversely, nytimes.com could auto-generate a random string and tell me to set my email program to receive mail from them with that auto-generated mailpass.) I'd only get email if they used the right address, xqwaqa@xqwaqa.com. On top of that, my email program would only open their email if the mailpass is correct. If, somehow, someone harvests the mailpass or guesses it, I can simply invalidate that mailpass and issue a new one to nytimes.com. Ideally, your email program would store your friends' mailpasses in its address book, so the system would work transparently to the end user. (These could be stored in encrypted fashion.) To be more secure, the mailpass could also be automatically changed/updated each time you exchange an email with a recipient. E.g. nytimes sends you an email with mailpass nytimespass. Your program sends them a receipt saying, "Okay, now the new password is 'immutable-ivory.'"
All of this sounds rather complicated but in practice it need not be. Everything would work the same as it does now except in the initial contact, when you give out your email addy, you have to give a mailpass. And also, NO MORE SPAM.
I agree, somewhat. Basically what this article is saying is that they have $40K left over in spending money after every possible deduction has been taken.
Doesn't sound like much, but the average person, after payroll taxes, transportation costs, food, work equipment, repairs, and other necessary incidentals, is likely to be left with closer to $4K in their pockets. Plus they are usually stuck doing a job they hate, without the free booze, pot, sex and limo rides.
Really, although people unreasonably romanticize the amount of wealth it will generate, being a rock star isn't such a bad gig. You don't see too many successful musicians walking away from their careers to go wait tables.
Troll much? DRM technologies have been available for many years already. Did DAT eliminate audio piracy? Have DVDs eliminated video piracy? Has digital cable eliminated theft of services? Did XP stop OS piracy?
If there's one silver lining to all this it's that a heavily restrictive DRM technology will likely backfire upon those who use it. If you won't allow anybody to lend/trade/resell your creations, exposure will drop accordingly. Casual sharing is the grease that enables the small creator's works to spread about. Do you think AIM, ICQ, Napster, Kazaa, Linux, Gnome, Winamp, etc. would have achieved such widespread popularity without being freely available? Even Windows would never have gotten to where it is now without massive bootlegging. A lot of people who eventually paid for the ubiquitous Win95 and its successors "extensively previewed" Win 3.0, 3.1, and 3.11 for Workgroups for free first.
I was born in 1974. I wonder what happened in the 1950s - 1960s that caused such an upswing? I can't think of any popular celebrities named Ryan from that era. Any insights?
The upswing was in the 70's, likely due to the popularity of former heartthrob Ryan O'Neal.
Why do I suddenly feel about 800 years old?
FSAA, BTW, is tremendously difficult for video-cards to do (because they're actually rendering at 2x or greater resolutions): There is no current video card that could dream of doing even Urban Terror (a Q3 mod) at 1600x1200 with FSAA at acceptable frame-rates.
Sure. Just keep in mind that real-life video images automatically get "FSAA" when displayed on a TV screen, which is one reason why TV phosphors are nigh-invisible at much lower resolution than computer moniter pixels. The other reason is that you typically sit much closer to your computer monitor.
You're absolutely right about movies though. The pan-strobe effect is most noticeable if you're sitting in the first ten rows or so.
Oh, come on! The real reason they don't accept credit in Chinatown is that it would leave an indelible trail, and the marchants on Canal St. would be forced to declare their income and pay taxes on the sale of grey market and smuggled items.
And taxes, my friend are the reason why the government would love to have a non-anonymous (nymous? nymful? identible?) cashless society, and every small businessman in existence would hate it. As would lovers of privacy and freedom, but that goes without saying, I hope.