When nobody has any money, sales are going to decline! Get over it, Record Industry! The "piracy" argument is overplayed at best - just like everything else the RIAA pumps out - and at worst it's a red herring.
Then why was 2002 a record year for the movie industry? Not every industry is effected in the same way by a general decline in the economy. Some industries do better in down times. It appears a lot of people are turning to cheaper forms of entertainment, like movies, when they can't afford more expensive ones.
You might actually expect music sales to rise during hard economic times. It would be interesting to see the historical numbers - anyone? If that were the case the drop in sales in 2001/2002 would be even more dramatic than the RIAA claims.
I don't know the answer to this, but blindly claiming the drop in music sales are only caused by the bad economy seems as short-sighted as blindly blaming it on file-sharing.
While I see the occasional need for 2 tuners, frankly sometimes even that sounds like overkill... I've also never figured out why you need the DVD burner. With so much disk in my Tivo, there is always stuff to watch, and my need for archiving stuff to watch again later is so small as to be unimportant. If I _really_ need it, a lot of it is at the video store for rent.
Well for a start if you had multiple tuners you'd fill up a lot more disk space. Don't forget that TV schedules are still very time-oriented so that similar programs are broadcast in "parallel". Currently you tend to pick and choose; with a multi-tuner setup you can have it all available on time-shift so you'll tend to eat up (even) more disk space.
Also, some programs are not available on DVD/VHS but you do want to store them for longer than a PVR will. A lot of (for example) home improvement shows like This Old House are useful to archive long term - if you're into home rennovation - but aren't easily available on VHS or if they are would cost a fortune to buy. I'll take a DVD burner option on my TiVo please.
Right now the public thinks PVRs are too complex, so the big vendors will probably be working to make them simpler rather than more complex.
I agree, but here's the rub. Having more than one tuner makes a PVR simpler to use not more complex. I want to be able to tell my PVR to record programs X, Y and Z regardless of when they are on. With only one tuner I have to manually resolve the conflicts when they overlap in time. Companies like TiVo (and I assume ReplayTV) have done a pretty good job of building UIs for this but its still the single most complex and confusing part of using a PVR - perhaps aside from initial setup.
Sometimes more complexity of the technology leads to a simpler user experience.
Microsoft, which told Motz on Thursday that shipping Java with Windows was not a simple matter and could harm large corporate users of Windows, is almost certain to appeal--a move the judge anticipated.
Does anyone have details of what Microsoft claims was so hard about installing Java with Windows? Given that Sun already provide a complete Windows installer why can't they do this in 120 days? How could this "harm large corporate users". I know Microsoft are just stalling, but what argument did they put forward to the judge? Clearly it wasn't that convincing...
The project was a great success, reached an altitude of 80,000 feet, and took some really amazing aerial photos.
The website, however, was not such a success, being Slashdotted in 80ms flat and, and disappearing with a sad little whimper.
Re:Wouldn't this be patenting the alphabet?
on
Palm Kills Off Graffiti
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I mean, it doesn't matter HOW you write the text, im sure some people write in uni-strokes as it is with a pen and paper without even knowing what it is.. How could Xerox patent a writing STYLE? Can I patent the way I make a capital P? Absurd!
RTFPA (patent application). The patent is for "A machine implemented method for interpreting handwritten text..." in other words it is the method for reading uni-strokes that is patented, not the Unistrokes themselves:
For reference, the most popular TV show last week was CSI, followed by Monday Night football. CSI got 13 points, Monday Night Football 11 (data here [yahoo.com]). So though a 2 isn't blockbuster (the lowest scoring show in the top twenty got a 6), it is still impressive. I don't know if farscape can do it.
For further reference, take a look at this page which shows the Nielsen ratings for all four seasons of Farscape. For season 4 it was averaging around a 1.4, so getting up to a 2.0 is not a huge leap, but it is some work.
Everything Dies... Best advice: Go out with a bang, don't wither and whimper. One more thing: less TV, more life.
Agreed, except that Farscape was written to be a five season show. One of the things that makes Farscape so exceptional is that it has a huge story arc running over all five seasons. Killing the show after the end of season four is particularly brutal because the storyline will never be resolved. They only had one season to go.
The guy *worked* for a legal company that had access to sensitive company documents. He *stole* the documents, then released them to the underground web sites.
This was not some clever hacker sitting in a basement and figuring a bunch of stuff out with a soldering iron in one hand and scope probes in the other.
What is illegal is that he obtained this information that is a trade secret of DirectTV. The fact that he obtained the information from a legal firm is not at issue - or he would be sued in civil court in breach of his NDA, not find himself in criminal court on industrial espionage charges.
Why does the mechanism by which he obtained those secrets important? Do you really believe that because it is done by a hacker this somehow magically makes it okay? What exactly makes obtaining trade secrets through reverse engineering alright, but doing so by reading documents in a lawyer's office illegal? It is the fact that he obtained and published the secrets that is wrong, not the manner by which he aqcuired them.
I'm -sure- they had to have had a non-disclosure agreement in place, especially working with a law firm. They guy broke the law and stole coroprate trade secrets. He should be arrested.
Now if he'd bought himself a DirecTV receiver and reverse-engineered the thing himself, and then got arrested, I'd scream "foul!".
This is very interesting. From the first paragraph you agree that this guy stole trade secrets and that this is wrong and illegal. In the second case where you reverse engineer, haven't exactly the same trade secrets also been obtained? Why is it okay to reverse engineer to gain access to trade secrets but not to copy a document with those secrets written on it?
It can't be the NDA, after all don't many EULA's (attempt to) forbid theft of trade secrets by reverse engineering or other means?
Is it because in the second case he buys a DirectTV receiver? If buying the device makes it okay to reverse engineer these trade secrets, then surely it would make the first case okay as long as he bought a DirectTV receiver? Would he need to buy it before or after copying the documents at his law firm?
Morally: if obtaining trade secrets without the express permission of the holder is wrong it shouldn't matter how you obtained them. It is the fact that you end up with them that's wrong.
802.11g is not a standard. The standard is not yet written. It is in a draft form. At the most recent 802.11 meeting it was in comment resolution and the text was being changed in significant ways.
Claiming compliance to 802.11g at this date is to lie.
All true, but note that Buffalo do not claim this. From the website linked in the submission:
"54g delivers the fastest possible data rate defined by the proposed IEEE802.11g draft specification"
and
" As you may know, IEEE802.11g is slated to be certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance in mid 2003. We understand this could affect current 802.11g technology. We are dedicated to ensuring that our customers have the most current and reliable products available on the market today. If the certification materially changes the principal operating features of our pre-standard 802.11g products, we will replace or upgrade any of those products at no charge and provide toll-free technical support."
So not only do Buffalo plainly state that this technology based on the draft standard, but they also offer free replacement or upgrade once the standard is ratified. Sounds like a pretty good way to deal with this. Doesn't at all sound like:
It is proprietary. Buy it and you are buying proprietary, non interoperal stuff. Kids, just say 'no'.
Try reading the links before getting on your high horse.
I mean, come on. Now spam is "Evil?" Annoying, yes. Illegal, maybe. Evil? Not a chance. This kind of rhetoric cheapens what real "evil" is.
May I beg to differ? Why thank you.
If you subscribe to the notion of "evil" at all, it comes in many shapes and forms. There are enormous evils like the Holocaust and Stalin's murderous rampages through the Soviet population. There are small but still potent evils like small boys torturing animals.
Obviously spam is not "evil" on the scale of the Nazis/pick your favorite world-scale evil. The interesting thing is that sending a single piece of spam is a very small evil. Does the fact that billions of these small acts of evil have been committed add up to a large evil?
"Suits" -- i.e., Microsoft, Sun, Apple -- create operating systems and software which appeal to wide swaths of people. They have to; they have something to sell and money to make.
"Geeks" -- i.e., most of the GPL community -- write software for the purpose of writing software. The end result is pure art in a way.
Well apart from being slightly offensive to commercial programmers this is both historically and currently incorrect. I know from personal experience that a large number of the people working at and running Apple very much do it for the love of programming - particularly creating exciting products. Apple was founded by geeks and dreamers.
From people I know who work at Sun the same spirit of geekdom and innovation exist there.
There certainly are many people in any large organization whose motives are more oriented towards profit and business. The strength of these companies is they combine both approaches to produce excellent products that people actually want.
Creating software for its own end is ultimately a waste of time and talent. The true test of good software is that it solves real problems and real people want to use it.
How much would your respect for your boss change if your boss took a paycut and you didn't have to. That is real leadership.
The small/medium sized company I work for had a hard start to 2002. Our CEO took a 20% pay cut and the rest of the senior management team (the VP level people) took a 10% pay cut. All other salaries were frozen. This does happen in the real world. For every idiot boss who thinks his folks want a bobblehead of him, there are many good bosses who know how to survive rough times.
My company is now doing better and 2003 should be a great improvement.
Yeah, and Pepsi should pay to get rid of my Mountain Dew cans, Sherwin Williams should pay to take care of those old paint cans in my basement, Goodyear should pay to get rid of the old tires in my garage, Johnson & Johnson should pay to dispose of the mercury thermometer in my bathroom and Napa needs to pay for my old antifreeze and motor oil.
Of course they should
Laws like this do nothing but raise costs for consumers. Does anyone in their right mind think HP, etc., will simply eat the cost of this? No. The only reason they're doing it is because it's in California (home base of American liberalism), and if they don't, they'll be totally demonized by militant environmentalists and human rights activists playing on your emotions rather than hard, scientific data.
So your proposal is that instead of making the consumers of particular goods pay the cost of their disposal, society as a whole should pay them. A general tax on everyone to pay for the choices of some. Sounds like a good dose of old-fashioned socialism to me. I don't think this is quite what you had in mind...
There are a number of fascinating museums and sites in the UK that chronical the industrial revolution. Start at Ironbridge which is literally where it all started - the first industrial scale ironworks were here. Also take in the National Railway Museum in York which details the rise and development of the railways. The Science Museum in London is a more general review of science and industry, but includes some fascinating exhibits on (mainly British) science of that time. Finally - representing an earlier pivotal period - is the Greenwich Royal Observatory also in London that tells the story of the development of accurate clocks that allowed global navigation and exploration.
The UK is full of historical sites of that era, when Britain lead the world in science and industry. A historically-inclined geek's paradise.
The British Broadcasting Company (the BBC) wanted to build a microcomputer in the early 1980s which they could use as part of their effort to promote national computer literacy. The idea was to have a standard machine that they could use in their TV shows - and viewers could buy one of their own and learn to use and program it by watching the shows.
After approaching several UK computer manufacturers they settled on Acorn. At the time Acorn were a leading supplier of micros, notable the Acorn Atom. The BBC contracted Acorn to produce a new more advanced version of the Atom which was designed and manufactured by Acorn but sold as the BBC Micro.
The BBC Micro was never sold as an Acorn machine, indeed Acorn produced their own rival (and much less successful) machine called the Electron.
So your equation is not strictly true, but its close.
...is Woz still so, um, strange? I owned (own, actually) an Apple ][+ and have been aware of him for many years, including the "US Festival" diversion. He has seemed like the member of the Beatles who never grew up.:)
Back when I worked at Apple (late 90's) I had the pleasure of meeting Woz a couple of times. I would not describe him as strange - he's a smart, funny guy who knows more about computer hardware than 99% of people on Slashdot (myself included). The stories he tells about the early days, phone phreaking, building the first Apple machines: great to hear them from "the horses mouth".
His work post-Apple in education is admirable. Most people with his level of wealth could restire to a fancy multi-million dollar house and play golf. Woz decided to give something back to the community he grew up in and became a high school teacher - and by all accounts a brilliant one. Now that's a mature and responsible person who has more than "grown up".
But with a name like the Woz, what can you do? He also symbolized the counterculture aspect of Apple Computer the startup, as opposed to Apple Computer the multibillion-dollar Jobs corporation.
Hah, Jobs was and to some extent still is every bit the embodiment of the counter-culture. In many ways Jobs is much more the arrested adolescent than Woz is. Go read this book which tells the tales of the early days of Apple Computer. You'll find a very different Mr. Jobs there. Those who knew him in those days tell me its a pretty accurate account.
You made a few wrong assumptions during your history review.
Well, even according to you it was only one:-)
The advent of personal computers was not due to available software, it was the availability of a computer that was available for a reasonable price.
I didn't (mean to) say it was because of available software. Its an issue of control. Mainframes were controlled by the IT staff. They decided what software you would run,l when you could access resources (CPU, memory, disk, printers, tape backup) etc. One of the significant advantages of the PC was that it was entirely owned by the user. You made all the decisions. People like that freedom.
No one in IBM suspected that homes would need computers, that computers are needed only for businesses and thus maintained their bulk of development in that area.
Actually IBM had an inkling (remember the PC jr?) but they had no clue how to capitalize on it - I know I worked for their PC division in the early 80's. The real issue was they were too heavily invested in the idea of corporate computing. They didn't believe that business users wanted a computer on every desk. Microsoft believed this - in fact "a computer on every desk" was their mantra. Microsoft won.
The great technology boom of the 80's and 90's - and the wealth that was created as a result - happened because ownership of Personal Computers became widespread. Microsoft and Intel were two of the key players that triggered that explosion. One of the most important reasons people brought PCs was because they could write or run any software on them. They were open systems controlled by the user - not a corporation. Unlike the mainframes and minicomputers that preceeded PCs you could run the software you wanted and you didn't have to seek permission from yourIT staff.
Does Microsoft really believe its best course is to enforce a return to the bad old days of corporate control of computing through Palladium and other DRM mechanisms? Doesn't this route open up the way for a competitor to give people what they really want - control over their systems? Isn't this the beginning of the end for Microsoft?
Dataplay, the Boulder-based manufacturer of quarter-sized recordable discs and drives...
Does this mean the discs are 25% of the diameter of a regular compact disc? Does it mean they are 25% of the area of a compact disc? Does this mean they are the size of a US 25 cent coin?
Even the Dataplay web site acts coy about the actual size, saying things like: "DataPlay is a miniature media that can be used to play, record and store anything digital." (from the FAQ)
Does anyone know how big these actually are (or were)?
most auto ticket things dont take into acount time ware you have no choice but to run a red light, for example if your sitting in the middle of an intersection tring to turn and the light turns red you have to turn or else your holding up trafic, the camera will take your pic
Poor example: you shouldn't move into the middle of the intersection until you can leave it safely too. The middle of an intersection is a really dangerous place to stop, which is why you shouldn't stop there. If you do, then you are (in most states) in violation of the traffic regulations and you should get a ticket, whether its from a camera or a cop.
Ya see, I don't figure the decline in CD sales as a result of piracy, or of changes to the consumer economic model. I think it is good old-fashioned grass-roots protest. I know, myself, I haven't bought a mass-market CD since the RIAA started their petty little lawsuits to drive everyone out of business, and I know I'm not the only one. I also know a good deal of friends who are using KaZaA(lite), Freenet, LimeWare, et al, in protest of the death of Napster.
So if I understand you correctly, you have stopped buying music and are instead downloading it for free from a variety of P2P networks. How exactly is this anything but "piracy"?
If you were refusing to buy music from RIAA members and weren't using the P2P networks, then you might be able to justify this action as a form of legitimate protest. At least be honest about what you are doing - you are avoiding paying for music. That's piracy. Trying to justify it as a "grass-roots protest" is lying to yourself.
If you really want to boycott the RIAA then by all means stop spending money on their products. Go buy music from the many small non-RIAA labels and artists. Just don't use P2P to pirate the RIAA's music.
Slashdot Mirror
When nobody has any money, sales are going to decline! Get over it, Record Industry! The "piracy" argument is overplayed at best - just like everything else the RIAA pumps out - and at worst it's a red herring.
Then why was 2002 a record year for the movie industry? Not every industry is effected in the same way by a general decline in the economy. Some industries do better in down times. It appears a lot of people are turning to cheaper forms of entertainment, like movies, when they can't afford more expensive ones.
You might actually expect music sales to rise during hard economic times. It would be interesting to see the historical numbers - anyone? If that were the case the drop in sales in 2001/2002 would be even more dramatic than the RIAA claims.
I don't know the answer to this, but blindly claiming the drop in music sales are only caused by the bad economy seems as short-sighted as blindly blaming it on file-sharing.
While I see the occasional need for 2 tuners, frankly sometimes even that sounds like overkill... I've also never figured out why you need the DVD burner. With so much disk in my Tivo, there is always stuff to watch, and my need for archiving stuff to watch again later is so small as to be unimportant. If I _really_ need it, a lot of it is at the video store for rent.
Well for a start if you had multiple tuners you'd fill up a lot more disk space. Don't forget that TV schedules are still very time-oriented so that similar programs are broadcast in "parallel". Currently you tend to pick and choose; with a multi-tuner setup you can have it all available on time-shift so you'll tend to eat up (even) more disk space.
Also, some programs are not available on DVD/VHS but you do want to store them for longer than a PVR will. A lot of (for example) home improvement shows like This Old House are useful to archive long term - if you're into home rennovation - but aren't easily available on VHS or if they are would cost a fortune to buy. I'll take a DVD burner option on my TiVo please.
Right now the public thinks PVRs are too complex, so the big vendors will probably be working to make them simpler rather than more complex.
I agree, but here's the rub. Having more than one tuner makes a PVR simpler to use not more complex. I want to be able to tell my PVR to record programs X, Y and Z regardless of when they are on. With only one tuner I have to manually resolve the conflicts when they overlap in time. Companies like TiVo (and I assume ReplayTV) have done a pretty good job of building UIs for this but its still the single most complex and confusing part of using a PVR - perhaps aside from initial setup.
Sometimes more complexity of the technology leads to a simpler user experience.
Microsoft, which told Motz on Thursday that shipping Java with Windows was not a simple matter and could harm large corporate users of Windows, is almost certain to appeal--a move the judge anticipated.
Does anyone have details of what Microsoft claims was so hard about installing Java with Windows? Given that Sun already provide a complete Windows installer why can't they do this in 120 days? How could this "harm large corporate users". I know Microsoft are just stalling, but what argument did they put forward to the judge? Clearly it wasn't that convincing...
The project was a great success, reached an altitude of 80,000 feet, and took some really amazing aerial photos.
The website, however, was not such a success, being Slashdotted in 80ms flat and, and disappearing with a sad little whimper.
I mean, it doesn't matter HOW you write the text, im sure some people write in uni-strokes as it is with a pen and paper without even knowing what it is.. How could Xerox patent a writing STYLE? Can I patent the way I make a capital P? Absurd!
RTFPA (patent application). The patent is for "A machine implemented method for interpreting handwritten text..." in other words it is the method for reading uni-strokes that is patented, not the Unistrokes themselves:
The patent
For reference, the most popular TV show last week was CSI, followed by Monday Night football. CSI got 13 points, Monday Night Football 11 (data here [yahoo.com]). So though a 2 isn't blockbuster (the lowest scoring show in the top twenty got a 6), it is still impressive. I don't know if farscape can do it.
For further reference, take a look at this page which shows the Nielsen ratings for all four seasons of Farscape. For season 4 it was averaging around a 1.4, so getting up to a 2.0 is not a huge leap, but it is some work.
Everything Dies... Best advice: Go out with a bang, don't wither and whimper. One more thing: less TV, more life.
Agreed, except that Farscape was written to be a five season show. One of the things that makes Farscape so exceptional is that it has a huge story arc running over all five seasons. Killing the show after the end of season four is particularly brutal because the storyline will never be resolved. They only had one season to go.
The guy *worked* for a legal company that had access to sensitive company documents. He *stole* the documents, then released them to the underground web sites.
This was not some clever hacker sitting in a basement and figuring a bunch of stuff out with a soldering iron in one hand and scope probes in the other.
What is illegal is that he obtained this information that is a trade secret of DirectTV. The fact that he obtained the information from a legal firm is not at issue - or he would be sued in civil court in breach of his NDA, not find himself in criminal court on industrial espionage charges.
Why does the mechanism by which he obtained those secrets important? Do you really believe that because it is done by a hacker this somehow magically makes it okay? What exactly makes obtaining trade secrets through reverse engineering alright, but doing so by reading documents in a lawyer's office illegal? It is the fact that he obtained and published the secrets that is wrong, not the manner by which he aqcuired them.
I'm -sure- they had to have had a non-disclosure agreement in place, especially working with a law firm. They guy broke the law and stole coroprate trade secrets. He should be arrested.
Now if he'd bought himself a DirecTV receiver and reverse-engineered the thing himself, and then got arrested, I'd scream "foul!".
This is very interesting. From the first paragraph you agree that this guy stole trade secrets and that this is wrong and illegal. In the second case where you reverse engineer, haven't exactly the same trade secrets also been obtained? Why is it okay to reverse engineer to gain access to trade secrets but not to copy a document with those secrets written on it?
It can't be the NDA, after all don't many EULA's (attempt to) forbid theft of trade secrets by reverse engineering or other means?
Is it because in the second case he buys a DirectTV receiver? If buying the device makes it okay to reverse engineer these trade secrets, then surely it would make the first case okay as long as he bought a DirectTV receiver? Would he need to buy it before or after copying the documents at his law firm?
Morally: if obtaining trade secrets without the express permission of the holder is wrong it shouldn't matter how you obtained them. It is the fact that you end up with them that's wrong.
802.11g is not a standard. The standard is not yet written. It is in a draft form. At the most recent 802.11 meeting it was in comment resolution and the text was being changed in significant ways.
Claiming compliance to 802.11g at this date is to lie.
All true, but note that Buffalo do not claim this. From the website linked in the submission:
"54g delivers the fastest possible data rate defined by the proposed IEEE802.11g draft specification"
and
" As you may know, IEEE802.11g is slated to be certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance in mid 2003. We understand this could affect current 802.11g technology. We are dedicated to ensuring that our customers have the most current and reliable products available on the market today. If the certification materially changes the principal operating features of our pre-standard 802.11g products, we will replace or upgrade any of those products at no charge and provide toll-free technical support."
So not only do Buffalo plainly state that this technology based on the draft standard, but they also offer free replacement or upgrade once the standard is ratified. Sounds like a pretty good way to deal with this. Doesn't at all sound like:
It is proprietary. Buy it and you are buying proprietary, non interoperal stuff. Kids, just say 'no'.
Try reading the links before getting on your high horse.
I mean, come on. Now spam is "Evil?" Annoying, yes. Illegal, maybe. Evil? Not a chance. This kind of rhetoric cheapens what real "evil" is.
May I beg to differ? Why thank you.
If you subscribe to the notion of "evil" at all, it comes in many shapes and forms. There are enormous evils like the Holocaust and Stalin's murderous rampages through the Soviet population. There are small but still potent evils like small boys torturing animals.
Obviously spam is not "evil" on the scale of the Nazis/pick your favorite world-scale evil. The interesting thing is that sending a single piece of spam is a very small evil. Does the fact that billions of these small acts of evil have been committed add up to a large evil?
Is evil additive?
"Suits" -- i.e., Microsoft, Sun, Apple -- create operating systems and software which appeal to wide swaths of people. They have to; they have something to sell and money to make.
"Geeks" -- i.e., most of the GPL community -- write software for the purpose of writing software. The end result is pure art in a way.
Well apart from being slightly offensive to commercial programmers this is both historically and currently incorrect. I know from personal experience that a large number of the people working at and running Apple very much do it for the love of programming - particularly creating exciting products. Apple was founded by geeks and dreamers.
From people I know who work at Sun the same spirit of geekdom and innovation exist there.
There certainly are many people in any large organization whose motives are more oriented towards profit and business. The strength of these companies is they combine both approaches to produce excellent products that people actually want.
Creating software for its own end is ultimately a waste of time and talent. The true test of good software is that it solves real problems and real people want to use it.
How much would your respect for your boss change if your boss took a paycut and you didn't have to. That is real leadership.
The small/medium sized company I work for had a hard start to 2002. Our CEO took a 20% pay cut and the rest of the senior management team (the VP level people) took a 10% pay cut. All other salaries were frozen. This does happen in the real world. For every idiot boss who thinks his folks want a bobblehead of him, there are many good bosses who know how to survive rough times.
My company is now doing better and 2003 should be a great improvement.
Yeah, and Pepsi should pay to get rid of my Mountain Dew cans, Sherwin Williams should pay to take care of those old paint cans in my basement, Goodyear should pay to get rid of the old tires in my garage, Johnson & Johnson should pay to dispose of the mercury thermometer in my bathroom and Napa needs to pay for my old antifreeze and motor oil.
Of course they should
Laws like this do nothing but raise costs for consumers. Does anyone in their right mind think HP, etc., will simply eat the cost of this? No. The only reason they're doing it is because it's in California (home base of American liberalism), and if they don't, they'll be totally demonized by militant environmentalists and human rights activists playing on your emotions rather than hard, scientific data.
So your proposal is that instead of making the consumers of particular goods pay the cost of their disposal, society as a whole should pay them. A general tax on everyone to pay for the choices of some. Sounds like a good dose of old-fashioned socialism to me. I don't think this is quite what you had in mind...
Is it just me, or is that the least appetizing lump of ice cream ever? I wouldn't eat that, no matter what had cooled it down...
There are a number of fascinating museums and sites in the UK that chronical the industrial revolution. Start at Ironbridge which is literally where it all started - the first industrial scale ironworks were here. Also take in the National Railway Museum in York which details the rise and development of the railways. The Science Museum in London is a more general review of science and industry, but includes some fascinating exhibits on (mainly British) science of that time. Finally - representing an earlier pivotal period - is the Greenwich Royal Observatory also in London that tells the story of the development of accurate clocks that allowed global navigation and exploration.
The UK is full of historical sites of that era, when Britain lead the world in science and industry. A historically-inclined geek's paradise.
BBC Micro == Acorn == Acorn BBC Micro.
Or more accurately:
The British Broadcasting Company (the BBC) wanted to build a microcomputer in the early 1980s which they could use as part of their effort to promote national computer literacy. The idea was to have a standard machine that they could use in their TV shows - and viewers could buy one of their own and learn to use and program it by watching the shows.
After approaching several UK computer manufacturers they settled on Acorn. At the time Acorn were a leading supplier of micros, notable the Acorn Atom. The BBC contracted Acorn to produce a new more advanced version of the Atom which was designed and manufactured by Acorn but sold as the BBC Micro.
The BBC Micro was never sold as an Acorn machine, indeed Acorn produced their own rival (and much less successful) machine called the Electron.
So your equation is not strictly true, but its close.
All of my friends get several copies of every Radio Shack flier, addressed to names like John P. Sartre, J. Wilkes Booth, J Philip Sousa, P Dadi....
Dude, you should inform your friends they were meant to fake the addresses too...
Back when I worked at Apple (late 90's) I had the pleasure of meeting Woz a couple of times. I would not describe him as strange - he's a smart, funny guy who knows more about computer hardware than 99% of people on Slashdot (myself included). The stories he tells about the early days, phone phreaking, building the first Apple machines: great to hear them from "the horses mouth".
His work post-Apple in education is admirable. Most people with his level of wealth could restire to a fancy multi-million dollar house and play golf. Woz decided to give something back to the community he grew up in and became a high school teacher - and by all accounts a brilliant one. Now that's a mature and responsible person who has more than "grown up".
But with a name like the Woz, what can you do? He also symbolized the counterculture aspect of Apple Computer the startup, as opposed to Apple Computer the multibillion-dollar Jobs corporation.
Hah, Jobs was and to some extent still is every bit the embodiment of the counter-culture. In many ways Jobs is much more the arrested adolescent than Woz is. Go read this book which tells the tales of the early days of Apple Computer. You'll find a very different Mr. Jobs there. Those who knew him in those days tell me its a pretty accurate account.
For those who don't know, the real Catweazle was a very eccentric British TV show of the early 1970s. A children's cult classic and no mistake.
You made a few wrong assumptions during your history review.
:-)
:-)
Well, even according to you it was only one
The advent of personal computers was not due to available software, it was the availability of a computer that was available for a reasonable price.
I didn't (mean to) say it was because of available software. Its an issue of control. Mainframes were controlled by the IT staff. They decided what software you would run,l when you could access resources (CPU, memory, disk, printers, tape backup) etc. One of the significant advantages of the PC was that it was entirely owned by the user. You made all the decisions. People like that freedom.
No one in IBM suspected that homes would need computers, that computers are needed only for businesses and thus maintained their bulk of development in that area.
Actually IBM had an inkling (remember the PC jr?) but they had no clue how to capitalize on it - I know I worked for their PC division in the early 80's. The real issue was they were too heavily invested in the idea of corporate computing. They didn't believe that business users wanted a computer on every desk. Microsoft believed this - in fact "a computer on every desk" was their mantra. Microsoft won.
I stand by my history lesson
The great technology boom of the 80's and 90's - and the wealth that was created as a result - happened because ownership of Personal Computers became widespread. Microsoft and Intel were two of the key players that triggered that explosion. One of the most important reasons people brought PCs was because they could write or run any software on them. They were open systems controlled by the user - not a corporation. Unlike the mainframes and minicomputers that preceeded PCs you could run the software you wanted and you didn't have to seek permission from yourIT staff.
Does Microsoft really believe its best course is to enforce a return to the bad old days of corporate control of computing through Palladium and other DRM mechanisms? Doesn't this route open up the way for a competitor to give people what they really want - control over their systems? Isn't this the beginning of the end for Microsoft?
Okay:
Dataplay, the Boulder-based manufacturer of quarter-sized recordable discs and drives...
Does this mean the discs are 25% of the diameter of a regular compact disc? Does it mean they are 25% of the area of a compact disc? Does this mean they are the size of a US 25 cent coin?
Even the Dataplay web site acts coy about the actual size, saying things like: "DataPlay is a miniature media that can be used to play, record and store anything digital." (from the FAQ)
Does anyone know how big these actually are (or were)?
most auto ticket things dont take into acount time ware you have no choice but to run a red light, for example if your sitting in the middle of an intersection tring to turn and the light turns red you have to turn or else your holding up trafic, the camera will take your pic
Poor example: you shouldn't move into the middle of the intersection until you can leave it safely too. The middle of an intersection is a really dangerous place to stop, which is why you shouldn't stop there. If you do, then you are (in most states) in violation of the traffic regulations and you should get a ticket, whether its from a camera or a cop.
Ya see, I don't figure the decline in CD sales as a result of piracy, or of changes to the consumer economic model. I think it is good old-fashioned grass-roots protest. I know, myself, I haven't bought a mass-market CD since the RIAA started their petty little lawsuits to drive everyone out of business, and I know I'm not the only one. I also know a good deal of friends who are using KaZaA(lite), Freenet, LimeWare, et al, in protest of the death of Napster.
So if I understand you correctly, you have stopped buying music and are instead downloading it for free from a variety of P2P networks. How exactly is this anything but "piracy"?
If you were refusing to buy music from RIAA members and weren't using the P2P networks, then you might be able to justify this action as a form of legitimate protest. At least be honest about what you are doing - you are avoiding paying for music. That's piracy. Trying to justify it as a "grass-roots protest" is lying to yourself.
If you really want to boycott the RIAA then by all means stop spending money on their products. Go buy music from the many small non-RIAA labels and artists. Just don't use P2P to pirate the RIAA's music.