I want to get one of these. Now, if they were to chop off a DP or so, then maybe my perpetually broke butt could afford one.
Also, offtopic, but it is possible to run a computer system off of a potato, lemon, whatever your fruit of choice is. If you remember your high school chem class, you rmember that the potato in such a system acts as the electrolyte in order to balance the equation, the real action is because of the voltaic differences of the batteries. So, given enough metal, it is possible to make a battery "powered" by a potato, but you're still using the same metals and technologies as a AA battery, just a lot more interesting of an electrolyte.
Did anybody else manage to catch the special MTV had on Napster yesterday? While reading Lars' responses to this interview, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the responses he gave on the special and the responses to/. Yeah, he does have a lot of good points, but I think that there is just a little bit more than just coincidence that he responds to the interview after the special on MTV came out.
I make a quip about somebody patenting a dog, and a few days later, I see this article about someone trademarking the scent of grass. Anybody got a killer virus handy, I think that extinction is the only way we can keep from looking like even bigger buffoons.
[Shaking fist in general direction of/.] Curse you, slashdot! Now I have to go and buy something else this weekend. Don't you realize how dangerous that is!?!?
Patents for certain things are idiotic, period. They're stupid for lines of code, and they're just as stupid for living things. If companies need to resort to patenting something so that it can remain useful and beneficial, maybe it's time that we see where an induvidual/comapany should be able to protect, and where it shouldn't. Already we have cases of companies trying to patent human genes, what's next, someone patenting a dog?
My goals are simple, earn money, write popular programs with massive backdoors so that I can get into any system with a jab at the weenie programers of my competition, and take over the world! No, wait, those are someone else's goals.
My real goals are much more simple and down to earth. I'm banging around a project in my head (still in the hope without wings stage) that I will probably work out a primitive, trial version over the summer, I want to do some OS hacking, maybe a little GUI work, just anything that suits my fancy. I try to keep an open mind about everything, but unfortunately, it means I could turn out to be a Computer Guy-Salesperson-Veterinarian-Poet-Author-Voiceover Guy-Screenplay writer-whatever else. I just plan on coding what I like, and what hasn't been done, and plan on having to throw all my knowledge away every ten years or so.
Just keep your heart in the right place, and don't feel all that bad when you find out that everything you've learned is worthless (they don't bother telling you it's worthless until after you've permanently rewired your brain to handle the new info).
Hey, once universal access happens, the Moon will enter the Seventh House, Jupiter will align with Mars, and we'll enter a new age of Enlightenment...
No, wait, all of that happened and I'm still miserable. Universal access will be a Good Thing but only if the big media players get it and realize that the net doesn't mean one to many like TV, radio, or even the written word. If Big Media continues to insist that they know best, the computer will continue to be just a toy, or worse, a device of corporate propoganda. Right now I see it as 50/50 between what should happen (universal, mostly unrestricted access), and what should never happen (corporate sanitization, very little freedom).
The slippery slope there is that it'll open the door to other after the fact laws. Imagine passing a law that said that anyone who ever drove a car would be thrown in jail for 6 months. Now I know, my example is a bit extreme, but it shows that the ex post facto clause does a lot of good, but in this case, it can do a lot of harm.
More importantly, lawmakers, by and large, are ignorant to the implications of the current copyright mess, and aren't likely to change anything, even if we were to have a "Million Geek March" sort of event, so the incredibly difficult requirements to get an amendment (why do you think there are so few ammendments considering all of the great legal issues over the past 200 years).
I'd like to preface this by saying that I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV.
Unfortunately, corporations with many lawyers and many dollars, as has been said before, will fight to extend the copyright for as long as possible, in twenty year increments. There is no real solution.
But we'll just set copyrights back at 20 years and set things right, you say. Well, remember those lawyers I mentioned earlier. As soon as you do that, they'll probably bring up something called ex post facto which means after the fact, and is unconstitutional. Which means that they'll say that making copyrights they applied for and receive for 95 years expire after 20 years is unfair, retroactive yadda yadda, they'll throw it out, and we'll be back at square one. But it sounds like a fun fight, all in all.
No, seriously, I think that the fact that they seriously challenge the Sparc speedwise says a lot about how overpriced the mainframe/large server processor market is. This means that we're going to (hopefully) see the server market get a little less expensive. But what'll probably happen is that when the large servers will get even more clocks, they'll discontinue the low end, and my electric bill will continue it's ever upward spiral.
I am forced to use Win98 at my work (hey, it's not my choice, I had my druthers, I'd be using Linux), and VBScript is used to automate the maintanence tasks such as scandisking, defragging, and tidying up the hard drive. Though that scandisk entry probably could be tossed, damn thing does it so much anyways when I have to reboot. Now the typical home machine, OTOH, has no need to be running scandisk.
IIRC, there are talks, rumors, etc. that they're going to put the Lone Gunmen in their own series. Here's a link, though it's a bit dated, that has a bit of rumor-mongering of such a series.
Yeah, it probably should have been done years prior, but open sourcing a piece of software that has outlived its purpose is a good thing. Now, this will give people who are just cutting their teeth on developing software a chance to use a program that they have had some familiarity with. Sure it may not be the same as Microsoft open sourcing Windows 98, or even Windows 3.1 (anyone else like program manager better than the d*mn start menu?), but it is a good step in the right direction.
Now, maybe this won't mean anything, maybe it'll mean that the community of Forums will be able to still turn to people with knowledge when their program breaks, maybe it'll mean that they'll inspire a new competitor. But it means that this program, unlike so many other commercial projects, will still live, even after it meets "commercial" death.
Now if only Microsoft would open source Win 3.1; it's much cooler than win 95.
Hey, this seems like they've got a great little piece of hardware here. Now if they would knock a little bit off the price, maybe my poor (or is that cheap) butt will buy one.
Although, maybe I'm a bit jaded over everybody oohing and awing over the color; hey, I'm colorblind, all that color nonsense is highly overrated.
> Why did this crazy law ever manage to get passed Two words, Corporate Greed. Us over in the states seem to be more and more at the mercy of large companies which make more money in a day than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes, combined. And if you know a good (read expensive) lawyer, you can do damn well whatever you want (OJ Simpson, anybody). Perhaps, though, this makes it perfectly obvious that we need to start putting "controversial" internet servers in countries such as Mexico, which, at least for now, don't have idiotic laws governing these actions.
MPEG-4 looks like it would be a very sweet codec to use if it was truly an open codec, and not one of these pieces of software that requires more money than the GDP of some small countries in order to use it. Now I see nothing wrong with short-lived (10-15 years) patents for physical items like a drug or a new polymer, but a few lines of code, something that can be reimplemented much easier than most big software houses would like to admit, it's almost at the point of being silly.
Now with MPEG-4, once it's cracked, it'll probably be like the issue with Unisys over GIF, or the fiasco over fractal compression. Everybody in the know knows how silly the software patent issue is, and unfortunately, I don't see it getting any better.
All that said though, the contest sounds noble, though you're dealing with a few very closed juggernauts, who have a marked tendancy to act very interesting when their stronghold is threatened.
I give a hearty here here to all those who have posted before me saying that HP's profiteering is one of the primary reasons for selling these printers. You look at the price of the printer, and you slurp it up because they are only about $150, and think that it would be a neat little toy. When you take it out of the box, and start printing with it, you discover that you need an ink cartridge every 900 or so pages (standard HP black cartridge yield), at 30-40 bucks a pop. Now HP also has a strong FUD marketing campaign that practically says that if you use a cartridge other than HP brand, your printer will spontaneously combust. So they've got a market for people buying cartridges every few months, which means about $15 income after the wholsaler's and retailer's cut, about $13-$14 pure profit for HP.
Plus, I think a PC with a TV card has much better geek appeal.
Well, at this point, I'm almost conceeding hacker to the black hats, so I'm talking about a replacement for hacker in the good sense. I chose haquer because it looks vaguely european (it doesn't mean anything AFAIK), and hacker sounds more like a person suffering the side affects of 200,000 cigarettes than a person who writes code.
Although, it would be interesting see the numbers of hackers with hacking coughs...
Let's see, I'm a hacker in the literary sense: the whole great works of literature thing doesn't appeal to me, just writing what I like. Now computers, I'm a marginal hacker: I'm working on my skills, can do some fixing and coding when needed, but I'm not at the point where you would want me coding the flight control systems for the jetliner you take when you fly off to destinations mundane. Now, I know a few people who are crackers, and who were called hackers by those who knew less. However, these people are also hackers as they do have some coding skills. However, I have also seen the iloveyou virus, which, though the media purports was written by a hacker, was writen by a script kiddee.
What does all this mean? I think it means that we need to start coining a few new terms for those with a bit of knowledge of computer systems, or prehaps a new term for me and my fellow literary intepts. Or maybe a new spelling for hacker in the programming/computer enthusiast meaning, Haquer perhaps?
I know I shouldn't be responding to something so blatently off topic, you may fire when ready. However, they got this figure by estimating the potential for business lost because of the factors of the virus (the overtime companies have to pay their IS dept., the lost reputation from having to down your mail servers to keep the damage from spreading too far, the public embarassment from saying your were infected, etc.). This is a monetary loss that we're going to see more often, not by a physical attack, but rather an attack on the limited human resources. Now I agree that that number probably is probably very high, and that the damage is a decent amount less, but this virus did cause a lot of damage in terms of wasted money, brains and time.
Slashdot Mirror
I want to get one of these. Now, if they were to chop off a DP or so, then maybe my perpetually broke butt could afford one.
Also, offtopic, but it is possible to run a computer system off of a potato, lemon, whatever your fruit of choice is. If you remember your high school chem class, you rmember that the potato in such a system acts as the electrolyte in order to balance the equation, the real action is because of the voltaic differences of the batteries. So, given enough metal, it is possible to make a battery "powered" by a potato, but you're still using the same metals and technologies as a AA battery, just a lot more interesting of an electrolyte.
Did anybody else manage to catch the special MTV had on Napster yesterday? While reading Lars' responses to this interview, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the responses he gave on the special and the responses to /. Yeah, he does have a lot of good points, but I think that there is just a little bit more than just coincidence that he responds to the interview after the special on MTV came out.
sorry, that link should have taken you here I appologize for any inconvenience.
I make a quip about somebody patenting a dog, and a few days later, I see this article about someone trademarking the scent of grass. Anybody got a killer virus handy, I think that extinction is the only way we can keep from looking like even bigger buffoons.
[Shaking fist in general direction of /.] Curse you, slashdot! Now I have to go and buy something else this weekend. Don't you realize how dangerous that is!?!?
Hey, it really is easy...
c = money in account
t = money thought to be in account
p = percentage of the moon that is full
the equation is:
c = [t^2 * (.80 ^ p)] / [t * (2p)^2 + 1]
This explains why the amount you think you have stays steady while the amount that's really in the bank cycles seemingly randomly
Sheesh!
My real goals are much more simple and down to earth. I'm banging around a project in my head (still in the hope without wings stage) that I will probably work out a primitive, trial version over the summer, I want to do some OS hacking, maybe a little GUI work, just anything that suits my fancy. I try to keep an open mind about everything, but unfortunately, it means I could turn out to be a Computer Guy-Salesperson-Veterinarian-Poet-Author-Voiceover Guy-Screenplay writer-whatever else. I just plan on coding what I like, and what hasn't been done, and plan on having to throw all my knowledge away every ten years or so.
Just keep your heart in the right place, and don't feel all that bad when you find out that everything you've learned is worthless (they don't bother telling you it's worthless until after you've permanently rewired your brain to handle the new info).
No, wait, all of that happened and I'm still miserable. Universal access will be a Good Thing but only if the big media players get it and realize that the net doesn't mean one to many like TV, radio, or even the written word. If Big Media continues to insist that they know best, the computer will continue to be just a toy, or worse, a device of corporate propoganda. Right now I see it as 50/50 between what should happen (universal, mostly unrestricted access), and what should never happen (corporate sanitization, very little freedom).
More importantly, lawmakers, by and large, are ignorant to the implications of the current copyright mess, and aren't likely to change anything, even if we were to have a "Million Geek March" sort of event, so the incredibly difficult requirements to get an amendment (why do you think there are so few ammendments considering all of the great legal issues over the past 200 years).
Unfortunately, corporations with many lawyers and many dollars, as has been said before, will fight to extend the copyright for as long as possible, in twenty year increments. There is no real solution.
But we'll just set copyrights back at 20 years and set things right, you say. Well, remember those lawyers I mentioned earlier. As soon as you do that, they'll probably bring up something called ex post facto which means after the fact, and is unconstitutional. Which means that they'll say that making copyrights they applied for and receive for 95 years expire after 20 years is unfair, retroactive yadda yadda, they'll throw it out, and we'll be back at square one. But it sounds like a fun fight, all in all.
No, seriously, I think that the fact that they seriously challenge the Sparc speedwise says a lot about how overpriced the mainframe /large server processor market is. This means that we're going to (hopefully) see the server market get a little less expensive. But what'll probably happen is that when the large servers will get even more clocks, they'll discontinue the low end, and my electric bill will continue it's ever upward spiral.
I am forced to use Win98 at my work (hey, it's not my choice, I had my druthers, I'd be using Linux), and VBScript is used to automate the maintanence tasks such as scandisking, defragging, and tidying up the hard drive. Though that scandisk entry probably could be tossed, damn thing does it so much anyways when I have to reboot. Now the typical home machine, OTOH, has no need to be running scandisk.
Hrmm...a Beowulf cluster of one-time genuii hampered by lawyers and huge bureocracies. I believe that it's right here
We now return you to your regular insanity.
Are you sure we have enough...
bullets that is
I dunno, sounds like a pretty sweet video card to me. Though it would probably leave a sour taste in your mouth after using it for a while...
IIRC, there are talks, rumors, etc. that they're going to put the Lone Gunmen in their own series. Here's a link, though it's a bit dated, that has a bit of rumor-mongering of such a series.
Now, maybe this won't mean anything, maybe it'll mean that the community of Forums will be able to still turn to people with knowledge when their program breaks, maybe it'll mean that they'll inspire a new competitor. But it means that this program, unlike so many other commercial projects, will still live, even after it meets "commercial" death.
Now if only Microsoft would open source Win 3.1; it's much cooler than win 95.
Hey, this seems like they've got a great little piece of hardware here. Now if they would knock a little bit off the price, maybe my poor (or is that cheap) butt will buy one.
Although, maybe I'm a bit jaded over everybody oohing and awing over the color; hey, I'm colorblind, all that color nonsense is highly overrated.
> Why did this crazy law ever manage to get passed
Two words, Corporate Greed. Us over in the states seem to be more and more at the mercy of large companies which make more money in a day than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes, combined. And if you know a good (read expensive) lawyer, you can do damn well whatever you want (OJ Simpson, anybody). Perhaps, though, this makes it perfectly obvious that we need to start putting "controversial" internet servers in countries such as Mexico, which, at least for now, don't have idiotic laws governing these actions.
Now with MPEG-4, once it's cracked, it'll probably be like the issue with Unisys over GIF, or the fiasco over fractal compression. Everybody in the know knows how silly the software patent issue is, and unfortunately, I don't see it getting any better.
All that said though, the contest sounds noble, though you're dealing with a few very closed juggernauts, who have a marked tendancy to act very interesting when their stronghold is threatened.
I give a hearty here here to all those who have posted before me saying that HP's profiteering is one of the primary reasons for selling these printers. You look at the price of the printer, and you slurp it up because they are only about $150, and think that it would be a neat little toy. When you take it out of the box, and start printing with it, you discover that you need an ink cartridge every 900 or so pages (standard HP black cartridge yield), at 30-40 bucks a pop. Now HP also has a strong FUD marketing campaign that practically says that if you use a cartridge other than HP brand, your printer will spontaneously combust. So they've got a market for people buying cartridges every few months, which means about $15 income after the wholsaler's and retailer's cut, about $13-$14 pure profit for HP.
Plus, I think a PC with a TV card has much better geek appeal.
Well, at this point, I'm almost conceeding hacker to the black hats, so I'm talking about a replacement for hacker in the good sense. I chose haquer because it looks vaguely european (it doesn't mean anything AFAIK), and hacker sounds more like a person suffering the side affects of 200,000 cigarettes than a person who writes code.
Although, it would be interesting see the numbers of hackers with hacking coughs...
Let's see, I'm a hacker in the literary sense: the whole great works of literature thing doesn't appeal to me, just writing what I like. Now computers, I'm a marginal hacker: I'm working on my skills, can do some fixing and coding when needed, but I'm not at the point where you would want me coding the flight control systems for the jetliner you take when you fly off to destinations mundane. Now, I know a few people who are crackers, and who were called hackers by those who knew less. However, these people are also hackers as they do have some coding skills. However, I have also seen the iloveyou virus, which, though the media purports was written by a hacker, was writen by a script kiddee.
What does all this mean? I think it means that we need to start coining a few new terms for those with a bit of knowledge of computer systems, or prehaps a new term for me and my fellow literary intepts. Or maybe a new spelling for hacker in the programming/computer enthusiast meaning, Haquer perhaps?
Anyways, all this can lead to confusion.
I know I shouldn't be responding to something so blatently off topic, you may fire when ready. However, they got this figure by estimating the potential for business lost because of the factors of the virus (the overtime companies have to pay their IS dept., the lost reputation from having to down your mail servers to keep the damage from spreading too far, the public embarassment from saying your were infected, etc.). This is a monetary loss that we're going to see more often, not by a physical attack, but rather an attack on the limited human resources.
Now I agree that that number probably is probably very high, and that the damage is a decent amount less, but this virus did cause a lot of damage in terms of wasted money, brains and time.