I don't think this is a good idea. While some pretty stupid things have been patented (One-click shopping, yeah that's revolutionary) the patent system in general works well. By works well, of course, I mean patents expire after a reasonably short time. I could understand a desire for shorter patent periods as 7 years is an eternity in the tech world, but creators of new ideas do deserve the oportunity to benefit from their work.
I'd wondered about this every time I read about Palladium and wondered what the rest of the slash crowd thought. If microsoft made their own box - the MicroPuter or something - with all of the hardware DRM and other goodies only in that box, made it only run windows (at least for a time being) would anyone care? Think of it like an Xbox that they admit is actually a computer. Not that I want Palladium or its ilk to succeed, but it seems like that would be a better way to introduce the concept to the market. Sort of like Macs originally were. You bought a computer, never mind what was in it or how it ran (or what operating system it had). You went and bought a toaster and were happy.
Just thoughts, time to start stocking up on non crippled hardware.
Is there any kind of polling or feedback - especially any whos results are public - to see what customers think about this? I'm certain if there is both sides it will spin it to their hearts content, it would be interesting to take a look at the raw numbers (so many customer support calls per unit sold, so many returns) and how they compare with both bare systems and windows pre-installed systems.
It'll never happen of course, but it would be nice.
Tell me about it. A useful link then (admitedly easily found via Google, but whatever): download older versions of Real Player (all the way back to v3, I run 8 but whatever works for you).
Re:Compression, compression, compression
on
Wireless Monitors?
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· Score: 1
I understand that principle. But would you ever play quake over VNC? I'm guessing probably not. And because this is a monitor, a general purpose piece of hardware, as a consumer I would assume it would be capable of displaying anything my video card was capable of pumping out. Otherwise it's like saying we should all be able to use old EGA monitors because command prompts are mostly just plain text.
Now if these are marketed not as general purpose monitors but more as "business only" - and even then, no graphics intensive businesses - then maybe.
Re:Compression, compression, compression
on
Wireless Monitors?
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· Score: 1
Do you really want the latency associated with compressing and then decompressing the video signal? Sure it may be a small amount of time but I'd imagine it's non-trivial.
granted it's a 10 character convention, but still:
[2 letters] - data center
[3 letters] - group name
[2 letters] - service type (wb, sq, lb)
[3 characters] - server number (A01, A02)
it works pretty well. For something with only one datacenter you may try some sort of physical location indicator rather than a data center name like server row number. It makes it a heck of a lot easier when you need to physically track down a server.
Re:THE BIG FREAKING POINT.
on
SSSCA Hearing
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· Score: 1
Damn straight politics don't happen on the internet. I wish they could, I really wish email carried the same weight as a letter or phone call, but because they're so easy to send (or mass send) they don't.
So I just called both of my sentators. It's 7:25 in the morning here so I had to leave voice messages but I still called. I told both of them I supported them in the past and I will continue to in the future if they keep my interestes in mind. I told them one of my hobbies is distributing short clips of older movies along with reviews and critques - a perfectly legal hobby - which this legislation would make illegal. I said that seemed wrong and unconstitutional. I also told them to contact me if they wanted to learn more about my stance on this issue.
My total time investment - 2 minutes. But now I KNOW my senator (or at least her staff and by proxy her) knows that there are some people out there who don't want to live in the United States of Disney.
I've heard both of these arguments before - if we change money we have to support and if we don't defend our copyright then someone will come out with Commander Keen does Dalas or somesuch. What I wonder is if it would be possible to develope something like an AGPL (abandon... yeah). Basically have a license publishers can release these "abandoned" games under that says you the user are free to use this game, distribute this game at no cost beyond the cost of distribution (just in case bandwidth costs become astronomical and covers things like ad banners on sites), and possibly port it to other platforms. You are NOT, however, licensed to create any derivative works (beyond porting to other platforms) or use artwork, characters, whatever from this title in any other work.
That way the publishers are happy because they're not liable for support and they've prevented the Keen Kills O-Town unlicensed titles from happening. Gamers are happy because they get to play the games that publishers no longer want to distribute or support. Abandonware sites are happy because now they're all nice and legal.
Probably never happen of course, but it could be nice.
Is attackable even a word? anyway. With the method the post describes ("I like Jimmy Buffett...") the RIAA may actuall - sort of - like the approach. If the device was limited to queries like "I like this type of music, do you have any other music that I may like based on my preferences?" as opposed to "Give me metallica - enter sandman" then they could perhaps get onboard. Because you never know what you're going to get, unless you're willing to spend eons in central park hoping to eventually happen upon the particular song you want this device is more like a marketing tool than a "pirating" tool. Sure copyrighted music is being traded, you're unlikely to get a whole album, but you ARE likely to find a new band you like and go buy a CD (or whatever is the norm then). I'd sure use one.
Of course this is all predicated on the RIAA not being too much of a bloodsucking leech in the future.
While their 4 criteria are good and all, I'm surprised there's nothing in there about leaving headers intact. After all, the company who's crap I'm learning about often isn't the company doing the email. They may have a legitimate unsubscribe link, but that removes me from the spam companies list for THAT CLIENT. they'll then happily add me to the list for all of their other clients. But if the headers were true I could (in theory) contact the spam co directly and save myself a ton of bandwidth.
hmm, come to think of it, that's probably why intact headers isn't a requirement.
The problem is the people on the other end of the contact information (which is invariably some long distance phone number) can always claim ignorance of their marketing firm's practice. After all, they assumed that CramItDownTheirThroats Advertising Inc. was a reputable agency to handle their marketing needs; and CIDTT Inc could care less what the some US regulatory commity says, their based in lower Tuvala where the rules don't apply. It just smacks too much of pointlessness.
Maybe I'm in the distinct minority, but most of my SPAM doesn't come from any real reputable marketing firm. Email sent from a company that uses forged headers so I don't know who they are doesn't seem very likely to be an upstanding member of the Direct Marketing Association. It's like saying "Look, we've outlawed guns, now criminals won't shoot people"... but that's a whole other can of worms.
given the many discussions on/. of late re: full disclosure of security holes, partial disclosure, disclosure to the company only, etc - what does the crowd here think of the way these exploits have been handled? The story says the Litchfield has commented publicly and explicitly on the nature of one of the holes that already has a patch available, but that he's holding close the holes that have patches still under development.
I guess another question would be, while Oracle is by no means a small company, if the company name started with an M and ended with 'icrosoft' would we be demanding more information?
I guess some people might not equate free software choice and patriotism...
I think most people won't equate free software choice with patriotism... at least not right away. If I knew - or really cared - little about computers and I go and see two candidates, one who's saying he loves babies and wants to lower taxes, and the other who says he wants to not use microsoft products because it's patriotic, I'm going to lump the second guy in with the guy who wants to stop childhood vaccinations because it's really a secret biological war conducted by the governemnt. Now if he says that he wants to switch to save me money, then says it's also good for the country because choice means competition means better products and (probably) more jobs, then go for it, but he has to hook me first.
I imagine you'd have a hard sell anywhere if you were trying to put your emphasis on the freedom of choice/speach side of Linux/OSS use in government. Tell the people you're trying to save them money, to use their tax dollars wisely, and that you feel by not spending recurring large amounts of money on software licenses (as one of a many pronged approach) you can do that. Hopefully they'll see that you're trying to use the hard earned money they gave you to use as best and efficiently as possible.
It's a plug for the Evil Empire, but their natural keyboards have a small usb hub built in now. They've also got an array of "Internet Buttons" along the top that are basically useless to me, but I've been using my USB mouse through it just fine.
Also, the HP machines at the EE department of my alma matterhad headphone and mic ports in them. It may not be as convenient as if they were in the monitor, but then again it's a smaller sting to replace a keyboard than a monitor if things start to flake out.
... but you can only get arrested for driving without one. If the U.S. domestic response to terrorism starts to resemble Zimbabwe's, which passed a law in November making it compulsory to carry ID on pain of fine or imprisonment, well, that's something to worry about.
I guess I'd always sort of been blinded by the concept of an enormous tracking database that it never really occured to me that they couldn't track me (beyond, say, tax or health care information - which is bad enough) if I just didn't carry or use Larry's national ID card. Boy, if we let this get out of hand it won't be long until our Ws sound like Vs and "Papers Please" is a common saying.
It would certainly help me. I'd no longer have to explain to my parents that even though they bought a 30 GB hard drive it's going to show up as 27.6 GB, and that that's normal. And no it's not false advertising, it's math.
The industry says it needs to use the lock-box approach to music to prevent consumers, armed with CD-authoring software and hardware and a quick Internet connection, from downloading and burning the recording industry out of existence.
A slip in the PR department: note it doesn't say jack about the artists.
I've always wondered something about this solution, and this isn't meant to be flamebait. If Microsoft opens up the doc format - and must keep it open for a certain length of time - are they locked into that doc format for the entire length of the "open" period or are they allowed to still add features. If Office XP can't, say, embed video files into word docs does that functionality now have to be kept out of Office STR and Office DEX? or are they allowed to update the spec. Of course that leads to the "update a month" sort of problem. It's just something I've never seen addressed in any of the calls for open doc standards.
I wasn't commenting on this particular example (well I guess technically I was). But it's the "I have to run windows2k to handle my text-braille converter for my blind son, oh please don't hate me for using a microsoft product" kind of comments that I see more of lately.
yeah yeah win2K i know... its only my multimedia box
It's really pretty sad that we have to say stuff like this. Isn't one of the (many) mantras around here to use whatever tool works the best for you (which is often argued when switching from win2k to linux). For those of us who can't just "code our own" if a solution isn't available in one platform we use another. sheesh.
It seems like it would be all but useless to have much more than 1024x768 on a laptop screen (well, maybe a little larger would be nice). 1600x1200 would be too small to be useful for me I would think. If you want a higher resolution you should probably just hook it up to an external CRT.
Slashdot Mirror
remove patents entirely
I don't think this is a good idea. While some pretty stupid things have been patented (One-click shopping, yeah that's revolutionary) the patent system in general works well. By works well, of course, I mean patents expire after a reasonably short time. I could understand a desire for shorter patent periods as 7 years is an eternity in the tech world, but creators of new ideas do deserve the oportunity to benefit from their work.
Just thoughts, time to start stocking up on non crippled hardware.
It'll never happen of course, but it would be nice.
Tell me about it. A useful link then (admitedly easily found via Google, but whatever): download older versions of Real Player (all the way back to v3, I run 8 but whatever works for you).
m l
http://proforma.real.com/real/player/blackjack.ht
I understand that principle. But would you ever play quake over VNC? I'm guessing probably not. And because this is a monitor, a general purpose piece of hardware, as a consumer I would assume it would be capable of displaying anything my video card was capable of pumping out. Otherwise it's like saying we should all be able to use old EGA monitors because command prompts are mostly just plain text.
Now if these are marketed not as general purpose monitors but more as "business only" - and even then, no graphics intensive businesses - then maybe.
Do you really want the latency associated with compressing and then decompressing the video signal? Sure it may be a small amount of time but I'd imagine it's non-trivial.
Give what bill this statement appears in I'm guessing they're going for the free as in beer rather than free as in speech.
granted it's a 10 character convention, but still:
[2 letters] - data center
[3 letters] - group name
[2 letters] - service type (wb, sq, lb)
[3 characters] - server number (A01, A02)
it works pretty well. For something with only one datacenter you may try some sort of physical location indicator rather than a data center name like server row number. It makes it a heck of a lot easier when you need to physically track down a server.
So I just called both of my sentators. It's 7:25 in the morning here so I had to leave voice messages but I still called. I told both of them I supported them in the past and I will continue to in the future if they keep my interestes in mind. I told them one of my hobbies is distributing short clips of older movies along with reviews and critques - a perfectly legal hobby - which this legislation would make illegal. I said that seemed wrong and unconstitutional. I also told them to contact me if they wanted to learn more about my stance on this issue.
My total time investment - 2 minutes. But now I KNOW my senator (or at least her staff and by proxy her) knows that there are some people out there who don't want to live in the United States of Disney.
That way the publishers are happy because they're not liable for support and they've prevented the Keen Kills O-Town unlicensed titles from happening. Gamers are happy because they get to play the games that publishers no longer want to distribute or support. Abandonware sites are happy because now they're all nice and legal.
Probably never happen of course, but it could be nice.
Is attackable even a word? anyway. With the method the post describes ("I like Jimmy Buffett...") the RIAA may actuall - sort of - like the approach. If the device was limited to queries like "I like this type of music, do you have any other music that I may like based on my preferences?" as opposed to "Give me metallica - enter sandman" then they could perhaps get onboard. Because you never know what you're going to get, unless you're willing to spend eons in central park hoping to eventually happen upon the particular song you want this device is more like a marketing tool than a "pirating" tool. Sure copyrighted music is being traded, you're unlikely to get a whole album, but you ARE likely to find a new band you like and go buy a CD (or whatever is the norm then). I'd sure use one.
Of course this is all predicated on the RIAA not being too much of a bloodsucking leech in the future.
While their 4 criteria are good and all, I'm surprised there's nothing in there about leaving headers intact. After all, the company who's crap I'm learning about often isn't the company doing the email. They may have a legitimate unsubscribe link, but that removes me from the spam companies list for THAT CLIENT. they'll then happily add me to the list for all of their other clients. But if the headers were true I could (in theory) contact the spam co directly and save myself a ton of bandwidth.
hmm, come to think of it, that's probably why intact headers isn't a requirement.
The problem is the people on the other end of the contact information (which is invariably some long distance phone number) can always claim ignorance of their marketing firm's practice. After all, they assumed that CramItDownTheirThroats Advertising Inc. was a reputable agency to handle their marketing needs; and CIDTT Inc could care less what the some US regulatory commity says, their based in lower Tuvala where the rules don't apply. It just smacks too much of pointlessness.
Maybe I'm in the distinct minority, but most of my SPAM doesn't come from any real reputable marketing firm. Email sent from a company that uses forged headers so I don't know who they are doesn't seem very likely to be an upstanding member of the Direct Marketing Association. It's like saying "Look, we've outlawed guns, now criminals won't shoot people"... but that's a whole other can of worms.
given the many discussions on /. of late re: full disclosure of security holes, partial disclosure, disclosure to the company only, etc - what does the crowd here think of the way these exploits have been handled? The story says the Litchfield has commented publicly and explicitly on the nature of one of the holes that already has a patch available, but that he's holding close the holes that have patches still under development.
I guess another question would be, while Oracle is by no means a small company, if the company name started with an M and ended with 'icrosoft' would we be demanding more information?
I guess some people might not equate free software choice and patriotism...
I think most people won't equate free software choice with patriotism... at least not right away. If I knew - or really cared - little about computers and I go and see two candidates, one who's saying he loves babies and wants to lower taxes, and the other who says he wants to not use microsoft products because it's patriotic, I'm going to lump the second guy in with the guy who wants to stop childhood vaccinations because it's really a secret biological war conducted by the governemnt. Now if he says that he wants to switch to save me money, then says it's also good for the country because choice means competition means better products and (probably) more jobs, then go for it, but he has to hook me first.
I imagine you'd have a hard sell anywhere if you were trying to put your emphasis on the freedom of choice/speach side of Linux/OSS use in government. Tell the people you're trying to save them money, to use their tax dollars wisely, and that you feel by not spending recurring large amounts of money on software licenses (as one of a many pronged approach) you can do that. Hopefully they'll see that you're trying to use the hard earned money they gave you to use as best and efficiently as possible.
Hopefully.
It's a plug for the Evil Empire, but their natural keyboards have a small usb hub built in now. They've also got an array of "Internet Buttons" along the top that are basically useless to me, but I've been using my USB mouse through it just fine.
Also, the HP machines at the EE department of my alma matterhad headphone and mic ports in them. It may not be as convenient as if they were in the monitor, but then again it's a smaller sting to replace a keyboard than a monitor if things start to flake out.
... but you can only get arrested for driving without one. If the U.S. domestic response to terrorism starts to resemble Zimbabwe's, which passed a law in November making it compulsory to carry ID on pain of fine or imprisonment, well, that's something to worry about.
I guess I'd always sort of been blinded by the concept of an enormous tracking database that it never really occured to me that they couldn't track me (beyond, say, tax or health care information - which is bad enough) if I just didn't carry or use Larry's national ID card. Boy, if we let this get out of hand it won't be long until our Ws sound like Vs and "Papers Please" is a common saying.
*shudder*
It would certainly help me. I'd no longer have to explain to my parents that even though they bought a 30 GB hard drive it's going to show up as 27.6 GB, and that that's normal. And no it's not false advertising, it's math.
The industry says it needs to use the lock-box approach to music to prevent consumers, armed with CD-authoring software and hardware and a quick Internet connection, from downloading and burning the recording industry out of existence.
A slip in the PR department: note it doesn't say jack about the artists.
I've always wondered something about this solution, and this isn't meant to be flamebait. If Microsoft opens up the doc format - and must keep it open for a certain length of time - are they locked into that doc format for the entire length of the "open" period or are they allowed to still add features. If Office XP can't, say, embed video files into word docs does that functionality now have to be kept out of Office STR and Office DEX? or are they allowed to update the spec. Of course that leads to the "update a month" sort of problem. It's just something I've never seen addressed in any of the calls for open doc standards.
I wasn't commenting on this particular example (well I guess technically I was). But it's the "I have to run windows2k to handle my text-braille converter for my blind son, oh please don't hate me for using a microsoft product" kind of comments that I see more of lately.
yeah yeah win2K i know... its only my multimedia box
It's really pretty sad that we have to say stuff like this. Isn't one of the (many) mantras around here to use whatever tool works the best for you (which is often argued when switching from win2k to linux). For those of us who can't just "code our own" if a solution isn't available in one platform we use another. sheesh.
Well, there goes my karma.
It seems like it would be all but useless to have much more than 1024x768 on a laptop screen (well, maybe a little larger would be nice). 1600x1200 would be too small to be useful for me I would think. If you want a higher resolution you should probably just hook it up to an external CRT.