Dolby should be making their money from the studio recording equipment. They sell a lot of stuff to the recording industry, and audio component manufacturers can license their stuff for players fairly cheaply, IIRC. That said, it's been a while since I cared deeply about that industry, so things may have changed - but the last time I checked, the Dolby business model was heavy on the front (recording) end of the process. So - maybe some smart lawyer-type from the FSF should give 'em a call and see if a one-time "license fee" could be paid to enable open development and distribution, so long as it was in a GPL'd product?
The question that's bugging me is - can the free package be used to generate recordings using the Dolby technology?
Dolby should be happy to let anyone build anything that can playback - playback is good, playback means their "standard" is supported, that their technology is building a following, and that things recorded with their technology are being played "properly." Recording, on the other hand... these folks make their living coming up with these technologies, and their main revenue stream is in the recording side of the industry. They should be willing to license a software player for free (or dirt cheap)(IANAL), but a recorder - that could be tricky. Not much hope there.
The big difference between this and DeCSS, IMHO, is the fact that without this, you can still listen to the music - it just won't be "Dolby-ized."
_A Company of Stars_ was one of my favorite Stasheffs, but he seems to have stopped with the third book in what could have been a very long and entertaining series. _We Open On Venus_ (book 2) was preachy, and the third (and so far final) book (the name escapes at the moment) was a recycling of the plot of Book II - actors come in, get censored, stir up rebellion (knowingly or unknowingly), leave town with the cops at their heals. The difference between books 2 and 3 was the settings - Company Planet vs. Planet of the Religious Zealots. Both strongly stereotyped (the better to build plots agains) and both easily outwitted by the acting troupe.
The name of the series was fun, too - "Starship Troupers."
In some corporations, managers at a certain level MUST retain all email. Even trivial crud like going-away parties, or "The network is going down at 5 pm" - in these lawsuit-happy days, it's evidence.
I was forced to take Project Management I (out of 4 - they needed someone to interpret between the bean-counters and the techies, and I could write coherently) and the first rule they tell our PMs is Never Delete Anything.
Not that they can't archive it off, back it up, or store it on the local file server, like good Managers - but that would require Thought.
Spam will happen until it's unprofitable. While your response is the "right thing" there are too many people out there who only care about what's right for them, and don't care what they're subjecting the rest of us to.
Yeah, a lot of the cost has happened already - but the only way spam won't get sent is if it doesn't get seen. Granted, the economics are still heavily in "their" favor - sending 1000 scattershot emails over a "free trial" Juno account for a.1% reply rate still makes profit.
It's not just that it reduces the irritation factor - the only way people will ever stop sending UCE is if it doesn't make it through to end-users. Period. Yes, the farther upstream it can be blocked, the better for all downstream... but unless and until there's a way to drive these idiots off the net entirely, it's going to happen.
*sigh* I got serious again - Obviously, I'm not filtering my mail correctly:-)
So I need to be blocking it further up the line... procmail's obviously not a sufficient solution either....
Maybe what's needed is a way to have spam rejected before it gets sent... have the originating mail server bounce it... no, not strong enough... have the originating mail client bounce it... no, not strong enough either...
How's about this: when a spammer hits "SEND", a pair of robotic arms reaches out of the keyboard and chops off their hands at the wrists! That'll stop Spam, won't it?
Maybe that's not far enough upstream, either. Maybe hands are too low... aim higher maybe? Decapitation, anyone?
If your software design is OO, then to store data, you're having to disassemble what can be complex OO relationships, "flatten" them, and store them into relational tables. With an OODBMS, you can have your objects "store" themselves. The problem's even more complex when you look at reassembling objects from relational tables - the famed "impedance mismatch" that my friend Thad Scheer is always talking about.
One of the issues I've argued with OODBMS vendors is how to do ad-hoc queries. Some of them provide SQL interfaces to let you access the OO database, meaning they're mirroring their OO structure with a relational structure - but the query responsiveness always bites. Just don't try to do complex joins - they ain't worth the effort (yet).
As for reusing the database - if you have access to the object model, you can reuse the database - and each vendor has their own ways to make different parts visible to different applications.
Here's to Comrade Yuri, who took immeasurable risks for his country, and accellerated the momentum started by Sputnik which led to Mankind's great achievement - Apollo 11!
Don't forget "Driving in the Spikes" (or was it Nails) from The Essential Ellison.
Folks, this guy's been serious about copyright for a lot longer than there's been an Internet. In that essay, he describes his campaign to recover rights to a story after the publisher violates the terms of his contract (they published his story in a paperback with cigarette ad inserts - used to be quite common, in the 50s). Harlan started off as polite as he ever is, and ended up performing various acts of terrorism - read the story for details.
The all-caps thing has to be a fluke. Unless he's temporarily crippled and using some kind of alpha-talker, he knows better.
Well, I didn't count them out... I probably should have made it clear(er) that they're not one of the first ones we think of.
I don't underestimate IBM... but I also think a Sun E10K ranks right up there with the E/390s. Oracle scales to the terrabyte range (albeit painfully)... I've worked with a lot of different kinds of systems, and I haven't found one yet where we can't make Oracle work (note the phrase - not that it's always our choice, but sometimes you use what the customer already has an enterprise license for:-).
Someday, I'll probably get handed a DB2 CD set and told to make a system work with it. As long as it talks SQL, we can do this.
Yes, there is a difference. No, it can't really be explained here (not that people - myself included - won't try).
mySQL doesn't do lots of things, like 2-stage commits, rollbacks, remote replication. Access is a horrible excuse for a "database" and shouldn't be considered for use by more than one user at a time, ever. Postgres and other open-source RDBMSs are closer to having the "full feature set" that the commercial vendors advertise, but are still a couple of generations behind the technology curve and can have some serious support issues if you don't want to grow your own internal database hackers (which most companies don't want to do).
Then you get into high-availablilty, massive data storage requirements, huge transaction-per-second rates, complex apps where you want to enforce rules in the database... these are the areas where the commercial databases compete with one another. Oracle, Informix, Sybase, and SQL Server are the big names we consider most when we start thinking about a project, although IBM keeps trying to make DB2 a competitor. For personal and small group use, heck, PHP and mySQL works great. For Amazon.com, it's a different story, and for the back-office types that crunch lots of data lots of times (insurance companies, etc.) mySQL doesn't even show up on the radar.
The Together tool from Togethersoft will ingest things and spit other things out, from DDL to C++ to EJBs. Cost $$, but they have to keep Peter Coad in beanbag chairs and whiteboard markers. Most excellent C++/Java object modeling and development tool, and they've been enhancing their database stuff - at least get the 30 day free trial;-)
Hmmm... that IS an interesting question... what's the behavior of these high-temperature superconductors when they lose cooling? If they're carrying a load and start losing superconductivity... is it an all-at-once thing, or is there a resistance curve? Would the transmission system be able to sense it, or would we have a "blasting cap" effect as the material quickly heated?
I say "blasting cap" because I recall a guy I used to work for in the radio industry, who'd once worked in quarries... to detonate explosives, they'd run about 1000 times more power through a transistor than it was rated for, and the ceramic would heat, expand, and then explode, triggering the real explosives... this is the same guy who showed me diodes from lightning-struck equipment that let current flow freely both ways.
Silver is highly reactive - atomic oxygen (not the O2 we breathe, but the O1 that floats around in LEO) eats the stuff up, destroying its conductivity.
Spacecraft component design used to be a black art - there's now a known science to it, with educated guesses being used every few years when someone flies a new substance or technology. One of the few good things to come of the Challenger accident was that the LDEF (Long-Duration Exposure Facility) satellite got left in orbit much longer than planned. We learned a lot from what was left of the different substances that had been left in orbit.
And just because I have to borrow this tagline once: Space is big, space is dark
It's hard to find a place to park
- Burma-Shave
Flexibility is one thing, but launch costs haven't come down enough for the Express to be a "F-B-C Special" yet. It had waivers out the wazoo when it was seriously being studied.
Another thing damaging the Express was the probable need for RTGs (radioisotope thermal generators). Given the brouhaha when they launched the last Saturn explorer, with its "kill-the-planet" load of plutonium (puh-leeze), NASA probably doesn't want to fight that PR campaign again.
Then again, shipping plutonium to Pluto has a certain cachet, doesn't it? (*grin*)
Success of any community is dependent on two groups - the leadership and the membership.
Leadership is required to give focus, do the grunge work, and set (if not enforce) the community norms.
Membership requires mainly that the people involved actually care enough to stay involved.
I'm a member of an online community, and a leader in that group. They got their start on Prodigy, playing Rebel Space, and established a virtual sense of "place" on the Prodigy message boards. Over years, people gathered to meet in person, developed alliances, friendships, and emnities, and all of a sudden there was a "comminuty" there. Once the game (and the boards) were dropped, they took responsibility for maintaining their connection by creating a home for themselves on the Internet.
We argue, we fight, we have lame flamers - but the ones who really don't work out, so far, have left on their own. Even without the original glue that pulled folks together (the Rebel Space game), the group exists - not bad, eh?
You're a person of broad interests, with friends and acquaintances that span the globe. Who are the people you consider "most interesting," and why should others pay attention to them?
Careful - that's a great way to end up getting escorted out the door by security, or sued later by the company you left.
PHBs may not understand code, but they understand the concept of recruiting their smartest people out from under them and taking them with you when you go - often, employment contracts are set up to specifically prohibit such behavior. Lawyers love that stuff.
Agreed. If your buddies are good folks, they can find good jobs. Let them know you're heading out - be up front and honest, even if management asks you to "keep it quiet" so they can panic and bail first.
It's hard to make choices that affect your friends, but you're all adults. The only thing you can do by sticking with a sinking ship is add to the body count.
There's been quite a bit on Slashdot about Linux (and BSD) security. Bastille Linux is about "hardening" standard Linux installations, the NSA has their own version that they've been mucking about with internally. So, questions:
Is there a need for something like Bastille for FreeBSD? There shouldn't be a need for it with TrustedBSD, should there?
Have you looked at what the NSA did to Linux and attempted to extract from it? Are there modifications they made that apply to TrustedBSD, either in source code or in spirit?
Ummm.. sir? Since your genetic material is found in every cell of your body, plus all the cells your body has shed throughout your lifetime, your eyes won't be enough to protect our Intellectual Property(tm). I'm afraid we're going to have to impound all of the cells currently in your possesion that contain the material in question, to keep you from pirating our valuable Intellectual Property(tm). Those children of yours? We have to impound them, too... just until the tests confirm they're not in possession of our Intellectual Property(tm).
Would you mind standing still while we shrink-wrap your entire body, then dip it in this durable poly sealant? Thanks...
It's a tough call... I've been the guy watching someone loom up in his rear-view, and I've been the guy checking his pager after coming to a stop at the light... I'm not about to pass judgement on anyone who's been in that kind of a wreck.
As for the guy looming up behind me - I'd stopped at the red light, on a downhill slope, and given myself a good 4 feet between me and the next guy... which was good, 'cause I moved 3 feet forward when the guy came over the hill behind me, locked 'em up, and slid into my back bumper (only doing 15-20 when he hit, by my guess). If I'd been hanging on the bumper of the guy ahead of me, we've had a nice little 3-car chain reaction (at least) and gotten to test out yet another set of 5 MPH bumpers.
All's well that you walk away from... and even better if you can still drive.
Slashdot Mirror
Dolby should be making their money from the studio recording equipment. They sell a lot of stuff to the recording industry, and audio component manufacturers can license their stuff for players fairly cheaply, IIRC. That said, it's been a while since I cared deeply about that industry, so things may have changed - but the last time I checked, the Dolby business model was heavy on the front (recording) end of the process. So - maybe some smart lawyer-type from the FSF should give 'em a call and see if a one-time "license fee" could be paid to enable open development and distribution, so long as it was in a GPL'd product?
Dolby should be happy to let anyone build anything that can playback - playback is good, playback means their "standard" is supported, that their technology is building a following, and that things recorded with their technology are being played "properly." Recording, on the other hand... these folks make their living coming up with these technologies, and their main revenue stream is in the recording side of the industry. They should be willing to license a software player for free (or dirt cheap)(IANAL), but a recorder - that could be tricky. Not much hope there.
The big difference between this and DeCSS, IMHO, is the fact that without this, you can still listen to the music - it just won't be "Dolby-ized."
The name of the series was fun, too - "Starship Troupers."
Chris, give us MORE!!!
I was forced to take Project Management I (out of 4 - they needed someone to interpret between the bean-counters and the techies, and I could write coherently) and the first rule they tell our PMs is Never Delete Anything.
Not that they can't archive it off, back it up, or store it on the local file server, like good Managers - but that would require Thought.
A mass-market consumer OS would help, too.
When will I learn to put in smileys?
Spam will happen until it's unprofitable. While your response is the "right thing" there are too many people out there who only care about what's right for them, and don't care what they're subjecting the rest of us to.
Yeah, a lot of the cost has happened already - but the only way spam won't get sent is if it doesn't get seen. Granted, the economics are still heavily in "their" favor - sending 1000 scattershot emails over a "free trial" Juno account for a .1% reply rate still makes profit.
It's not just that it reduces the irritation factor - the only way people will ever stop sending UCE is if it doesn't make it through to end-users. Period. Yes, the farther upstream it can be blocked, the better for all downstream... but unless and until there's a way to drive these idiots off the net entirely, it's going to happen.
*sigh* I got serious again - Obviously, I'm not filtering my mail correctly :-)
So I need to be blocking it further up the line... procmail's obviously not a sufficient solution either....
Maybe what's needed is a way to have spam rejected before it gets sent... have the originating mail server bounce it... no, not strong enough... have the originating mail client bounce it... no, not strong enough either...
How's about this: when a spammer hits "SEND", a pair of robotic arms reaches out of the keyboard and chops off their hands at the wrists! That'll stop Spam, won't it?
Maybe that's not far enough upstream, either. Maybe hands are too low... aim higher maybe? Decapitation, anyone?
One of the issues I've argued with OODBMS vendors is how to do ad-hoc queries. Some of them provide SQL interfaces to let you access the OO database, meaning they're mirroring their OO structure with a relational structure - but the query responsiveness always bites. Just don't try to do complex joins - they ain't worth the effort (yet).
As for reusing the database - if you have access to the object model, you can reuse the database - and each vendor has their own ways to make different parts visible to different applications.
Here's to Comrade Yuri, who took immeasurable risks for his country, and accellerated the momentum started by Sputnik which led to Mankind's great achievement - Apollo 11!
raises his glass in salute...
Folks, this guy's been serious about copyright for a lot longer than there's been an Internet. In that essay, he describes his campaign to recover rights to a story after the publisher violates the terms of his contract (they published his story in a paperback with cigarette ad inserts - used to be quite common, in the 50s). Harlan started off as polite as he ever is, and ended up performing various acts of terrorism - read the story for details.
The all-caps thing has to be a fluke. Unless he's temporarily crippled and using some kind of alpha-talker, he knows better.
I don't underestimate IBM... but I also think a Sun E10K ranks right up there with the E/390s. Oracle scales to the terrabyte range (albeit painfully)... I've worked with a lot of different kinds of systems, and I haven't found one yet where we can't make Oracle work (note the phrase - not that it's always our choice, but sometimes you use what the customer already has an enterprise license for :-).
Someday, I'll probably get handed a DB2 CD set and told to make a system work with it. As long as it talks SQL, we can do this.
mySQL doesn't do lots of things, like 2-stage commits, rollbacks, remote replication. Access is a horrible excuse for a "database" and shouldn't be considered for use by more than one user at a time, ever. Postgres and other open-source RDBMSs are closer to having the "full feature set" that the commercial vendors advertise, but are still a couple of generations behind the technology curve and can have some serious support issues if you don't want to grow your own internal database hackers (which most companies don't want to do).
Then you get into high-availablilty, massive data storage requirements, huge transaction-per-second rates, complex apps where you want to enforce rules in the database... these are the areas where the commercial databases compete with one another. Oracle, Informix, Sybase, and SQL Server are the big names we consider most when we start thinking about a project, although IBM keeps trying to make DB2 a competitor. For personal and small group use, heck, PHP and mySQL works great. For Amazon.com, it's a different story, and for the back-office types that crunch lots of data lots of times (insurance companies, etc.) mySQL doesn't even show up on the radar.
The Together tool from Togethersoft will ingest things and spit other things out, from DDL to C++ to EJBs. Cost $$, but they have to keep Peter Coad in beanbag chairs and whiteboard markers. Most excellent C++/Java object modeling and development tool, and they've been enhancing their database stuff - at least get the 30 day free trial ;-)
I say "blasting cap" because I recall a guy I used to work for in the radio industry, who'd once worked in quarries... to detonate explosives, they'd run about 1000 times more power through a transistor than it was rated for, and the ceramic would heat, expand, and then explode, triggering the real explosives... this is the same guy who showed me diodes from lightning-struck equipment that let current flow freely both ways.
Spacecraft component design used to be a black art - there's now a known science to it, with educated guesses being used every few years when someone flies a new substance or technology. One of the few good things to come of the Challenger accident was that the LDEF (Long-Duration Exposure Facility) satellite got left in orbit much longer than planned. We learned a lot from what was left of the different substances that had been left in orbit.
And just because I have to borrow this tagline once:
Space is big, space is dark
It's hard to find a place to park
- Burma-Shave
Another thing damaging the Express was the probable need for RTGs (radioisotope thermal generators). Given the brouhaha when they launched the last Saturn explorer, with its "kill-the-planet" load of plutonium (puh-leeze), NASA probably doesn't want to fight that PR campaign again.
Then again, shipping plutonium to Pluto has a certain cachet, doesn't it? (*grin*)
Yah. My 3Com LanModem has all this - 4-port 10/100 with 56K modem doing DHCP, NAT, etc. Some of the things they call news some days... *sigh*
Leadership is required to give focus, do the grunge work, and set (if not enforce) the community norms.
Membership requires mainly that the people involved actually care enough to stay involved.
I'm a member of an online community, and a leader in that group. They got their start on Prodigy, playing Rebel Space, and established a virtual sense of "place" on the Prodigy message boards. Over years, people gathered to meet in person, developed alliances, friendships, and emnities, and all of a sudden there was a "comminuty" there. Once the game (and the boards) were dropped, they took responsibility for maintaining their connection by creating a home for themselves on the Internet.
We argue, we fight, we have lame flamers - but the ones who really don't work out, so far, have left on their own. Even without the original glue that pulled folks together (the Rebel Space game), the group exists - not bad, eh?
Then there are the twice-a-year parties :-D
I wonder how many Hughes folks are buying those up with company funds...
You're a person of broad interests, with friends and acquaintances that span the globe. Who are the people you consider "most interesting," and why should others pay attention to them?
PHBs may not understand code, but they understand the concept of recruiting their smartest people out from under them and taking them with you when you go - often, employment contracts are set up to specifically prohibit such behavior. Lawyers love that stuff.
It's hard to make choices that affect your friends, but you're all adults. The only thing you can do by sticking with a sinking ship is add to the body count.
Is there a need for something like Bastille for FreeBSD? There shouldn't be a need for it with TrustedBSD, should there?
Have you looked at what the NSA did to Linux and attempted to extract from it? Are there modifications they made that apply to TrustedBSD, either in source code or in spirit?
Would you mind standing still while we shrink-wrap your entire body, then dip it in this durable poly sealant? Thanks...
As for the guy looming up behind me - I'd stopped at the red light, on a downhill slope, and given myself a good 4 feet between me and the next guy... which was good, 'cause I moved 3 feet forward when the guy came over the hill behind me, locked 'em up, and slid into my back bumper (only doing 15-20 when he hit, by my guess). If I'd been hanging on the bumper of the guy ahead of me, we've had a nice little 3-car chain reaction (at least) and gotten to test out yet another set of 5 MPH bumpers.
All's well that you walk away from... and even better if you can still drive.