What 'intellectual property rights' are you refering to that could be posessed? What rights are missing from patents and copyrights? Besides, are you seriously trying to say that smashing a device with a hammer violates a hardware patent? Notice, in this modification, the hardware was completely untouched, the case not even opened. The only thing in doubt is does this violate the DMCA (or other copyright laws). Only way I can see it could is 'circumvention of a copy protection system', and I'm not even sure that applies because the hack basically wipes and discards the software originally loaded in order to run something else, not make copies or gain access to protected material.
A fusion reaction emits light, not electrons. If you refer to electron shells and their mutual repulsion, this is unlikely to be the case, either, as only the sheer fact that fusion is happening is what keeps a star from imploding the instant it gets heavy enough. Fusion stops (or drops below a threshold), and the star's gravity causes it to implode.
Is that like saying that sailing on an ocean into the wind is impossible? Hate to tell you, but it can be done. The only problem with doing this on a solar sail is figuring out exactally how one 'tacks' into the light.
Of course, this also discounts that one can use other gravitational bodies in order to change trajectory, and if you're going to Jupiter and comming back in one nonstop trip, you can always fold/destroy the sail and coast on the initial momentum from the trip out.
Ya, they might start sending more spam email and standard mail, but we have ways to block that from legitimate companies, and if they do spam via email, that only encourages the anti-spam initiatives going on now.
However, as for how you phrased it, sounds to me you're just itching for an all out fist fight, or trying to find some conspiracy or vendetta. Legitimate companies want your business. They don't want you pissed at them (those customers do not buy from them).
I'm glad you can quote the article and make commentary on it. However, taking it out of context, you wind up breaking the whole point of the comment. Here, let me help you out:
But the companies won't drop their phone banks altogether. They believe that those who do not sign up for the do-not-call list will be more open to telephone pitches and that could help their phone solicitation efforts.
"We'll be giving the dog what the dog wants to eat," James F. Lyons, president of direct-marketing consultancy Optima Direct told the paper.
See? Isn't that better? They're saying that, now that they can check ahead of time and not call people who are going to refuse any kind of telemarketing effort, their 'success per call batch' rate will improve. I realize this takes away from some flame bait, but honesty is usually good.
I do realize how complicated the shuttle is. I also know that they are required to take the entire thing apart after it returns from space, requalify each piece, and rebuild the entire thing from the ground up. This makes it MORE expensive than just building a new one from scratch! The shuttle is about as reusable as a car that has to be rebuilt every night.
You realize how complicated the shuttle is, yet you think they disassemble the entire orbiter every single time? Also, do you know how much it costs to build a shuttle from scratch? Here's a few quotes, borrowed shamelessly from a USA Today article.
In December, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, hired for his budgetary prowess, unveiled yet another plan for a shuttle successor. The "orbital space plane" would cost roughly $12 billion to develop and build by 2010 and could get four to six astronauts to the space station at a fraction of the shuttle's cost.
NASA has taken $2.4 billion from its existing $15 billion annual budget to fund research and development of the space plane through 2007. Congress would have to authorize another $10 billion or so to on top of that to build the vehicle.
Ok. NASA's budget is roughly $15 billion. It costs $12 to research and dev a new plane, and $10 to build one. Numbers don't quite fit? To make them more skewed to the cost of making one from scratch, keep in mind that NASA's budget encompases maintenance and support for a good number of centers.
Still think it's a cool idea to build one from scratch each time?
What would your solution be? What is your grasp on international politics? It's my barely informed grasp of politics that seems to indicate that some countries simply do not like us, period, no matter what our policy is (barring implosion and utter devistation for the US). Besides that, if we cave to the nations who don't like us to get them to like us, we alienate the nations that do like us and then they don't like us much (this is especially true when said nations are on opposing sides of the same conflict).
I'd just like to hear what your resolution would have been for Iraq? Considering all past wars on other nations, there was extreme pains taken to avoid destroying strategic targets such as power generation stations, water reclaimation plants, amungst other targets. In fact, dispite the sounds of war, Iraqi citizens seemed to be largely unaffected unless caught directly in the middle of fire fights (noted by markets opened and filled dispite the siege occuring in and aroudn the capitol). Was there a diplomatic solution? Perhaps. How exactally do you negotiate with a dictator that abuses his people, and doesn't even bother to veil his hatred for you and your beliefs?
Active threats sometimes have more influence than passive ones. Even in Checkmate situations where the end is guaronteed, one can conceed early and forego the end result of being blown to tiny bits.
The thing about flexible wings is that they have to be. So what if the wings bent into a shallow U? The U-2 plane wings did the exact same thing, as well as most glider planes. The bowing of the wings actually comes in handy during turbulence, in that it can flex a little in order to absorb some of the shock instead of simply snaping because the impact of the turbulent air momentarily exceeded the wing's structural tolerances.
Next time you fly in a passanger airplane, sit near the wing and watch it in flight. At first, it may be a little disconcerting to watch the wing flex as it plows through the air, but this kind of structural flexibility is what aids in it's strength.
This is the situation SCO are now in. Even after their initial allegations against IBM, they continued both selling copies of Linux, and offering it for free download from their web site.
So, if SCO is distributing for free the Linux OS, that means they wouldn't be getting paid for it. Would the people that are not paying service contracts, but aquired their software from SCO liable for damages?
Nope, not the opposite, but perhaps the incorrect action at the time. Suppose the system engages the brakes when someone is following too closely behind you, when a fast lane change is more appropriate a maneuver. Suppose that the car engaging the brakes causes the half-asleep driver to panic, yanking the steering wheel over and crashing the car anyways (just in more conveluted ways). Suppose the decision making system malfunctions completely and corrects for an accident that doesn't exist.
Blinking a light, sounding an alarm are perfectly acceptable collsion warning systems. Applying the brakes borders on dangerous if the system is ill informed or damaged.
Wow.. where to even begin with this. I love the curses. Adds tons to the credibility of the rant.:)
What do you expect us to do? Sit on our hands until we know every single possible consequence of every action? We'd never do anything!
Let's see. I'd first advocate knowing what we're working with first, then proceeding forwards. While we may not ever know ever possible consiquence (since that's hardly possible to achieve), having a good firm idea of the interaction would be good. The researcher that created this fish wanted to make the creature's organs glow, but instead, the result was something different. That screams to me of a severe lack of knowledge of what you're doing.
Hell, you still be sitting in a fucking mud cave, naked, starving, and freezing because FIRE is too potentially harmful for humans to harness.
Ok. Ya. Fire. Potentially harmfull. We know what fire does, don't we? Does it take one sticking one's hand into the depths of the flame to realize that it's hot, or does being near it count? Do you have to be incinerated by fire to see the result of what fire can do? Nope. You can figure it out without having to be hurt by it.
We'll never master genetics if we don't try on something and trying on a fucking Zebra fish sounds like a great idea to me.
We won't master genetics til we both know what it is we're working with, how they interact, and can manipulate genetic material and achieve the end result we want. Right now, we don't know even half of what we're working with, how can we possibly know how things interact, and manipulate it to achieve the end we want? Again, researcher did not achieve the end he wanted. He did not know enough about the material he was working with to achieve his result.
I don't fucking care of the Zebra fish all disappear because the glowing version escapes and turns into SUPER ZEBAFISH or something. They aren't the only organisms occupying that ecological niche. And, I would assume that the SUPER GLOWING ZEBRAFISH version would occupy that same niche anyways.
I bet you probably wouldn't care if all the krill disappeared off the face of the planet because a poisonous variant got into the ecosystem and spread so virulantly that it dominated that ecological niche. Except, that a poisonous variant of said creature would probably kill off all sorts of higher order life forms, and cause a general collapse of that food chain. Who can know? Do you have a planet around we can just dump this species in that's a mirror to ours, and won't harm the one we're living in? No? Well, pardon me for being cautious for the only single version of our planet that we have.
What danger are you looking for here? that one fish will escape into the wild and somehow trample tokyo? Do you spend a lot of time EATING Zebra fish so you are worried about getting poisoned?
What possible danger could this pose?
What danger? Well, as you point out, trampling would be bad (That's sarcasm, by the way). Being poisonous, mutating to something lethal, having it's biology altered to the point it becomes virulant, or any number of other possibilities that we simply do not know about because the researcher is not apparently taking these concerns seriously. I doubt very much that genetic engineering is refined enough to be a precice science, more like hack and splice. I'm pretty sure the company that is seeking to purchase these has little care beyond the bottom line, being a standard failing of most companies.
While I may not personally be eatting a lot of zebra fish, I don't doubt that there are levels of the food chain that indirectly would affect me that do eat zebra fish. That's the funny thing about the ecosystem. Each little niche affects others, and a change to one spreads to affect others. Kind of how ranchers' wholesale slaughter of prairie dogs put two predatory species on the endangered species list
As for environmentalists: as someone rightfully pointed out, there are two kinds of them. Some pose valid scientific questions. They would probably not be very worried about GM pet fish. Others simply bitch, whine, rant, and protest against everything that sounds like a scientific advancement. The second kind is mainly the one protesting here.
I hate when people do this. Beyond being a very flawed argument, calling names of people who pose issues with such meddling does not prove anything about their true intention.
I personally would be extremely cautious with this issue on a level similar to the moral dilema of cloning humans. We don't even understand most of the genetic code of our own species, how the genes interact, or even what they're there for, and we intend to do direct manipulation of genes? Given that biological life has this tendancy to mutate, how do we know what effect this genetic manipulation would have in 2 generations? How about 5? Or 10? What happens if the process to sterilize the fish does not work? How about if they got into the wild? Given that no solution works 100%, this situation is almost certain to happen at some point, either through irreputable behavior or accident, these are things that should be seriously considered. In fact, consider this:
He was looking for a way to make fish organs easier to see when studying them, and isolated a gene for a fluorescent protein that he had extracted from jellyfish and inserted it into the genome of a zebrafish.
To his astonishment, the jellyfish gene made whole zebrafish glow.
This particular highlighted section indicates to me that the researcher did not know what the result of his work would bring. This is the same individual who has certified that there is no danger from these fish?
What I love is the notion that the car's computer is capable of judging better than I what needs to be done, and has the designer given authority to act on that. That sounds a lot like a passanger plane incident in which a malfunctioning autopilot (or anti-crash system, something like that) kept trying to wrest control of the plane away from the pilot under the false assumption the ground (or rate of descent) was too great. The plane stalled midair like 2-3 times before the pilot somehow managed to land it.
Now, with the examples you mentioned, the difference there is that they are assisting you do something, they are not initiating action on their own. You are already applying the brakes if the antilock brake system engages. You are already accelerating (and intending to) if traction control activates. You are already turning the car while the power steering turns the wheels. These systems are not making decisions, they are responding to the driver's input and helping him.
Personally, I am overcautious when it comes to systems that make potentially life and death decisions for a person. What happens when such a decision making system makes a mistake? What happens when it's inputs become garbled? What if there is a manufacturing flaw (these certainly crop up often enough in complex systems)? Is it any consolation to a driver that there was a buffer the programmer failed to cap off properly in the software, activating the brakes off center at full strength on an open road, causing the vehicle to swerve and crash?
There are a lot of scenarios that can come up while piloting a vehicle of any kind. The human pilot is the one ultimately responsible for anything that happens, the human pilot should get the final say. Though, I can just see it now in court.
Judge: You caused a major accident involving 15 cars. What do you have to say for yourself? Defendant: My honda did it.
But did "rental" music services ever get my dime? Nope - and see what's happening to them. I predict they'll be gone in another 5 years (except for the last holdouts sponsored by major corporations who won't see the light of day -
like how the Minidisk finally exited stage left for 99% of the music consumers, the 3DO vanished, and like the original DIVX standard did).
I know this is pretty much picking a nit here, but unless you have specific evidence how Minidiscs are designed anything remotely like the DRM scheme they have set up here, or even how DIVX originally was geared for, you're making a very weak argument by including them.
Owning one of these little devices myself (minidisc player), I am well up to speed on what they can and cannot do. In terms of this particular debate, copying is actually something that is permitted, conditionally. By that, I mean if you have a pure audio source from anywhere (CD, DVD, Microphone, high quality sound system), you can pipe that audio stream digitally (using optical cabling) into the minidisc system and it will encode crystal clear sound to the best of it's encoder's ability. Thereafter, you are still permitted to make analog copies to your heart's content (since it seems to be understood that there is no way to forbid that style of recording when you have a headphone jack so plainly available). Of course, there is the drawback with analog audio copies in that it develops noise over time, but as with tapes, this appears to be acceptable (tape to tape copies were deemed 'acceptable' because successive copies had so much noise creep in as to make 5th and 6th gen copies quite degraded compared to originals).
There is nothing about the Minidisc spec that forbids copying or reuse of audio transfered onto those discs. There is little attempt to control how a user listens to such audio (beyond forbidding digital minidisc->minidisc copies). A more defining reason why Minidiscs have not caught the consumers eye is that they are not viewed as a clear improvement to CD's, and as such most consumers have not felt compelled to change out their CD collection with a similar Minidisc one.
To me, they've never been that either. What they have been is a clear improvement over tapes, and serve an almost identical use for much improved quality.
... if the bookstore reported it as unsold and destroyed to the publisher or distributor, then it cannot be sold...
This is kind of funny. Doesn't destroyed mean gone, no longer in a recognizable form from what it once was? A book with it's cover torn off, sadly, is still a book. It is no more destroyed than stealing someone's hubcaps has totaled the car.
Perhaps if they didn't want the book to be found by others and really meant it to be destroyed, they should follow through with it and pack unused books off to a recycling center for.. destruction.
Maybe I'm missing something, but with OS X, isn't the difference between "Saved State" for the GUI and backgrounding all applications (since it is a unix-based OS) pretty minimal? And, how was the timing of these two releases/feature inclusions?
Not that I'm defending Apple, MS just has a tendancy to do some pretty disreputable stuff.
What I loved about the System Shock 2 game was in part to what I did to my computer. Environmental effects and a good 5 point surround speaker system really enhance the game to the point you'll be jumping at shadows.
The game itself is creapy, and the way you cannot *at all* declare any area safe once you've left it (creatures move in when you're not looking). Creatures have a tendancy to sneak up on you, too. Though, having hit one plot point, where you first meet up with your "contact" as well as the villian AI.. here I was thinking it was just another room, and all hell broke loose. *shiver*
Very good game design and gameplay. Wish for more of these:)
When last I tried Staroffice (I think the forerunner of Openoffice?), even though it could open doc files, the niggling issues such as formatting, behavior differences in how it handled certain things (numbered lists) and similar made it a novelty, not something I could rely on. Not only that, the design of the program was that I had to load up everything to use one thing, and it wasn't as slick as I would've liked to use. (Ie: I didn't need yet another desktop just for my office suite).
Of course, this was a few years ago, and through the changes, this might not be the same bit of office software I'm familiar with.
One click only obvious after you've seen it working? Hey, is that kind of like "One Transaction" processing at a store? You know, they never ask "Are you sure you want to buy that?" One transaction, and it's done. The only thing 'one click' does on the web is remember all the important data for you, so all you do is say 'send me that at the prearranged destination with a prearranged card'. Ooooh, Tough.
I never liked the concept of one click anyways. Reminds me too much of impulse buying, except these can be much higher ticket items.
So wait just a second here. This Globally Unique ID number is able to uniquely identify your computer, but not you. And, should Microsoft determine that you are Being Bad (tm) and abusing their software, will they use this GUID to then identify you and lay the smackdown, or would they just block you access to any update features, or shut down your PC as 'unlicensed'? Is there a legal method to say "We won't personally identify you NOW but if/when you break our rules, we have the power."?
Whatever happened to needing a court order in order to search your premisis (or in this case, inventory). Now, I know this is voluntary, but should said company say no, what exactally would Microsoft do? Could they prove sufficient suspicion that there was piracy going on?
Or in simpler terms, do software companies have the right to order you to provide on request an inventory and proof of purchase for their products at any time, without just reason to suspect otherwise, and on their own recognizance?
Slashdot Mirror
What 'intellectual property rights' are you refering to that could be posessed? What rights are missing from patents and copyrights? Besides, are you seriously trying to say that smashing a device with a hammer violates a hardware patent? Notice, in this modification, the hardware was completely untouched, the case not even opened. The only thing in doubt is does this violate the DMCA (or other copyright laws). Only way I can see it could is 'circumvention of a copy protection system', and I'm not even sure that applies because the hack basically wipes and discards the software originally loaded in order to run something else, not make copies or gain access to protected material.
A fusion reaction emits light, not electrons. If you refer to electron shells and their mutual repulsion, this is unlikely to be the case, either, as only the sheer fact that fusion is happening is what keeps a star from imploding the instant it gets heavy enough. Fusion stops (or drops below a threshold), and the star's gravity causes it to implode.
Is that like saying that sailing on an ocean into the wind is impossible? Hate to tell you, but it can be done. The only problem with doing this on a solar sail is figuring out exactally how one 'tacks' into the light.
Of course, this also discounts that one can use other gravitational bodies in order to change trajectory, and if you're going to Jupiter and comming back in one nonstop trip, you can always fold/destroy the sail and coast on the initial momentum from the trip out.
Ya, they might start sending more spam email and standard mail, but we have ways to block that from legitimate companies, and if they do spam via email, that only encourages the anti-spam initiatives going on now.
However, as for how you phrased it, sounds to me you're just itching for an all out fist fight, or trying to find some conspiracy or vendetta. Legitimate companies want your business. They don't want you pissed at them (those customers do not buy from them).
But the companies won't drop their phone banks altogether. They believe that those who do not sign up for the do-not-call list will be more open to telephone pitches and that could help their phone solicitation efforts.
"We'll be giving the dog what the dog wants to eat," James F. Lyons, president of direct-marketing consultancy Optima Direct told the paper.
See? Isn't that better? They're saying that, now that they can check ahead of time and not call people who are going to refuse any kind of telemarketing effort, their 'success per call batch' rate will improve. I realize this takes away from some flame bait, but honesty is usually good.
Still think it's a cool idea to build one from scratch each time?
What would your solution be? What is your grasp on international politics? It's my barely informed grasp of politics that seems to indicate that some countries simply do not like us, period, no matter what our policy is (barring implosion and utter devistation for the US). Besides that, if we cave to the nations who don't like us to get them to like us, we alienate the nations that do like us and then they don't like us much (this is especially true when said nations are on opposing sides of the same conflict).
I'd just like to hear what your resolution would have been for Iraq? Considering all past wars on other nations, there was extreme pains taken to avoid destroying strategic targets such as power generation stations, water reclaimation plants, amungst other targets. In fact, dispite the sounds of war, Iraqi citizens seemed to be largely unaffected unless caught directly in the middle of fire fights (noted by markets opened and filled dispite the siege occuring in and aroudn the capitol). Was there a diplomatic solution? Perhaps. How exactally do you negotiate with a dictator that abuses his people, and doesn't even bother to veil his hatred for you and your beliefs?
Active threats sometimes have more influence than passive ones. Even in Checkmate situations where the end is guaronteed, one can conceed early and forego the end result of being blown to tiny bits.
The thing about flexible wings is that they have to be. So what if the wings bent into a shallow U? The U-2 plane wings did the exact same thing, as well as most glider planes. The bowing of the wings actually comes in handy during turbulence, in that it can flex a little in order to absorb some of the shock instead of simply snaping because the impact of the turbulent air momentarily exceeded the wing's structural tolerances.
Next time you fly in a passanger airplane, sit near the wing and watch it in flight. At first, it may be a little disconcerting to watch the wing flex as it plows through the air, but this kind of structural flexibility is what aids in it's strength.
Nope, not the opposite, but perhaps the incorrect action at the time. Suppose the system engages the brakes when someone is following too closely behind you, when a fast lane change is more appropriate a maneuver. Suppose that the car engaging the brakes causes the half-asleep driver to panic, yanking the steering wheel over and crashing the car anyways (just in more conveluted ways). Suppose the decision making system malfunctions completely and corrects for an accident that doesn't exist.
Blinking a light, sounding an alarm are perfectly acceptable collsion warning systems. Applying the brakes borders on dangerous if the system is ill informed or damaged.
Let's see. I'd first advocate knowing what we're working with first, then proceeding forwards. While we may not ever know ever possible consiquence (since that's hardly possible to achieve), having a good firm idea of the interaction would be good. The researcher that created this fish wanted to make the creature's organs glow, but instead, the result was something different. That screams to me of a severe lack of knowledge of what you're doing.
Ok. Ya. Fire. Potentially harmfull. We know what fire does, don't we? Does it take one sticking one's hand into the depths of the flame to realize that it's hot, or does being near it count? Do you have to be incinerated by fire to see the result of what fire can do? Nope. You can figure it out without having to be hurt by it.
We won't master genetics til we both know what it is we're working with, how they interact, and can manipulate genetic material and achieve the end result we want. Right now, we don't know even half of what we're working with, how can we possibly know how things interact, and manipulate it to achieve the end we want? Again, researcher did not achieve the end he wanted. He did not know enough about the material he was working with to achieve his result.
I bet you probably wouldn't care if all the krill disappeared off the face of the planet because a poisonous variant got into the ecosystem and spread so virulantly that it dominated that ecological niche. Except, that a poisonous variant of said creature would probably kill off all sorts of higher order life forms, and cause a general collapse of that food chain. Who can know? Do you have a planet around we can just dump this species in that's a mirror to ours, and won't harm the one we're living in? No? Well, pardon me for being cautious for the only single version of our planet that we have.
What danger? Well, as you point out, trampling would be bad (That's sarcasm, by the way). Being poisonous, mutating to something lethal, having it's biology altered to the point it becomes virulant, or any number of other possibilities that we simply do not know about because the researcher is not apparently taking these concerns seriously. I doubt very much that genetic engineering is refined enough to be a precice science, more like hack and splice. I'm pretty sure the company that is seeking to purchase these has little care beyond the bottom line, being a standard failing of most companies.
While I may not personally be eatting a lot of zebra fish, I don't doubt that there are levels of the food chain that indirectly would affect me that do eat zebra fish. That's the funny thing about the ecosystem. Each little niche affects others, and a change to one spreads to affect others. Kind of how ranchers' wholesale slaughter of prairie dogs put two predatory species on the endangered species list
I personally would be extremely cautious with this issue on a level similar to the moral dilema of cloning humans. We don't even understand most of the genetic code of our own species, how the genes interact, or even what they're there for, and we intend to do direct manipulation of genes? Given that biological life has this tendancy to mutate, how do we know what effect this genetic manipulation would have in 2 generations? How about 5? Or 10? What happens if the process to sterilize the fish does not work? How about if they got into the wild? Given that no solution works 100%, this situation is almost certain to happen at some point, either through irreputable behavior or accident, these are things that should be seriously considered. In fact, consider this:
This particular highlighted section indicates to me that the researcher did not know what the result of his work would bring. This is the same individual who has certified that there is no danger from these fish?What I love is the notion that the car's computer is capable of judging better than I what needs to be done, and has the designer given authority to act on that. That sounds a lot like a passanger plane incident in which a malfunctioning autopilot (or anti-crash system, something like that) kept trying to wrest control of the plane away from the pilot under the false assumption the ground (or rate of descent) was too great. The plane stalled midair like 2-3 times before the pilot somehow managed to land it.
Now, with the examples you mentioned, the difference there is that they are assisting you do something, they are not initiating action on their own. You are already applying the brakes if the antilock brake system engages. You are already accelerating (and intending to) if traction control activates. You are already turning the car while the power steering turns the wheels. These systems are not making decisions, they are responding to the driver's input and helping him.
Personally, I am overcautious when it comes to systems that make potentially life and death decisions for a person. What happens when such a decision making system makes a mistake? What happens when it's inputs become garbled? What if there is a manufacturing flaw (these certainly crop up often enough in complex systems)? Is it any consolation to a driver that there was a buffer the programmer failed to cap off properly in the software, activating the brakes off center at full strength on an open road, causing the vehicle to swerve and crash?
There are a lot of scenarios that can come up while piloting a vehicle of any kind. The human pilot is the one ultimately responsible for anything that happens, the human pilot should get the final say. Though, I can just see it now in court.
Judge: You caused a major accident involving 15 cars. What do you have to say for yourself?
Defendant: My honda did it.
I know this is pretty much picking a nit here, but unless you have specific evidence how Minidiscs are designed anything remotely like the DRM scheme they have set up here, or even how DIVX originally was geared for, you're making a very weak argument by including them.
Owning one of these little devices myself (minidisc player), I am well up to speed on what they can and cannot do. In terms of this particular debate, copying is actually something that is permitted, conditionally. By that, I mean if you have a pure audio source from anywhere (CD, DVD, Microphone, high quality sound system), you can pipe that audio stream digitally (using optical cabling) into the minidisc system and it will encode crystal clear sound to the best of it's encoder's ability. Thereafter, you are still permitted to make analog copies to your heart's content (since it seems to be understood that there is no way to forbid that style of recording when you have a headphone jack so plainly available). Of course, there is the drawback with analog audio copies in that it develops noise over time, but as with tapes, this appears to be acceptable (tape to tape copies were deemed 'acceptable' because successive copies had so much noise creep in as to make 5th and 6th gen copies quite degraded compared to originals).
There is nothing about the Minidisc spec that forbids copying or reuse of audio transfered onto those discs. There is little attempt to control how a user listens to such audio (beyond forbidding digital minidisc->minidisc copies). A more defining reason why Minidiscs have not caught the consumers eye is that they are not viewed as a clear improvement to CD's, and as such most consumers have not felt compelled to change out their CD collection with a similar Minidisc one.
To me, they've never been that either. What they have been is a clear improvement over tapes, and serve an almost identical use for much improved quality.
But is what the RIAA did.. illegal? Note, that being illegal is a far cry from being amoral.
This is kind of funny. Doesn't destroyed mean gone, no longer in a recognizable form from what it once was? A book with it's cover torn off, sadly, is still a book. It is no more destroyed than stealing someone's hubcaps has totaled the car.
Perhaps if they didn't want the book to be found by others and really meant it to be destroyed, they should follow through with it and pack unused books off to a recycling center for.. destruction.
Maybe I'm missing something, but with OS X, isn't the difference between "Saved State" for the GUI and backgrounding all applications (since it is a unix-based OS) pretty minimal? And, how was the timing of these two releases/feature inclusions?
Not that I'm defending Apple, MS just has a tendancy to do some pretty disreputable stuff.
Something on any programmer's mind when actually writing a program should be "How can I break this?"
What I loved about the System Shock 2 game was in part to what I did to my computer. Environmental effects and a good 5 point surround speaker system really enhance the game to the point you'll be jumping at shadows.
:)
The game itself is creapy, and the way you cannot *at all* declare any area safe once you've left it (creatures move in when you're not looking). Creatures have a tendancy to sneak up on you, too. Though, having hit one plot point, where you first meet up with your "contact" as well as the villian AI.. here I was thinking it was just another room, and all hell broke loose. *shiver*
Very good game design and gameplay. Wish for more of these
When last I tried Staroffice (I think the forerunner of Openoffice?), even though it could open doc files, the niggling issues such as formatting, behavior differences in how it handled certain things (numbered lists) and similar made it a novelty, not something I could rely on. Not only that, the design of the program was that I had to load up everything to use one thing, and it wasn't as slick as I would've liked to use. (Ie: I didn't need yet another desktop just for my office suite).
Of course, this was a few years ago, and through the changes, this might not be the same bit of office software I'm familiar with.
One click only obvious after you've seen it working? Hey, is that kind of like "One Transaction" processing at a store? You know, they never ask "Are you sure you want to buy that?" One transaction, and it's done. The only thing 'one click' does on the web is remember all the important data for you, so all you do is say 'send me that at the prearranged destination with a prearranged card'. Ooooh, Tough.
I never liked the concept of one click anyways. Reminds me too much of impulse buying, except these can be much higher ticket items.
So wait just a second here. This Globally Unique ID number is able to uniquely identify your computer, but not you. And, should Microsoft determine that you are Being Bad (tm) and abusing their software, will they use this GUID to then identify you and lay the smackdown, or would they just block you access to any update features, or shut down your PC as 'unlicensed'? Is there a legal method to say "We won't personally identify you NOW but if/when you break our rules, we have the power."?
Too many questions, frankly, and too much leeway.
Whatever happened to needing a court order in order to search your premisis (or in this case, inventory). Now, I know this is voluntary, but should said company say no, what exactally would Microsoft do? Could they prove sufficient suspicion that there was piracy going on?
Or in simpler terms, do software companies have the right to order you to provide on request an inventory and proof of purchase for their products at any time, without just reason to suspect otherwise, and on their own recognizance?
This is the way it USED to be. Client side decision making, servers sending bulk list of latest software.
No more, apparently.