If recording songs off the radio (broadcast media) is technically illegal, why do they make tape recorders and AM/FM radios integrated, with the tape recorder capable of 'listening in' on the radio broadcast? If that's technically illegal to meerly record it, then Sony/JVC/whomever else makes AM/FM/Cassette radios better prepare for a world of hurting when the lawsuits come by.
Wait a sec. Wasn't there a court case in which Sony was involved in concerning VCR's (Betamax) and recording shows off the TV (Broadcast media)? I do believe there was! And, according to the court, that's perfectly legal. It's called 'timeshifting'. I guess we just can't timeshift music played on the radio, even though TV and Radio are both broadcast media, and the broadcasters have not seen fit in all these many years to sue all those manufacturers for providing a product that breaks the law at the touch of a single (or pair of) button(s).
While I know the last line about her lying was rhetorical, I couldn't resist the post:) Wonder if anyone ever pointed out the concept of Timeshifting to Hilary. Hmm.
Game Design and Reusability (Slightly OT)
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MS VP Speech Online
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· Score: 1
Just a point I wanted to touch on (appologies if this is redundant at all). Not all games are "completely redone", as you so quoted. Many games reuse aspects, graphical rendering engines, and core features (AI processing, etc). An example (And I hope I place these games in the correct order), System Shock 2 and Thief 2. If I'm not mistaken by gameplay, AI behavior, and rendering engine, much of the underlying modules are identical, if not one an upgrade of the other. The opponent creatures behave similarly, they both have similar control aspects unlike many other games I've seen (Lean left/right/forward as an example). Even how the main character moves, sounds, and jumps are closely related. The primary difference between these games is setting, story, some visual interface characteristics, and goals. Traits unique to each game, yet reusing core program modules.
I tend to see this sort of behavior strewn throughout game development. Another line from Black Island, "Baldur's Gate", "Baldur's Gate 2", "Icewind Dale", and soon, "Neverwinter Nights". While I have played only the former myself, the latter ones show signs of using upgraded core features of the first game, enhanced, revised, and better. These games have similar themes, however, and are good for comparing similar titles within the same genre.
Also noteworthy, "Quake", "Quake 2", "Quake 3" (who didn't see those comming?;). Similar rendering engines, upgrades (not complete rewrites) from the former in the series.
I, for one, would absolutely adore getting my hands on the source code for an advanced graphics rendering engine, not to sell a game, but so I could see how it's done. There are Open Source engines out there, but compared to what's been developed commercially, there isn't a comparison. I have a feeling that's why (beyond standard proprietary protectiveness over their work) you can't find the source for any advanced and commercially used graphics engines in the Open Source community. It'd be too easy to take that code, and with (comparitively) little work, come up with theme, plot, story, and make your own game for sale;) This also doesn't mean that you can't license said rendering engines from their designers. That I wouldn't know about.
I think the whole gist of the matter is.. why should you be FORCED to pay someone else to keep your PC's compliant? Why don't Site Licenses have a maximum PC count (you are permitted to run up to x PC's with Windows using this registration key y)? Why must licensing terms be so difficult to understand? What rule or law states that this should be difficult for all involved?
Hate to say it, but this licensing BS that Microsoft (and others) throw around is just that, BS. They want to make it as complex as possible while still being understood by their own people so that companies wind up fretfull and worried about large fines. Worried companies like that will happily throw more money at MS (or others) to make sure without a shadow of a doubt they are compliant. Even then, it seems, they'll still get bit.
I suggest new licensing scales. Site licensing means just that. You have a license to run X number of PC's on your site. If you install your company's image on more than that number, upgrade your existing site license to something bigger. Not hard, right? Simple! Now, you don't have to pay an OEM to preconfigure your machine with ALL your programs and software and drivers, you can do it in house with no worries.
Besides, what makes an OEM license so much more restrictive? What, are they afraid that you will eventually scrap that machine you bought and use that same software on another machine without (gasp) paying them more money? Funny, if I buy Adobe Photoshop, they permit me to install it on one (1) PC (It may be one desktop, one laptop. Haven't read the legalese yet). If I scrap that machine, I can still move that license (the old install must be erased) to a new machine, and wow, I'm still compliant. Cool.
Microsoft is hardup for money, and they want to make it any way they can. Pirating gets their meager product out the door faster, so they let it go. They're happy with it. They make token efforts so that people don't steal their software for profit, but that's about it. Now that most people are dependant on Microsoft, now that they've crushed most of their competition, and now that the economy is flagging a little.. Now they crack down on pirates. Now they make XP with their phone-in registration policy. That'll stop pirates more than not, but even that won't do it. Such flex license keys are crackable, it just takes more effort and time to get the algorithms.
Besides, were I an IS manager, I'd have serious reservations with handing over our purchased software (one product costing in the millions) to an OEM just so they can install it for us and probably screw it up. No thanks. If you do that, might as well outsource your IS staff to your OEM.
I kinda wonder if they're going to give out copies of Ashron's Call. Would be a nice little bit of irony. "Here's your free game! Now sign up with us for $10/mo (or whatever it costs) to play it!"
While I agree at times IT is a piece of cake, it's primarily because IT is the act of maintenance, and occasionally expansion. Care to know why people hire IT professionals at all? Because Hardware/Software companies cannot make super simple/solid/stable systems. No, an IT professional is not required all the time, but when the Phone company screws up your T1, or your system crashes because your company experienced a critical bug in a core software application, guess where you are without an IT professional (that knows that system)? Up shits creek without a paddle.
Oh, and if it's so easy to set up networking with modern operating systems, why isn't Joe Schmoe user doing more of it? Sure, it's darn simple to get a hub/switch, some cables, and ethernet cards, but I hate to tell you, that's not the end all and be all of networking. Take for example, Frame Relay clouds, ATM networks, Sonet rings, FDDI networks to name a few. Each one of these aspects of networking has it's benefit. They are, however, not simple concepts and most company employees don't care HOW the network works, just so long as it works, and works fast. Corperate networks are never as simple as a home LAN.
There's also one other aspect to IT life that I think you're missing. If the network goes down, the server has a problem, if data is lost, guess who's head is going to roll? The IT professional. He/she will be up late nights, periods over 24+ hours, seeing to it that that network is alive and kicking the very soonest possibility. For your 1 server, 50 workstation environments, yes, Mr. IT Professional hardly has any work to do beyond maintenance. For companies that do business rated in the millions of dollars, those servers and their uptime are rather keenly felt if they're absent.
Before you go knocking on all IT professionals as simpletons, maybe you should get out of school and into the field. Get yourself a little experience in a corperate environment before you start claiming how easy it is. For what you've played with, no doubt it is easy. Out in the world, the stakes are higher. Good IT professionals wind up spending most of their time doing nothing more than testing/playing on new things to impliment, because their servers are always online and available. Bad ones tend to run around fixing problems that shouldn't've existed in the first place. It all goes in levels too. A good IT professional on a small network may not be a good IT professional on an enterprise network. Besides, IT departments hardly ever are the revenue generating division. They are technical support, a part of the company that spends money to ensure that the rest of the company can do their jobs faster and more efficiently.
Final speed, yes. Agreed. I don't think you have to drive your engines to get there. While being based on a simulation, I recall that as the shuttle lifts off and enters orbit, it builds up a tremendous speed, and then once it hits the speed for the orbit it needs, it stops it's engines save for maneuvering. It doesn't need any more velocity to reach it's orbit, but at the same time, it's not quite there yet. I'm also reminded of the lunar launches. I don't believe they did much (if anything) to settle into orbit around the moon, just had angled themselves to slide into orbit on a coasting trajectory. Don't hold me to that, though, I haven't seen actual flight logs of what they did.
And yes, I'm also familiar with orbital mechanics. To conceptuallize this, I recommend reading the Integral Trees, by Niven I believe. A good insight into mass, orbital velocities, and what you need to do to move 'up' or 'down' relative to the object you're orbiting.
Though.. what do wings have to do with eliptical orbits?
Re:Scramjets are wasteful, and the wrong direction
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X-43 Scramjet Rollout
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I'm familiar with the current mass of garbage in orbit already, however, at the present time, we can still make trips into orbit without the immediate danger of having to dodge debris as we enter orbit. I'm talking about having LEO coated with items numbering into the 100,000s, not just the estimated 10,000 we have now. Do remember, our new space station had to dodge a tool one of the astronauts dropped into orbit just this past shuttle flight up.
Ever seen corperations handle 'waste management' on their factories and pants? Coal burning plants, amung others, could be made cleaner and better for a reasonable price, but they don't because that isn't worthwhile to their profit margins. Most companies wouldn't care about leaving garbage in space unless not doing so increased their profits. That was my point.
Technically, coasting is movement without a driving force, no acceleration. Once you reach high high upper atmosphere, where there's not enough there to stop you due to friction, you can use what speed you've built up (provided it's enough for the orbit you're shooting for) and coast your way into it. Orbits are actually the ship trying to fall back to earth, just constantly missing;)
Besides, you coast to different orbits, while only giving yourself a quick boost or braking force. Once you achieve the speed you need for your new orbit, you will 'fall' into that new orbit. You don't do so under power (ie, running your engines til you're in your new orbit), or at least, it's not required.
Re:Scramjets are wasteful, and the wrong direction
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X-43 Scramjet Rollout
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I hate to play devil's advocate on this, but you stated that 'Scramjets are wasteful, and in the wrong direction' then.. do not go anywhere near that topic in the body of your message. Any particular reason you made this omission?
As for the government retarding space exploration, of course they have. You see how corperations act on planet Earth, right? Imagine that up in space, where things like a misplaced bolt traveling at orbital speeds can take out satellites. NASA tends to be very exacting about how and when they do things. Corperations go for the bottom line. Does it make them profit? If so, they don't care about the little details like debris. Can you imagine the difficulty we'd face in even getting out of the atmosphere if our entire LEO sphere was a mass of garbage and debris left from satallite leavings? (well, at least til they managed to drift back to the atmosphere)
I've been following this project for years since I heard it announced. While I'm not the utmost on what they're current plans are, there are reasons for doing things this way. The more disposable pieces they take to orbit (fuel tanks on the shuttle), the more explosive bolts they fire, the more garbage there is. If they can make a SSTO craft (Single Stage to Orbit for those that need it explained), then they cut down on the ammount of crap left in space.
Problem number one is getting the speed involved to reach orbit without booster rockets. Scramjets are the answer to this. They operate at high speeds only (well into the Mach range) and are ideal for use in situations where you don't need the compression of turbo fan blades in other jet engines. Read: A Scramjet is a ramjet only for use at higher speeds.
Problem number two is that, if they really want to make a SSTO craft, they have to carry Everything they need within that craft, all fuel to break escape velocity, everything. The current shuttles carry just enough fuel for maneuvering in space, and dropping back to earth. They do not and cannot (without external fuel tanks) have the reserves within to break out of the atmosphere. The only reason why this new space plane will be able to do it is because it will carry only half it's fuel. The other half (the bulk of the oxygen needed) will be gathered from the atmosphere itself as it flies.
Now, saying this is wasteful is frankly trolling and misinformation unless you can prove that it is wasteful. This plane will be lighter than it must be if it were to burn LOX and Liquid Hydrogen, and will therefor require less power to get the speed necessary to reach orbit. How is this more wasteful than before? What other methods would you use to get to space? A space elevator? Linear accelerator based on the ground? (Check out your Sci Fi book stores for what I mean by these). These ideas are nice and far more efficient, but are a little out of our league at the moment.
Until we can manage to build some of these things and overcome the technical hurdles involved in their creation and use, we still have to use rockets and jets to reach orbit. I'm all for a SSTO craft. They are more cost effective, they are more easily maintanable (The shuttle takes months on the ground for refits of lost tiles, damage from orbital debris, and other maintenance). If they can do this right, they can make this space plane more usefull by making it able to fly more often. Get a small fleet of them, and you could have daily flights to orbit. Tourism anyone?
Oh, and as for why NASA only bought 6 shuttles, several month downtimes, and single missions to orbit. At the moment, I doubt you'll see several shuttles in orbit at the same time. With all the monitoring tools they have, I don't think Nasa has the manpower to handle 2 or 3 in orbit at once. With those factors in mind, and a price tag in the billions (IIRC), they don't need more, they can't handle more, they're certainly not going to spend that much money on something they can't utilize effectively. Would you?
Umm.. Tivo doesn't make it any simpler than a normal VCR does. Last I heard it has a full 30 second skip. VCR's have a fast forward. Neither of these items check the boundry for the commercials to let you skip them completely. You still have to deal with them, but you don't have to sit through them. VCR's are legal. Tivo is legal too under these situations. Same idea, easier to work with.
You should also note that in this case, VCR's and TiVo are the similar comparison, not TiVo and broadcast TV. Tivo.. you have recorded a show for later viewing, and can replay it later. Broadcast TV is you watch what's on at that moment, no control other than volume and changing the channel.
Just a quick question. Understandably, the source code would most likely be released under the APSL license, but would a precompiled ready-to-install version also be released under this same lisence? And if it's not, would that mean that you could still use a non-altered copy, since it would not be 'Covered Code' as the license puts it?
The part that makes me chuckle a little is the notion that all these copies of prirated software are sources of 'lost revenue'. Let's look at this for just a moment.
To measure the effect of piracy on its business, Steinberg, based in Hamburg, Germany, once offered an amnesty whereby any holder of a pirated version of Cubase, which retails for $350 to $800, could trade it in for a legal version. The number of pirated versions turned in equaled 25 percent of the company's sales that year.
These people that they claim had such a heavy impact on the company's business by posessing an illegal copy of Cubase is a little absurd. To make this statement true, you have to assume the following statement as well, 'Those people that had illegal copies of Cubase that turned them in would have purchased legal copies if an illegal copy was not available.' Without this statment, the notion that there was a total of 25% of this company's yearly sales lost is incorrect. The other alternative would be that, in light of no illegal copy, these people (or some portion thereof) would simply not possess any sort of copy of Cubase, and Steinberg would still not have that ammount of sales for that year.
Don't mistake this as a statement that "Illegal software is correct." It's not. However, with the cost-per-unit of software vendors being very low (Just how much does it take to make a copy of manuals and CD once produced? $10? $20?). Software vendors spend lots of money making the product (sometimes), and will sell it at it's suggested price ($89 for Windows, $600+ for Adobe products) until they release the next version. How much of this is recouping their cost for creating the software, and how much of it is an attempt to keep their revenue streams high once they clear the red line on profits? Sometimes, I think companies charge way too much for software, creating a case where hobbyists and people who use the software for fun alone don't want to spend an arm and a leg for a piece of software they use in their off time and aren't very good with.
As always, though, it will be the case of Pirated software is a lost revenue source, when I think they're trying to use reflex reactions in politicians to try and recoup percieved losses. Making a $1000 piece of high quality audio software is great, but if noone but companies can afford that, it won't be very popular with the common consumer.
But, Components from Intel and Microsoft were left closed.
What.. components.. were left closed by Intel and Microsoft? What does 'Open Hardware' have to do with 'Open Source Software'? I'm kind of confused here why you made this sort of statement.
Besides, (Intel) are there not Intel-Compatable CPU chips? Amd and Cyrix having been the ones I know about seem to be along those lines, and AMD chips actually do very well. This is bad?
And as for Microsoft... Open source provides one BIG advantage. There's a bug in the linux kernel (example). Some nobody programmer discovers this, discovers it's actually a very fundamental problem, and you can only see in the situation he created. Having the source, he can go in, and tweak the few lines of code that need to be changed, and viola, announce to the kernel developers, and you have a secured kernel within maybe week, probably sooner. How long does it take Microsoft to bring out a patch THAT WORKS when a bug is discovered in their system. Case in point, the Outlook/Melissa Virus flaw. Last I heard, they didn't really fix this, they just turned it off. Ah well. Closed source rules, apparently, right?
You know, sometimes it amazes me how people jump to conclusions, too. Have you ever spent time listening to the radio? Ya, there's a lot of songs on there that're really neat and cool, but they're played often enough (to my ears) that they get really worn out.
I also bring an example to the forum, one which I wrestled with for a while this past week. I heard a song on the radio, Corrupt by Karissa Noel. I'm sure it's on a CD Somewhere, since it was played on the radio, but the radio station didn't have it listed (Web board stating their recently played songs). Sam Goody (music store) also had no record of that particular artist. Elaborate to me what I'm supposed to do, what's the next step to go to in finding a CD with a particular SONG on it? It's not on the top 200 from Billboard, and it's CD is not obvious anywhere. I did find it on Napster, but I only went searching there because I could not find this song any where else within my reach.
This is one example. I'm sure her CD's out there somewhere, maybe a brand new release, maybe not released just yet, maybe thrown into the archives for all I know. Ya, it's also just one incident, but I'm glad to have the tool available to help me find a song when commercial outlets did not work. I still want to buy the CD, I think they're better than MP3s anyday, and when I find it, I will.
As for Napster being only used for copying of copywrited works, I list the case against Sony for their VCR (early days) and note that I have found a number of songs on Napster that were independant artists. I don't mind paying a small fee per song I download, either. This, frankly, is a case of a legacy system (RIAA/Music Industry) and new technology (Internet/Napster). The RIAA needs to adapt, or be brought buckling to it's knees. I haven't seen any instance of a company that stood up unerringly and lasted very long against new technology. Adapt, don't fight. Get your hands in it and say 'Hey, this is great! Let's make it so that it's legal and benefits everyone, you the consumer, and me the retailer, then we can both be happy.'
Umm.. to note, such handbooks are one person's percieved notion on how to raise a child. These aren't operating instructions like those that would come from a manufacturer. It's like me writing a book on how to operate a Sony Viao laptop. Ya, I can do it, but ideally Sony aught to be the one, the one who's knowlegable enough about THEIR product, to give you more insight.
With parenting, there is no One True Way. There is no 'Doing this will give your child this' set of instructions, except from someone's percieved idea, and I'm sorry, those don't always fit the situation. This is what I refered to with there being no handbooks on how to raise a child.
Just as a note, optical mice have been around long before Microsoft came up with them. Sun Microsystems developed optical mice for use with their Sparcstations. they required a special mousepad, but irreguardless, they were optical.
Parents, like the government, like corperations, like everyone, are falable. They make mistakes. You'll notice there aren't many handbooks on how to raise a child, and you don't get one when your kid is born. It's not like a stereo with instructions, you have to figure out your own way to do it.
Have one kid, you probably screwed it up. Have two kids, the second may come out better than the first. It's a trial and error thing for most parents, because they don't take heed of other people saying this is the best way. Who knows the best way? Noone. Some may have ideas, but every kid is different, meaning each rearing process must be different.
Ya, parent's make mistakes, and often times, parent's don't care. THOSE are the parents that I think are being refered to. Ones that view their child as a chore rather than a cherished posession. They view it as work, not as something fun to do. Those are the parents that SHOULDN'T BE PARENTS, because they don't have the desire, the drive, nor the attitude to raise a child to function well in society. They just don't care.
I'll be short. I just think that we should really write and state that his articles of such a nature be flagged as Editorials, rather than true stories. Editorials are personal opinion, as Moody's are. Facts have to be verified.
I think the concept is that they are concerned about replacing the keyboard with a stylus/pad configuration. Those that prefered the standard method would have to buy more hardware that otherwise would've been included, and are now stuck with a piece of hardware that they don't need nor care about.
If you want to use a stylus, get a Palm. If you want a keyboard, get a PC/Laptop. MHO, of course.
I'm going to relay a little notion here that I had when I was working in a Windows shop. We wanted to impliment filesystem security because we were having users (in a school lab environment) install anything they wanted to. It was easy, Windows doesn't prevent any install program from running, not even in NT, not even as a normal user.
Here's the tricky part. Half the programs that ran on those NT machines went about using their filesystem space very recklessly. Whereas with Unix, if you run a program and it needs config files or such, it writes them from a default world-readable but not world-writable batch into your user's filespace. On Windows, it's a different matter. There's one config file. The system's, unless it's smart enough to write it into the Windows Registry under the user's account. Most aren't, that I've seen.
However, irreguardless of the config files, they'll often create temporary files, or need to write into data directories within the normal program filesystem heirarchy. Can't just mask all programs directories as read-only, it broke the programs. So we had to start from 'more secure' read-only and soften the filesystem. We had to run the programs once, find out what files they created, and either let them write anything into that directory, or 'catch' the file in existance, and lock it as undeletable so the program doesn't have to create a new one each time.
Needless to say, this became very tedious, and time consuming, and at my last check, it was still not implimented. I changed jobs before it was completed, and this project was months in the works.
WindowsNT default file creation is for ANY user to be able to read and write to anywhere on the disk, with the caviat that maybe you can't uninstall something because you can't access the system registry settings. NT sets up no userspace, so it must permit C:\ to become a users homespace, and with it, the ability to write to the disk. I have yet to see a successfull filesystem security implimentation for WindowsNT (so if someone can point me to one, it'd help).
Re:You could easily get much more nasty than that
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Building The Ubervirus
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You know, I came across this neat little library for Linux. libsafe, produced by Bell Labs. I haven't had a chance to test it's effectiveness, but you know those functions that you use to exploit buffer overflows? Well, this thing, using the libc runtime linker, Preloads this library before all others, and therefor, it's implimentations are the ones that remain resident for those insecure functions. As I hear it, it blocks any buffer overflow using those functions for that reason.
I run the thing on my machine at home, and while I haven't had any hack attempts since my last using buffer overflows, it seems like a smart thing to me. Catch ALL buffer overflows by the OS itself, don't rely on the programs to have done everything right. This means, though, you have to secure the OS as much as possible, but there're tools for that. Seems like an ideal way to block buffer-overflowing viruses to me.:)
You know, dispite being possibly bloated (Since I'm not sure it is, or it isn't), Staroffice still masses a disk footprint underneath Microsoft Office 97, last I checked anyways.
You know, this is a case of not jumping through the right hoop when trying to get something. Maybe this is because of timing. It's hard to ask for a specific warrent on reason X if the guy will have it disposed of and destroyed in 60 seconds. Maybe it's because of the heat of the moment. Taking a piece of paper in a dumpster when your authority only allowed you to search inside the house itself. Stuff like that.
Irreguardless if you followed the directions to the letter, if the truth is found in some evidence you got illegally, does that make it any less valid? I don't think so. This isn't to say that they should go around collecting things without any warrent at all, but in the cases listed above, I can see it as permissable. Besides, it's something of the same with searching a car with traffic cops. They have to get your permission, but if you resist, they can arrest you for resisting them, and open it anyways.
It's either that, or perhaps come up with a new, loosely worded search warrent stating that 'So long as it pertains to person X (that you're investigating), any evidence gained is legal'. Which would you prefer they do, since they both have the same effect, and that is being able to prosecute criminals even if they stepped outside the bounds they were prescribed to in order to get the proof of wrongdoing. More criminals punished, I'm content.
Umm.. I think he's refering to one machine getting a BSoD a day, and there being 5-10 of them that do it. That's not hard to believe. May not even be the same 5-10, perhaps? Besides, technical support often falls flat when you start doing anything using another product, because then you get from MS: "It's your app's fault", and from the app company: "It's a flaw in the OS."
I've seen it where sometimes a MS machine breaks, and it breaks in such a way that after it's broken, it can't be fixed without reinstall. Why? Ask Microsoft. This problem I saw was MS Office on MS Windows NT 4, so you tell me.
I had to think about this article for a while before I fully understood what FreeUser was attempting to say. Even now I'm still thinking on it, but a few thoughts have occured to me.
I tend to agree that patents and their abuse by forbidding anyone to use said technology because the patent holder says so is bad. Very bad, even. As was stated, as patents start to run out, advances come based upon those old ideas. Whoever has the most money and the most researchers thinking on the subject generally get the next prizes. That's not always the case, but in the realm of 'deep science', where discoveries are harder to find by accident, you can't just sit down, go "Oh, hey, what about this?" and poof, new patent. We're starting to push our boundries harder and faster, and in such a rapid expansion, there's little chance for the hobbyist at home to come up with a patentable idea.
I'm not aware if patents are sellable items or not, but it would seem that if they are, this is a Bad Thing (tm). Small company comes up with some new revolutionary idea where noone else was looking, some Big company comes in and says "Hey, we'll buy that patent for $100mil". What company is going to say no, especially if it's small? So the large company gets the patent, and rather than do anything with it, they sit on it, barring even the original discoverers from progressing further, since via the idea of inheritance, without patent A in existance, patent B couldn't have been found, making patent B more or less the property of the owners of patent A. I can see a company taking another company to court over 'You used my idea to make something new, and I want in!'.
This sort of segways into my next thought, what do you do about patents that sit idle? Should a company owning a patent be permitted to hold that idea in secret and bar it's use in other areas? I say no. If you're not going to do something with the patent, and the idea contained within, it should revert to public domain. This doesn't mean that you can't continue researching on the topic and hold it for yourselves, but it would prevent someone from buying a patent for some revolutionary new Widget, then stuffing it in a closet for 20 years, stagnating further research based upon that topic.
I think that having patents is not a bad thing inherantly. I think allowing them to be sold compounds the problem, and I think permitting them to sit idle is even worse. Unless you can prove that further research in a particular area (based on a patented idea) is hazardous, you should not be able to stifle development upon it.
Slightly off topic, but yet still having relevence, I remember hearing long time ago about a hair dresser that came up with this plastic called Starlyte. An interesting concept it was, too. This plastic conducted almost no heat what so ever, even in the thinnest layer. Dip an egg in this liquid plastic, let it cool, hold a torch on it for 30 minutes or an hour, and the egg inside the plastic would never have even gotten warm. The last I heard of this plastic was that he had sold it to Dupont for development and production. That's it, and that was.. maybe 8 years ago. When given the formula and the plastic itself, why would it take Dupont so long to begin production on such a thing. Retooling? I don't think so. No use for it? Again, I don't think so. Foam insulation from this plastic could make homes infinately more heat efficient. Clothing with this woven in could provide protection against burns and such, and not to mention firefighter suits of this stuff. I ask, what happened to it. Was it caustic? Why wasn't that said in a press release soon after? What happened to this patent? Maybe we should ask Dupont.
Patents are good to protect your ideas from someone else who wants to claim credit for them. Patents are bad when they can be abused to grind innovation to a halt while companies wait for these patents to expire.
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Wait a sec. Wasn't there a court case in which Sony was involved in concerning VCR's (Betamax) and recording shows off the TV (Broadcast media)? I do believe there was! And, according to the court, that's perfectly legal. It's called 'timeshifting'. I guess we just can't timeshift music played on the radio, even though TV and Radio are both broadcast media, and the broadcasters have not seen fit in all these many years to sue all those manufacturers for providing a product that breaks the law at the touch of a single (or pair of) button(s).
While I know the last line about her lying was rhetorical, I couldn't resist the post :) Wonder if anyone ever pointed out the concept of Timeshifting to Hilary. Hmm.
I tend to see this sort of behavior strewn throughout game development. Another line from Black Island, "Baldur's Gate", "Baldur's Gate 2", "Icewind Dale", and soon, "Neverwinter Nights". While I have played only the former myself, the latter ones show signs of using upgraded core features of the first game, enhanced, revised, and better. These games have similar themes, however, and are good for comparing similar titles within the same genre. Also noteworthy, "Quake", "Quake 2", "Quake 3" (who didn't see those comming? ;). Similar rendering engines, upgrades (not complete rewrites) from the former in the series.
I, for one, would absolutely adore getting my hands on the source code for an advanced graphics rendering engine, not to sell a game, but so I could see how it's done. There are Open Source engines out there, but compared to what's been developed commercially, there isn't a comparison. I have a feeling that's why (beyond standard proprietary protectiveness over their work) you can't find the source for any advanced and commercially used graphics engines in the Open Source community. It'd be too easy to take that code, and with (comparitively) little work, come up with theme, plot, story, and make your own game for sale ;) This also doesn't mean that you can't license said rendering engines from their designers. That I wouldn't know about.
I think the whole gist of the matter is.. why should you be FORCED to pay someone else to keep your PC's compliant? Why don't Site Licenses have a maximum PC count (you are permitted to run up to x PC's with Windows using this registration key y)? Why must licensing terms be so difficult to understand? What rule or law states that this should be difficult for all involved?
Hate to say it, but this licensing BS that Microsoft (and others) throw around is just that, BS. They want to make it as complex as possible while still being understood by their own people so that companies wind up fretfull and worried about large fines. Worried companies like that will happily throw more money at MS (or others) to make sure without a shadow of a doubt they are compliant. Even then, it seems, they'll still get bit.
I suggest new licensing scales. Site licensing means just that. You have a license to run X number of PC's on your site. If you install your company's image on more than that number, upgrade your existing site license to something bigger. Not hard, right? Simple! Now, you don't have to pay an OEM to preconfigure your machine with ALL your programs and software and drivers, you can do it in house with no worries.
Besides, what makes an OEM license so much more restrictive? What, are they afraid that you will eventually scrap that machine you bought and use that same software on another machine without (gasp) paying them more money? Funny, if I buy Adobe Photoshop, they permit me to install it on one (1) PC (It may be one desktop, one laptop. Haven't read the legalese yet). If I scrap that machine, I can still move that license (the old install must be erased) to a new machine, and wow, I'm still compliant. Cool.
Microsoft is hardup for money, and they want to make it any way they can. Pirating gets their meager product out the door faster, so they let it go. They're happy with it. They make token efforts so that people don't steal their software for profit, but that's about it. Now that most people are dependant on Microsoft, now that they've crushed most of their competition, and now that the economy is flagging a little.. Now they crack down on pirates. Now they make XP with their phone-in registration policy. That'll stop pirates more than not, but even that won't do it. Such flex license keys are crackable, it just takes more effort and time to get the algorithms.
Besides, were I an IS manager, I'd have serious reservations with handing over our purchased software (one product costing in the millions) to an OEM just so they can install it for us and probably screw it up. No thanks. If you do that, might as well outsource your IS staff to your OEM.
I kinda wonder if they're going to give out copies of Ashron's Call. Would be a nice little bit of irony. "Here's your free game! Now sign up with us for $10/mo (or whatever it costs) to play it!"
There's also one other aspect to IT life that I think you're missing. If the network goes down, the server has a problem, if data is lost, guess who's head is going to roll? The IT professional. He/she will be up late nights, periods over 24+ hours, seeing to it that that network is alive and kicking the very soonest possibility. For your 1 server, 50 workstation environments, yes, Mr. IT Professional hardly has any work to do beyond maintenance. For companies that do business rated in the millions of dollars, those servers and their uptime are rather keenly felt if they're absent.
Before you go knocking on all IT professionals as simpletons, maybe you should get out of school and into the field. Get yourself a little experience in a corperate environment before you start claiming how easy it is. For what you've played with, no doubt it is easy. Out in the world, the stakes are higher. Good IT professionals wind up spending most of their time doing nothing more than testing/playing on new things to impliment, because their servers are always online and available. Bad ones tend to run around fixing problems that shouldn't've existed in the first place. It all goes in levels too. A good IT professional on a small network may not be a good IT professional on an enterprise network. Besides, IT departments hardly ever are the revenue generating division. They are technical support, a part of the company that spends money to ensure that the rest of the company can do their jobs faster and more efficiently.
Final speed, yes. Agreed. I don't think you have to drive your engines to get there. While being based on a simulation, I recall that as the shuttle lifts off and enters orbit, it builds up a tremendous speed, and then once it hits the speed for the orbit it needs, it stops it's engines save for maneuvering. It doesn't need any more velocity to reach it's orbit, but at the same time, it's not quite there yet. I'm also reminded of the lunar launches. I don't believe they did much (if anything) to settle into orbit around the moon, just had angled themselves to slide into orbit on a coasting trajectory. Don't hold me to that, though, I haven't seen actual flight logs of what they did.
And yes, I'm also familiar with orbital mechanics. To conceptuallize this, I recommend reading the Integral Trees, by Niven I believe. A good insight into mass, orbital velocities, and what you need to do to move 'up' or 'down' relative to the object you're orbiting.
Though.. what do wings have to do with eliptical orbits?
I'm familiar with the current mass of garbage in orbit already, however, at the present time, we can still make trips into orbit without the immediate danger of having to dodge debris as we enter orbit. I'm talking about having LEO coated with items numbering into the 100,000s, not just the estimated 10,000 we have now. Do remember, our new space station had to dodge a tool one of the astronauts dropped into orbit just this past shuttle flight up.
Ever seen corperations handle 'waste management' on their factories and pants? Coal burning plants, amung others, could be made cleaner and better for a reasonable price, but they don't because that isn't worthwhile to their profit margins. Most companies wouldn't care about leaving garbage in space unless not doing so increased their profits. That was my point.
Technically, coasting is movement without a driving force, no acceleration. Once you reach high high upper atmosphere, where there's not enough there to stop you due to friction, you can use what speed you've built up (provided it's enough for the orbit you're shooting for) and coast your way into it. Orbits are actually the ship trying to fall back to earth, just constantly missing ;)
Besides, you coast to different orbits, while only giving yourself a quick boost or braking force. Once you achieve the speed you need for your new orbit, you will 'fall' into that new orbit. You don't do so under power (ie, running your engines til you're in your new orbit), or at least, it's not required.
I hate to play devil's advocate on this, but you stated that 'Scramjets are wasteful, and in the wrong direction' then.. do not go anywhere near that topic in the body of your message. Any particular reason you made this omission?
As for the government retarding space exploration, of course they have. You see how corperations act on planet Earth, right? Imagine that up in space, where things like a misplaced bolt traveling at orbital speeds can take out satellites. NASA tends to be very exacting about how and when they do things. Corperations go for the bottom line. Does it make them profit? If so, they don't care about the little details like debris. Can you imagine the difficulty we'd face in even getting out of the atmosphere if our entire LEO sphere was a mass of garbage and debris left from satallite leavings? (well, at least til they managed to drift back to the atmosphere)
I've been following this project for years since I heard it announced. While I'm not the utmost on what they're current plans are, there are reasons for doing things this way. The more disposable pieces they take to orbit (fuel tanks on the shuttle), the more explosive bolts they fire, the more garbage there is. If they can make a SSTO craft (Single Stage to Orbit for those that need it explained), then they cut down on the ammount of crap left in space.
Problem number one is getting the speed involved to reach orbit without booster rockets. Scramjets are the answer to this. They operate at high speeds only (well into the Mach range) and are ideal for use in situations where you don't need the compression of turbo fan blades in other jet engines. Read: A Scramjet is a ramjet only for use at higher speeds.
Problem number two is that, if they really want to make a SSTO craft, they have to carry Everything they need within that craft, all fuel to break escape velocity, everything. The current shuttles carry just enough fuel for maneuvering in space, and dropping back to earth. They do not and cannot (without external fuel tanks) have the reserves within to break out of the atmosphere. The only reason why this new space plane will be able to do it is because it will carry only half it's fuel. The other half (the bulk of the oxygen needed) will be gathered from the atmosphere itself as it flies.
Now, saying this is wasteful is frankly trolling and misinformation unless you can prove that it is wasteful. This plane will be lighter than it must be if it were to burn LOX and Liquid Hydrogen, and will therefor require less power to get the speed necessary to reach orbit. How is this more wasteful than before? What other methods would you use to get to space? A space elevator? Linear accelerator based on the ground? (Check out your Sci Fi book stores for what I mean by these). These ideas are nice and far more efficient, but are a little out of our league at the moment.
Until we can manage to build some of these things and overcome the technical hurdles involved in their creation and use, we still have to use rockets and jets to reach orbit. I'm all for a SSTO craft. They are more cost effective, they are more easily maintanable (The shuttle takes months on the ground for refits of lost tiles, damage from orbital debris, and other maintenance). If they can do this right, they can make this space plane more usefull by making it able to fly more often. Get a small fleet of them, and you could have daily flights to orbit. Tourism anyone?
Oh, and as for why NASA only bought 6 shuttles, several month downtimes, and single missions to orbit. At the moment, I doubt you'll see several shuttles in orbit at the same time. With all the monitoring tools they have, I don't think Nasa has the manpower to handle 2 or 3 in orbit at once. With those factors in mind, and a price tag in the billions (IIRC), they don't need more, they can't handle more, they're certainly not going to spend that much money on something they can't utilize effectively. Would you?
Umm.. Tivo doesn't make it any simpler than a normal VCR does. Last I heard it has a full 30 second skip. VCR's have a fast forward. Neither of these items check the boundry for the commercials to let you skip them completely. You still have to deal with them, but you don't have to sit through them. VCR's are legal. Tivo is legal too under these situations. Same idea, easier to work with.
You should also note that in this case, VCR's and TiVo are the similar comparison, not TiVo and broadcast TV. Tivo.. you have recorded a show for later viewing, and can replay it later. Broadcast TV is you watch what's on at that moment, no control other than volume and changing the channel.
Just a quick question. Understandably, the source code would most likely be released under the APSL license, but would a precompiled ready-to-install version also be released under this same lisence? And if it's not, would that mean that you could still use a non-altered copy, since it would not be 'Covered Code' as the license puts it?
These people that they claim had such a heavy impact on the company's business by posessing an illegal copy of Cubase is a little absurd. To make this statement true, you have to assume the following statement as well, 'Those people that had illegal copies of Cubase that turned them in would have purchased legal copies if an illegal copy was not available.' Without this statment, the notion that there was a total of 25% of this company's yearly sales lost is incorrect. The other alternative would be that, in light of no illegal copy, these people (or some portion thereof) would simply not possess any sort of copy of Cubase, and Steinberg would still not have that ammount of sales for that year.
Don't mistake this as a statement that "Illegal software is correct." It's not. However, with the cost-per-unit of software vendors being very low (Just how much does it take to make a copy of manuals and CD once produced? $10? $20?). Software vendors spend lots of money making the product (sometimes), and will sell it at it's suggested price ($89 for Windows, $600+ for Adobe products) until they release the next version. How much of this is recouping their cost for creating the software, and how much of it is an attempt to keep their revenue streams high once they clear the red line on profits? Sometimes, I think companies charge way too much for software, creating a case where hobbyists and people who use the software for fun alone don't want to spend an arm and a leg for a piece of software they use in their off time and aren't very good with.
As always, though, it will be the case of Pirated software is a lost revenue source, when I think they're trying to use reflex reactions in politicians to try and recoup percieved losses. Making a $1000 piece of high quality audio software is great, but if noone but companies can afford that, it won't be very popular with the common consumer.
But, Components from Intel and Microsoft were left closed.
What.. components.. were left closed by Intel and Microsoft? What does 'Open Hardware' have to do with 'Open Source Software'? I'm kind of confused here why you made this sort of statement.
Besides, (Intel) are there not Intel-Compatable CPU chips? Amd and Cyrix having been the ones I know about seem to be along those lines, and AMD chips actually do very well. This is bad?
And as for Microsoft... Open source provides one BIG advantage. There's a bug in the linux kernel (example). Some nobody programmer discovers this, discovers it's actually a very fundamental problem, and you can only see in the situation he created. Having the source, he can go in, and tweak the few lines of code that need to be changed, and viola, announce to the kernel developers, and you have a secured kernel within maybe week, probably sooner. How long does it take Microsoft to bring out a patch THAT WORKS when a bug is discovered in their system. Case in point, the Outlook/Melissa Virus flaw. Last I heard, they didn't really fix this, they just turned it off. Ah well. Closed source rules, apparently, right?
I also bring an example to the forum, one which I wrestled with for a while this past week. I heard a song on the radio, Corrupt by Karissa Noel. I'm sure it's on a CD Somewhere, since it was played on the radio, but the radio station didn't have it listed (Web board stating their recently played songs). Sam Goody (music store) also had no record of that particular artist. Elaborate to me what I'm supposed to do, what's the next step to go to in finding a CD with a particular SONG on it? It's not on the top 200 from Billboard, and it's CD is not obvious anywhere. I did find it on Napster, but I only went searching there because I could not find this song any where else within my reach.
This is one example. I'm sure her CD's out there somewhere, maybe a brand new release, maybe not released just yet, maybe thrown into the archives for all I know. Ya, it's also just one incident, but I'm glad to have the tool available to help me find a song when commercial outlets did not work. I still want to buy the CD, I think they're better than MP3s anyday, and when I find it, I will.
As for Napster being only used for copying of copywrited works, I list the case against Sony for their VCR (early days) and note that I have found a number of songs on Napster that were independant artists. I don't mind paying a small fee per song I download, either. This, frankly, is a case of a legacy system (RIAA/Music Industry) and new technology (Internet/Napster). The RIAA needs to adapt, or be brought buckling to it's knees. I haven't seen any instance of a company that stood up unerringly and lasted very long against new technology. Adapt, don't fight. Get your hands in it and say 'Hey, this is great! Let's make it so that it's legal and benefits everyone, you the consumer, and me the retailer, then we can both be happy.'
With parenting, there is no One True Way. There is no 'Doing this will give your child this' set of instructions, except from someone's percieved idea, and I'm sorry, those don't always fit the situation. This is what I refered to with there being no handbooks on how to raise a child.
Just as a note, optical mice have been around long before Microsoft came up with them. Sun Microsystems developed optical mice for use with their Sparcstations. they required a special mousepad, but irreguardless, they were optical.
Have one kid, you probably screwed it up. Have two kids, the second may come out better than the first. It's a trial and error thing for most parents, because they don't take heed of other people saying this is the best way. Who knows the best way? Noone. Some may have ideas, but every kid is different, meaning each rearing process must be different.
Ya, parent's make mistakes, and often times, parent's don't care. THOSE are the parents that I think are being refered to. Ones that view their child as a chore rather than a cherished posession. They view it as work, not as something fun to do. Those are the parents that SHOULDN'T BE PARENTS, because they don't have the desire, the drive, nor the attitude to raise a child to function well in society. They just don't care.
I'll be short. I just think that we should really write and state that his articles of such a nature be flagged as Editorials, rather than true stories. Editorials are personal opinion, as Moody's are. Facts have to be verified.
If you want to use a stylus, get a Palm. If you want a keyboard, get a PC/Laptop. MHO, of course.
Here's the tricky part. Half the programs that ran on those NT machines went about using their filesystem space very recklessly. Whereas with Unix, if you run a program and it needs config files or such, it writes them from a default world-readable but not world-writable batch into your user's filespace. On Windows, it's a different matter. There's one config file. The system's, unless it's smart enough to write it into the Windows Registry under the user's account. Most aren't, that I've seen.
However, irreguardless of the config files, they'll often create temporary files, or need to write into data directories within the normal program filesystem heirarchy. Can't just mask all programs directories as read-only, it broke the programs. So we had to start from 'more secure' read-only and soften the filesystem. We had to run the programs once, find out what files they created, and either let them write anything into that directory, or 'catch' the file in existance, and lock it as undeletable so the program doesn't have to create a new one each time.
Needless to say, this became very tedious, and time consuming, and at my last check, it was still not implimented. I changed jobs before it was completed, and this project was months in the works.
WindowsNT default file creation is for ANY user to be able to read and write to anywhere on the disk, with the caviat that maybe you can't uninstall something because you can't access the system registry settings. NT sets up no userspace, so it must permit C:\ to become a users homespace, and with it, the ability to write to the disk. I have yet to see a successfull filesystem security implimentation for WindowsNT (so if someone can point me to one, it'd help).
I run the thing on my machine at home, and while I haven't had any hack attempts since my last using buffer overflows, it seems like a smart thing to me. Catch ALL buffer overflows by the OS itself, don't rely on the programs to have done everything right. This means, though, you have to secure the OS as much as possible, but there're tools for that. Seems like an ideal way to block buffer-overflowing viruses to me. :)
You know, dispite being possibly bloated (Since I'm not sure it is, or it isn't), Staroffice still masses a disk footprint underneath Microsoft Office 97, last I checked anyways.
Irreguardless if you followed the directions to the letter, if the truth is found in some evidence you got illegally, does that make it any less valid? I don't think so. This isn't to say that they should go around collecting things without any warrent at all, but in the cases listed above, I can see it as permissable. Besides, it's something of the same with searching a car with traffic cops. They have to get your permission, but if you resist, they can arrest you for resisting them, and open it anyways.
It's either that, or perhaps come up with a new, loosely worded search warrent stating that 'So long as it pertains to person X (that you're investigating), any evidence gained is legal'. Which would you prefer they do, since they both have the same effect, and that is being able to prosecute criminals even if they stepped outside the bounds they were prescribed to in order to get the proof of wrongdoing. More criminals punished, I'm content.
I've seen it where sometimes a MS machine breaks, and it breaks in such a way that after it's broken, it can't be fixed without reinstall. Why? Ask Microsoft. This problem I saw was MS Office on MS Windows NT 4, so you tell me.
I tend to agree that patents and their abuse by forbidding anyone to use said technology because the patent holder says so is bad. Very bad, even. As was stated, as patents start to run out, advances come based upon those old ideas. Whoever has the most money and the most researchers thinking on the subject generally get the next prizes. That's not always the case, but in the realm of 'deep science', where discoveries are harder to find by accident, you can't just sit down, go "Oh, hey, what about this?" and poof, new patent. We're starting to push our boundries harder and faster, and in such a rapid expansion, there's little chance for the hobbyist at home to come up with a patentable idea.
I'm not aware if patents are sellable items or not, but it would seem that if they are, this is a Bad Thing (tm). Small company comes up with some new revolutionary idea where noone else was looking, some Big company comes in and says "Hey, we'll buy that patent for $100mil". What company is going to say no, especially if it's small? So the large company gets the patent, and rather than do anything with it, they sit on it, barring even the original discoverers from progressing further, since via the idea of inheritance, without patent A in existance, patent B couldn't have been found, making patent B more or less the property of the owners of patent A. I can see a company taking another company to court over 'You used my idea to make something new, and I want in!'.
This sort of segways into my next thought, what do you do about patents that sit idle? Should a company owning a patent be permitted to hold that idea in secret and bar it's use in other areas? I say no. If you're not going to do something with the patent, and the idea contained within, it should revert to public domain. This doesn't mean that you can't continue researching on the topic and hold it for yourselves, but it would prevent someone from buying a patent for some revolutionary new Widget, then stuffing it in a closet for 20 years, stagnating further research based upon that topic.
I think that having patents is not a bad thing inherantly. I think allowing them to be sold compounds the problem, and I think permitting them to sit idle is even worse. Unless you can prove that further research in a particular area (based on a patented idea) is hazardous, you should not be able to stifle development upon it.
Slightly off topic, but yet still having relevence, I remember hearing long time ago about a hair dresser that came up with this plastic called Starlyte. An interesting concept it was, too. This plastic conducted almost no heat what so ever, even in the thinnest layer. Dip an egg in this liquid plastic, let it cool, hold a torch on it for 30 minutes or an hour, and the egg inside the plastic would never have even gotten warm. The last I heard of this plastic was that he had sold it to Dupont for development and production. That's it, and that was .. maybe 8 years ago. When given the formula and the plastic itself, why would it take Dupont so long to begin production on such a thing. Retooling? I don't think so. No use for it? Again, I don't think so. Foam insulation from this plastic could make homes infinately more heat efficient. Clothing with this woven in could provide protection against burns and such, and not to mention firefighter suits of this stuff. I ask, what happened to it. Was it caustic? Why wasn't that said in a press release soon after? What happened to this patent? Maybe we should ask Dupont.
Patents are good to protect your ideas from someone else who wants to claim credit for them. Patents are bad when they can be abused to grind innovation to a halt while companies wait for these patents to expire.