'The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.'
Cavemen didn't know how to get energy from stone. Eventually we figured out that coal burns, and it's been the largest energy source on the planet ever since.
Oh by the way, I still use iron, bronze, steel, plastic, nuclear power, space, and dark, even though their ages have ended.
The information age will end long before we run out of information.
I'll tell you who does : the legions of people who download those screeners on P2P. They are the true big losers of this decision.
No. The big losers are the ones who don't grok the post. The decision repeals the ban of home copies. This means the P2P folk once again have access to these films.
So, other than saying that P2P pirates are losers in the first place, you've got it backwards.
Scientists in Germany invent a 'water wheel' capable of capturing the kinetic and potential energy of elevated water with efficiencies two orders of magnatude higher than this 'glass brick' method.
Though still theoretical, applications could include milling wheat, generating hydrogen for Zero Emission vehicles, or powering the internet.
"It is a six-in-one device which is nice for those people silly enough to buy a camera that does not support CF..."
Why is it silly to use a camera that uses another media format? CF is the largest standard on the market. SD cards are cheap, fast, high-capacity, tiny, and integrate well with my Palm.
There are a lot of products out there with Bluetooth where the feature isn't overly-touted. All it takes is for someone to bring to people's attention that their laptop and palmpilot both have bluetooth, and once they start using it, they'll start looking for other bluetooth-enabled devices.
Bluetooth is only now reaching the point where products with the technology don't cost appreciably more than those without it.
It's about to hit the second stage of the tipping point. When the group of users starts to trickle beyond the cutting edge folks. Then as peole see 'normal people' using 'nomal objects' (cellphones, palm piots, computers) with Bluetooth, then it becomes accepted in the mainstream.
I'm not a geek, but even I've noticed that my cellphone has bluetooth in it, as does my forthcoming Toyota Prius, and I know everyone who rides in my car will start to see that bluetooth is useful, even if you don't understand exactly how it works.
Bluetooth now is where CD-ROMs were in 1993. After three years of people saying 'this is the year bluetooth will take off' it's going to happen, and it's not going to be because of marketing.
Interestingly, several modern aircraft don't even rely on the airfoil principles pioneered by the Wright Brothers.
The F-4 Phantom's wings don't even have an airfoil shape. To compensate, they have huge engines mounted with a different angle of attack than the wings, so the wings act as lifting bodies because they're tilted up, as opposed to any help from Bernoulli.
Like several other modern fighters, F-4 proves that you can put enough power behind a brick and it will fly.
So the Wright Brothers needed 25mph headwinds. Is that any less an airplane than an F-4?
Your assertion that the sky is not blue is based on the spurious assumption that the sky and the atmosphere are somehow the same thing.
If stars are in the sky, then the sky is far more than just nitrogen, oxygen, and trace elements.
Truth is, the shy is a metaphorical construct of the 'thing above our heads' and, as metaphorical constructs go, it's often blue, often black, sometimes red, and sometimes falling.
I agree. The whole story is misleading. True, the ISP was only down for 72 hours, but their clients who relied on their ISP for data-backup as well as uptime, are probably still down, many with no hope of recovery.
I'm glad they were so relieved that they got thier billing software running a few days later, but it's not really a gold star that they lost all their customer's data.
Data's the easiest preparation to make. Creating a 'disaster plan' specifically for tornados, and not having so much as a weekly offsite backup isn't much of a plan at all.
" how can you do a legal end around against that without getting on a soapbox and demanding that your constituency is heard? "
By 'legal end-run' I mean an end-run that is legal, not a legal battle. CD Baby is an excellent example of a means for artists to sell their music to listeners without selling their souls (and most of their profits) to the RIAA.
Jeez people, I wasn't suggesting we confiscate their tip jars, just that rock and roll should *not* be a multi-billion dollar cash cow for the suits. I'd rather see a music "industry" where 1,000 bands make 50,000 each, rather than 10 bands make 5 million each and the other 995 have to pack it in.
I fully agree with this, but the way to do it isn't to go copying music everywhere,it's by creating distribution methods that do a legal end-run around the whole label and manufacturing infrastructure.
"You can sell it any way you choose. I just get edgy when you want to use the court system to enforce the way you choose. I don't really belong in the baby-with-the-bathwater crowd who say, jettison all IP law. But I think content creators had best get used to the idea that their "right" to restrict copying (and so create an artificial monopoly, thereby creating economic value for their work) is a construct of the polity. There's no physical reason I can't make a billion copies and distribute them for essentially zero cost, and there's no physical deprivation to the creator."
That argument is full of shit. Deprivation of financial remuneration is a cost, whether represented by physical objects or numbers in a bank account. By your logic, a CEO pocketing a company's profits instead of dispersing them as dividends to stockholders isn't wrong, because it doesn't represent a 'physical deprivation to the shareholder.' This is bunk, but it's not even the most important point, which is this:
By copying copyrighted works you're breaking a contract you made when you purchased the work.
If I create an original work, and I offer to sell it to you on the condition that you don't make copies for other people, you have the choice to buy it and not make copies, or to not buy it at all. If you don't want to abide by such a restriction, then don't buy it in the first place. Buying it with that understanding (branded by the copyright symbol) and deciding the restriction is unfair is hardly a defensible position. It's just a child's argument to get what you want while pretending it's not only okay, but imperative.
Just because it's art doesn't mean that people can't expect to be compensated for it. Are you saying that only people who have day jobs should make music in their spare time, or that artists shouldn't be able to sell paintings?
What about books? Do you believe authors should only be writing for love, and not to make money? Does that moral rationale only apply to fiction, or does it extend to how-to books as well?
'Art' is a soft designation, and you run into big problems when you say certain kinds of creative expression shouldn't be allowed to be owned by their creators, but others should be sold in whatever manner they choose.
Apple has announced that iTunes and the iTMS will be available for Windows before the end of the year.
Honda Element has an input jack in the glovebox
on
Pods Unite
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Some manufacturers are getting the right idea. Honda's Element has a power source (cig lighter thing) and a mini-jack input in the glove box. It also has a third power plug in the cargo area for a cooler.
Of course, the Element is targeted to the surfer wilderness crowd, but hopefully they'll start to see that other people have iPods, too.
Doctors don't purport to be perfect at healing. A police officer catching a criminal doesn't purport to have foreseen all the possible ways the criminal could have been caught, much less be morally corrupt enough to employ them.
The sock example is the best one: If you find your socks in the wrong drawer, you can put them into the right drawer at that time.
I'm not saying that these folks could write perfect software the first time out, but if they have a magic bullet for finding code errors, then presumably they could fix them as well.
You do realize that, unlike laundry and criminology, coding is an iterative process, right?
The article claims Apache's error density, based on a meager 5100 lines of code, is 0.53, while that of 'comparable commercial applications' is 0.51.
The problems with this are:
5100 lines of code does not give you a confidence range of less than 0.02, especially when the error rate can be expected to be heterogeneous across the code base, as would be the case in an open-source product where different code pieces are created by entirely different groups.
'Comparable' my ass. If they can't provide details of what software they're comparing to (I somehow doubt they got a look at IIS source code) then the stats are worthless, because anyone who's ever programmed knows that quality control isn't a constant factor across commercial products any more than it is among open-source products.
What's the error rate of their 'defect analysis'? If they're so good at finding defects, why aren't they out there writing perfect software? If their defect detection rate is less than 98% accurate, then the difference between a rate of 0.51 and 0.53 is meaningless anyhow.
There's a big difference between caught coding exceptions and fundamental security problems. The first can cause code to run a little slower, the second can destroy your company. This testing methodology doesn't even look at the second.
Gee, I'd never have known about this small-time hacker stunt if/. hadn't brought it to the attention of millions. Talk about using your powers for mayhem,/....
"Those only carry nuclear weapons, moron. They're also one-use. Insightful my ass."
Where did you get the idea that a ballistic missile can only carry a nuclear warhead? You should really broaden your education beyond watching Wargames before rolling out the insults.
As to your second 'point': How often do you figure these bombers will be used? Considering that we already have 10,000 ICBMs sitting at the ready, how is it less wasteful to use a new system, even a reusable one, than using what we already have?
Slashdot Mirror
So is there a rush of vehicle thefts during periods of high sunspot activity and coronal mass ejections like now?
An iBook can do all that for half the price (including the airport card and HD upgrade to 80gigs).
It's less than a fifth the size, and comes with its own VGA so you can use the TV as the display.
Of course, you can also use it for other stuff, but heck, if you want to do other stuff, buy a second one.
'The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.'
Cavemen didn't know how to get energy from stone. Eventually we figured out that coal burns, and it's been the largest energy source on the planet ever since.
Oh by the way, I still use iron, bronze, steel, plastic, nuclear power, space, and dark, even though their ages have ended.
The information age will end long before we run out of information.
I'll tell you who does : the legions of people who download those screeners on P2P. They are the true big losers of this decision.
No. The big losers are the ones who don't grok the post. The decision repeals the ban of home copies. This means the P2P folk once again have access to these films.
So, other than saying that P2P pirates are losers in the first place, you've got it backwards.
Scientists in Germany invent a 'water wheel' capable of capturing the kinetic and potential energy of elevated water with efficiencies two orders of magnatude higher than this 'glass brick' method.
Though still theoretical, applications could include milling wheat, generating hydrogen for Zero Emission vehicles, or powering the internet.
"It is a six-in-one device which is nice for those people silly enough to buy a camera that does not support CF..."
Why is it silly to use a camera that uses another media format? CF is the largest standard on the market. SD cards are cheap, fast, high-capacity, tiny, and integrate well with my Palm.
'Not like me' isn't a good measure of silliness.
There are a lot of products out there with Bluetooth where the feature isn't overly-touted. All it takes is for someone to bring to people's attention that their laptop and palmpilot both have bluetooth, and once they start using it, they'll start looking for other bluetooth-enabled devices.
Bluetooth is only now reaching the point where products with the technology don't cost appreciably more than those without it.
It's about to hit the second stage of the tipping point. When the group of users starts to trickle beyond the cutting edge folks. Then as peole see 'normal people' using 'nomal objects' (cellphones, palm piots, computers) with Bluetooth, then it becomes accepted in the mainstream.
I'm not a geek, but even I've noticed that my cellphone has bluetooth in it, as does my forthcoming Toyota Prius, and I know everyone who rides in my car will start to see that bluetooth is useful, even if you don't understand exactly how it works.
Bluetooth now is where CD-ROMs were in 1993. After three years of people saying 'this is the year bluetooth will take off' it's going to happen, and it's not going to be because of marketing.
Interestingly, several modern aircraft don't even rely on the airfoil principles pioneered by the Wright Brothers.
The F-4 Phantom's wings don't even have an airfoil shape. To compensate, they have huge engines mounted with a different angle of attack than the wings, so the wings act as lifting bodies because they're tilted up, as opposed to any help from Bernoulli.
Like several other modern fighters, F-4 proves that you can put enough power behind a brick and it will fly.
So the Wright Brothers needed 25mph headwinds. Is that any less an airplane than an F-4?
Your assertion that the sky is not blue is based on the spurious assumption that the sky and the atmosphere are somehow the same thing.
If stars are in the sky, then the sky is far more than just nitrogen, oxygen, and trace elements.
Truth is, the shy is a metaphorical construct of the 'thing above our heads' and, as metaphorical constructs go, it's often blue, often black, sometimes red, and sometimes falling.
I agree. The whole story is misleading. True, the ISP was only down for 72 hours, but their clients who relied on their ISP for data-backup as well as uptime, are probably still down, many with no hope of recovery.
I'm glad they were so relieved that they got thier billing software running a few days later, but it's not really a gold star that they lost all their customer's data.
Data's the easiest preparation to make. Creating a 'disaster plan' specifically for tornados, and not having so much as a weekly offsite backup isn't much of a plan at all.
" how can you do a legal end around against that without getting on a soapbox and demanding that your constituency is heard? "
By 'legal end-run' I mean an end-run that is legal, not a legal battle. CD Baby is an excellent example of a means for artists to sell their music to listeners without selling their souls (and most of their profits) to the RIAA.
Jeez people, I wasn't suggesting we confiscate their tip jars, just that rock and roll should *not* be a multi-billion dollar cash cow for the suits. I'd rather see a music "industry" where 1,000 bands make 50,000 each, rather than 10 bands make 5 million each and the other 995 have to pack it in.
I fully agree with this, but the way to do it isn't to go copying music everywhere,it's by creating distribution methods that do a legal end-run around the whole label and manufacturing infrastructure.
"You can sell it any way you choose. I just get edgy when you want to use the court system to enforce the way you choose. I don't really belong in the baby-with-the-bathwater crowd who say, jettison all IP law. But I think content creators had best get used to the idea that their "right" to restrict copying (and so create an artificial monopoly, thereby creating economic value for their work) is a construct of the polity. There's no physical reason I can't make a billion copies and distribute them for essentially zero cost, and there's no physical deprivation to the creator."
That argument is full of shit. Deprivation of financial remuneration is a cost, whether represented by physical objects or numbers in a bank account. By your logic, a CEO pocketing a company's profits instead of dispersing them as dividends to stockholders isn't wrong, because it doesn't represent a 'physical deprivation to the shareholder.' This is bunk, but it's not even the most important point, which is this:
By copying copyrighted works you're breaking a contract you made when you purchased the work.
If I create an original work, and I offer to sell it to you on the condition that you don't make copies for other people, you have the choice to buy it and not make copies, or to not buy it at all. If you don't want to abide by such a restriction, then don't buy it in the first place. Buying it with that understanding (branded by the copyright symbol) and deciding the restriction is unfair is hardly a defensible position. It's just a child's argument to get what you want while pretending it's not only okay, but imperative.
Just because it's art doesn't mean that people can't expect to be compensated for it. Are you saying that only people who have day jobs should make music in their spare time, or that artists shouldn't be able to sell paintings?
What about books? Do you believe authors should only be writing for love, and not to make money? Does that moral rationale only apply to fiction, or does it extend to how-to books as well?
'Art' is a soft designation, and you run into big problems when you say certain kinds of creative expression shouldn't be allowed to be owned by their creators, but others should be sold in whatever manner they choose.
Apple has announced that iTunes and the iTMS will be available for Windows before the end of the year.
Some manufacturers are getting the right idea. Honda's Element has a power source (cig lighter thing) and a mini-jack input in the glove box. It also has a third power plug in the cargo area for a cooler.
Of course, the Element is targeted to the surfer wilderness crowd, but hopefully they'll start to see that other people have iPods, too.
"Ah, Zen! I *love* Zen!"
This argument doesn't apply well at all.
Doctors don't purport to be perfect at healing.
A police officer catching a criminal doesn't purport to have foreseen all the possible ways the criminal could have been caught, much less be morally corrupt enough to employ them.
The sock example is the best one: If you find your socks in the wrong drawer, you can put them into the right drawer at that time.
I'm not saying that these folks could write perfect software the first time out, but if they have a magic bullet for finding code errors, then presumably they could fix them as well.
You do realize that, unlike laundry and criminology, coding is an iterative process, right?
Still, mitigate that with the pre-release status of Apache 2.1 and it cancels out.
The problems with this are:
When the laws get you down, find ways to work with them.
Of note: Five technically legal signs for your library.
Gee, I'd never have known about this small-time hacker stunt if /. hadn't brought it to the attention of millions. Talk about using your powers for mayhem, /. ...
Clearly it's not out of the question.
Do you have links for those stats? I'd like to know if the arsenal has really been dismantled to that degree.
Specifically about the subs, I'm almost certain that there's more than one class with ICBMs in active service.
Thanks,
Just because every country with ICBMs also has nuclear weapons, doesn't mean ICBMs have to carry nuclear weapons.
Why do you assume that a Cav can carry a non-nuclear weapon, but a MIRV can't?
"Those only carry nuclear weapons, moron. They're also one-use. Insightful my ass."
Where did you get the idea that a ballistic missile can only carry a nuclear warhead? You should really broaden your education beyond watching Wargames before rolling out the insults.
As to your second 'point': How often do you figure these bombers will be used? Considering that we already have 10,000 ICBMs sitting at the ready, how is it less wasteful to use a new system, even a reusable one, than using what we already have?