since the present administration believes that monopolies are for the good of the people, AOL will be able to follow through on their master plan to eliminate the telco's and all other isps, and make it the AOL net, rather than the internet. all they have to do is restrict access to time warner sites to aol members only, and make the price of cable access the same as dialup (they're almost a parity now). the only question is can they accomplish it in the three years left of the current administration.
fbi files show that John Lennon was monitored 24 hrs a day, including long range survelance using cameras and parabolic mikes, all his conversations and telecommunications were recorded, you can't get any more invasive than that, a few public cameras with recognition programs won't make a difference. In the long run it's no different than adding a couple more plain clothes police officers, except it's cheaper.
the problem is there is a big difference between you and a judge. you are an employee, the computer and network you use is provided by your company to do your job, the company is therefore responsible for anything you do on that computer, and therefore has a legal obligation to it's share holders (or owners as the case may be) to monitor your activity. the judge on the other hand is for all intents and purposes an independent contractor, the computer and network are provided him for his own discretionary use, only the judge is responsible for what he does with that computer. on top of that, there is no expectation of privacy in the work place. if you are sent mail (snail mail) at your place of work, that mail is essentially property of the company, the company has a right and as stated before, an obligation to know what is in that mail. much of what a judge deals with is extremely confidential, and to monitor that material would be a major breech of security, and the confidentiality of the litigants that appear in his court.
despite the success in other countries for universal identification numbers, it would not work on the scale mentioned. how many people have multiple phone #s and multiple email address, not to mention the chaos it would create making the telcos completely revise their switching systems. and then there's all your privacy paranoids out there who feel that universal id is the first step in government control of everything.
actually that was listed at the end of the article as the most likely cure for the problem. I don't think that a zero g mission to mars has ever been the plan, there are too many physical and psychological problems with prolonged zero g. of course there are other ways to simulate gravity. there is the constant accelleration/deccelleration approach, though this has problems with fuel useage, it greatly decreases the travel time. there is also the new research into artificial gravity/anti gravity production through superconductors.
Frankly, I have a problem believing in Brain's total innocence, my gut feeling is that he tried to take advantage of fortuitous circumstance to make a quick sale, especially considering the circumstances of his arrest, but if is truly the injured party then he needs to contact the ACLU, this is a major violation of his civil rights. They will cover all of his court costs.
technically it isn't bundling, what you are paying for is connectivity, and what you pay doesn't cover the cost of that connectivity. what you isp is betting, is that if they can get enough subscribers, that they can cover the cost of those subscribers by selling advertising, webhosting and other business services (pretty much the same formula used by the publishing industry). the free website, mail and news servers are provided as an incentive to draw more subscribers (these services are almost free compared to the cost of connectivity - how much does 20m of disk space cost?). so far this strategy hasn't worked for anyone except AOL, so all isps are losing money, and the larger ones buy up the smaller ones in hopes of reaching critical mass and finally becoming profitable. broadband is losing money faster than dialup, and no amount of regulation will change that. DSL is most likely a failed experiment, and will go away in a few years. as the bulk of cable is owned by either aol or at&t it has a small chance of becoming viable, but then we will all have to live under the restrictions of aol. you are also confused as to infrastructure. there are two preexisting privately owned networks, cable and telephone, these are then leased by the different isps for broadband purposes. this is why there are so many provisioning problems, there can be as many as three separate companies can be involved in your DSL service; your isp, the DSL network provider (covad), and your local telco. cable is a little simpler as only your isp and local cable co are involved.
barring technological leaps, incremental steps always cost more. it is also important to remember that the 1.33 is superceded by the 1.4, and back stock always sells for less that new production, so, in actuality you are getting a great deal on the 1.33 rather than paying a premium for the 1.4. also the article ignored the overclocking issue, it is possible that the 1.4 can be overclock a magnitude above the 1.33, especially if the 1.4 is an athalon 4, which runs significantly cooler (enough to allow it for use in laptops). on the other hand, i personally went with the athalon 850, with the first gen gigabyte 761 motherboard (which only supports only 200mgz memory bus, but then i had it a couple months before anyone else) and it screams and i have no regrets.
your absolutly correct, you don't know what they are talking about. AOL is exactly what they are talking about, a private network that has limited access to the internet. the problem with this approach is that a great deal of the appeal of the internet is the open access to an almost limitless database of information and ideas. if the open internet really does die, you won't be reading/., you'll be stuck with mindless AOL chat rooms, and endless pop up ads.
I have not watched a program real time since 1979 when I bought my first vcr. the only ads I have watched since then are m&m ads (I like them). this is not a new issue, and will probably never have a significant effect on advertising. remember, many people watch the superbowl just to see the ads.
Lucas has always vigorously slapped down anyone who even vaguely contravened one of his trademarks or copyrights. I don't know if it is him personally or his attorneys, but he is ruthless in this regard. If they had gone to him first, then he would have licensed them, but now he probably won't. Frankly I was always amazed he didn't go after Regan and his "Star Wars" project. Though I do believe that he has gone after GW for bringing it back up.
HELP!!!! somebody please tell me what is insightful about this entry, and why it deserves a score of 5, a 2 for funny maybe, but a 5 for insightful? This is clearly not Dmitry Skylarov, the specs on the IMac should be proof enough. On the other hand, since when do we arrest foreign nationals for demonstrating their products here. This man didn't even commit a crime here! Every day we have thousands of foreign nationals who come here and do commit crimes (it is a crime to work without a work visa) and all we do is deport them.
this is really the same as trying to assess them for holdings in other states and other countries, after all, the satellite isn't over l.a., it's over the equator. it will die in court.
as usual, jon katz doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, as evidenced by the first paragraph, but what i want to talk about is global warming. there is a theory that global warming is our friend. according to the geological model of the earth's evolution (as opposed to the astronomical model), we should be in the middle of an ice age. the beginning of that ice age corresponds nicely with the advent of human civilization, and global warming. it appears that global warming is in fact staving off that ice age. of course, the real problem is what happens when we reach the downside of our ice age, but since that's a couple thousand years away, who cares. of course the real problem with runaway global warming is not the melting ice caps (that's just an inconvenience), but ocean temperature. marine botanists can tell you that if the ocean temp raises by 10 degrees the plankton dies, which means no more oxygen, which means no more life. but not to worry, the earth will be fine, it doesn't need life to survive, so you can ignore all that save the earth bull.
what you say is very true, NASA too a big hit when the challenger blew up, people lost confidence in their ability to function on an ever dwindling budget, and problems of the last couple of years have shown the fallacy of the "cheaper quicker" approach. the fact is, that just to adjust for inflation, the budget should be at least ten times what it was during the Apollo era, but congress don't see the short term benefits to increasing the NASA budget, despite all of the technological advancements that are directly attributable to NASA. and NASA doesn't help their situation by scoffing at commercial applications, such as the Russians sending tourists into space. at twenty mil a pop, they won't get many takers, and it won't make much of a dent in the budget, but the pr possibilities are endless. the public has to care, before congress will care. on the other hand, I doubt that NASA will go away anytime soon. too many practical and business benefits come out of their work, (without NASA, who's going to fix all those civilian and military satellites?). though congress would rather give the money to a private corporation, nobody's stupid enough to take on the project with the limited budget now available.
I don't know why EVERY single time a book is made into a movie there's a grumpy guy going "the movie sucked ass".
A. because the movie sucked ass. B. if they had called it "Dessert Planet, a story inspired by Frank Herbert's Dune" it would just be another cheesy Sci Fi mini series, and could be appreciated on it's own merits. But they called it "Dune", and therefore it can only be compared to the book upon which it is based. if you are trying to reproduce the essence and feel of a great book, your main character (the empress) should not be someone who barely even appears in the book (the empress does not have an active role until the second book). you should not ignore key aspects of the book, i.e.: in the mini series the walked rhythmically in unison to fool the worms, in the book they walk arhythmically, as the worms were drawn to rhythmic sounds. if you are remaking an adaptation of a book that has already been made into a film, you should create something that is at least as well done as the original. I looked forward to the mini series with great anticipation, I always believed that had Lynch created "Dune" as a mini series rather than a movie it would have been much better, after all he was trying to reduce a 900 page novel to a 250 page script, (a 2 1/2hr film), and came up with a 450 page script (a 4 1/2 hr film) which was then cut to a 2 1/2 hr movie. had he actually been able to produce the rumored 9 1/2 hr movie that the book justified, it would have been much easier to understand, and much more enjoyable. that said, when a mini series was produced, the director failed utterly to capture even a glimpse of what is one of the greatest sci fi epics ever produced, and I am sure the sequel will be worse.
You don't see people cleaning the window with "Kwindex"
Actually you do, it happens all the time, many generic manufactures attempt to gain business using a name similar to a well known brand names, usually by changing a letter, or adding a few letters. The difference is that the IT industry has gone over the edge in trademark and copyright protection. I can see a time not too far in the future, when to have a domain name, you will first have to have a registered trademark, otherwise you will get sued and fined for having a name too similar to someone else's. There are only about 2500 unique words in the English language, and many are similar enough to each other to qualify under the current rulings of infringement. So unless you are a Mega-Corp with a thousand lawyers at your beck and call
I accept that most IT people don't know anything about business, so I can understand the overreaction. Filing bankruptcy is not synonymous with going out of business. Just the opposite, it can be a sign of corporate health. Anyone who expects a business to be profitable in the first year of operation, does not belong in business. The company I work for has been in business for over five years and has a goal of losing only $35 - $45 million dollars this year. We are a healthy and growing company, and our stock is on the rise. Yes it is better to turn a profit, but business is a long term commitment, it can take 10 to 15 years to pay off the initial investments.
what is it about/.ers, they always panic, why do you believe everything was invented yesterday? international patent law has been working fine for years, this is not news it is paranoia and hype. in you scenario company a would not be able to manufacture or distribute in america and company b would not be able manufacture or distribute in germany, and that's the extent of it. now this wouldn't actually happen, since both america and germany recognize international patents, (courts will almost always go along with president) but many countries do not, and so therefore the example a some hypothetical validity. the important thing to remember is that there is no civil extradition, in fact if you live in california, and someone sues you in florida and wins, unless you have assets in florida, or travel to florida, they cannot enforce the judgment.
well stop doing that. the reason repetitive stress syndrome is on the wane is simple, people have changed their habits, and started using more ergonomic equipment. because therapy works doesn't mean the disease never existed. their example of the lady who was in so much pain that she had to stop typing for 4 years is silly, she stopped typing, so yes the pain went away, as if it was never there. how long did she type before it developed? given her rated typing speed, a long time, so it will take a long time before it shows up again, assuming she hasn't improved the way she works, but less time than it did the first time. if canada continues to deny the existence of repetitive stress syndrome then they'll probably have a rise in cases in a few years.
Once again Jon Katz innocence and ignorance shines through. I don't think I have ever seen a writer that knew so little about so much. That said, a) Bill Gates was never on the ropes, and b)Microsoft is no where near the first Unaccountable Corporation. Microsoft's appearance of accountability was due to their ignorance of politics. They lived under the misguided belief that if they ignored Washington, Washington would ignore them. They have learned their mistake and are taking steps to purchase politicians like every other major corporation. If you need an example of an Unaccountable Corporation that dwarfs Microsoft, how about the federal reserve. Most people don't even realizes that the federal reserve is an independent corporation with few ties to the government, and no accountability, and they control our country's economy. Microsoft is small potatoes. Microsoft may be an evil corporation (one that knowingly and intentionally produces an inferior product at a higher price, though most of the software industry falls into that catagory)without conscience, they are certainly not unique, and certainly not worthy of the paranoid panic that you seem to feel they are.
even though it only operates at 200 mhz as opposed to 266 mhz, it rocks. I highly recommend the orbital cooling fan, though I had to modify it to get it to fit on the motherboard. I also recommend dual case fans, and air conditioning. even on a cold day it heats up my room. the other flaw with the gigabyte board is that it won't load windows 2000, and gigabyte has zilch for tech support.
AOL accounts for at least a third of all internet users, and they have to hit aol to log on, microsoft accounts for well over half of the computers out there, and they've built in so many back doors, auto updates, and such that they have to get hits, not to mention that everyone has to go to microsoft at least once to try and figure out why windows is so crappy, yahoo is without question the most well known search engine, and we all know why napster gets so many hits.
Slashdot Mirror
since the present administration believes that monopolies are for the good of the people, AOL will be able to follow through on their master plan to eliminate the telco's and all other isps, and make it the AOL net, rather than the internet. all they have to do is restrict access to time warner sites to aol members only, and make the price of cable access the same as dialup (they're almost a parity now). the only question is can they accomplish it in the three years left of the current administration.
fbi files show that John Lennon was monitored 24 hrs a day, including long range survelance using cameras and parabolic mikes, all his conversations and telecommunications were recorded, you can't get any more invasive than that, a few public cameras with recognition programs won't make a difference. In the long run it's no different than adding a couple more plain clothes police officers, except it's cheaper.
the problem is there is a big difference between you and a judge. you are an employee, the computer and network you use is provided by your company to do your job, the company is therefore responsible for anything you do on that computer, and therefore has a legal obligation to it's share holders (or owners as the case may be) to monitor your activity. the judge on the other hand is for all intents and purposes an independent contractor, the computer and network are provided him for his own discretionary use, only the judge is responsible for what he does with that computer. on top of that, there is no expectation of privacy in the work place. if you are sent mail (snail mail) at your place of work, that mail is essentially property of the company, the company has a right and as stated before, an obligation to know what is in that mail. much of what a judge deals with is extremely confidential, and to monitor that material would be a major breech of security, and the confidentiality of the litigants that appear in his court.
despite the success in other countries for universal identification numbers, it would not work on the scale mentioned. how many people have multiple phone #s and multiple email address, not to mention the chaos it would create making the telcos completely revise their switching systems. and then there's all your privacy paranoids out there who feel that universal id is the first step in government control of everything.
actually that was listed at the end of the article as the most likely cure for the problem. I don't think that a zero g mission to mars has ever been the plan, there are too many physical and psychological problems with prolonged zero g. of course there are other ways to simulate gravity. there is the constant accelleration/deccelleration approach, though this has problems with fuel useage, it greatly decreases the travel time. there is also the new research into artificial gravity/anti gravity production through superconductors.
geek meets goth, the world is saved
Frankly, I have a problem believing in Brain's total innocence, my gut feeling is that he tried to take advantage of fortuitous circumstance to make a quick sale, especially considering the circumstances of his arrest, but if is truly the injured party then he needs to contact the ACLU, this is a major violation of his civil rights. They will cover all of his court costs.
technically it isn't bundling, what you are paying for is connectivity, and what you pay doesn't cover the cost of that connectivity. what you isp is betting, is that if they can get enough subscribers, that they can cover the cost of those subscribers by selling advertising, webhosting and other business services (pretty much the same formula used by the publishing industry). the free website, mail and news servers are provided as an incentive to draw more subscribers (these services are almost free compared to the cost of connectivity - how much does 20m of disk space cost?). so far this strategy hasn't worked for anyone except AOL, so all isps are losing money, and the larger ones buy up the smaller ones in hopes of reaching critical mass and finally becoming profitable. broadband is losing money faster than dialup, and no amount of regulation will change that. DSL is most likely a failed experiment, and will go away in a few years. as the bulk of cable is owned by either aol or at&t it has a small chance of becoming viable, but then we will all have to live under the restrictions of aol. you are also confused as to infrastructure. there are two preexisting privately owned networks, cable and telephone, these are then leased by the different isps for broadband purposes. this is why there are so many provisioning problems, there can be as many as three separate companies can be involved in your DSL service; your isp, the DSL network provider (covad), and your local telco. cable is a little simpler as only your isp and local cable co are involved.
barring technological leaps, incremental steps always cost more. it is also important to remember that the 1.33 is superceded by the 1.4, and back stock always sells for less that new production, so, in actuality you are getting a great deal on the 1.33 rather than paying a premium for the 1.4. also the article ignored the overclocking issue, it is possible that the 1.4 can be overclock a magnitude above the 1.33, especially if the 1.4 is an athalon 4, which runs significantly cooler (enough to allow it for use in laptops). on the other hand, i personally went with the athalon 850, with the first gen gigabyte 761 motherboard (which only supports only 200mgz memory bus, but then i had it a couple months before anyone else) and it screams and i have no regrets.
your absolutly correct, you don't know what they are talking about. AOL is exactly what they are talking about, a private network that has limited access to the internet. the problem with this approach is that a great deal of the appeal of the internet is the open access to an almost limitless database of information and ideas. if the open internet really does die, you won't be reading /., you'll be stuck with mindless AOL chat rooms, and endless pop up ads.
I have not watched a program real time since 1979 when I bought my first vcr. the only ads I have watched since then are m&m ads (I like them). this is not a new issue, and will probably never have a significant effect on advertising. remember, many people watch the superbowl just to see the ads.
Just another reason not to use Microsoft, and of course keep up to date on your patches.
Lucas has always vigorously slapped down anyone who even vaguely contravened one of his trademarks or copyrights. I don't know if it is him personally or his attorneys, but he is ruthless in this regard. If they had gone to him first, then he would have licensed them, but now he probably won't. Frankly I was always amazed he didn't go after Regan and his "Star Wars" project. Though I do believe that he has gone after GW for bringing it back up.
HELP!!!! somebody please tell me what is insightful about this entry, and why it deserves a score of 5, a 2 for funny maybe, but a 5 for insightful? This is clearly not Dmitry Skylarov, the specs on the IMac should be proof enough. On the other hand, since when do we arrest foreign nationals for demonstrating their products here. This man didn't even commit a crime here! Every day we have thousands of foreign nationals who come here and do commit crimes (it is a crime to work without a work visa) and all we do is deport them.
this is really the same as trying to assess them for holdings in other states and other countries, after all, the satellite isn't over l.a., it's over the equator. it will die in court.
as usual, jon katz doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, as evidenced by the first paragraph, but what i want to talk about is global warming. there is a theory that global warming is our friend. according to the geological model of the earth's evolution (as opposed to the astronomical model), we should be in the middle of an ice age. the beginning of that ice age corresponds nicely with the advent of human civilization, and global warming. it appears that global warming is in fact staving off that ice age. of course, the real problem is what happens when we reach the downside of our ice age, but since that's a couple thousand years away, who cares. of course the real problem with runaway global warming is not the melting ice caps (that's just an inconvenience), but ocean temperature. marine botanists can tell you that if the ocean temp raises by 10 degrees the plankton dies, which means no more oxygen, which means no more life. but not to worry, the earth will be fine, it doesn't need life to survive, so you can ignore all that save the earth bull.
what you say is very true, NASA too a big hit when the challenger blew up, people lost confidence in their ability to function on an ever dwindling budget, and problems of the last couple of years have shown the fallacy of the "cheaper quicker" approach. the fact is, that just to adjust for inflation, the budget should be at least ten times what it was during the Apollo era, but congress don't see the short term benefits to increasing the NASA budget, despite all of the technological advancements that are directly attributable to NASA. and NASA doesn't help their situation by scoffing at commercial applications, such as the Russians sending tourists into space. at twenty mil a pop, they won't get many takers, and it won't make much of a dent in the budget, but the pr possibilities are endless. the public has to care, before congress will care. on the other hand, I doubt that NASA will go away anytime soon. too many practical and business benefits come out of their work, (without NASA, who's going to fix all those civilian and military satellites?). though congress would rather give the money to a private corporation, nobody's stupid enough to take on the project with the limited budget now available.
I don't know why EVERY single time a book is made into a movie there's a grumpy guy going "the movie sucked ass".
A. because the movie sucked ass. B. if they had called it "Dessert Planet, a story inspired by Frank Herbert's Dune" it would just be another cheesy Sci Fi mini series, and could be appreciated on it's own merits. But they called it "Dune", and therefore it can only be compared to the book upon which it is based. if you are trying to reproduce the essence and feel of a great book, your main character (the empress) should not be someone who barely even appears in the book (the empress does not have an active role until the second book). you should not ignore key aspects of the book, i.e.: in the mini series the walked rhythmically in unison to fool the worms, in the book they walk arhythmically, as the worms were drawn to rhythmic sounds. if you are remaking an adaptation of a book that has already been made into a film, you should create something that is at least as well done as the original. I looked forward to the mini series with great anticipation, I always believed that had Lynch created "Dune" as a mini series rather than a movie it would have been much better, after all he was trying to reduce a 900 page novel to a 250 page script, (a 2 1/2hr film), and came up with a 450 page script (a 4 1/2 hr film) which was then cut to a 2 1/2 hr movie. had he actually been able to produce the rumored 9 1/2 hr movie that the book justified, it would have been much easier to understand, and much more enjoyable. that said, when a mini series was produced, the director failed utterly to capture even a glimpse of what is one of the greatest sci fi epics ever produced, and I am sure the sequel will be worse.
You don't see people cleaning the window with "Kwindex"
Actually you do, it happens all the time, many generic manufactures attempt to gain business using a name similar to a well known brand names, usually by changing a letter, or adding a few letters. The difference is that the IT industry has gone over the edge in trademark and copyright protection. I can see a time not too far in the future, when to have a domain name, you will first have to have a registered trademark, otherwise you will get sued and fined for having a name too similar to someone else's. There are only about 2500 unique words in the English language, and many are similar enough to each other to qualify under the current rulings of infringement. So unless you are a Mega-Corp with a thousand lawyers at your beck and call
I accept that most IT people don't know anything about business, so I can understand the overreaction. Filing bankruptcy is not synonymous with going out of business. Just the opposite, it can be a sign of corporate health. Anyone who expects a business to be profitable in the first year of operation, does not belong in business. The company I work for has been in business for over five years and has a goal of losing only $35 - $45 million dollars this year. We are a healthy and growing company, and our stock is on the rise. Yes it is better to turn a profit, but business is a long term commitment, it can take 10 to 15 years to pay off the initial investments.
what is it about /.ers, they always panic, why do you believe everything was invented yesterday? international patent law has been working fine for years, this is not news it is paranoia and hype. in you scenario company a would not be able to manufacture or distribute in america and company b would not be able manufacture or distribute in germany, and that's the extent of it. now this wouldn't actually happen, since both america and germany recognize international patents, (courts will almost always go along with president) but many countries do not, and so therefore the example a some hypothetical validity. the important thing to remember is that there is no civil extradition, in fact if you live in california, and someone sues you in florida and wins, unless you have assets in florida, or travel to florida, they cannot enforce the judgment.
well stop doing that. the reason repetitive stress syndrome is on the wane is simple, people have changed their habits, and started using more ergonomic equipment. because therapy works doesn't mean the disease never existed. their example of the lady who was in so much pain that she had to stop typing for 4 years is silly, she stopped typing, so yes the pain went away, as if it was never there. how long did she type before it developed? given her rated typing speed, a long time, so it will take a long time before it shows up again, assuming she hasn't improved the way she works, but less time than it did the first time. if canada continues to deny the existence of repetitive stress syndrome then they'll probably have a rise in cases in a few years.
Once again Jon Katz innocence and ignorance shines through. I don't think I have ever seen a writer that knew so little about so much. That said, a) Bill Gates was never on the ropes, and b)Microsoft is no where near the first Unaccountable Corporation. Microsoft's appearance of accountability was due to their ignorance of politics. They lived under the misguided belief that if they ignored Washington, Washington would ignore them. They have learned their mistake and are taking steps to purchase politicians like every other major corporation. If you need an example of an Unaccountable Corporation that dwarfs Microsoft, how about the federal reserve. Most people don't even realizes that the federal reserve is an independent corporation with few ties to the government, and no accountability, and they control our country's economy. Microsoft is small potatoes. Microsoft may be an evil corporation (one that knowingly and intentionally produces an inferior product at a higher price, though most of the software industry falls into that catagory)without conscience, they are certainly not unique, and certainly not worthy of the paranoid panic that you seem to feel they are.
even though it only operates at 200 mhz as opposed to 266 mhz, it rocks. I highly recommend the orbital cooling fan, though I had to modify it to get it to fit on the motherboard. I also recommend dual case fans, and air conditioning. even on a cold day it heats up my room. the other flaw with the gigabyte board is that it won't load windows 2000, and gigabyte has zilch for tech support.
AOL accounts for at least a third of all internet users, and they have to hit aol to log on, microsoft accounts for well over half of the computers out there, and they've built in so many back doors, auto updates, and such that they have to get hits, not to mention that everyone has to go to microsoft at least once to try and figure out why windows is so crappy, yahoo is without question the most well known search engine, and we all know why napster gets so many hits.