OSS isn't the issue here. NYC Transit has problems wihth the Metrocard because it bought into a custom system that it alone uses and that was developed by a company which (judging by the VV article) seems to be trying to equal Scientology for corrupt practices.
Transit should have bought an existing system, not one consisting solely of vapour. A good choice would be the one currently used in Japan -- although I admit to having no knowledge of its technical details, the system does seem to be uniform countrywide. It works well, is flexible enough for multisystem tickets, is fully automated (except for intercity reserved seats, which shouldn't be difficult to automate), and should be cheaper than implementing an entirely new system.
Of course, the US is infamous for NIH syndrome. It adopted GSM fairly late in the game (albeit earlier than Japan, which won't do so at all), and even then not as a countrywide universal standard. Then there's the Acela fiasco, where Bombardier was selected as the trainset supplier despite it having zero experience building anything capable of > 250 km/h operation -- and, according to their website, the top speed of the Acela trainset is only 240. Pathetic, to put it mildly. The current-generation trainsets used for ICE and Nozomi service have a maximum speed of 280 km/h.
If you think that SilverHawks is a marketing gimmick, try Yu-Gi-Oh. On 11 July, I tried watching an episode, and was lucky I survived the experience. I've been trying hard to forget all about it, but the plot went something like this:
1. Yuugi meets Bad Guy, gets sucked into the Yami no Geimu (Game of Darkness) world.
2. Yuugi and Bad Guy play Magic: The Gathering for 25 minutes.
3. Yuugi wins.
Of course, you can walk to Gamers afterwards and buy the card game and numerous other Yu-Gi-Oh items. I'd rather watch Digimon, even the American dub -- of course, Di Gi Charat blows both of them away (nyo!).
The Motorola L7089 is sold by Omnipoint as well. $400, works on 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz. Have it, love it, just wish it worked in Japan (which uses its own completely proprietary system.)
Why would it be illegal for you to play this hypothetical (or not) DVD? At any rate, region codes have absolutely no effect on piracy -- if a pirate wants to sell bootlegs of an already-existing disc, they can set the region code on the copies to whatever they damn well please. Of course, that's not where the money is. The market wants bootlegs of movies for which no legal disc exists, and this is exactly what pirates provide.
Simpson could have helped to include "unexportably" strong encryption in an internet standard that would surely be exported.
If PPP had required encryption, it would not be legal to export PPP stacks from the US. This doesn't mean that they would be exported anyhow; rather, that they would be developed in a free country.
I just bought an ADS USB card and a Mouseman Wheel to replace my aging Mouseman (original version, USB). Works great on my 9500. Try one; you'll like it.
I've suggested before that this is one of the few affordable commercial uses of spaceflight at this time. Were NASA not so puritanical, it would probably have been done by now; I think the first IMAX-3D space porn movie will make a ton of money.
Larry Flynt would jump on this in a second if it were possible to get screenings. An Omnimax (forget IMAX, people -- Omnimax is a trillion times better) theatre isn't exactly something you find on every street corner. They're mostly in science museums -- think family entertainment here. There's no way the Deutsches Museum is going to be showing a porn flick anytime soon.
On the other hand, "Severed Dreams" might be a good choice. Rerender all the CGI at ten times the old resolution, make a 15/70 print (IMAX/Omnimax form factor, thrice the height of a normal 70mm image) and drop it into the projector at the Museum of Science. Some ungodly amount of amplifiers (20kW total, I think) and a five-story dome. Comparing it to a flat-screen IMAX system is like comparing a fully loaded S/390 G5 (40k simultaneous connections, eats multiterabyte databases for breakfast) to a Presario with 64 MB of RAM and NT 5.0^W^WWindows 2000 b2.
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OSS isn't the issue here. NYC Transit has problems wihth the Metrocard because it bought into a custom system that it alone uses and that was developed by a company which (judging by the VV article) seems to be trying to equal Scientology for corrupt practices.
Transit should have bought an existing system, not one consisting solely of vapour. A good choice would be the one currently used in Japan -- although I admit to having no knowledge of its technical details, the system does seem to be uniform countrywide. It works well, is flexible enough for multisystem tickets, is fully automated (except for intercity reserved seats, which shouldn't be difficult to automate), and should be cheaper than implementing an entirely new system.
Of course, the US is infamous for NIH syndrome. It adopted GSM fairly late in the game (albeit earlier than Japan, which won't do so at all), and even then not as a countrywide universal standard. Then there's the Acela fiasco, where Bombardier was selected as the trainset supplier despite it having zero experience building anything capable of > 250 km/h operation -- and, according to their website, the top speed of the Acela trainset is only 240. Pathetic, to put it mildly. The current-generation trainsets used for ICE and Nozomi service have a maximum speed of 280 km/h.
At least we don't have John Howard or Jack Straw.
If you think that SilverHawks is a marketing gimmick, try Yu-Gi-Oh. On 11 July, I tried watching an episode, and was lucky I survived the experience. I've been trying hard to forget all about it, but the plot went something like this:
1. Yuugi meets Bad Guy, gets sucked into the Yami no Geimu (Game of Darkness) world.
2. Yuugi and Bad Guy play Magic: The Gathering for 25 minutes.
3. Yuugi wins.
Of course, you can walk to Gamers afterwards and buy the card game and numerous other Yu-Gi-Oh items. I'd rather watch Digimon, even the American dub -- of course, Di Gi Charat blows both of them away (nyo!).
The Motorola L7089 is sold by Omnipoint as well. $400, works on 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz. Have it, love it, just wish it worked in Japan (which uses its own completely proprietary system.)
Why would it be illegal for you to play this hypothetical (or not) DVD? At any rate, region codes have absolutely no effect on piracy -- if a pirate wants to sell bootlegs of an already-existing disc, they can set the region code on the copies to whatever they damn well please. Of course, that's not where the money is. The market wants bootlegs of movies for which no legal disc exists, and this is exactly what pirates provide.
If PPP had required encryption, it would not be legal to export PPP stacks from the US. This doesn't mean that they would be exported anyhow; rather, that they would be developed in a free country.
Cornell's CS school used to be good. Now, the computer facilities are second rate -- MIT's creative writing students get access to better.
If you don't believe me, see this press release. Look for the quote from Robert Constable.
s/USB/ADB/ for the first occurence thereof.
I just bought an ADS USB card and a Mouseman Wheel to replace my aging Mouseman (original version, USB). Works great on my 9500. Try one; you'll like it.
(As always, #include <std-disclaimer.h>. Moof.)
There's plenty of non-Hollywood stuff on DVD. I've got Pi and a bunch of anime titles, and there's more where that came from.
Check out DVDExpress sometime.
On the other hand, "Severed Dreams" might be a good choice. Rerender all the CGI at ten times the old resolution, make a 15/70 print (IMAX/Omnimax form factor, thrice the height of a normal 70mm image) and drop it into the projector at the Museum of Science. Some ungodly amount of amplifiers (20kW total, I think) and a five-story dome. Comparing it to a flat-screen IMAX system is like comparing a fully loaded S/390 G5 (40k simultaneous connections, eats multiterabyte databases for breakfast) to a Presario with 64 MB of RAM and NT 5.0^W^WWindows 2000 b2.
>Both companies had been established for more than thirty years...
That's somewhat of an understatement.
IBM was established in 1888, and incorporated in its present form in 1911. Hewlett-Packard was established in 1938.
In other words, IBM was founded long before the authours of Unix -- and probably even their parents -- were born.