Yes, Elite was probably one of the first large scale space exploration/combat games. And for all its simplicity, quite unique and addictive.
But many games exist that fits this bill in other genres:
Eye of the beholder, one of the first D&D dungeon hacks, certainly one of the more popular Tiger mission, the first shoot 'em up. The previous ones were shoot 'em sideways, mainly Zaxxon, the first shoot 'em sideways that tried to use 3D effects and movements Ghost'n'Goblins, the original platform game Maniac Mansion, an original graphical horror adventure game Paperboy, one of the first arcadegames that had more than a joystick (joysticks today, you can't even find in an arcade hall) Mines of Titan, among the first D&D style games with a strategic combat system Arkanoid, for all its originality, never duplicated sucessfully. Star wars rebellion, just for the fact that I still play that game today, more than 10 years since its original release.
Being the nerdy, gamer, looser type that I am, I could probably go on for a LONG time, and still not have gotten to the 1990'ies.;)
I couldn't agree more. As a comp.sci. major, you should be able to ask the questions of: What, why, where and who (and today probably also, how much).
You need to get a decent requirement spec going, and from then on choose the system you want. There's no need to spend more money and time on features or systems that wont be used. Buying a fully fledged EDHS would be nuts if you can make due with a common fileserver and an intranet bulletin board system. Also, you might want to look at the business you're supporting, maybe there's an industry standard that might be handy to keep up with if you suddenly need to cooperate with, buy or be bought by someone else in the industry.
Also, you'd want to mimic the current working processes as closely as possible. There's nothing more deadly to a project than employees unwilling to adapt to new systems. So make the system cater to their needs instead of making them having to do things differently. Include key personel in the implementation or descision process, so that they feel that their needs are being heard and met, so they will welcome the new system. Social engineering isn't just a skill for politicians, it's one for developers too;)
I dont get why you guys are discussing the possiblity of a hydrogen burn/explosion. This would only happen if the hydrogen is stored, and then only if it gets stored in large amounts. At the infinitessimal amounts that appears to be released during this process, it makes no sense to even try to store it beyond what makes for an efficient amount to bother igniting it. Storing hydrogen is impractical at best, and as hydrogen has the smallest possible atomic structure, it can pretty much escape any container, so noone stores hydrogen beyond what they need for immediate use anyway. So obviously, the hydrogen needs to be used (almost) immediately, and very little if any amount stored. Presumably it would be burned to produce electricity for lights, or during winter for heating the highways, Both of which would produce safer, greener highways. Or during summer and daylight, being transmitted directly into the electric grid, similar to power from water/windmills, wavemachines or solar cells.
That'd be along the lines of "if I kill someone he might only be 'slightly dead', so maybe I cant be punished ?" It'd be so much easier to determine the meaning of the ruling, if the article at least would mention the prudent facts and legislation, as you have.
Why would you have to get ALL 174 countries to agree? Sure, the internet is international, but having a presence in a country isn't. You think Amazon is just going to pull up stakes and move to Canada just so they can sell some dildos? Often times having a physical presence is a country makes you subject to the laws in that country. The point being that the way commerce and business work are far more involved than just looking at the laws of any particular country. I'm betting if only a few key countries passed such laws, it wouldn't really matter than the other 160 didn't have them
Obviously, it's the other way around. If only a few countries pass laws that says that vertain content has to be in certain top level domain names, then presumably, a large provider, like say, amazon would move their domain registration to a country where they can avoid problems with having to move around. Case in point: Assume that in country A, it's illegal to watch people ride a bicycle, or to provide any such amusement to the citizens of the country. Me, being in country B, cannot be prosecuted for said offense, if country B doesnt have a similar law. So I can put videos of that stuff up on Youtube without worrying, the guy who lives in country A however, may suddenly and without any warning be subjected to my bicycle antics if he hits the wrong link.
This is pretty much what held thepiratebay.org open for years after a ton of cease and desist letters. Simply the fact that what they did wasn't illegal in the country where they did it. Their service however, might have been borderline in the countries that tried prosecuting them.
Thus, if even a single country doesn't uphold the rules, everyone can take advantage and register there. Like the "spamsafe" chineese hosts that majority of spammers use (unless they have an illegal botnet), because authorities disregard C&D notices, as spamming is not illegal in China.
Nothing is impossible. It's simply a matter of cost vs. benefit. Coding is many more lines today than it was 15 years ago. And a lot of copy paste of libraries you haven't coded or tested yourself. So ofcourse problems occur. But testing SHOULD be more than simply compiling the code.
Back in the day when I took my masters in computer science, we were forced to show how we tested EVERY loop, if, while or orhter "choice" or iteration of a possiblity. Simply to ensure that the code was 100% stable. Using closed libraries, like say a predefined definition of the type "string" or "integer" that was at your own peril. Programmers today just give up too easily, and companies cut costs by scriping on testing, ducumentation and verification.
IF the internet (mind it IS international in nature, and heavily affected by cost driving factors, same as any other services) should ever "grow up" and force people to give up sex.com, whitehouse.com, etc. then Absolutely, you're right. But with so many domains under each toplevel domain, how do you decide who gets "sex.xxx" ? Is it the guy who owns sex.com, sex.org, or the majority of "sex.country_identifier" domains ?
I just dont see a plausible scenario for this type of transition, certainly not with the current structure, ownership and division of the internet, internet names, trademarks, copyrights etc. As you mention yourself, this is or will be an international endeavour. And getting the current 174 countries (or there abouts) to agree on simple stuff like national borders, official languages etc. has taken the better part of 10.000 years. So if we're to do the same with the internet, I'm guessing we have a long wait in front of us. Noone can push the agenda, for the simple reason that it's just not possible to make a fair division or law to neatly slice everything into these boxes. The current state of the internet just simply isn't suited for expansion of the type that people are requiring. And remaking the net isn't plausible either, so I understand why.xxx has been rejected in the past, it simply wont bring anything good or usefull with it.
I understand that people will want to filter the xxx content. But this needs to be a PERSONAL choice, similar to using netnanny or other services, because the only thing that will happen is that if.xxx is widely censored by countries or ISPs, is that it wont be used. If it isn't then the people owning whatever.com will then also register whatever.xxx, and have the new name point to their original site. Same as they've done for.org,.tv,.it,.nu,.no, etc. etc. ad inifinitum. In either event, people filtering.xxx will be met with the exact same amount of porn as now.
And on a sidenote on censorship: What about political spliter groups ? Should we also give them their own top level domain ? At least that way it'll be REALLY easy to track and deal with dissidents and rebels like say... Christians in China. Censorship, control and division into neat little boxes isn't always exclusively a good thing.
I dont get this kind of thinking. Creating a toplevel domain surely would make it easier for people to find the porn they're looking for. Nothing less, nothing more But BANNING domains on that note, would as far as I can see only lead to the downfall of the toplevel domain, as porn providers would stop using it as it's not good business.
And in any event, I dont really see the currently invested xxx providers as being willing to give up their lucrative.com or.org domains. So at most we'll get another toplevel domain that you need to register to "own" your own brand. Anyone for slashdot.xxx ?
Yep yep. In some EU countries (like Finland), internet connection is already considered a human right similar to freedom of press etc. Also many countries here are forcing its citizens to do stuff on the net (tax returns, housing registration, applying for social security etc.)
This is cost saving and service improoving (well, to SOME extent), so I dont really see goverments as wanting to get rid of this option and going back to paper and phone calls again.
The multiparty systems exists in many countries, especially here in the EU. And I'm sad to say that a lot of bull STILL gets passed, because for an extended period of time, several parties who jointly have a majority simply agree what laws are to be passed. It's no different than the two party system. In fact, on many levels it's WORSE, because now you have 3-4 parties who all wants a piece of the action, so everything is a compromise. And is they ever agree on something, its a political hot potatoe, and any legislation passed in a hurry is crap because noone considers the consequences.
The only real upside is that voters CAN actually "punish" their party by voting for a different party with largly the same views, so you dont have to go from one extreme to the other. Thus its slightly more democratic, and equally bad;)
Wasn't there a time when the US led the world in freedom, liberty, and openness?
That was probably a long time ago. But I like the fact that Americans still think this, because that means that they want it to be true. But for this to be true, it pretty much depends on what you consider to be freedom, liberty and openness. The rule of law has always been about protecting the strong from the weak, as stealing from others is easier than making things for yourself, thus laws must exist to protect our ability to evolve as a species. And as has been mentioned earlier, ACTA is simply a move to ensure that the US gets a bigger cut of IP, copyrights etc. Arguably what RIAA/MPAA et al. does, hardly falls under the category of human evolution, more like the opposite, but they're strong, and they seek the protection of the law to maintain their wealth and power. That's the American way.
So if the US is pro freedom, pro liberty, pro openness, but also pro capitalism, the question instead becomes: What takes priority among these values ? And Presumably the reason for keeping stuff like this secret, is that it's really bad press when people find out that the US is willing to not only sacrifice its OWN citizens freedoms, but also that of its allies' on the altar of capitalism.
Apparently a lot of people (not just RIAA and others) have forgotten an old quote: "The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either". (- Franklin, AFAIK)
I applaud Americans, chineese and pretty much anyone who would stand against any legislation that could be used to monitor limit or cut off internet usage. As this will limit our ability to communicate with eachother, and experience different views (political and otherwise), openly exchange ideas and cooperate virtually across borders, ethics, religion and race. The internet is what makes us a global community, and attempts to stop this globalisation must be met with resistance. Let us not forget that the internet can actually be used for WAY more than just distributing porn and pirated music.
That's still one huge ass family if that's the case. That's like 200 kubik meters of water, I have 2 girls in my family, and we usually spend less than a 3rd of that amount of water in a year, and judging by the amount of time the bathroom door is closed, we do not take quick showers in my house.
Having BEEN in the situation myself, I can tell you that switching to neutral was the LAST thing I thought of. When you're sitting minding your own business at a red light and suddenly your car flares to life doing 60 mph in a couple of seconds, You're really much more focused on trying to stop the car, not the transfer of power from the engine through the transmission.
On a sidenote: Cutting power to the engine is ALSO a bad idea, at least if you happen to have power steering. Or so I discovered.
I like the idea, but for all practical intents it's almost impossible to do. Because you'd then have to auction off each seat in an order determined by order of importance, which would be logistically a nightmare with up to 100.000 seats available for an event.
For instance: I can afford to pay $500 for two tickets to a concert, but I want the best possible. If I wait for the best tickets to drop in price, they may sell out before they reach the pricelevel I'm willing to pay, so I need to buy the second best tickets, but these sold out at $100 even earlier. So the company sells a pair of tickets at $100 that it could have gotten $500 for. so they have to sell each seat (or section) before they sell the next to get the best price. Thus the guys dealing in the "resellers" market still get to earn a living, because this is impractical to do.
Rather each buyer could enter a maximum value they'd be willing to pay, and then those with the highest bids would get the best tickets and so on downwards. But again, this would mean people will bid lower than what they really wanted to pay, because the percieved value of the ticket drops with its desirability (like locatin, seating, visibility etc.) and with no guarantee of a desired location, you'd bid only what you percieve the worst tickets to be worth. And thus a new black market will appear.
I dont see a better way (and equally simple for both costumers and sellers alike) to do it than with the current fixed pricing schemes.
It's illegal because the artist, locationowner and distribution company are the ones supposed to make the money off the tickets, so a fixed price is agreed upon, and the royalties etc. are contractually determined in advance. Anything more is "scalping" because the scalper gets the money rather than the artist, who is usually the recipient of up to 50% of the ticket sales.
So if 20.000 tickets are sold for $50 each, thats $1M, of which half goes to the artist. Simple math. BUT, if 1000 of those tickets are sold for say, $100, by the terms of the contract, the artist is supposed to get half of 19.000x$50 + 1000x$100 and who pays the extra ? 'coz the scalper sure doesnt. Thus he is in breach of a few copyright holders laws (at least in Europe, not sure about the US, but judging by the latest ACTA docs leaked, I'm assuming it's much worse in the states). So it IS illegal. WHY, on the other hand is a different matter. Some people might argue that free enterprise means that pricefixing shouldn't happen, and that the scalpers actions are a part of the normal market mechanisms. But in actuality, it's the copyright laws that makes it illegal, not the pricefixing (and had this been gas or food sold, it'd probably be legal)
In most countries, scalped tickets gets electronically revoked. So even buying a scalped ticket is often a gamble.
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that I can disable a $500 drone with little less than a portable radio, my laptop and a couple of bucks worth of radioshack equipment. Thing about the drones is that they TOO have weaknesses. And a safe, unbreakable, unhackable, wireless, remote control interface costs a LOT more than $500. And an EM emitter, or even just a remote jamming device, or in case of a wireguided or automated drone a laser to interfere with or destroy the optics seems like pretty easy to come by and cheap solutions.
And for those really high tech drones that can survive these kinds of odds. I'm sure we can spend a cheap stinger on. Why anyone would WANT to make the leap all the way to a patriot missile, made for smashing down objects the size of a spaceshuttle is beyond me.
Microsoft isn't the ONLY choice when it comes to vendors. Microsoft is just a supplier of OS (and a few applications). For mission critical stuff, most companies use stuff that's a LOT more expensive than what microsoft charges. And frankly, yes, when I have a business critical error in an MS product, I WILL get it fixed, one way or another, that's what I do for a living, and I'm good at my job. But when all else is said and done, show me another OS that'll run for instance a SAP gui, Toad, Quest Space Manager, Business Objects, Dimension and Oracle, has decent text editing, integrated network support, spreadsheet and is intuitive. Show me, and I'll happily try to convice my customers to choose that platform. But thing is, MS being the single OS that EVERYONE supports, you're pretty much locked in on that platform because of your application needs.
That doesn't mean I can't choose MySQL over Oracle (if my applications support it) and similar. It doesn't mean my server side HAS to be MS if I can do it with something else. However, if I do choose the OSS product, I still have to get my business critical support from someone who will charge a bundle.
And when all else is said and done. It's all about my business. Software should adapt to my business, my business shouldn't have to adapt to the software. So IF I choose a software that can do what I want, that'll be a lot easier (and cheaper) for me to live with, than with software that needs millions of dollars in development before it can do what I need it to. And that's just the initial business costs, think about the TCO and added support costs aswell, the investment in knowledge and manpower etc. and you may understand why so many businesses are choosing the "easier road".
In essence it's the inhouse vs outsource debate in a nutshell. With inhouse, you have total control, but also total responsibility and have to carry the total cost. With outsource, you put everything into the hands of someone else, and they provide you with a service (hopefully) equal to what you pay for it, and that payment is pretty much transparent for a number of years.
What the very short article DOESN'T mention is what we in the industry have known for years:
1) A software LICENSE isn't always cheaper than software SUPPORT. And you DO need support for your platform, open source or not.
2) Using a well established vendor software (like say windows), means it's easier (cheaper) to educate people in the software they'll be using, and similarly easier to find qualified support (in house and outsourced alike).
3) Open source doesn't mean the software is FREE, it just means it is open source. Many companies supply the source code for review when they sell their software to customers.
4) The lifecycle of "well established" products is well documented (and generally very long lived), and may factor into the choice, as noone wants to scrap the software again in 3 years (and incur another switchover cost) when there's no longer any support for whatever you chose as your platform.
5) Techonologically, a lot of software just inst available as open source. You may be unable to find the software you need for your platform, thus again driving the costs up if you have to develop it yourself. Noone wants to be stuck with a legacy system for the next 15 years (again).
So for a long term saving, it's often cheaper to stay with what you've got (or for a new installation, choose the same as everyone else) and pay a lot of licensefees, than to change to something that's cheaper in licensing and have a shitload of other costs.
That said, I LOVE linux, open source and free software. But for commercial use, it just isn't always optimal.
"And running software RAID-5 or RAID-6 equivalent does not address the underlying issues with the drive. Yes, you could mirror to get out of the disk reliability penalty box, but that does not address the cost issue."
but he hasn't adressed the fact that today you get 100 times as much diskspace for the same cost as you did 10 years ago when cost was a factor. In real life cost isn't a factor when it comes to datastorage, simply because it's really low in real life projects, as compared to the other costs in a project requiring storage. So if you want the reliability you go get a mirror. Drivespace is dirt cheap.
As for the rebuildtimes, fine, go buy FASTER drives. I dont see the problem. HP and many other vendors have long been trying to sell combined raid soltions (like the EVA) where you mix high storage with high performance drives (like SSD vs. SATA).
The only real argument for the validity of this article is the personal use of drives/storage. And name 3 people you know who run raid-5 on their personal PCs, and I'll show you 3 guys who can't afford an SSD drive.
Exactly. Because even if it's true, and it's 70% more accurate... I've yet to see a predictive system that's even remotely accurate. It may predict say... 50% of the sources of an ongoing attack (assuming a collaborative effort to determine when attacks are happening, and that you're not the first one hit), but that's far from enough to prevent a DDoS attack. And if you "accidentally" block... Say Canada (which I've seen before), then that's a LOT of costumers you just pissed off, but hey... Doesn't matter, that DDoS attack would have blocked access anyway, so how would they notice;)
While printing on film is fairly cheap, this is actually a somewhat dated techbology already. TFT technology is older than I am, and a couple of years ago, Danish researchers prooved that they could actually PRINT (using a normal printer and special ink) a solar cell. Again, it suffers the same problems that this cell does, that the efficiency is very low. At the same time, the print would ofcourse decay/fade over time. This problem at least seems to be resolved by printing on thin film. Production of the Danish invetion is expected to hit the streets pretty darned soon.
Normal cost of solar cells is measured in $/WP, and at best you'd get about $6-8/WP for a monosilcate or poly silicate cell today, and that's for the really inefficient ones that takes up a lot of space. The new tech will (well, it SHOULD, but likely someone will claim return on investment and hike up the prices the first couple of years) put current prices below $1/WP, but take up even more space than before. This means that it will be cheaper to get cells than buy power on the open market (at least given the prices in Europe), ofcourse dependant on the lifetime expectancy and diminishing returns of the cell. Plus you still need to have enough space for all those cells. Today a 1 Kw base takes up about 60 square feet, and this tech pretty much tripples or even quadrouples that space requirement, but makes the investment affordable.
I have to agree. Current copyright laws dont work, because they do not allow "fair use". In fact licensing and patenting is getting to a point where the social benefits are not weighed in and thus otherwise profitable and usefull tools are distributed illegally.
However, the proposal will work fine for components, patents and such. But would be disasterous for coplete products, and would require a fair-use or even free-use model to follow it.
As someone else already pointed out, there are a ton of piriates out there who pirate to make money, and another ton who just "make a copy for the car", or even those who "make a copy for their friends". In either case the complete replication of a work is so simple that the recipient has no intrest in purchasing the original work, because the copy is "perfect", in that it's digital. Some countries are already starting to deal with this issue by giving out licenses for "unlimited use" of example music, while you pay a monthly fee, this fee makes you able to download pretty much any piece of music and use for any non-commercial use you want. Same thing goes for videos and books. For years you have been able to get them at the local library as often as you wanted, basically for free.
With these great distribution models, then where's the incentive to pirate ? In the exact business model that the distribution companies are employing. Libraries and ISPs have limits in their spending policies because of wear and tear on their products, aswell as the strain on their profits due to aquisitions. But once the product becomes digital, it's just a matter of time before a purchase will last lifetimes, given that they again are subject to a decent pricing.
You dont have to be a genious to know that the laws of supply and demand show that the higher the price, the lower the demand and vice versa. So in our day and age, you can actually distribute your products at a price close to free, if the user himself will create the physical object (CD, book, whatever) on his home printer. So with the significantly lower price on distribution, a lower prices can be charge for the product, and more people will "buy". The business model suggested simply states that IF the user decides to make a little dough by turning the download into for instance a karaoke thing and selling it to his friends, then he should fork over a part of his profits. I can't think of ANY artist who would normally provide his work free of charge who would object to this business model.
Ofcourse that doesn't stop people from pirating against THIS model, or even the business from claiming they wont make money this way, but how's that different from today ? It's different in one major aspect: People who contribute, and people who are not profiting from other peoples work are no longer criminalized. A 6-year old who just wants to hear the latest justin timberlake song, or the co-worker who hands his collegaue a DVD and says: "hey I recorded this from the late night show, you REALLY have to see it" will no longer get treated like the taiwaneese pirate who bootlegs 60 million DVDs a month and sells them on ebay. So IF the taiwaneese pirate is willing to fork over $5 pr DVD he sells, then presumably the licensee dont give a crap if it's buena vista home entertainment or hai-fats local DVD store that made the physical copy as long as they get their end of the business.
Even though the idea is not new, it is IMO a great way to legalize (and in a smaller way also to profit from) the "casual pirate", while offering the organized crime a way to become respectable, and at the same time holding the door open for the possibility of legal action.
5-6000 saps, is roughly equivalent to something like a HP UX/9000 box with 4 CPUs and 6 gigs of memory... The only ones who knows for sure is SAP, since they set the standard. In terms of transactions per sec, I only have measurements for internal SAP transaction (Sales transactions), this would equate to many thousand pr. second. In terms of DB usuage, I'd say like 3-5000 lookups pr. sec or in that neighborhood. Good for about 2-300 simultaneous users.
Slashdot Mirror
so little time and space to remember them.
Yes, Elite was probably one of the first large scale space exploration/combat games. And for all its simplicity, quite unique and addictive.
But many games exist that fits this bill in other genres:
Eye of the beholder, one of the first D&D dungeon hacks, certainly one of the more popular
Tiger mission, the first shoot 'em up. The previous ones were shoot 'em sideways, mainly
Zaxxon, the first shoot 'em sideways that tried to use 3D effects and movements
Ghost'n'Goblins, the original platform game
Maniac Mansion, an original graphical horror adventure game
Paperboy, one of the first arcadegames that had more than a joystick (joysticks today, you can't even find in an arcade hall)
Mines of Titan, among the first D&D style games with a strategic combat system
Arkanoid, for all its originality, never duplicated sucessfully.
Star wars rebellion, just for the fact that I still play that game today, more than 10 years since its original release.
Being the nerdy, gamer, looser type that I am, I could probably go on for a LONG time, and still not have gotten to the 1990'ies. ;)
I couldn't agree more. As a comp.sci. major, you should be able to ask the questions of: What, why, where and who (and today probably also, how much).
You need to get a decent requirement spec going, and from then on choose the system you want. There's no need to spend more money and time on features or systems that wont be used. Buying a fully fledged EDHS would be nuts if you can make due with a common fileserver and an intranet bulletin board system. Also, you might want to look at the business you're supporting, maybe there's an industry standard that might be handy to keep up with if you suddenly need to cooperate with, buy or be bought by someone else in the industry.
Also, you'd want to mimic the current working processes as closely as possible. There's nothing more deadly to a project than employees unwilling to adapt to new systems. So make the system cater to their needs instead of making them having to do things differently. Include key personel in the implementation or descision process, so that they feel that their needs are being heard and met, so they will welcome the new system. Social engineering isn't just a skill for politicians, it's one for developers too ;)
I dont get why you guys are discussing the possiblity of a hydrogen burn/explosion. This would only happen if the hydrogen is stored, and then only if it gets stored in large amounts. At the infinitessimal amounts that appears to be released during this process, it makes no sense to even try to store it beyond what makes for an efficient amount to bother igniting it. Storing hydrogen is impractical at best, and as hydrogen has the smallest possible atomic structure, it can pretty much escape any container, so noone stores hydrogen beyond what they need for immediate use anyway.
So obviously, the hydrogen needs to be used (almost) immediately, and very little if any amount stored. Presumably it would be burned to produce electricity for lights, or during winter for heating the highways, Both of which would produce safer, greener highways. Or during summer and daylight, being transmitted directly into the electric grid, similar to power from water/windmills, wavemachines or solar cells.
Or as the article itself puts it:
In the country, file-sharing is pretty much legal
That'd be along the lines of "if I kill someone he might only be 'slightly dead', so maybe I cant be punished ?"
It'd be so much easier to determine the meaning of the ruling, if the article at least would mention the prudent facts and legislation, as you have.
Why would you have to get ALL 174 countries to agree? Sure, the internet is international, but having a presence in a country isn't. You think Amazon is just going to pull up stakes and move to Canada just so they can sell some dildos? Often times having a physical presence is a country makes you subject to the laws in that country. The point being that the way commerce and business work are far more involved than just looking at the laws of any particular country. I'm betting if only a few key countries passed such laws, it wouldn't really matter than the other 160 didn't have them
Obviously, it's the other way around. If only a few countries pass laws that says that vertain content has to be in certain top level domain names, then presumably, a large provider, like say, amazon would move their domain registration to a country where they can avoid problems with having to move around.
Case in point: Assume that in country A, it's illegal to watch people ride a bicycle, or to provide any such amusement to the citizens of the country. Me, being in country B, cannot be prosecuted for said offense, if country B doesnt have a similar law. So I can put videos of that stuff up on Youtube without worrying, the guy who lives in country A however, may suddenly and without any warning be subjected to my bicycle antics if he hits the wrong link.
This is pretty much what held thepiratebay.org open for years after a ton of cease and desist letters. Simply the fact that what they did wasn't illegal in the country where they did it. Their service however, might have been borderline in the countries that tried prosecuting them.
Thus, if even a single country doesn't uphold the rules, everyone can take advantage and register there. Like the "spamsafe" chineese hosts that majority of spammers use (unless they have an illegal botnet), because authorities disregard C&D notices, as spamming is not illegal in China.
Nothing is impossible. It's simply a matter of cost vs. benefit. Coding is many more lines today than it was 15 years ago. And a lot of copy paste of libraries you haven't coded or tested yourself. So ofcourse problems occur. But testing SHOULD be more than simply compiling the code.
Back in the day when I took my masters in computer science, we were forced to show how we tested EVERY loop, if, while or orhter "choice" or iteration of a possiblity. Simply to ensure that the code was 100% stable. Using closed libraries, like say a predefined definition of the type "string" or "integer" that was at your own peril. Programmers today just give up too easily, and companies cut costs by scriping on testing, ducumentation and verification.
I whole heartedly agree with your assumption.
IF the internet (mind it IS international in nature, and heavily affected by cost driving factors, same as any other services) should ever "grow up" and force people to give up sex.com, whitehouse.com, etc. then Absolutely, you're right. But with so many domains under each toplevel domain, how do you decide who gets "sex.xxx" ? Is it the guy who owns sex.com, sex.org, or the majority of "sex.country_identifier" domains ?
I just dont see a plausible scenario for this type of transition, certainly not with the current structure, ownership and division of the internet, internet names, trademarks, copyrights etc. As you mention yourself, this is or will be an international endeavour. And getting the current 174 countries (or there abouts) to agree on simple stuff like national borders, official languages etc. has taken the better part of 10.000 years. So if we're to do the same with the internet, I'm guessing we have a long wait in front of us. Noone can push the agenda, for the simple reason that it's just not possible to make a fair division or law to neatly slice everything into these boxes. The current state of the internet just simply isn't suited for expansion of the type that people are requiring. And remaking the net isn't plausible either, so I understand why .xxx has been rejected in the past, it simply wont bring anything good or usefull with it.
I understand that people will want to filter the xxx content. But this needs to be a PERSONAL choice, similar to using netnanny or other services, because the only thing that will happen is that if .xxx is widely censored by countries or ISPs, is that it wont be used. If it isn't then the people owning whatever.com will then also register whatever.xxx, and have the new name point to their original site. Same as they've done for .org, .tv, .it, .nu, .no, etc. etc. ad inifinitum. In either event, people filtering .xxx will be met with the exact same amount of porn as now.
And on a sidenote on censorship: What about political spliter groups ? Should we also give them their own top level domain ? At least that way it'll be REALLY easy to track and deal with dissidents and rebels like say... Christians in China.
Censorship, control and division into neat little boxes isn't always exclusively a good thing.
I dont get this kind of thinking. Creating a toplevel domain surely would make it easier for people to find the porn they're looking for. Nothing less, nothing more
But BANNING domains on that note, would as far as I can see only lead to the downfall of the toplevel domain, as porn providers would stop using it as it's not good business.
And in any event, I dont really see the currently invested xxx providers as being willing to give up their lucrative .com or .org domains. So at most we'll get another toplevel domain that you need to register to "own" your own brand. Anyone for slashdot.xxx ?
Yep yep. In some EU countries (like Finland), internet connection is already considered a human right similar to freedom of press etc. Also many countries here are forcing its citizens to do stuff on the net (tax returns, housing registration, applying for social security etc.)
This is cost saving and service improoving (well, to SOME extent), so I dont really see goverments as wanting to get rid of this option and going back to paper and phone calls again.
The multiparty systems exists in many countries, especially here in the EU.
And I'm sad to say that a lot of bull STILL gets passed, because for an extended period of time, several parties who jointly have a majority simply agree what laws are to be passed. It's no different than the two party system. In fact, on many levels it's WORSE, because now you have 3-4 parties who all wants a piece of the action, so everything is a compromise. And is they ever agree on something, its a political hot potatoe, and any legislation passed in a hurry is crap because noone considers the consequences.
The only real upside is that voters CAN actually "punish" their party by voting for a different party with largly the same views, so you dont have to go from one extreme to the other. Thus its slightly more democratic, and equally bad ;)
Wasn't there a time when the US led the world in freedom, liberty, and openness?
That was probably a long time ago. But I like the fact that Americans still think this, because that means that they want it to be true.
But for this to be true, it pretty much depends on what you consider to be freedom, liberty and openness. The rule of law has always been about protecting the strong from the weak, as stealing from others is easier than making things for yourself, thus laws must exist to protect our ability to evolve as a species. And as has been mentioned earlier, ACTA is simply a move to ensure that the US gets a bigger cut of IP, copyrights etc. Arguably what RIAA/MPAA et al. does, hardly falls under the category of human evolution, more like the opposite, but they're strong, and they seek the protection of the law to maintain their wealth and power. That's the American way.
So if the US is pro freedom, pro liberty, pro openness, but also pro capitalism, the question instead becomes: What takes priority among these values ?
And Presumably the reason for keeping stuff like this secret, is that it's really bad press when people find out that the US is willing to not only sacrifice its OWN citizens freedoms, but also that of its allies' on the altar of capitalism.
Apparently a lot of people (not just RIAA and others) have forgotten an old quote:
"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either". (- Franklin, AFAIK)
I applaud Americans, chineese and pretty much anyone who would stand against any legislation that could be used to monitor limit or cut off internet usage. As this will limit our ability to communicate with eachother, and experience different views (political and otherwise), openly exchange ideas and cooperate virtually across borders, ethics, religion and race. The internet is what makes us a global community, and attempts to stop this globalisation must be met with resistance. Let us not forget that the internet can actually be used for WAY more than just distributing porn and pirated music.
That's still one huge ass family if that's the case. That's like 200 kubik meters of water, I have 2 girls in my family, and we usually spend less than a 3rd of that amount of water in a year, and judging by the amount of time the bathroom door is closed, we do not take quick showers in my house.
Having BEEN in the situation myself, I can tell you that switching to neutral was the LAST thing I thought of. When you're sitting minding your own business at a red light and suddenly your car flares to life doing 60 mph in a couple of seconds, You're really much more focused on trying to stop the car, not the transfer of power from the engine through the transmission.
On a sidenote: Cutting power to the engine is ALSO a bad idea, at least if you happen to have power steering. Or so I discovered.
I like the idea, but for all practical intents it's almost impossible to do.
Because you'd then have to auction off each seat in an order determined by order of importance, which would be logistically a nightmare with up to 100.000 seats available for an event.
For instance: I can afford to pay $500 for two tickets to a concert, but I want the best possible. If I wait for the best tickets to drop in price, they may sell out before they reach the pricelevel I'm willing to pay, so I need to buy the second best tickets, but these sold out at $100 even earlier. So the company sells a pair of tickets at $100 that it could have gotten $500 for. so they have to sell each seat (or section) before they sell the next to get the best price. Thus the guys dealing in the "resellers" market still get to earn a living, because this is impractical to do.
Rather each buyer could enter a maximum value they'd be willing to pay, and then those with the highest bids would get the best tickets and so on downwards. But again, this would mean people will bid lower than what they really wanted to pay, because the percieved value of the ticket drops with its desirability (like locatin, seating, visibility etc.) and with no guarantee of a desired location, you'd bid only what you percieve the worst tickets to be worth. And thus a new black market will appear.
I dont see a better way (and equally simple for both costumers and sellers alike) to do it than with the current fixed pricing schemes.
It's illegal because the artist, locationowner and distribution company are the ones supposed to make the money off the tickets, so a fixed price is agreed upon, and the royalties etc. are contractually determined in advance. Anything more is "scalping" because the scalper gets the money rather than the artist, who is usually the recipient of up to 50% of the ticket sales.
So if 20.000 tickets are sold for $50 each, thats $1M, of which half goes to the artist. Simple math. BUT, if 1000 of those tickets are sold for say, $100, by the terms of the contract, the artist is supposed to get half of 19.000x$50 + 1000x$100 and who pays the extra ? 'coz the scalper sure doesnt. Thus he is in breach of a few copyright holders laws (at least in Europe, not sure about the US, but judging by the latest ACTA docs leaked, I'm assuming it's much worse in the states). So it IS illegal. WHY, on the other hand is a different matter. Some people might argue that free enterprise means that pricefixing shouldn't happen, and that the scalpers actions are a part of the normal market mechanisms. But in actuality, it's the copyright laws that makes it illegal, not the pricefixing (and had this been gas or food sold, it'd probably be legal)
In most countries, scalped tickets gets electronically revoked. So even buying a scalped ticket is often a gamble.
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that I can disable a $500 drone with little less than a portable radio, my laptop and a couple of bucks worth of radioshack equipment. Thing about the drones is that they TOO have weaknesses. And a safe, unbreakable, unhackable, wireless, remote control interface costs a LOT more than $500. And an EM emitter, or even just a remote jamming device, or in case of a wireguided or automated drone a laser to interfere with or destroy the optics seems like pretty easy to come by and cheap solutions.
And for those really high tech drones that can survive these kinds of odds. I'm sure we can spend a cheap stinger on. Why anyone would WANT to make the leap all the way to a patriot missile, made for smashing down objects the size of a spaceshuttle is beyond me.
Oh yeah. Long live the MUDs
Microsoft isn't the ONLY choice when it comes to vendors. Microsoft is just a supplier of OS (and a few applications). For mission critical stuff, most companies use stuff that's a LOT more expensive than what microsoft charges. And frankly, yes, when I have a business critical error in an MS product, I WILL get it fixed, one way or another, that's what I do for a living, and I'm good at my job. But when all else is said and done, show me another OS that'll run for instance a SAP gui, Toad, Quest Space Manager, Business Objects, Dimension and Oracle, has decent text editing, integrated network support, spreadsheet and is intuitive. Show me, and I'll happily try to convice my customers to choose that platform. But thing is, MS being the single OS that EVERYONE supports, you're pretty much locked in on that platform because of your application needs.
That doesn't mean I can't choose MySQL over Oracle (if my applications support it) and similar. It doesn't mean my server side HAS to be MS if I can do it with something else. However, if I do choose the OSS product, I still have to get my business critical support from someone who will charge a bundle.
And when all else is said and done. It's all about my business. Software should adapt to my business, my business shouldn't have to adapt to the software. So IF I choose a software that can do what I want, that'll be a lot easier (and cheaper) for me to live with, than with software that needs millions of dollars in development before it can do what I need it to. And that's just the initial business costs, think about the TCO and added support costs aswell, the investment in knowledge and manpower etc. and you may understand why so many businesses are choosing the "easier road".
In essence it's the inhouse vs outsource debate in a nutshell. With inhouse, you have total control, but also total responsibility and have to carry the total cost. With outsource, you put everything into the hands of someone else, and they provide you with a service (hopefully) equal to what you pay for it, and that payment is pretty much transparent for a number of years.
What the very short article DOESN'T mention is what we in the industry have known for years:
1) A software LICENSE isn't always cheaper than software SUPPORT. And you DO need support for your platform, open source or not.
2) Using a well established vendor software (like say windows), means it's easier (cheaper) to educate people in the software they'll be using, and similarly easier to find qualified support (in house and outsourced alike).
3) Open source doesn't mean the software is FREE, it just means it is open source. Many companies supply the source code for review when they sell their software to customers.
4) The lifecycle of "well established" products is well documented (and generally very long lived), and may factor into the choice, as noone wants to scrap the software again in 3 years (and incur another switchover cost) when there's no longer any support for whatever you chose as your platform.
5) Techonologically, a lot of software just inst available as open source. You may be unable to find the software you need for your platform, thus again driving the costs up if you have to develop it yourself. Noone wants to be stuck with a legacy system for the next 15 years (again).
So for a long term saving, it's often cheaper to stay with what you've got (or for a new installation, choose the same as everyone else) and pay a lot of licensefees, than to change to something that's cheaper in licensing and have a shitload of other costs.
That said, I LOVE linux, open source and free software. But for commercial use, it just isn't always optimal.
Remember to also send the email to him right side up.....
The author says it himself in the article:
"And running software RAID-5 or RAID-6 equivalent does not address the underlying issues with the drive. Yes, you could mirror to get out of the disk reliability penalty box, but that does not address the cost issue."
but he hasn't adressed the fact that today you get 100 times as much diskspace for the same cost as you did 10 years ago when cost was a factor. In real life cost isn't a factor when it comes to datastorage, simply because it's really low in real life projects, as compared to the other costs in a project requiring storage. So if you want the reliability you go get a mirror. Drivespace is dirt cheap.
As for the rebuildtimes, fine, go buy FASTER drives. I dont see the problem. HP and many other vendors have long been trying to sell combined raid soltions (like the EVA) where you mix high storage with high performance drives (like SSD vs. SATA).
The only real argument for the validity of this article is the personal use of drives/storage. And name 3 people you know who run raid-5 on their personal PCs, and I'll show you 3 guys who can't afford an SSD drive.
Exactly. Because even if it's true, and it's 70% more accurate... I've yet to see a predictive system that's even remotely accurate. It may predict say... 50% of the sources of an ongoing attack (assuming a collaborative effort to determine when attacks are happening, and that you're not the first one hit), but that's far from enough to prevent a DDoS attack. And if you "accidentally" block... Say Canada (which I've seen before), then that's a LOT of costumers you just pissed off, but hey... Doesn't matter, that DDoS attack would have blocked access anyway, so how would they notice ;)
While printing on film is fairly cheap, this is actually a somewhat dated techbology already. TFT technology is older than I am, and a couple of years ago, Danish researchers prooved that they could actually PRINT (using a normal printer and special ink) a solar cell.
Again, it suffers the same problems that this cell does, that the efficiency is very low. At the same time, the print would ofcourse decay/fade over time. This problem at least seems to be resolved by printing on thin film. Production of the Danish invetion is expected to hit the streets pretty darned soon.
Normal cost of solar cells is measured in $/WP, and at best you'd get about $6-8/WP for a monosilcate or poly silicate cell today, and that's for the really inefficient ones that takes up a lot of space. The new tech will (well, it SHOULD, but likely someone will claim return on investment and hike up the prices the first couple of years) put current prices below $1/WP, but take up even more space than before. This means that it will be cheaper to get cells than buy power on the open market (at least given the prices in Europe), ofcourse dependant on the lifetime expectancy and diminishing returns of the cell. Plus you still need to have enough space for all those cells. Today a 1 Kw base takes up about 60 square feet, and this tech pretty much tripples or even quadrouples that space requirement, but makes the investment affordable.
I have to agree. Current copyright laws dont work, because they do not allow "fair use". In fact licensing and patenting is getting to a point where the social benefits are not weighed in and thus otherwise profitable and usefull tools are distributed illegally.
However, the proposal will work fine for components, patents and such. But would be disasterous for coplete products, and would require a fair-use or even free-use model to follow it.
As someone else already pointed out, there are a ton of piriates out there who pirate to make money, and another ton who just "make a copy for the car", or even those who "make a copy for their friends". In either case the complete replication of a work is so simple that the recipient has no intrest in purchasing the original work, because the copy is "perfect", in that it's digital.
Some countries are already starting to deal with this issue by giving out licenses for "unlimited use" of example music, while you pay a monthly fee, this fee makes you able to download pretty much any piece of music and use for any non-commercial use you want. Same thing goes for videos and books. For years you have been able to get them at the local library as often as you wanted, basically for free.
With these great distribution models, then where's the incentive to pirate ? In the exact business model that the distribution companies are employing. Libraries and ISPs have limits in their spending policies because of wear and tear on their products, aswell as the strain on their profits due to aquisitions. But once the product becomes digital, it's just a matter of time before a purchase will last lifetimes, given that they again are subject to a decent pricing.
You dont have to be a genious to know that the laws of supply and demand show that the higher the price, the lower the demand and vice versa. So in our day and age, you can actually distribute your products at a price close to free, if the user himself will create the physical object (CD, book, whatever) on his home printer. So with the significantly lower price on distribution, a lower prices can be charge for the product, and more people will "buy".
The business model suggested simply states that IF the user decides to make a little dough by turning the download into for instance a karaoke thing and selling it to his friends, then he should fork over a part of his profits. I can't think of ANY artist who would normally provide his work free of charge who would object to this business model.
Ofcourse that doesn't stop people from pirating against THIS model, or even the business from claiming they wont make money this way, but how's that different from today ?
It's different in one major aspect: People who contribute, and people who are not profiting from other peoples work are no longer criminalized. A 6-year old who just wants to hear the latest justin timberlake song, or the co-worker who hands his collegaue a DVD and says: "hey I recorded this from the late night show, you REALLY have to see it" will no longer get treated like the taiwaneese pirate who bootlegs 60 million DVDs a month and sells them on ebay. So IF the taiwaneese pirate is willing to fork over $5 pr DVD he sells, then presumably the licensee dont give a crap if it's buena vista home entertainment or hai-fats local DVD store that made the physical copy as long as they get their end of the business.
Even though the idea is not new, it is IMO a great way to legalize (and in a smaller way also to profit from) the "casual pirate", while offering the organized crime a way to become respectable, and at the same time holding the door open for the possibility of legal action.
5-6000 saps, is roughly equivalent to something like a HP UX/9000 box with 4 CPUs and 6 gigs of memory... The only ones who knows for sure is SAP, since they set the standard. In terms of transactions per sec, I only have measurements for internal SAP transaction (Sales transactions), this would equate to many thousand pr. second. In terms of DB usuage, I'd say like 3-5000 lookups pr. sec or in that neighborhood. Good for about 2-300 simultaneous users.