Alex, if your device were ever to prove true in the eyes of the medical profession, do you feel that a patent is suffient defense against some corporation (or perhaps government) taking control and only allowing their view of the 'right people' to have one? Could your device spark a forth reich, a new 'master race', immortals versus mortals?
From the 'philosophy' pages of your site I quote 'You don't need to have children anymore because you stay young forever'. Do you not feel that there is a bit more to living than simply eating and breathing? Your pages imply that once we've cracked health and farming we're sorted from there on in. Don't we need some sort of goal or ambition? Isn't a common goal to procreate? Do we spend the rest of eternity wearing rings and writing Perl?
Internet gaming relies on the fact that its enjoyable to play a game with and against lots of people whom you've never really met. I never play online at the moment for a number of reasons, but the biggest is absolutely because there are far too many childish idiots who enjoy nothing more than ruining it for people who are there for a good time. Make them pay, and (hopefully) the lamer ratio would drop to an alltime low. Also, the game creators would be more pressed to make a game fair and reasonable to keep the gamers happy. It might cost a bit more to play, but I'd certainly pay to keep the losers out.
First point I must make, I love Perl. Its far and away my weapon of choice for most programming tasks.
Perl isn't everybody's cup of tea. There are elements of syntax that can be somewhat oblique. There are aspects that are positively obscure compared to C or Java. However, there are some fantastic points about it too. First and foremost, learning Perl is a distinctly easier task than C, Java or any other higher level language. Simple tasks in C are very simple, but anything beyond the basics is extremely taxing for the beginner. Once you're into Perls way of working you're sorted. Perl also has a tendancy to be shown as a block of regexp code too. This doesn't help.
You mention that the example 'won't even bloody compile', inferring you're used to some other compiled langauge. This is another failing of Perl. Its syntacically(sp?) really quite different to everything else. Coming to Perl from another language is difficult, more so than Pascal to C for example.
In the end, live and let live. If you can't get on with Perl then don't. There are many other options open to you.
The article, and supporting material, implies that gracenote are simply sueing because Roxio are using a free competitor. Thats not entirely the case. Freedb have in effect written their own version of cddb with the same interfaces, and Roxio are using their existing technology to access freedb. As Roxio presumably developed the interface to cddb with the of Gracenote and then switched, Gracenote's effort has not been rewarded.
A quick run down of the software I'm using at the moment has shown me that all of it is under 3 years old, with the exception of a couple of NT servers. The idea that people will have to carry on paying for software years after they've bought it isn't new (Ask any Sun/SGI/Oracle user). This sort of thing pushes people into paying more money for software, true, but it also means they're considerably more likely to use more up-to-date versions, have less support/maintainance issues, and generally be happier.
Sure, it'll never work for the home user, but that's not what they're aiming at.
I live in the uk. We have satellite tv, and have recently (12 months) started getting digital tv services. We're also starting to get DAB (digital audio broadcast) radio over traditional frequencies.
Our digital satellite serves, BSkyB and OnDigital, operate sort of half tv/half radio channels. The idea is very obvious. Its a TV station without the pictures. Put the satellite signal through your amp for sound, and leave it on the music channel while keeping the television off. Instant satellite broadcast radio using equipment a large number of people already own.
A dedicated radio network is not necessary. Just piggyback off the television bandwidth. In fact, its probable that you could multiplex a very large number of radio channels into the bandwith of one television channel.
The best part of it is.. if you're subscribing to digital TV, this service is entirely free.
The exact same thing happened between Nintendo and the producers of Goldeneye. The game company bagged exclusive rights to the game, and stopped any other platform having a Goldeneye game.
But..
Goldeneye on the Nintendo64 was a fantastic game. A real killer app for the (then) fledging console. Perhaps MS want to do the same for theirs.
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression?
A traditionally coded application, from Office through to Quake, the Linux kernel to Windows XP, doesn't really express anything. Its a means to an end. Theres no real intended statement, its a tool. Just as the words in my documentation aren't a novel, and my nicely presented flowcharts aren't art. They serve a definite purpose, and that isn't one of expression.
However, thats not to say code can't be an expression. If I write 'perl -e print 'Lawyers suck!'; some would argue that its just a bit of code, its just something that gets interpretted, its not art. Yet I might argue it is art. Art, and expression, is subjective. I could stand in front of the Mona Lisa and say 'Its just an oil based compound we call 'paint''. While technically correct, that doesn't stop it being art.
Just the same is true of DeCSS. On one hand its just a bit of C. On the other it demonstrates some deep rooted belief in freedom. Its subjective.
Of course, the difficulty arises persuading a court of law what art and expression is all about. Sometimes I'm very glad ianal.
You want something thats easy to setup and configure as Windows.
You want a decent desktop OS.
You want to do C and Perl.
Why not use.. Windows?
Flamebait as I may seem, theres nothing *wrong* with Windows as a desktop OS. It doesn't feature the same level of security as *nix, nor does it have the zero cost outlay advantage, but it does work, its simple to use, and there are squillions of apps and games and stuff for it. Its a case of using the right tool for the job. Windows might just be the right tool.
SeaHaven is officially another country.
From the SeaHaven web site
Gradually, over the years, Sealand has become increasingly secure and internationally accepted. More and more, the international Lawyers and other Jurists stated that Sealand fulfilled all the legal requirements of a State and that the Sovereignty of Sealand was absolute and unquestionable. The major states of Europe have now accepted this as a fact
If the US government were to send in the marines they'd be invading another country. A declaration of war. That would violate more treaties than you can count. The repercussions would be horrendous politcally.
Much as Americans like to believe they control what happens globally, they don't. Theres nothing the US could do, beyond breaking off international relations with SeaHaven. I doubt that'd be a big worry.
Because they don't even know that other options exist, for the most part.
Why? Because MS is a monopoly.
And thats Microsofts fault? No, its the fault of the ignorant consumer. If you don't research your options you're going to have to put up with what you're given. For the 'average' user at home Windows is the best operating system. Most people couldn't even install, for example, Linux. Its simply not as obvious and easy to use as Windows. Consumers are a stupid bunch. They tend to like little paperclip assistants, 'Wizards', and autorunning CDs. It doesn't require any thought. That suits most people fine. Microsoft have dumped vast amounts of money into simplifying computer systems so that they can sell to as many people as possible. Maybe one day Linux will be as easy to use as Windows. Until then though Microsoft will not have a rival in consumer operating systems, irrespective of what the US courts rule.
Is this realy a good idea? Especialy since there is a root exploit for every known version of perl in existance? Perl doesnt and will never run on my machine.
Absolutely. I threw my computer away because having one just an invitation to the script-kiddies.
Ok, so maybe I should have stuck in some italics to show I was quoting.. The main point of the comment was the 'sun-shining-on-my-screen-at-the-time' bit.. Personally I found the article on the Prometheus Project more interesting, but I don't think thats on the web site. (Not that I saw)
And anyway, karma is worthless. When I can spend it I'll care. So I went down to 48 by being overrated. Is that a problem? I think not.
The transistors in an average TFT screen soak up about 25% of the light emitted by the backlight. These new semiconductors, being transparent, eliminate that translucency, and thus make the screen 'brighter'.
Which would be nice right now coz the sun is far too flamin' bright.
First point, search engine crawlers only honour the robot.txt protocol if they're told to do so. A 'dishonourable' search engine could simply ignore the file and index everything in its path. Already the main engines are boasting 500million+ indexes, its only a matter of time before they start resorting to underhand tactics to boost their numbers.
Secondly, robot.txt is often a server level setup file. If you get some free space with the likes of AOL/Freeserve/Geocities you have no control over the indexing of your site. Additionally, some (albeit poor) ISPs don't offer configuration of this file. Whether it is the fault of the ISP, the search engine, or you, for the crawling of your site would be a matter for further debate.
The chances of this story being redundant are really high. Think about it..
The first/. article couldn't be a repeat. There was only one. The second had a 1 in 2 chance. Either it was the same as before or it wasn't. The next one though, that had a 2 in 3 chance. It would be either the same as the first, or the same as the second, or a new one. And so it goes for all the other stories. If there are a million stories already then the chances of the story being a repeat are 1000000 in 1000001. How could you reasonably expect there not to be a few repeats now and then? Come on. Be reasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
Douglas Adams on a bad day is better than a whole lot of other stuff released.
TekWar anyone?
Alex, if your device were ever to prove true in the eyes of the medical profession, do you feel that a patent is suffient defense against some corporation (or perhaps government) taking control and only allowing their view of the 'right people' to have one? Could your device spark a forth reich, a new 'master race', immortals versus mortals?
From the 'philosophy' pages of your site I quote 'You don't need to have children anymore because you stay young forever'. Do you not feel that there is a bit more to living than simply eating and breathing? Your pages imply that once we've cracked health and farming we're sorted from there on in. Don't we need some sort of goal or ambition? Isn't a common goal to procreate? Do we spend the rest of eternity wearing rings and writing Perl?
But there are alot less stupid rich people than stupid people per say. Thus a reduced number of idiots, and possibly a better place to have fun.
Internet gaming relies on the fact that its enjoyable to play a game with and against lots of people whom you've never really met. I never play online at the moment for a number of reasons, but the biggest is absolutely because there are far too many childish idiots who enjoy nothing more than ruining it for people who are there for a good time. Make them pay, and (hopefully) the lamer ratio would drop to an alltime low. Also, the game creators would be more pressed to make a game fair and reasonable to keep the gamers happy. It might cost a bit more to play, but I'd certainly pay to keep the losers out.
First point I must make, I love Perl. Its far and away my weapon of choice for most programming tasks.
Perl isn't everybody's cup of tea. There are elements of syntax that can be somewhat oblique. There are aspects that are positively obscure compared to C or Java. However, there are some fantastic points about it too. First and foremost, learning Perl is a distinctly easier task than C, Java or any other higher level language. Simple tasks in C are very simple, but anything beyond the basics is extremely taxing for the beginner. Once you're into Perls way of working you're sorted. Perl also has a tendancy to be shown as a block of regexp code too. This doesn't help.
You mention that the example 'won't even bloody compile', inferring you're used to some other compiled langauge. This is another failing of Perl. Its syntacically(sp?) really quite different to everything else. Coming to Perl from another language is difficult, more so than Pascal to C for example.
In the end, live and let live. If you can't get on with Perl then don't. There are many other options open to you.
The article, and supporting material, implies that gracenote are simply sueing because Roxio are using a free competitor. Thats not entirely the case. Freedb have in effect written their own version of cddb with the same interfaces, and Roxio are using their existing technology to access freedb. As Roxio presumably developed the interface to cddb with the of Gracenote and then switched, Gracenote's effort has not been rewarded.
(This is as I understand it. I might be wrong.)
Why should I have to pay for software twice, eh?
Well..
A quick run down of the software I'm using at the moment has shown me that all of it is under 3 years old, with the exception of a couple of NT servers. The idea that people will have to carry on paying for software years after they've bought it isn't new (Ask any Sun/SGI/Oracle user). This sort of thing pushes people into paying more money for software, true, but it also means they're considerably more likely to use more up-to-date versions, have less support/maintainance issues, and generally be happier.
Sure, it'll never work for the home user, but that's not what they're aiming at.
I live in the uk. We have satellite tv, and have recently (12 months) started getting digital tv services. We're also starting to get DAB (digital audio broadcast) radio over traditional frequencies.
Our digital satellite serves, BSkyB and OnDigital, operate sort of half tv/half radio channels. The idea is very obvious. Its a TV station without the pictures. Put the satellite signal through your amp for sound, and leave it on the music channel while keeping the television off. Instant satellite broadcast radio using equipment a large number of people already own.
A dedicated radio network is not necessary. Just piggyback off the television bandwidth. In fact, its probable that you could multiplex a very large number of radio channels into the bandwith of one television channel.
The best part of it is.. if you're subscribing to digital TV, this service is entirely free.
The exact same thing happened between Nintendo and the producers of Goldeneye. The game company bagged exclusive rights to the game, and stopped any other platform having a Goldeneye game.
But..
Goldeneye on the Nintendo64 was a fantastic game. A real killer app for the (then) fledging console. Perhaps MS want to do the same for theirs.
Yeah.. I'm still waiting for my cash from GET CASH NOW!, a free holiday from Disney and Microsoft, and that new kidney for the kid in Florida.
1. Why and how is a computer program expressive speech? What does it express? 2600's lawyers are entirely familiar with Touretzky's Gallery, so forget about those. Assume you have some C or perl staring at you, any random block of code in any random print-out. What does it express? Why should that code be protected expression?
A traditionally coded application, from Office through to Quake, the Linux kernel to Windows XP, doesn't really express anything. Its a means to an end. Theres no real intended statement, its a tool. Just as the words in my documentation aren't a novel, and my nicely presented flowcharts aren't art. They serve a definite purpose, and that isn't one of expression.
However, thats not to say code can't be an expression. If I write 'perl -e print 'Lawyers suck!'; some would argue that its just a bit of code, its just something that gets interpretted, its not art. Yet I might argue it is art. Art, and expression, is subjective. I could stand in front of the Mona Lisa and say 'Its just an oil based compound we call 'paint''. While technically correct, that doesn't stop it being art.
Just the same is true of DeCSS. On one hand its just a bit of C. On the other it demonstrates some deep rooted belief in freedom. Its subjective.
Of course, the difficulty arises persuading a court of law what art and expression is all about. Sometimes I'm very glad ianal.
on the patent font.
Is there a church of patents or something?
You want something as easy to use as Windows.
You want something thats easy to setup and configure as Windows.
You want a decent desktop OS.
You want to do C and Perl.
Why not use.. Windows?
Flamebait as I may seem, theres nothing *wrong* with Windows as a desktop OS. It doesn't feature the same level of security as *nix, nor does it have the zero cost outlay advantage, but it does work, its simple to use, and there are squillions of apps and games and stuff for it. Its a case of using the right tool for the job. Windows might just be the right tool.
Hehehe
6 5ca7-043108e0.. read the last line..
http://www.segfault.org/story.phtml?mode=2&id=3aa
Onion
SeaHaven is officially another country. From the SeaHaven web site
Gradually, over the years, Sealand has become increasingly secure and internationally accepted. More and more, the international Lawyers and other Jurists stated that Sealand fulfilled all the legal requirements of a State and that the Sovereignty of Sealand was absolute and unquestionable. The major states of Europe have now accepted this as a fact
If the US government were to send in the marines they'd be invading another country. A declaration of war. That would violate more treaties than you can count. The repercussions would be horrendous politcally.
Much as Americans like to believe they control what happens globally, they don't. Theres nothing the US could do, beyond breaking off international relations with SeaHaven. I doubt that'd be a big worry.
Have you been peeking at my source?
Because they don't even know that other options exist, for the most part.
Why? Because MS is a monopoly.
And thats Microsofts fault? No, its the fault of the ignorant consumer. If you don't research your options you're going to have to put up with what you're given. For the 'average' user at home Windows is the best operating system. Most people couldn't even install, for example, Linux. Its simply not as obvious and easy to use as Windows. Consumers are a stupid bunch. They tend to like little paperclip assistants, 'Wizards', and autorunning CDs. It doesn't require any thought. That suits most people fine. Microsoft have dumped vast amounts of money into simplifying computer systems so that they can sell to as many people as possible. Maybe one day Linux will be as easy to use as Windows. Until then though Microsoft will not have a rival in consumer operating systems, irrespective of what the US courts rule.
XFS has the ability to work with 512 peta-byte drives..
Thats a lot of pr0n.
Is this realy a good idea? Especialy since there is a root exploit for every known version of perl in existance? Perl doesnt and will never run on my machine.
Absolutely. I threw my computer away because having one just an invitation to the script-kiddies.
The Prometheus Project article is actually on the site.. http://www.newscientist.com/features/features.jsp? id=ns22741
Ok, so maybe I should have stuck in some italics to show I was quoting.. The main point of the comment was the 'sun-shining-on-my-screen-at-the-time' bit.. Personally I found the article on the Prometheus Project more interesting, but I don't think thats on the web site. (Not that I saw)
And anyway, karma is worthless. When I can spend it I'll care. So I went down to 48 by being overrated. Is that a problem? I think not.
The transistors in an average TFT screen soak up about 25% of the light emitted by the backlight. These new semiconductors, being transparent, eliminate that translucency, and thus make the screen 'brighter'.
Which would be nice right now coz the sun is far too flamin' bright.
First point, search engine crawlers only honour the robot.txt protocol if they're told to do so. A 'dishonourable' search engine could simply ignore the file and index everything in its path. Already the main engines are boasting 500million+ indexes, its only a matter of time before they start resorting to underhand tactics to boost their numbers.
Secondly, robot.txt is often a server level setup file. If you get some free space with the likes of AOL/Freeserve/Geocities you have no control over the indexing of your site. Additionally, some (albeit poor) ISPs don't offer configuration of this file. Whether it is the fault of the ISP, the search engine, or you, for the crawling of your site would be a matter for further debate.
Onion
The chances of this story being redundant are really high. Think about it..
/. article couldn't be a repeat. There was only one. The second had a 1 in 2 chance. Either it was the same as before or it wasn't. The next one though, that had a 2 in 3 chance. It would be either the same as the first, or the same as the second, or a new one. And so it goes for all the other stories. If there are a million stories already then the chances of the story being a repeat are 1000000 in 1000001. How could you reasonably expect there not to be a few repeats now and then? Come on. Be reasonable.
The first