I don't agree with this, principally because it assumes that the People are good legislators. While in general (and in this thread) we concentrate on the electioneering and pandering aspects of politicians, there is another ignored side: they make law. And just as we require high standards for those who represent in the legal system (lawyers) and those who adjudicate the law (judges), we should have high standards for those who make it.
Writing legislation is a skill, and governments benefit when it is done well. Just as you don't want the public voting on how to fly the plane, you don't want them writing legislation.
What we need is a public that can choose good legislators/politicians. And the problem is, they're not very good at it, and elections are not framed in terms of who makes better decisions.
My favourite example is that rum & Coke(TM), rye & Coke(TM), and vodka & Coke(TM) all give me hangovers. So the obvious solution is to quit with the Coke(TM).
I'm confused about the math. Riley is 33, meaning he was born in 1968-69. So how the hell did he see Saturday Night Fever(1977), Apocalypse Now(1979), and The Deer Hunter(1978)? All were Restricted, and he was 10.
He probably saw them on video in the '80s or on re-release in the same period. Which means he's nostalgic for a childhood he didn't have.
What kills me is that this initiative is from the same people that brought us email and Word macro viruses because they wanted more code to run on our machines, and now I can't turn off HTML email in Outlook.
What I'd like to see is those guys and the Palladium guys fight it out at Microsoft first, before they deliver us an OS that makes sure that the spam and Disney advertising gets through, but nothing else.
The Venn diagrams of the article remind me of the pretty pictures I see whenever I get a new technology in Alpha Centauri or Civilization. How long do I have to wait for Matter Transmission?
The main effect of offering 10 bits per channel colour will be to reduce banding. For example, your current card can only display 256 shades of pure red: 0xff000000 to 0x00000000. This produces significant banding.
On still images the difference between 8- and 10-bit colour is not that significant; the human eye does a decent job of interpolating the bands. Where the 10-bit really shines is in moving pictures, eitehr in games or movies. When the Bands move across the screen because the camera is moving past a star, the bands are really evident in 8-bit.
Wow, that was effective. You tried to make a point, namely that everyone needs 3D. Seska shoots you down like a French fighter jet. Your comback is to set up a straw man (everyone needs 3 monitors) and then shoot it down yourself?
Linux in embedded devices is not dead
on
Lineo near Death
·
· Score: 1
Intrinsyc is an embedded software company that supports Linux in some cases. Although not dead, they still haven't posted a profit yet.
I worked for a video game company that started 3D programming on the ground floor. Our software renderers worked faster than a number of ATI hardware "decellerator" cards.
I remember cards from S3, Number 9, Chromatic Research/mPact!, Real3D, Pyramid 3D, Rendition, and Trident. I remember the Voodoo Rush. I remember the 3D "add-in" cards like the Voodoo and the PowerVR.
I remember nVidia's first hardware accelerator, which used quadric patches. We never got that one working.
I still have a Trident flashlight, a 3dfx clipboard, an S3 T-shirt brick, and an mPact! golf shirt.
1) Don't tell people they have lost all reason. It is unlikely to advance your point.
2) The levies are not arbitrary. See the findings of the last hearing for the mathematical formula used to calculate them.
3) The Copyright Board is not suggesting the new levies. The Canadian Private Copying Colelctive (CPCC) is. They are the group to whom the levies are given, for later distribution to copyright holders.
4) The Copyright Board does not have the power to revoke the levies. They will not rule on the justification for copyright, nor Ms. Dion's need for another million. The Copyright Board does what the legislation behind it tells it to do.
5) I would suggest you make the unreasonable proportion of the cost of media your main thesis: $0.59 will probably represent over half of the cost of a CD-R at retail. $21/GB will add 25% to the cost of an MP3 player.
The document explains how the previous hearings went. In particular, pay attention to the part that explicitly says that the previous groups arguing against the tariff came woefully unprepared, relying mostly on trying to discredit the opposition's research as opposed to presenting their own.
The document also explains how the amount of 21 cents per CD-R and the other amounts were arrived at; they wasn't pulled out of the air. The CD-R tariff is a multiplication of (among other things) the ratio of the amount of time available on a CD-R to the average length of a prerecorded CD, a coaster (waste) percentage, a calculation of how much is given by the publishers to the copyright holders on a per-CD basis, the percentage of CDs bought by consumers, and the percentage of consumer CDs used to make private music copies.
It seems likely that this current set of hearings will be argued principally over these factors. It remains to be seen whether the CPCC (Canadian Private Copying Collective) can justify a 2.8x increase in the CD-R tariff, since this would most likely come from an increase in the proportion of consumer-bought CD-Rs and the %age of CD-Rs used to private copy.
From a consumer standpoint, increasing the cost of a CD-R by 50% and that of an MP3 player by 25% are likely to be seen as unpalatable (at best) and inspiring a consumer revolt complete with smuggling (at worst). Yet given the scope of the hearnings and the established formula, it is unclear as to whether such an objection can be mounted.
More than 80 percent of respondents across the country understood how to work a TV better than a computer, something for the computer industry to ponder long and hard.
This is a completely specious argument. A computer runs my TV, therefore, "computers" are exactly as hard to understand as a TV.
Oh wait, maybe Jon meant PCs, which are general purpose computers. In this case maybe the fact that my PC is millions of times more capable and flexible than my TV has something to do with it. You are never going to be able to access the full functionality of a PC using the volume up/down, the channel up/down, and the on/off buttons.
I would imagine that after spending 10 million miles (400 times around the world) in a plane, the last thing I would want is to spend my miles on a plane trip.
There's not going to be a revolution. Why should there? Has anyone English been significantly affected by the addition of millions of Japanese pages? Will the addition of billions of Chinese pages make any difference? No.
Even the addition of millions of Chinese surfers will not make a difference to the web. They're going to be off surfing, producing, and supporting mostly Chinese sites, and we will stay in the English ones.
In fact, I would propose that the addition of all those extra people makes the Net less prone to revolution, not more. If they were competing with us for scare resources, that would be one thing. But the Net will expand exponentially to accommodate them and they can all do their own thing. In their own language.
The difference, of course, is the mother. The Roe v. Wade decision said nothing about the "rights" of the foetus, it was about the woman's right to control over her own body.
Perhaps unfortunately, there exists no equivalent decision supporting the rights of scientific research, cloning, or medical advances.
I think the whole issue of ownership of something tangible is given short shrift by just about everyone from the warez-ers to the RIAA. It feels good to own good stuff.
The problem faced by the software community is that consumers make their own decisions about how much that's worth. For university students, it's not worth much. They won't pay retail for Office, Mathematica, SPSS, or AutoCad. But if you lower the price enough, they'll buy it. That's what this study is showing.
The other side of the card is that lowering the value of ownership is going to get producers into trouble in a big hurry. Troublesome copy protection on audio CDs that prevents legitimate ripping and OEM OS "restore" CDs instead of full copies are examples. Here they are degrading the ownership value, and that's bad.
Carrots work better than sticks, and choice works better than either.
The idea of respect as currency in a post-shortage world was "discussed" (if not first introduced) in James P. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear." In it he creates a space colony whose computers can create any material good imaginable. The result is that the colony's society has grown to treat a human's worth as how well they can perform the task they choose. A follow-up colony ship arrives at the colony and wacky hijinks ensue. Well, maybe just cultural turmoil.
Anyway, Piro seems to be making the case that the Web is the beginnings of this type of society, where ordinary people put things up for virtual mod points. After all, wouldn't each of us like to meet their Web heros? Linus? CmdrTaco? Scott Kurtz?
As a public company PayPal is now responsible to its shareholders, not to the public. This only makes them more responsive to the needs of users insofar as its serves the purposes of their shareholders.
Re:.Net fails the pr0n test
on
.NETly News
·
· Score: 1
Perhaps a better wording would have been "advent of any new private form of media distribution." Print is relatively private, as is internet to the desktop. TV was not private until you could rent videos; X-rated movie houses were always tawdry affairs with men in raincoats. Radio has never been private.
.Net fails the pr0n test
on
.NETly News
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Peter Wright seems to have been given a few too many Microsoft T-shirts, for his critical facilities have completely left him.
Human history has shown that with the advent of any new important media, pr0n has never been far behind. The printing press? One estimate says that within 10 years 30% of all presses were being used for pr0n. Glossy magazines? Pr0n. Pictures on your computer screen? Pr0n. The Web? Pr0n.
The simple fact is that.Net will not assist in the distribution of pr0n, and therefore will never be as important to humanity as the printing press, the computer, or the Web.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't agree with this, principally because it assumes that the People are good legislators. While in general (and in this thread) we concentrate on the electioneering and pandering aspects of politicians, there is another ignored side: they make law. And just as we require high standards for those who represent in the legal system (lawyers) and those who adjudicate the law (judges), we should have high standards for those who make it.
Writing legislation is a skill, and governments benefit when it is done well. Just as you don't want the public voting on how to fly the plane, you don't want them writing legislation.
What we need is a public that can choose good legislators/politicians. And the problem is, they're not very good at it, and elections are not framed in terms of who makes better decisions.
This is one of the things that the judge found, but not the only thing.
The Righthaven suit failed because they are not the copyright holders, non-holders can't sue, and their attempts to arrange otherwise failed.
They are at risk of being sanctioned because they failed to disclose the arrangement between themselves and the copyright holders.
There are states other than California?
My favourite example is that rum & Coke(TM), rye & Coke(TM), and vodka & Coke(TM) all give me hangovers. So the obvious solution is to quit with the Coke(TM).
I'm confused about the math. Riley is 33, meaning he was born in 1968-69. So how the hell did he see Saturday Night Fever(1977), Apocalypse Now(1979), and The Deer Hunter(1978)? All were Restricted, and he was 10.
He probably saw them on video in the '80s or on re-release in the same period. Which means he's nostalgic for a childhood he didn't have.
What I'd like to see is those guys and the Palladium guys fight it out at Microsoft first, before they deliver us an OS that makes sure that the spam and Disney advertising gets through, but nothing else.
The Venn diagrams of the article remind me of the pretty pictures I see whenever I get a new technology in Alpha Centauri or Civilization. How long do I have to wait for Matter Transmission?
That sounds very much like the writings of someone who thinks that "powerful 3D is the foundation."
If you don't really think those things, then maybe you. should read your posts. Before you post them.
The main effect of offering 10 bits per channel colour will be to reduce banding. For example, your current card can only display 256 shades of pure red: 0xff000000 to 0x00000000. This produces significant banding.
On still images the difference between 8- and 10-bit colour is not that significant; the human eye does a decent job of interpolating the bands. Where the 10-bit really shines is in moving pictures, eitehr in games or movies. When the Bands move across the screen because the camera is moving past a star, the bands are really evident in 8-bit.
Wow, that was effective. You tried to make a point, namely that everyone needs 3D. Seska shoots you down like a French fighter jet. Your comback is to set up a straw man (everyone needs 3 monitors) and then shoot it down yourself?
Intrinsyc is an embedded software company that supports Linux in some cases. Although not dead, they still haven't posted a profit yet.
All of the developers I know would much rather have developer libraries that don't suck.
I remember cards from S3, Number 9, Chromatic Research/mPact!, Real3D, Pyramid 3D, Rendition, and Trident. I remember the Voodoo Rush. I remember the 3D "add-in" cards like the Voodoo and the PowerVR.
I remember nVidia's first hardware accelerator, which used quadric patches. We never got that one working.
I still have a Trident flashlight, a 3dfx clipboard, an S3 T-shirt brick, and an mPact! golf shirt.
Best of all, I remember iSmell.
A number of points:
1) Don't tell people they have lost all reason. It is unlikely to advance your point.
2) The levies are not arbitrary. See the findings of the last hearing for the mathematical formula used to calculate them.
3) The Copyright Board is not suggesting the new levies. The Canadian Private Copying Colelctive (CPCC) is. They are the group to whom the levies are given, for later distribution to copyright holders.
4) The Copyright Board does not have the power to revoke the levies. They will not rule on the justification for copyright, nor Ms. Dion's need for another million. The Copyright Board does what the legislation behind it tells it to do.
5) I would suggest you make the unreasonable proportion of the cost of media your main thesis: $0.59 will probably represent over half of the cost of a CD-R at retail. $21/GB will add 25% to the cost of an MP3 player.
If you actually plan to reply coherently, then a good place to start research is the document explaining the tariffs currently in place.
The document explains how the previous hearings went. In particular, pay attention to the part that explicitly says that the previous groups arguing against the tariff came woefully unprepared, relying mostly on trying to discredit the opposition's research as opposed to presenting their own.
The document also explains how the amount of 21 cents per CD-R and the other amounts were arrived at; they wasn't pulled out of the air. The CD-R tariff is a multiplication of (among other things) the ratio of the amount of time available on a CD-R to the average length of a prerecorded CD, a coaster (waste) percentage, a calculation of how much is given by the publishers to the copyright holders on a per-CD basis, the percentage of CDs bought by consumers, and the percentage of consumer CDs used to make private music copies.
It seems likely that this current set of hearings will be argued principally over these factors. It remains to be seen whether the CPCC (Canadian Private Copying Collective) can justify a 2.8x increase in the CD-R tariff, since this would most likely come from an increase in the proportion of consumer-bought CD-Rs and the %age of CD-Rs used to private copy.
From a consumer standpoint, increasing the cost of a CD-R by 50% and that of an MP3 player by 25% are likely to be seen as unpalatable (at best) and inspiring a consumer revolt complete with smuggling (at worst). Yet given the scope of the hearnings and the established formula, it is unclear as to whether such an objection can be mounted.
This is a completely specious argument. A computer runs my TV, therefore, "computers" are exactly as hard to understand as a TV.
Oh wait, maybe Jon meant PCs, which are general purpose computers. In this case maybe the fact that my PC is millions of times more capable and flexible than my TV has something to do with it. You are never going to be able to access the full functionality of a PC using the volume up/down, the channel up/down, and the on/off buttons.
I would imagine that after spending 10 million miles (400 times around the world) in a plane, the last thing I would want is to spend my miles on a plane trip.
There's not going to be a revolution. Why should there? Has anyone English been significantly affected by the addition of millions of Japanese pages? Will the addition of billions of Chinese pages make any difference? No.
Even the addition of millions of Chinese surfers will not make a difference to the web. They're going to be off surfing, producing, and supporting mostly Chinese sites, and we will stay in the English ones.
In fact, I would propose that the addition of all those extra people makes the Net less prone to revolution, not more. If they were competing with us for scare resources, that would be one thing. But the Net will expand exponentially to accommodate them and they can all do their own thing. In their own language.
The difference, of course, is the mother. The Roe v. Wade decision said nothing about the "rights" of the foetus, it was about the woman's right to control over her own body.
Perhaps unfortunately, there exists no equivalent decision supporting the rights of scientific research, cloning, or medical advances.
I see some synergy here between the "Get your PhD now!" spam and the "really cheap legit software" movement.
I think the whole issue of ownership of something tangible is given short shrift by just about everyone from the warez-ers to the RIAA. It feels good to own good stuff.
The problem faced by the software community is that consumers make their own decisions about how much that's worth. For university students, it's not worth much. They won't pay retail for Office, Mathematica, SPSS, or AutoCad. But if you lower the price enough, they'll buy it. That's what this study is showing.
The other side of the card is that lowering the value of ownership is going to get producers into trouble in a big hurry. Troublesome copy protection on audio CDs that prevents legitimate ripping and OEM OS "restore" CDs instead of full copies are examples. Here they are degrading the ownership value, and that's bad.
Carrots work better than sticks, and choice works better than either.
The idea of respect as currency in a post-shortage world was "discussed" (if not first introduced) in James P. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear." In it he creates a space colony whose computers can create any material good imaginable. The result is that the colony's society has grown to treat a human's worth as how well they can perform the task they choose. A follow-up colony ship arrives at the colony and wacky hijinks ensue. Well, maybe just cultural turmoil.
Anyway, Piro seems to be making the case that the Web is the beginnings of this type of society, where ordinary people put things up for virtual mod points. After all, wouldn't each of us like to meet their Web heros? Linus? CmdrTaco? Scott Kurtz?
As a public company PayPal is now responsible to its shareholders, not to the public. This only makes them more responsive to the needs of users insofar as its serves the purposes of their shareholders.
Perhaps a better wording would have been "advent of any new private form of media distribution." Print is relatively private, as is internet to the desktop. TV was not private until you could rent videos; X-rated movie houses were always tawdry affairs with men in raincoats. Radio has never been private.
Peter Wright seems to have been given a few too many Microsoft T-shirts, for his critical facilities have completely left him.
.Net will not assist in the distribution of pr0n, and therefore will never be as important to humanity as the printing press, the computer, or the Web.
Human history has shown that with the advent of any new important media, pr0n has never been far behind. The printing press? One estimate says that within 10 years 30% of all presses were being used for pr0n. Glossy magazines? Pr0n. Pictures on your computer screen? Pr0n. The Web? Pr0n.
The simple fact is that