A true pacifist would walk away. Someone who would engage in a act of violence such as this would be difficult if not impossible to talk with ( for they would continue to punch you in the face. )
If the attacker pursues and hits you while you are walking away, a pacifist would stay on the ground until the attacker leaves. Little can be done in this situation because the attacker is blinded by anger or whatever emotion they feel justifies their action.
A pacifish would not continue to place themselves in the situation as described above.
Before running off to australia or where ever - I hear australia is nice tho - I have an idea to purpose. It seems IP is causing a stagnation of creativity, or at least, slowing down the progress of new ideas. It might be too early in the game to make a bolder statement because we are sitting at the cusp of how IP laws will effect our future.
What is the destructive force of IP? Prior art. If you can prove prior art, patents are squashed and hold no more power over ideas.
Would it possible then to create a site where people can submit ideas and papers to be released straight into public domain? The benefit this would have is a growing database of prior art which can be used to encourage growth of ideas and creativity. Not to mention to squelsh an IP claim to an idea.
It seems to me this would be a good way to approaching the growing problem with IP. Would anyone be interested in doing this?
But the point seems to be missed. Just because the ISP or anyone believes someone probably did violate copyright laws doesn't give them the right to take action against you. That is, if you believe in being innocent until proven guilty.
They might allege that you have done something, but until a court of law decides upon it, it still is alleged and thus you are still innocent. Congress and the MPAA seems to have other ideas on your innocence, as shown by the examples of the enforcement of the DMCA.
Two words: peer pressure. When enough cool people start using Ogg Vorbis, people will surely switch over. We just need to get celebrity endorsements.;)
Not to mention Ogg Vorbis being an open standard, royalty and propriety free, as compared to the costly MP3 technology. If I were a hardware vendor making portable audio technology, I would save a couple of dollars using Ogg Vorbis and slap together an easy program to create all the Ogg Vorbis files the user wants. No huss, no fuss.
...and that's why Mr. President, I would switch over from MP3 to Ogg Vorbis.
Speaking of which, it seems everyone is assuming it's either one way or the other. But my music collection is dynamic in the fact that I have both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis audio files. Most portable audio players don't support this "crazy" combination. All my software players do. I'm quite content downloading MP3s from MP3.com and ripping my personal audio collection to Ogg Vorbis. =)
In response, simply because a product, in this case DeCSS, might have more illegal uses than legal uses does not necessarily mean it should be made illegal. To me, it would mean two things: individuals are knowingly breaking copyright laws not caring about the consequences and if a large majority of people are engaged in such illegal acts, a better method for monitoring such actions needs to be created. This then becomes an issue for enforcing the laws not predicting the possible uses - or misuses - of a piece of software.
But because many people decide to break the law so easily, does not mean the problem will be solved by making DeCSS illegal. If they care so little about copyright laws what is to stop them from finding another means. This other means will then need to be made illegal and then another means will be found. The problem isn't in the software, but rather with the morals of the people.
And when I purchase a product, it is my right to use that product however I deem fit. Saying otherwise would restrict my freedom with respect to the product. What if every car manufacture required the consumer to take the car back to one of their dealerships for maintenance? Doing so would limit the consumers freedom of choice by forcing the consumer to always return to a dealership and pay whatever prices the dealer wanted to charge. Instead of having the option to shop around for a competitive price. This, of course, assumes the dealerships all work together trying to maximum their profit by charging the same prices. How would such a restriction affect taking your vehicle to a mom and pop automechanic shop?
Requiring a DVD player to be used on a few systems, or not on a specific system - GNU/Linux for example - would also restrict my freedom in a way similar as the above example. Once you open this closet door, a lot could come tumbling out because the manufactures could then dictate how their product is to be used, repaired and maintained under penalty of the law.
My freedom of use and choice is not a freedom I will give up lightly.
You can argue all you want, but it is the GPL you want to argue against, not the GPV. If you do want to make a good argument against it, don't use forms of rhetoric to do it. It doesn't help your argument.
I was wondering how long it would take before someone tried to assign this motive to the GPL. It's goal is not to destroy the software industry but rather to foster development within it, especially with those who want to volunteer their time. If it wanted to destroy the software industry, it would be preaching anti-technology rhetoric: no computers, no software. That's a rather bleek, end of the world argument.
The software industry includes all those who create software, whether they get paid or not. It is made up of the people who devote their time and energy towards a particular project.
What I believe you mean is it will destroy the portion of the software industry which is based on the supply versus demand model. In short, software is developed because it is thought to meet a certain need - or demand - and a company supplies the software to those consumers who need it. That company then charges a certain fee for this service.
In contrast, the GPL and its respective code operates outside this model. Consumers can now make their own supply to meet their own demand. The GPL just requires that all future improvements be shared openly.
The GPL restricts the freedom to use the code privately without releasing the code. Closed software restricts the freedom of using private code openly. Comparing freedoms in this way, both have their limiations. Comparing the freedom the consumer has over the final product, the GPL lacks very little.
Yeah, I noticed that too. But I think there is a difference between what he finds interesting and what others will find interesting.
Plus, i think the *yawn* actually meant "Yeah, yeah. I've heard this all before. They released a 'better' mp3 format but its still closed source. When will this people ever learn. Go Sixers." I think...;)
Yes. I agree that taking Rodenberry's approach would be good. The future he created was full of abundance. If you need something, you replicated it. (At least most things you could.) If you need to travel somewhere, transportation systems where plentiful. It was easy to get up in the morning and catch a shuttle or teleport from one coast to the other. Travel became trival.
For web sites, the major burden becomes paying the costly monthly fees. Which becomes more costly depending on the traffic to the site. (Maybe good sites shoot themselves in the foot that way?) If it was trival to have a high bandwitdh connection to the Internet, this burden would be eliminated and people would rejoice.
The question becomes then, how can we make high speed access trival? With enough bright minds and with enough brainstorming - and a little luck, of course - we could come up with something.
That's easy. Because they have a full time person working on the project in conjuction with all the volunteers. Unless the volunteers are jobless, they don't have all day to commit to Freenet. Now they have a full time person dedicated to the project.
That's the deal. Something new has happened on an interesting project. Or at least a project of interest to some in the Slashdot community. Why shouldn't they be informed?
Why do you think so many people are rejoicing about the ability to download mp3s without getting caught? I have seen very few posts where people are excited about this proposal. I have seen more enthusiasm about the philosophy behind Freenet.
I have little information on whether many of the people are rejoicing because of being able to steal mp3s anonymously. I don't think stealing is what the Slashdot community considers freedom. And for the most part, I don't think some in the Slashdot community know what they want. They just know what they don't like and are unsure what to do about it.
I don't know why people would require it, but that option is possible. Anonymous speech != crap.
As well, things are distributed over Freenet much better than on the web. A computer going down doesn't stop the dissemination of information from that computer.
I think it's good that we have a place where we can share horror stories about Verizon. (I haven't dealt with Verizon yet so no stories from me.) But isn't there an option, another outlet, because swapping stories is fine and good but it doesen't resolve the situation. Unless the message is just grin and bear it.
A friend of mine would always say, if there is a problem with an organization, join it. Change it from within. So, if there is a problem with Verizon, get a job there. From the talk of all the inexperienced workers at Verizon, so many people on Slashdot could offer a valueable service because they have good understanding of what it happening.
This is, of course, if people wanted to affect change and not just share experiences. There could be other options as well, but I think working for them could be most effective. You might be able to do more if you bring some friends along. At least it would be more enjoyable.
Re:There it is, Sony is definately in violation!
on
GPL FAQ
·
· Score: 1
But are they GPL'ing the code? You didn't mention that. If they are, then you would be correct. If they aren't and are releasing it under another license, it doesn't violate the GPL because it isn't.
Maybe this is just the idealistic engineer in me talking but how about designing the telephony equipment from scratch. There might be enough interest among those in - and out of - the open source community to develop hardware to achieve just this. If the cost is substantially reduced while giving a higher control over the functionality of the equipment maybe this is what could help the little ISPs to stay in business. Or for new ones to start up.
It would also inherent some of the better qualities from open source software: many eyes reviewing the designs, bug fixes to any design flaws, inspiration towards the designs, integration of ideas into other designs, and so forth.
As for the cost, I don't know what the price on outsourcing the boards would be, maybe someone with experience can offer some assistance here. The PCBs would run about $500, at least that was what it cost us at the my last job. I don't know about populating the board.
There is an Open ISP group working on the software end, http://open-isp.linuxbe.org/, maybe a hardware solution in conjuction with them could prove to be useful. OpenH, would be a good place to organize the project. And I would offer any engineering help that I could to the project.
I realized your statement was sarcasm, I just felt your comments could have been relayed in a more constructive manner. Things are not as obvious to others as they might be to you. Maybe some patience and understanding will be exercised before your next post.
If you are looking for a job as director, you might want to improve on your interpersonal skills. Information obvious to you, yet not obvious to another, can be related in a less abrasive manner.
Your premise is flawed because the actions of one director does not give an accurate portrayal of the situation in Minneapolis. How many other directors are there in the city? How effective are the directors? Does the city need better ones?
Your conclusion could be more substantiated with proof as to why you are qualified to become director.
In an information age, maybe the information should be "free".
Free in the sense the creator of the idea gets a limited monopoly on said idea, limited to about 10 years, and after the time ends, it becomes public domain.
I understand such a statement undermines the economic structure we have now, but in the past IP laws did not last as long as they do nowadays and everything worked just fine.
People will survive, books will still be written, music will still be produced; they were in the past and we will all move on. Trying to control all the information will provide to costly to our diginity and it will take away from time we could be working towards other ends.
I doubt the people starving to death in the USA and the world have much interest in this debate. Maybe they should. The RIAA, the MPAA and others are dropping millions of dollars into lawsuits. Maybe that money could be used elsewhere.
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me,
receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should
freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been
peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any
point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
- Thomas Jefferson
little transmitters and receivers would be placed on birds and a network would be set up that way. The signals would always be best in parks or where birds are fed. Power for the device would be generated from the motion of the bird. And if you cover enough birds, you could get city wide coverage.
For rural areas: deers, badgers, dogs, cats, squirrels and/or small unsuspecting children could be used in addition to birds.
If this trend continues and more and more machines are made self healing, what happens when self healing machines break down and need repairs? (Nothing lasts forever, right?) Will people still be around who know how to fix them? This is, of course, assuming there is not going to be equivalent or better replacements for the machines. If there is, simple, go out and buy another one. If not, what happens?
I choose DSL over cable modems was because I wanted a static IP address. When I was looking into DSL and cable last year, no cable companies in my area offered static IP addresses. Cable is cheap and fast but DSL had what I wanted.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out and if any other technology is going to emerge.
While we may think e-mails, IM logs, websites, and other forms of saved conversations between people are useless to us and future historians, we are forgetting about the sociologist or the psychologist who would find this information interesting.
It will be one of the best ways for people in the future to understand about our culture and our society. The things we do now reflect much of who we are and what we find important.
But here is a question? What if Slashdot (or another website) were to shut down or simply stop running. What happens to all the information that was accured over the years? It is all to be lost with a simply fdisk command?
I remember back in my younger years, I radio station called WDRE which had a budding web site and many loyal listeners in Philadelphia. But, like all good things, they were bought and their format changed. The website no longer exists except for the archives on my computer.
But how many other website have faced a fate like this? To be forgotten (except by a few) or replaced with another site.
Great minds think alike. For the last couple of years my friend Chris and I have talked about putting the classes we took during college online. We would present the courses using visual tools like Flash to enhance the understanding of a subject. For example, in electronic circuits being able to see the direction current was flowing could aide in understanding the circuit better. It can be applied to many subjects, electronics is just near and dear to my heart so I had to mention it.;)
The idea goes more indepth, being a place where people can do research, post research, post little projects they did in their garage, expand on those projects, explain concepts, theorize, get help on a project, help people. Consider it similar to a knowledge base but this one would grow as more people exchanged thoughts, ideas and concepts. All free for everyone's use. At the very least I know I would have use of a place like that. And use it often!
I haven't talked about this in a while as I haven't seen my friend Chris in ages =(, but if anyone is interested in talking about the idea or even *shock* *gasp* helping me to start creating it, let me know. I would love to have a nice chat about the subject. Or actually start laying down the ground work to build it.
I work at a modest college radio station and we have a fairly large collection of CDs, vinyls and 7 inches. Despite our amassment music we do not have some albums. For the last couple of months, our solution has been to use Napster to download and then play the songs over the air; a supplement for the music we don't have. And it has been working very well.
We delete the MP3's after our shows - we only have a finite amount of space after all. There's no stealing here. If anything, we are helping promote the bands by playing the music we love so much.
I guess it's an interesting case in which we are using Napster, but the end results is good for the bands, RIAA and the people who are listening to our shows.
It'll just be harder to play some music or fill requests for music which I haven't gotten around to buying or which the station doesn't have in it's library. Oh well! We lived before Napster and we will live after. But some things just made life a bit easier.
First WalMart pressures record companies to change artwork on albums, i.e. on Nirvana's In Utereo album, the song "Rape Me" was changed to "Waif Me", before WalMart will carry those albums. (Side Note: What other albums if any have been modified?) And now I might not be able to listen to certain artist on my portable MP3 player. Definitely an interesting change of events.
I hope there is a way to track with albums have this copy protection on them so as I can avoid it. It will be intriguing to see if they - the RIAA - puts in on the covers: "featuring the new copy proof CD technology".
Silliness! What ever happened to the old letter written campaigns? Or even e-mail campaigns nowadays? Get people organized and lets send out a bunch of letters!
Slashdot Mirror
A true pacifist would walk away. Someone who would engage in a act of violence such as this would be difficult if not impossible to talk with ( for they would continue to punch you in the face. )
If the attacker pursues and hits you while you are walking away, a pacifist would stay on the ground until the attacker leaves. Little can be done in this situation because the attacker is blinded by anger or whatever emotion they feel justifies their action.
A pacifish would not continue to place themselves in the situation as described above.
Before running off to australia or where ever - I hear australia is nice tho - I have an idea to purpose. It seems IP is causing a stagnation of creativity, or at least, slowing down the progress of new ideas. It might be too early in the game to make a bolder statement because we are sitting at the cusp of how IP laws will effect our future.
What is the destructive force of IP? Prior art. If you can prove prior art, patents are squashed and hold no more power over ideas.
Would it possible then to create a site where people can submit ideas and papers to be released straight into public domain? The benefit this would have is a growing database of prior art which can be used to encourage growth of ideas and creativity. Not to mention to squelsh an IP claim to an idea.
It seems to me this would be a good way to approaching the growing problem with IP. Would anyone be interested in doing this?
That sucks...
But the point seems to be missed. Just because the ISP or anyone believes someone probably did violate copyright laws doesn't give them the right to take action against you. That is, if you believe in being innocent until proven guilty.
They might allege that you have done something, but until a court of law decides upon it, it still is alleged and thus you are still innocent. Congress and the MPAA seems to have other ideas on your innocence, as shown by the examples of the enforcement of the DMCA.
Two words: peer pressure. When enough cool people start using Ogg Vorbis, people will surely switch over. We just need to get celebrity endorsements. ;)
Not to mention Ogg Vorbis being an open standard, royalty and propriety free, as compared to the costly MP3 technology. If I were a hardware vendor making portable audio technology, I would save a couple of dollars using Ogg Vorbis and slap together an easy program to create all the Ogg Vorbis files the user wants. No huss, no fuss.
...and that's why Mr. President, I would switch over from MP3 to Ogg Vorbis.
Speaking of which, it seems everyone is assuming it's either one way or the other. But my music collection is dynamic in the fact that I have both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis audio files. Most portable audio players don't support this "crazy" combination. All my software players do. I'm quite content downloading MP3s from MP3.com and ripping my personal audio collection to Ogg Vorbis. =)
The proof is in the pudding. I hate pudding...
In response, simply because a product, in this case DeCSS, might have more illegal uses than legal uses does not necessarily mean it should be made illegal. To me, it would mean two things: individuals are knowingly breaking copyright laws not caring about the consequences and if a large majority of people are engaged in such illegal acts, a better method for monitoring such actions needs to be created. This then becomes an issue for enforcing the laws not predicting the possible uses - or misuses - of a piece of software.
But because many people decide to break the law so easily, does not mean the problem will be solved by making DeCSS illegal. If they care so little about copyright laws what is to stop them from finding another means. This other means will then need to be made illegal and then another means will be found. The problem isn't in the software, but rather with the morals of the people.
And when I purchase a product, it is my right to use that product however I deem fit. Saying otherwise would restrict my freedom with respect to the product. What if every car manufacture required the consumer to take the car back to one of their dealerships for maintenance? Doing so would limit the consumers freedom of choice by forcing the consumer to always return to a dealership and pay whatever prices the dealer wanted to charge. Instead of having the option to shop around for a competitive price. This, of course, assumes the dealerships all work together trying to maximum their profit by charging the same prices. How would such a restriction affect taking your vehicle to a mom and pop automechanic shop?
Requiring a DVD player to be used on a few systems, or not on a specific system - GNU/Linux for example - would also restrict my freedom in a way similar as the above example. Once you open this closet door, a lot could come tumbling out because the manufactures could then dictate how their product is to be used, repaired and maintained under penalty of the law.
My freedom of use and choice is not a freedom I will give up lightly.
You can argue all you want, but it is the GPL you want to argue against, not the GPV. If you do want to make a good argument against it, don't use forms of rhetoric to do it. It doesn't help your argument.
I was wondering how long it would take before someone tried to assign this motive to the GPL. It's goal is not to destroy the software industry but rather to foster development within it, especially with those who want to volunteer their time. If it wanted to destroy the software industry, it would be preaching anti-technology rhetoric: no computers, no software. That's a rather bleek, end of the world argument.
The software industry includes all those who create software, whether they get paid or not. It is made up of the people who devote their time and energy towards a particular project.
What I believe you mean is it will destroy the portion of the software industry which is based on the supply versus demand model. In short, software is developed because it is thought to meet a certain need - or demand - and a company supplies the software to those consumers who need it. That company then charges a certain fee for this service.
In contrast, the GPL and its respective code operates outside this model. Consumers can now make their own supply to meet their own demand. The GPL just requires that all future improvements be shared openly.
The GPL restricts the freedom to use the code privately without releasing the code. Closed software restricts the freedom of using private code openly. Comparing freedoms in this way, both have their limiations. Comparing the freedom the consumer has over the final product, the GPL lacks very little.
Yeah, I noticed that too. But I think there is a difference between what he finds interesting and what others will find interesting.
Plus, i think the *yawn* actually meant "Yeah, yeah. I've heard this all before. They released a 'better' mp3 format but its still closed source. When will this people ever learn. Go Sixers." I think... ;)
Yes. I agree that taking Rodenberry's approach would be good. The future he created was full of abundance. If you need something, you replicated it. (At least most things you could.) If you need to travel somewhere, transportation systems where plentiful. It was easy to get up in the morning and catch a shuttle or teleport from one coast to the other. Travel became trival.
For web sites, the major burden becomes paying the costly monthly fees. Which becomes more costly depending on the traffic to the site. (Maybe good sites shoot themselves in the foot that way?) If it was trival to have a high bandwitdh connection to the Internet, this burden would be eliminated and people would rejoice.
The question becomes then, how can we make high speed access trival? With enough bright minds and with enough brainstorming - and a little luck, of course - we could come up with something.
That's easy. Because they have a full time person working on the project in conjuction with all the volunteers. Unless the volunteers are jobless, they don't have all day to commit to Freenet. Now they have a full time person dedicated to the project.
That's the deal. Something new has happened on an interesting project. Or at least a project of interest to some in the Slashdot community. Why shouldn't they be informed?
Why do you think so many people are rejoicing about the ability to download mp3s without getting caught? I have seen very few posts where people are excited about this proposal. I have seen more enthusiasm about the philosophy behind Freenet.
I have little information on whether many of the people are rejoicing because of being able to steal mp3s anonymously. I don't think stealing is what the Slashdot community considers freedom. And for the most part, I don't think some in the Slashdot community know what they want. They just know what they don't like and are unsure what to do about it.
I don't know why people would require it, but that option is possible. Anonymous speech != crap.
As well, things are distributed over Freenet much better than on the web. A computer going down doesn't stop the dissemination of information from that computer.
It's a different way of thinking about the web.
I think it's good that we have a place where we can share horror stories about Verizon. (I haven't dealt with Verizon yet so no stories from me.) But isn't there an option, another outlet, because swapping stories is fine and good but it doesen't resolve the situation. Unless the message is just grin and bear it.
A friend of mine would always say, if there is a problem with an organization, join it. Change it from within. So, if there is a problem with Verizon, get a job there. From the talk of all the inexperienced workers at Verizon, so many people on Slashdot could offer a valueable service because they have good understanding of what it happening.
This is, of course, if people wanted to affect change and not just share experiences. There could be other options as well, but I think working for them could be most effective. You might be able to do more if you bring some friends along. At least it would be more enjoyable.
But are they GPL'ing the code? You didn't mention that. If they are, then you would be correct. If they aren't and are releasing it under another license, it doesn't violate the GPL because it isn't.
Maybe this is just the idealistic engineer in me talking but how about designing the telephony equipment from scratch. There might be enough interest among those in - and out of - the open source community to develop hardware to achieve just this. If the cost is substantially reduced while giving a higher control over the functionality of the equipment maybe this is what could help the little ISPs to stay in business. Or for new ones to start up.
It would also inherent some of the better qualities from open source software: many eyes reviewing the designs, bug fixes to any design flaws, inspiration towards the designs, integration of ideas into other designs, and so forth.
As for the cost, I don't know what the price on outsourcing the boards would be, maybe someone with experience can offer some assistance here. The PCBs would run about $500, at least that was what it cost us at the my last job. I don't know about populating the board.
There is an Open ISP group working on the software end, http://open-isp.linuxbe.org/, maybe a hardware solution in conjuction with them could prove to be useful. OpenH, would be a good place to organize the project. And I would offer any engineering help that I could to the project.
I realized your statement was sarcasm, I just felt your comments could have been relayed in a more constructive manner. Things are not as obvious to others as they might be to you. Maybe some patience and understanding will be exercised before your next post.
If you are looking for a job as director, you might want to improve on your interpersonal skills. Information obvious to you, yet not obvious to another, can be related in a less abrasive manner.
Your premise is flawed because the actions of one director does not give an accurate portrayal of the situation in Minneapolis. How many other directors are there in the city? How effective are the directors? Does the city need better ones?
Your conclusion could be more substantiated with proof as to why you are qualified to become director.
In an information age, maybe the information should be "free".
Free in the sense the creator of the idea gets a limited monopoly on said idea, limited to about 10 years, and after the time ends, it becomes public domain.
I understand such a statement undermines the economic structure we have now, but in the past IP laws did not last as long as they do nowadays and everything worked just fine.
People will survive, books will still be written, music will still be produced; they were in the past and we will all move on. Trying to control all the information will provide to costly to our diginity and it will take away from time we could be working towards other ends.
I doubt the people starving to death in the USA and the world have much interest in this debate. Maybe they should. The RIAA, the MPAA and others are dropping millions of dollars into lawsuits. Maybe that money could be used elsewhere.
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." - Thomas Jefferson
little transmitters and receivers would be placed on birds and a network would be set up that way. The signals would always be best in parks or where birds are fed. Power for the device would be generated from the motion of the bird. And if you cover enough birds, you could get city wide coverage.
For rural areas: deers, badgers, dogs, cats, squirrels and/or small unsuspecting children could be used in addition to birds.
If this trend continues and more and more machines are made self healing, what happens when self healing machines break down and need repairs? (Nothing lasts forever, right?) Will people still be around who know how to fix them? This is, of course, assuming there is not going to be equivalent or better replacements for the machines. If there is, simple, go out and buy another one. If not, what happens?
I choose DSL over cable modems was because I wanted a static IP address. When I was looking into DSL and cable last year, no cable companies in my area offered static IP addresses. Cable is cheap and fast but DSL had what I wanted.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out and if any other technology is going to emerge.
While we may think e-mails, IM logs, websites, and other forms of saved conversations between people are useless to us and future historians, we are forgetting about the sociologist or the psychologist who would find this information interesting.
It will be one of the best ways for people in the future to understand about our culture and our society. The things we do now reflect much of who we are and what we find important.
But here is a question? What if Slashdot (or another website) were to shut down or simply stop running. What happens to all the information that was accured over the years? It is all to be lost with a simply fdisk command?
I remember back in my younger years, I radio station called WDRE which had a budding web site and many loyal listeners in Philadelphia. But, like all good things, they were bought and their format changed. The website no longer exists except for the archives on my computer.
But how many other website have faced a fate like this? To be forgotten (except by a few) or replaced with another site.
Hello,
Great minds think alike. For the last couple of years my friend Chris and I have talked about putting the classes we took during college online. We would present the courses using visual tools like Flash to enhance the understanding of a subject. For example, in electronic circuits being able to see the direction current was flowing could aide in understanding the circuit better. It can be applied to many subjects, electronics is just near and dear to my heart so I had to mention it. ;)
The idea goes more indepth, being a place where people can do research, post research, post little projects they did in their garage, expand on those projects, explain concepts, theorize, get help on a project, help people. Consider it similar to a knowledge base but this one would grow as more people exchanged thoughts, ideas and concepts. All free for everyone's use. At the very least I know I would have use of a place like that. And use it often!
I haven't talked about this in a while as I haven't seen my friend Chris in ages =(, but if anyone is interested in talking about the idea or even *shock* *gasp* helping me to start creating it, let me know. I would love to have a nice chat about the subject. Or actually start laying down the ground work to build it.
E-mail me at normalforcekills@hotmail.com
I work at a modest college radio station and we have a fairly large collection of CDs, vinyls and 7 inches. Despite our amassment music we do not have some albums. For the last couple of months, our solution has been to use Napster to download and then play the songs over the air; a supplement for the music we don't have. And it has been working very well.
We delete the MP3's after our shows - we only have a finite amount of space after all. There's no stealing here. If anything, we are helping promote the bands by playing the music we love so much.
I guess it's an interesting case in which we are using Napster, but the end results is good for the bands, RIAA and the people who are listening to our shows.
It'll just be harder to play some music or fill requests for music which I haven't gotten around to buying or which the station doesn't have in it's library. Oh well! We lived before Napster and we will live after. But some things just made life a bit easier.
First WalMart pressures record companies to change artwork on albums, i.e. on Nirvana's In Utereo album, the song "Rape Me" was changed to "Waif Me", before WalMart will carry those albums. (Side Note: What other albums if any have been modified?) And now I might not be able to listen to certain artist on my portable MP3 player. Definitely an interesting change of events.
I hope there is a way to track with albums have this copy protection on them so as I can avoid it. It will be intriguing to see if they - the RIAA - puts in on the covers: "featuring the new copy proof CD technology".
Silliness! What ever happened to the old letter written campaigns? Or even e-mail campaigns nowadays? Get people organized and lets send out a bunch of letters!