What an abomination this is to the name of both God and human life! Not only must human life be reduced to such a tiny level, we must also find ways to modify with the very seeds of humanity? What's next, a device which can transcend earthly existance and modify the human soul? Are we so vain?
I'm horrified by the thought that life can be treated as some sort of vile mechanical process rather than the sacred and beautiful thing it is. I'm all for the curing of diseases, but modern medicine is going too far with this. I'm worried that in several years, humanity will be replaced with robotic drones who serve no purpose other than to work and perform. And we're throwing praise and money into this abomination?
Were it not expressly forbidden by the 6th commandmant, I would rather take my life than live in such a horrendously blasphemous society.
Sadly, Carnivore is but the one way the FBI and government can fight the horrors of underground radicalism and rebellion that circulate vastly through the World Wide Web. Any large country intent on maintaining order and safety for its citizens will have to rely on surveilance means in order to have accurate information for protection. In order that American safety is not compromised by vast underground efforts such as those advocated by the radicalist handbook known as the Anarchist's Cookbook and others, Internet sites, and the World Wide Web as a whole, must be monitored.
The correspondance between peers, while always valued, has never been 100% private. Aside from the eyes of God, carrier services such as the Postal Service and the Pony Express have always engaged in careful monitoring of their mail in order to spot potential threats to the nations security. As a rational, intelligent, law abiding citizen, I see no reason why I should find myself at risk. For those of you here who would like to refer to yourself as anarchists, I do not really think you understand what is going on. If you choose to portray yourself in an image designed to attract attention and nothing more, you must come to terms with the negative ramifications of doing so. Authorities need information to enforce the laws properly, and if you choose to stand in their way for the sake of image, I fail to sympathize with your plight.
And if you say that there is no need for survelience, take a look around yourself. The whole piracy and "warez" movement started by Napster is fast becoming a dangerous counterculture that violates the American dream of capitalism and the important Protestant Work Ethic ideal noted by Charles Beard. Militant anarchist groups promoting terrorism are spreading like wildfire through the many data centers of the World Wide Web. How do you think people like Timothy McVeigh and Richard Jewell and Eric Rudolph gathered information and conspired the plans for their attacks? Violent hatred groups such as the Black Panthers are promoting their immoral bigot messages through online propaganda. Even the very economic and social sanctity of our country is being threatened by the powerful new Jew conspiracy that has extended its control of the media to our digital network world. Do you really think these groups are harmless and deserve to be protected?
Sadly, Slashdot is gravely mistaken on its stance on online monitoring. The Internet, E-Mail, FTP, and such are all vital components of the World Wide Web that are in danger of succumbing to underground anarchist terrorism. And personally, I'd rather have one law-abiding government serviceman peek upon my E-Mails than be let loose in an uncharted sea of dangerous collusion and corruption in order that a few devoted computer users may talk privately about their emotionally devoid lives.
Therefore I think it is only fair that we have some degree of control over which language is the standard for the Internet. Seeing as how the U.S. was almost solely responsible for the creation, mass marketing, and globalization of the internet as we know it, the United States' official language should be the official language of the internet.
Of course if the main language of the U.S. is chosen to remain as the official language of the net, don't be too surprised if the net becomes dominantly Spanish in a few years:P
Zappa and Lennon still have living estates and family legacies to receive the royalties. By downloading, you are stealing from them and the record companies that allow you to enjoy the music at a fair price.
Beethoven's music, on the other hand, may not give royalties to his estate, but you are forgetting the performer's cut in classical CD sales. You're not stealing from a dead composer, rather the hard working classical musicians who put their skill in use to entertain the public with timeless music.
While this may seem like a heavily Draconian method, the question is: what else can they realistcally do to curb piracy? It's their market, their industry, their product... hence they should have control of its distribution and selling.
Call it what you like, but Napster and its kin amount to theft of intellectual property. This theft will probably cost record companies billions in the coming years, and force them to raise prices to survive like they are doing right now. I would know that if I were to publish a writing of mine in the near future, I would want some reasonable level of control on how its distributed. The majority of Napster users use the product to steal piecemeal tracks from albums, circumventing the sale of the album itself. This is not fair! You cannot go into a bookstore, rip out a few pages and expect to get a way with it. The same principle applies here. Sony is taking drastic measures because Napster is a sincere threat to them. They're not hacking your computer, they're merely making a deal with ISP's to prevent piracy.
I'm sorry if the Napster kiddies will be forced to return to asking Mom and Dad for money to buy their music instead of stealing it, but that's how laissez faire capitalism works. You will appreciate it when you grow up and perform a viable service in exchange for an income. Nobody should deny you of your income, so why do you feel inspired to deprive hard working record companies and artists of their justified income?
Yes, T1's are still more desirable than cable to many because the bandwidth providers offer better service and support(because of the cost), because the upload is fully symmetric (cable usually gets anywhere from 30-100 kB/s for upstream), and because T1's are isolated, avoiding the whole shared bandwidth complaint. Still, it is quite ridiculous that cable customers can get these kind of speeds while DSL users get the shaft from their providers.
A T1 line is 1.544 megabits per second (mbps), which translates roughly into about 150 kilobytes per second (kB/s). Anyhow, like I said, I have conversed about cable with many cable customers, and 200-300 kilobytes per second (kB/s) is not unusual for them. 300 kB/s is about 3 megabits per second (mbps), which is roughly twice the 1.544 mbps speed of a T1 line.
The difference between bits and bytes is probably what causes the confusion, which is why ISP's resorted to using megabits and kilobits in their ads instead: the numbers look bigger to customers, who think they're getting a better deal.
I have extensively stuided DSL and Cable as a report for a class of mine, and my conclusion is as follows: DSL is IMHO a superior technology (more stable and resistant to sharing issues), but it is losing badly to cable because of the cheapness of DSl providers.
While many cable companies are far less than reputable *cough* @home *cough* at least they are willing to give the customer a reasonable amount of speed. Cable customers often boast about getting speeds of up to 300 kB/s, twice the quality of a full t1 line! Yet DSL providers remain stubborn and rude about the notion of giving bandwidth to its customers even a fraction of that. 500-600 kbps lines often cost as much as a cable connection, with SDSL reaching ludicrous triple digit prices. Swbell and affiliates are ironically the most free with bandwidth, promising 1.5 mbps (though usually delivering maybe 400-500 kbps on average, not to mention the horrid 128 kbps upload cap) at the cost of cable.
ADSL is a waste of technology only used by companies to cheat their customers out of bandwidth. Don't be fooled by the "asymmetric" in its name, upstream drastically affects downstream with ADSL: A friend of mine who uses BellAtlantic has download speeds drop from 80 kB/s to 15 kB/s while uploading at full speed. No doubt the same flaws exist in the other Bells and other adsl providers. A/SDSL can reach speeds of up to 10 mbps, yet companies refuse to give customers just amounts of bandwidth, often charging $500/mo or so just for the same bandwidth as cable. I am sickened my DSL providers and their attempts to cheat the customer out of bandwidth. No wonder other horrid companies like Time Warner and @Home can get away with Draconian service policies because no one wants to put up with the jewish bandwidth limitation pulled by SBC, GTE, and others.
I am a conservative business supporter, but I think companies do need a good kick in the bum every so often to keep them honest. Now is one of those times.
Why must every venture capital startup immedietally apply for IPO without actually establishing a market for its wares yet?
Transmeta may be cool and have potential, but do we need to wreck the market with yet another volatile stock thats going to go up 100 points in the first day and then drop back to its original price?
In the age of constant cuthroat competition between video game systems and companies with constantly expanding technology and hardware, the longest lasting console is the minimalist Game Boy. IIRC the Game Boy is over 10 years old, still going strong with only minor updates like the GB Color and now this. Let's see one of those newfangled Next Gen systems try to last half of that time.
I'm not a big fan of games myself, so I won't buy one, but I must admit that the industry and its evolution is very interesting. I just like that a portable mini-system can outlast the heavyweights of the industry. But to be fair, software support always makes or breaks a system too, which is why the handheld brethren of the Game Boy (Lynx, Virtual Boy, GameGear, and TurboExpress) are all in their respective coffins now.
Maybe I'll get one as a gift to my teenage brother so he'll stop wasting his TI-89 with those cruddy little calculator games:)
#2. Glasses are more of a clothing item than a integrated machine. They don't actually enter the human body, nor do they perform some mechinally automated function within the body. Glasses are just lenses that you can wear for vision, same for contacts. I would classify them as clothing or articles, not as technology that interacts with human tissue inside the body.
#3. I'm a Christian and a humanist, so I must be a troll, right? *sigh* It really irritates me when someone decides to entirely disregard my expressed opinions because they it contradicts the accepted Slashdot meme (of course most/. posters are agreeing with me on this article, though maybe not to the same degree, oddly enough). You think I'm paranoid, yet you're too paranoid to even try to debate my valid opinions because of the chance that you might be replying to a troll. I hate to break it to you buddy, but I'm real.:P
Read most of the comments in this article, my friend. The fact that the normally pro-technology crowd of slashdot is expressing at least some level of fear, hesitance, or question towards this technology should be some indication of the gravity of this issue. Perhaps I may be particularly vocal about this, but that is due to my religious beliefs (I'm a moderate Episcopalian, not a zealot like your friend Jon Erikson) and my personal feelings about humanity.
I am not a Luddite, sir, as you accuse. I support technological advancements like computers, radio, automobiles, telephone, etc... These devices improve humanity's condition but do not threaten humanity itself. There is a HUGE difference between ____ New Tech. and these Human Implant chips. In my opinion unnecessary technological additions to the human body are crossing the line! I see nothing fanatical about my feelings on the subject and stand resolute that nothing good can come from ADS and its ilk.
I can't believe the utter audacity nor can I begin to describe my sheer disgust at the thought of this technology! Human ID chip implants? Dear God, what has become of us all?
It's not just purely the potentially potent personal privacy problems that have me in a panicked protest, it's the terrible thought that this technology will foreshadow the slow stripping of humanity from man. I can't believe these people are excited about the concept of placing computer chips inside a living human body. This a travesty to mankind, a travesty to nature, and to me personally: a travesty to the work of Our Lord (Yes I'm a Christian, don't flame me for it). Man was simply not meant to be intermingled with machines. Is this what you want, scientists? Insert a controllable chip inside a man in exchange for a piece of his human soul? I don't often use threats of hellfire and wrath upon my fellow man, but I'm afraid that's what ADS is looking forward to. I'm a man, dammit! I don't want a piece of silicon inside my body... no matter how painless, cheap, or convenient it may be.
This technology doesn't just offend me, it SCARES me. What's worse is I don't see any way mentioning how to turn off these chips. That is HORRIBLE! Our Lord in Heaven, what shall happen if these chips are released to the mass market.
You know, I watched Terminator many times, and thought that cyborgs would only exist in Hollywood. But apparently I was wrong. This looks like the first step in the assimilation of man with machine. If this takes off, I won't be surprised to see a future where man and robot are joined as one and walk down the streets none the wiser. And this frightens me greatest of all.
Yes it was. The Declaration of Independence was one of history's greatest trolls. If you knew anything about American History, you would know that Jefferson and company deeply exaggerated their complaints, made them exclusively against the king, and made them very vague and general in order to inflame colonists into joining them in the rebellion. Factually, it is a long way from true. By the way, you should try reading it sometimes instead of taking ignorant people's word on it.
Let's be honest, the issue of Napster and such isn't just cd prices and the RIAA. People have always been ranting about the evils of the recording industry, yet millions of them spend several hundred dollars per year buying cds. Morality and cost are pretty much a non-issue.
The main reason for piracy is simply that people want something for nothing. "Free music, you say? That sounds enticing." And thats where it starts. When given an option to get two identical products, one of which is free, the person will always take the free way. The only reason piracy hasnt hit big until now is simply the ease. Millions of people can use Napster and get music for free. Same goes for Gnutella. Cd sales may be up for now, but in time the ramifications will show and the RIAA will report drops in income due to piracy. And what happens for those 'protestors' who pirate because cd prices are allegedly too high? Cd prices go up because of piracy. Notice how Best Buy has raised its average cd price from $11.99 to $14.99 over the past year and a half (during the time when broadband internet access became more mainstream). People who pirate out of boycott-type ambition are deluding themselves: they want free music, and they know their piracy is hurting their cause in the long run anyway.
I don't understand the motivation for music piracy (aside from the free thing) anyway. You want to pre-listen to a Cd, go to Cdnow! They have good ~30 second Real Audio samples of the songs. Sure their prices may be $15 or so, but that is the market dictating that people are willing to pay for it. You want lower prices, blame consumers and economic principle! And if you want to listen to obscure music, the reason it is so hard to find is because the masses of people are not interested in hearing it. Sure, maybe I might want an Edsel, but I can't get one because people didn't like it and it did not stay on the market. Popularity does determine what is available.
I too, dislike the RIAA, but I am highly disappointed of the excuses being made to justify rampant piracy as some sort of noble crusade.
Apparently you have not taken an American History course to straighten out the jingoism surrounding the Revolutionary War. I am an American patriot myself, but I take exception to your exaggerated interpretation of true history.
George did not trample the rights of the colonists by any means. First of all, the English government was the one who gave the funding and charters for the colonies, and thus was pretty much entitled to control over their colonies. I mean, the U.S. has its own colonies today, and I don't see you objecting to that.
And as for representation, the colonists DID have representation through state governors appointed by the English government. Granted it was not fully democratic, but the governors were not overly zealous towards the English. The main issue with the Stamp Act was that the Americans would pay the tax to the British government instead of colonial bodies (although the end result was usually the same anyways). And dont forget that George had a reason for the tax: it cost lots of money to supply and deploy British troops for the Seven Year's War, in which btw Britain was protecting the colonists! We pay taxes for federal defense, and the colonies should have paid for the aid of the British army. Other similar acts like the Sugar and Navigation Acts were in place in the colonies for a long time before, and were not highly contested. And the Tea act, which led to the Boston Tea Party, actually BENEFITED the colonists by saving them a significant amount of money on tea. The intent of the British taxation was to keep colonists satisfied while allowing the British to recover debts from war.
And need you think that all of America was in full opposition to Britain, you are forgetting that the majority of colonists at the time were either Tories or neutrals. The reason for the uproar was the small, but highly vocal and radical majority, consisting of Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, and the like (BTW read some biographies of them and you'll find theyre not exactly the selfless patriotic heroes you have been conditioned to think they were).
If you wish to discuss the issue intelligently, make sure you know what you are talking about before blindly spouting out historical inaccuracies in an attempt to be noticed. You may call me a troll if it soothes you, but I think this post is what I call a real troll.
Pardon me for going against the tide of slashdot opinions, but I still don't understand what has everyone so riled up. Perhaps I should blame the FBI for choosing a menacing sounding name like "Carnivore," but certainly their intentions are not to destroy or harm. The FBI is a very major government organization paid for by our tax dollars. I may not agree with their moves all the time, but I trust that they are only concerned about the best interest of our country. Why would they go out of their way to harm the very citizens who keep them running?
Government monitoring is nothing new. The FBI have long had many wiretapping systems set up to catch criminals. The USPS scans threatening mail trying to prevent people from mailing bombs and traps to their enemies. Cameras are installed along many city streets to watch crimes and catch traffic violations. I don't understand why these survelaince methods aren't coming under fire as well... why is the internet so incredibly different?
Besides, look at the results of these efforts. Many major crimelords and killers have been caught by slipping up in the presence of wiretapping. Mail monitoring has prevented possible serial terrorists from doing something like send mail bombs. And street cameras catch amazing ammounts of crime, from murders to robberies to prostitution to speeding. I expect Carnivore to be extremely helpful in capturing pedophiles, pirates, terrorists, and other criminals.
Yes, I may be concerned about my own e-mail being read. But I know that I am a law abiding citizen, my messages to people are trivial to the FBI, and that I feel like I need to hide nothing. And even if you *need* privacy, what about encryption? PGP is extremely hard to crack from my knowledge. Use that. I know the Slashdot mentality may contradict it, but it's unrealistic to expect the internet to remain unregulated forever. Regardless, some form of government restricition and monitoring will come eventually, and having read a little about Carnivore, I am satisfied with their efforts.
Schoenberg was a disillusioned fool and his so-called 'music' is painful to listen to. Pretty much goes with the rest of that school. Give me Mendhelssohn, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky or Dvorak any day.
You misunderstand me, I am reffering to the creation of music itself, not the recording and playing of it! The music placed on cds is simply recorded and transferred in its full, intact form. It has been composed and played with the natural raw emotion of music, and still contains its beauty.
What I find so blasphemous is the concept of trying to break down an existing piece of music on mathematical levels, take it apart, and try to turn it into a bunch of little numbers and equations! And surely someone is eventually going to try to write his own program to arbitrarily generate music based on a mathematical level, thus depriving the music of any soul or feeling. THAT is what I find so offensive.
How can you laud this kind of insult to music? I am utterly insulted by the idea that you could reduce a great art form like music to little numbers and digits. So I suppose we can just forget about all the creativity and emotion that are infused into the works of a musician and classify it as something soulless and robotic like math?
Music may have scientific properties, but it is by no means simply a matter of equations and numbers! Music takes passion, emotion, and raw humanity to exist as such, not a series of bits and bytes! I suppose someone is going try to make a arbitrary music writing program based on this info , no? Well, if so, I'd just like to say that music is NOT math. Unlike math, which takes no feeling or creativity whatsoever (rather robotic computational ability, seeing as how our advanced graphing calculators could easily take the place of any well known mathematician), music requires soul and humanity... something which a computer can never create. A program would never compensate for the genius of Mozart or Bach. Leave it to dronelike programmers to try to rob another great art of its soul and wonder by reducing it to a series of computational processes.
from the bbc:
If Microsoft fails to satisfy the commission that its concerns are unfounded, it could face a 10% fine on its revenues. However, in practice fines have never exceeded
1%.
from ZDnet: The U.S. software giant has two months to reply to theEuropean Commission's allegations. If it fails to satisfy itsconcerns, the Commission could levy a fine of up to 10 percentof the company's worldwide revenues, although such a large fine has never in practice been imposed.
There's your answer: MS will be fined directly by the EU. The EU will place a fine on MS's income in areas under its jurisdiction (like it says, the plan is a 10% penalty, but it might be less since no fines have been greater than 1% as of now)
Is it really THAT hard to read the articles before posting?
to see how this case turns out. In one corner you have powerful American megacorp of Microsoft, already under DOJ fire. And then you have the large international governing body that is the EU.
If this case goes through it will definitely be a nice precedent to see how American corporations comply to foreign laws and governing bodies. If MS loses, it would be good to see American companies forced to take responsiblity for their dishonest actions in regard to the international circuit. However, as much as I want MS to get a stern slap in the face for its actions, I hope whatever decision doesn't fuck up MS further than the DOJ suit did. True they're an 'evil, greedy corporation' but considering how entrenched they are in the PC market, it's still not safe to have a major software paradigm shift occur abruptly.
Slashdot Mirror
What an abomination this is to the name of both God and human life! Not only must human life be reduced to such a tiny level, we must also find ways to modify with the very seeds of humanity? What's next, a device which can transcend earthly existance and modify the human soul? Are we so vain?
I'm horrified by the thought that life can be treated as some sort of vile mechanical process rather than the sacred and beautiful thing it is. I'm all for the curing of diseases, but modern medicine is going too far with this. I'm worried that in several years, humanity will be replaced with robotic drones who serve no purpose other than to work and perform. And we're throwing praise and money into this abomination?
Were it not expressly forbidden by the 6th commandmant, I would rather take my life than live in such a horrendously blasphemous society.
Sadly, Carnivore is but the one way the FBI and government can fight the horrors of underground radicalism and rebellion that circulate vastly through the World Wide Web. Any large country intent on maintaining order and safety for its citizens will have to rely on surveilance means in order to have accurate information for protection. In order that American safety is not compromised by vast underground efforts such as those advocated by the radicalist handbook known as the Anarchist's Cookbook and others, Internet sites, and the World Wide Web as a whole, must be monitored.
The correspondance between peers, while always valued, has never been 100% private. Aside from the eyes of God, carrier services such as the Postal Service and the Pony Express have always engaged in careful monitoring of their mail in order to spot potential threats to the nations security. As a rational, intelligent, law abiding citizen, I see no reason why I should find myself at risk. For those of you here who would like to refer to yourself as anarchists, I do not really think you understand what is going on. If you choose to portray yourself in an image designed to attract attention and nothing more, you must come to terms with the negative ramifications of doing so. Authorities need information to enforce the laws properly, and if you choose to stand in their way for the sake of image, I fail to sympathize with your plight.
And if you say that there is no need for survelience, take a look around yourself. The whole piracy and "warez" movement started by Napster is fast becoming a dangerous counterculture that violates the American dream of capitalism and the important Protestant Work Ethic ideal noted by Charles Beard. Militant anarchist groups promoting terrorism are spreading like wildfire through the many data centers of the World Wide Web. How do you think people like Timothy McVeigh and Richard Jewell and Eric Rudolph gathered information and conspired the plans for their attacks? Violent hatred groups such as the Black Panthers are promoting their immoral bigot messages through online propaganda. Even the very economic and social sanctity of our country is being threatened by the powerful new Jew conspiracy that has extended its control of the media to our digital network world. Do you really think these groups are harmless and deserve to be protected?
Sadly, Slashdot is gravely mistaken on its stance on online monitoring. The Internet, E-Mail, FTP, and such are all vital components of the World Wide Web that are in danger of succumbing to underground anarchist terrorism. And personally, I'd rather have one law-abiding government serviceman peek upon my E-Mails than be let loose in an uncharted sea of dangerous collusion and corruption in order that a few devoted computer users may talk privately about their emotionally devoid lives.
Therefore I think it is only fair that we have some degree of control over which language is the standard for the Internet. Seeing as how the U.S. was almost solely responsible for the creation, mass marketing, and globalization of the internet as we know it, the United States' official language should be the official language of the internet.
:P
Of course if the main language of the U.S. is chosen to remain as the official language of the net, don't be too surprised if the net becomes dominantly Spanish in a few years
Zappa and Lennon still have living estates and family legacies to receive the royalties. By downloading, you are stealing from them and the record companies that allow you to enjoy the music at a fair price.
Beethoven's music, on the other hand, may not give royalties to his estate, but you are forgetting the performer's cut in classical CD sales. You're not stealing from a dead composer, rather the hard working classical musicians who put their skill in use to entertain the public with timeless music.
While this may seem like a heavily Draconian method, the question is: what else can they realistcally do to curb piracy? It's their market, their industry, their product... hence they should have control of its distribution and selling.
Call it what you like, but Napster and its kin amount to theft of intellectual property. This theft will probably cost record companies billions in the coming years, and force them to raise prices to survive like they are doing right now. I would know that if I were to publish a writing of mine in the near future, I would want some reasonable level of control on how its distributed. The majority of Napster users use the product to steal piecemeal tracks from albums, circumventing the sale of the album itself. This is not fair! You cannot go into a bookstore, rip out a few pages and expect to get a way with it. The same principle applies here. Sony is taking drastic measures because Napster is a sincere threat to them. They're not hacking your computer, they're merely making a deal with ISP's to prevent piracy.
I'm sorry if the Napster kiddies will be forced to return to asking Mom and Dad for money to buy their music instead of stealing it, but that's how laissez faire capitalism works. You will appreciate it when you grow up and perform a viable service in exchange for an income. Nobody should deny you of your income, so why do you feel inspired to deprive hard working record companies and artists of their justified income?
Yes, T1's are still more desirable than cable to many because the bandwidth providers offer better service and support(because of the cost), because the upload is fully symmetric (cable usually gets anywhere from 30-100 kB/s for upstream), and because T1's are isolated, avoiding the whole shared bandwidth complaint. Still, it is quite ridiculous that cable customers can get these kind of speeds while DSL users get the shaft from their providers.
A T1 line is 1.544 megabits per second (mbps), which translates roughly into about 150 kilobytes per second (kB/s). Anyhow, like I said, I have conversed about cable with many cable customers, and 200-300 kilobytes per second (kB/s) is not unusual for them. 300 kB/s is about 3 megabits per second (mbps), which is roughly twice the 1.544 mbps speed of a T1 line.
The difference between bits and bytes is probably what causes the confusion, which is why ISP's resorted to using megabits and kilobits in their ads instead: the numbers look bigger to customers, who think they're getting a better deal.
I have extensively stuided DSL and Cable as a report for a class of mine, and my conclusion is as follows: DSL is IMHO a superior technology (more stable and resistant to sharing issues), but it is losing badly to cable because of the cheapness of DSl providers.
While many cable companies are far less than reputable *cough* @home *cough* at least they are willing to give the customer a reasonable amount of speed. Cable customers often boast about getting speeds of up to 300 kB/s, twice the quality of a full t1 line! Yet DSL providers remain stubborn and rude about the notion of giving bandwidth to its customers even a fraction of that. 500-600 kbps lines often cost as much as a cable connection, with SDSL reaching ludicrous triple digit prices. Swbell and affiliates are ironically the most free with bandwidth, promising 1.5 mbps (though usually delivering maybe 400-500 kbps on average, not to mention the horrid 128 kbps upload cap) at the cost of cable.
ADSL is a waste of technology only used by companies to cheat their customers out of bandwidth. Don't be fooled by the "asymmetric" in its name, upstream drastically affects downstream with ADSL: A friend of mine who uses BellAtlantic has download speeds drop from 80 kB/s to 15 kB/s while uploading at full speed. No doubt the same flaws exist in the other Bells and other adsl providers. A/SDSL can reach speeds of up to 10 mbps, yet companies refuse to give customers just amounts of bandwidth, often charging $500/mo or so just for the same bandwidth as cable. I am sickened my DSL providers and their attempts to cheat the customer out of bandwidth. No wonder other horrid companies like Time Warner and @Home can get away with Draconian service policies because no one wants to put up with the jewish bandwidth limitation pulled by SBC, GTE, and others.
I am a conservative business supporter, but I think companies do need a good kick in the bum every so often to keep them honest. Now is one of those times.
Why must every venture capital startup immedietally apply for IPO without actually establishing a market for its wares yet?
Transmeta may be cool and have potential, but do we need to wreck the market with yet another volatile stock thats going to go up 100 points in the first day and then drop back to its original price?
never underestimate the verbal power of a bored English major while immersed in an emotionally charged rant :)
In the age of constant cuthroat competition between video game systems and companies with constantly expanding technology and hardware, the longest lasting console is the minimalist Game Boy. IIRC the Game Boy is over 10 years old, still going strong with only minor updates like the GB Color and now this. Let's see one of those newfangled Next Gen systems try to last half of that time.
:)
I'm not a big fan of games myself, so I won't buy one, but I must admit that the industry and its evolution is very interesting. I just like that a portable mini-system can outlast the heavyweights of the industry. But to be fair, software support always makes or breaks a system too, which is why the handheld brethren of the Game Boy (Lynx, Virtual Boy, GameGear, and TurboExpress) are all in their respective coffins now.
Maybe I'll get one as a gift to my teenage brother so he'll stop wasting his TI-89 with those cruddy little calculator games
#1. I don't wear glasses nor contacts.
/. posters are agreeing with me on this article, though maybe not to the same degree, oddly enough). You think I'm paranoid, yet you're too paranoid to even try to debate my valid opinions because of the chance that you might be replying to a troll. I hate to break it to you buddy, but I'm real. :P
#2. Glasses are more of a clothing item than a integrated machine. They don't actually enter the human body, nor do they perform some mechinally automated function within the body. Glasses are just lenses that you can wear for vision, same for contacts. I would classify them as clothing or articles, not as technology that interacts with human tissue inside the body.
#3. I'm a Christian and a humanist, so I must be a troll, right? *sigh* It really irritates me when someone decides to entirely disregard my expressed opinions because they it contradicts the accepted Slashdot meme (of course most
Read most of the comments in this article, my friend. The fact that the normally pro-technology crowd of slashdot is expressing at least some level of fear, hesitance, or question towards this technology should be some indication of the gravity of this issue. Perhaps I may be particularly vocal about this, but that is due to my religious beliefs (I'm a moderate Episcopalian, not a zealot like your friend Jon Erikson) and my personal feelings about humanity.
I am not a Luddite, sir, as you accuse. I support technological advancements like computers, radio, automobiles, telephone, etc... These devices improve humanity's condition but do not threaten humanity itself. There is a HUGE difference between ____ New Tech. and these Human Implant chips. In my opinion unnecessary technological additions to the human body are crossing the line! I see nothing fanatical about my feelings on the subject and stand resolute that nothing good can come from ADS and its ilk.
I can't believe the utter audacity nor can I begin to describe my sheer disgust at the thought of this technology! Human ID chip implants? Dear God, what has become of us all?
It's not just purely the potentially potent personal privacy problems that have me in a panicked protest, it's the terrible thought that this technology will foreshadow the slow stripping of humanity from man. I can't believe these people are excited about the concept of placing computer chips inside a living human body. This a travesty to mankind, a travesty to nature, and to me personally: a travesty to the work of Our Lord (Yes I'm a Christian, don't flame me for it). Man was simply not meant to be intermingled with machines. Is this what you want, scientists? Insert a controllable chip inside a man in exchange for a piece of his human soul? I don't often use threats of hellfire and wrath upon my fellow man, but I'm afraid that's what ADS is looking forward to. I'm a man, dammit! I don't want a piece of silicon inside my body... no matter how painless, cheap, or convenient it may be.
This technology doesn't just offend me, it SCARES me. What's worse is I don't see any way mentioning how to turn off these chips. That is HORRIBLE! Our Lord in Heaven, what shall happen if these chips are released to the mass market.
You know, I watched Terminator many times, and thought that cyborgs would only exist in Hollywood. But apparently I was wrong. This looks like the first step in the assimilation of man with machine. If this takes off, I won't be surprised to see a future where man and robot are joined as one and walk down the streets none the wiser. And this frightens me greatest of all.
you know, I'm sure you could still send Corey Kosak some GIFS of your shaved ass or you in assless chaps.
As Ayn Rand's SOMAD would say, "CRIMINAL!"
Yes it was. The Declaration of Independence was one of history's greatest trolls. If you knew anything about American History, you would know that Jefferson and company deeply exaggerated their complaints, made them exclusively against the king, and made them very vague and general in order to inflame colonists into joining them in the rebellion. Factually, it is a long way from true. By the way, you should try reading it sometimes instead of taking ignorant people's word on it.
Let's be honest, the issue of Napster and such isn't just cd prices and the RIAA. People have always been ranting about the evils of the recording industry, yet millions of them spend several hundred dollars per year buying cds. Morality and cost are pretty much a non-issue.
The main reason for piracy is simply that people want something for nothing. "Free music, you say? That sounds enticing." And thats where it starts. When given an option to get two identical products, one of which is free, the person will always take the free way. The only reason piracy hasnt hit big until now is simply the ease. Millions of people can use Napster and get music for free. Same goes for Gnutella. Cd sales may be up for now, but in time the ramifications will show and the RIAA will report drops in income due to piracy. And what happens for those 'protestors' who pirate because cd prices are allegedly too high? Cd prices go up because of piracy. Notice how Best Buy has raised its average cd price from $11.99 to $14.99 over the past year and a half (during the time when broadband internet access became more mainstream). People who pirate out of boycott-type ambition are deluding themselves: they want free music, and they know their piracy is hurting their cause in the long run anyway.
I don't understand the motivation for music piracy (aside from the free thing) anyway. You want to pre-listen to a Cd, go to Cdnow! They have good ~30 second Real Audio samples of the songs. Sure their prices may be $15 or so, but that is the market dictating that people are willing to pay for it. You want lower prices, blame consumers and economic principle! And if you want to listen to obscure music, the reason it is so hard to find is because the masses of people are not interested in hearing it. Sure, maybe I might want an Edsel, but I can't get one because people didn't like it and it did not stay on the market. Popularity does determine what is available.
I too, dislike the RIAA, but I am highly disappointed of the excuses being made to justify rampant piracy as some sort of noble crusade.
Apparently you have not taken an American History course to straighten out the jingoism surrounding the Revolutionary War. I am an American patriot myself, but I take exception to your exaggerated interpretation of true history.
George did not trample the rights of the colonists by any means. First of all, the English government was the one who gave the funding and charters for the colonies, and thus was pretty much entitled to control over their colonies. I mean, the U.S. has its own colonies today, and I don't see you objecting to that.
And as for representation, the colonists DID have representation through state governors appointed by the English government. Granted it was not fully democratic, but the governors were not overly zealous towards the English. The main issue with the Stamp Act was that the Americans would pay the tax to the British government instead of colonial bodies (although the end result was usually the same anyways). And dont forget that George had a reason for the tax: it cost lots of money to supply and deploy British troops for the Seven Year's War, in which btw Britain was protecting the colonists! We pay taxes for federal defense, and the colonies should have paid for the aid of the British army. Other similar acts like the Sugar and Navigation Acts were in place in the colonies for a long time before, and were not highly contested. And the Tea act, which led to the Boston Tea Party, actually BENEFITED the colonists by saving them a significant amount of money on tea. The intent of the British taxation was to keep colonists satisfied while allowing the British to recover debts from war.
And need you think that all of America was in full opposition to Britain, you are forgetting that the majority of colonists at the time were either Tories or neutrals. The reason for the uproar was the small, but highly vocal and radical majority, consisting of Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, and the like (BTW read some biographies of them and you'll find theyre not exactly the selfless patriotic heroes you have been conditioned to think they were).
If you wish to discuss the issue intelligently, make sure you know what you are talking about before blindly spouting out historical inaccuracies in an attempt to be noticed. You may call me a troll if it soothes you, but I think this post is what I call a real troll.
Pardon me for going against the tide of slashdot opinions, but I still don't understand what has everyone so riled up. Perhaps I should blame the FBI for choosing a menacing sounding name like "Carnivore," but certainly their intentions are not to destroy or harm. The FBI is a very major government organization paid for by our tax dollars. I may not agree with their moves all the time, but I trust that they are only concerned about the best interest of our country. Why would they go out of their way to harm the very citizens who keep them running?
Government monitoring is nothing new. The FBI have long had many wiretapping systems set up to catch criminals. The USPS scans threatening mail trying to prevent people from mailing bombs and traps to their enemies. Cameras are installed along many city streets to watch crimes and catch traffic violations. I don't understand why these survelaince methods aren't coming under fire as well... why is the internet so incredibly different?
Besides, look at the results of these efforts. Many major crimelords and killers have been caught by slipping up in the presence of wiretapping. Mail monitoring has prevented possible serial terrorists from doing something like send mail bombs. And street cameras catch amazing ammounts of crime, from murders to robberies to prostitution to speeding. I expect Carnivore to be extremely helpful in capturing pedophiles, pirates, terrorists, and other criminals.
Yes, I may be concerned about my own e-mail being read. But I know that I am a law abiding citizen, my messages to people are trivial to the FBI, and that I feel like I need to hide nothing. And even if you *need* privacy, what about encryption? PGP is extremely hard to crack from my knowledge. Use that. I know the Slashdot mentality may contradict it, but it's unrealistic to expect the internet to remain unregulated forever. Regardless, some form of government restricition and monitoring will come eventually, and having read a little about Carnivore, I am satisfied with their efforts.
Schoenberg was a disillusioned fool and his so-called 'music' is painful to listen to. Pretty much goes with the rest of that school. Give me Mendhelssohn, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky or Dvorak any day.
You misunderstand me, I am reffering to the creation of music itself, not the recording and playing of it! The music placed on cds is simply recorded and transferred in its full, intact form. It has been composed and played with the natural raw emotion of music, and still contains its beauty.
What I find so blasphemous is the concept of trying to break down an existing piece of music on mathematical levels, take it apart, and try to turn it into a bunch of little numbers and equations! And surely someone is eventually going to try to write his own program to arbitrarily generate music based on a mathematical level, thus depriving the music of any soul or feeling. THAT is what I find so offensive.
How can you laud this kind of insult to music? I am utterly insulted by the idea that you could reduce a great art form like music to little numbers and digits. So I suppose we can just forget about all the creativity and emotion that are infused into the works of a musician and classify it as something soulless and robotic like math?
Music may have scientific properties, but it is by no means simply a matter of equations and numbers! Music takes passion, emotion, and raw humanity to exist as such, not a series of bits and bytes! I suppose someone is going try to make a arbitrary music writing program based on this info , no? Well, if so, I'd just like to say that music is NOT math. Unlike math, which takes no feeling or creativity whatsoever (rather robotic computational ability, seeing as how our advanced graphing calculators could easily take the place of any well known mathematician), music requires soul and humanity... something which a computer can never create. A program would never compensate for the genius of Mozart or Bach. Leave it to dronelike programmers to try to rob another great art of its soul and wonder by reducing it to a series of computational processes.
from the bbc:
If Microsoft fails to satisfy the commission that its concerns are unfounded, it could face a 10% fine on its revenues. However, in practice fines have never exceeded 1%.
from ZDnet:
The U.S. software giant has two months to reply to theEuropean Commission's allegations. If it fails to satisfy itsconcerns, the Commission could levy a fine of up to 10 percentof the company's worldwide revenues, although such a large fine has never in practice been imposed.
There's your answer: MS will be fined directly by the EU. The EU will place a fine on MS's income in areas under its jurisdiction (like it says, the plan is a 10% penalty, but it might be less since no fines have been greater than 1% as of now)
Is it really THAT hard to read the articles before posting?
to see how this case turns out. In one corner you have powerful American megacorp of Microsoft, already under DOJ fire. And then you have the large international governing body that is the EU.
If this case goes through it will definitely be a nice precedent to see how American corporations comply to foreign laws and governing bodies. If MS loses, it would be good to see American companies forced to take responsiblity for their dishonest actions in regard to the international circuit. However, as much as I want MS to get a stern slap in the face for its actions, I hope whatever decision doesn't fuck up MS further than the DOJ suit did. True they're an 'evil, greedy corporation' but considering how entrenched they are in the PC market, it's still not safe to have a major software paradigm shift occur abruptly.