Now if only PC vendors would stop including them so we could be rid of the things.
Yeah, that would be nice. Except that I've got a Compaq 1270 (I know, a shitty laptop - in my defense I didn't buy it), and since Win98SE can't start up from the CD, I have to use a boot floppy to run it.
[rant] Okay, time for a rant: this is rather odd: Compaq's own restore CD (which also installs tons of crap I don't want) works as a boot CD, and the default boot disk that Win98SE creates has a driver for the CD drive (I assume it's a semi-standard ATAPI one). So then why the hell can't MS just make the CD be bootable! (for those of use fortunate enough to have semi-standard ATAPI CD-ROM drives), other than that making it bootable would also make it easier to use when pirated.
Now when I want to install from scratch, I have to hunt around for a floppy (I use Macs, so I have precious few of them around anymore), then run the Win98 setup program from within Win98 to create a boot disk, then restart with the boot disk and run the setup program off the CD. If I've hosed Windows so badly that I can't even do that, I either have to wait 3 hours for the compaq restore cd to reinstall all of it's crap, or use Virtual PC on the Mac to make the boot disk (I need that specific boot disk because it has the CD-ROM drivers on it..) [/rant]
A classic Catch22 recursive paradox: if we donnate more, we will get lobbyists. But we won't donnate more unless we see lobbyists trying to get things done in Wa$hington. Which means there will be no lobbyists.
On the plus side, at least I don't have to change my spending habits-- since I prefer plain, black sneakers and Nike only sells shoes that, if they were cars, would have been driven by pimps in the 70's.
Here, here. I prefer Converse tennis shoes ("Chuck Taylors"), even though they wear out after about a year (though they do get a LOT of wear). That and "real" shoes - meaning lace up (none of this sneaker/boulbous-plastic-monstrocity-that-must-be- sweltering-inside crap for me!)
No they couldn't, because they don't own the files, the user that created them does.
This argument aside, they wouldn't because it would only feed into the DOJ case against them (assuming the case was still open and Ashcroft didn't decide to just roll over for them)
The same would go with an editing/creation program which allowed import of copyrighted material (e.g. an e-book editor). Its primary purpose is to create content and modify your created content. The fact that it may let you import and modify someone else's content is a side-effect
Why hasn't Adobe gone after GhostScript then? Can't it open protected PS and PDF files?
And is PDF encoding considered "protection" regarless of any bit or encryption? I mean, PDF can very easily specify the exact placement of every single character on the page, which would make getting meaningful strings of text back out rather difficult without OCR-like algorithms. (I should shut up - don't want to give them ideas)
you can't distribute a tool to let other people do what they want to their fonts without writing their own software".
This statement reinforced why this (mis-)use of the DMCA is a clear violation of free speech as protected by the First Ammendment (theoretically), althought I believe that the First Ammendment only applies to the government doing the censoring, not corporate individuals. If it is protected speech (IANAL), then I can tell someone in words how to do it, i.e. "Find bit x and set it to 0". But I can't distribute that in code, nor apparently even in source form.
Hmm, I wonder why the DVD CCA hasn't gone after the guy who wrote the haiku? Are they afraid of bad press? More bad press?
Interesting. It's at +4 now, labled as Informative. I don't know about the various political fights that go on in the OSS movement, but Malcontent's prediction seems to be wrong..
Why is this modded 2? (it was modded 1 when I first called it up, at this particular moment it's modded 2, it may be 3 a few minutes from now..) This should at the very least be modded as 'informative' because it certainly is (assuming it's not a hoax)..
"Godless moderators.."
Re:Let's create a /. Corporation
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How to Save PGP
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· Score: 1
I think this is good idea (really, I do. Yes, I am a pie-in-the-sky [or shall we say, open-source-in-the-sky] optimist) I do think that this would be rather hard to pull of logistically - we'd need to figure out how to get a bunch of/.'ers to agree and form some kind of BOD [board of directors] and need to find a lawyer and probably an auditor that wouldn't charge the Earth in fees.. But that might be doable.
IMO there is all sorts of software this kind of model could be used for. BeOS is my favorite example. It's a well-designed, incredibly stable, fast OS (from what I've heard; I've never used it myself), and now that Palm has bought it, it will probably never see the light of day as a desktop OS again.
I see this as one of the great ironies of U.S. antitrust law: because Microsft has about 90% market-share and therefore is a "monopoly", the DOJ can sue Microsoft for "potentially" stifling innovation (which is only provable when there was an actual technology that was "crushed", like Java [maybe]). But Palm can go right ahead and sit on the BeOS forever, clearly supressing innovation (since it is a demonstrable fact that the BeOS as a desktop OS did exist before Palm go it and stopped devlopment), and the DOJ can do nothing, because Palm is not a "monopoly" having at most 25% market-share.
Part of the rationale behind the anti-trust laws should be to foster innovation ("idea competition"), not just to foster price-competition. It should be I think, but sadly it isn't.
My other pet piece of source-code I'd like to see released is parts of the code relating to the Apple Newton, but that's another comment [on Apple and the NewtonOS].
While this is neat, it AINT Pixo programming..
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Hack Turns iPod into PDA
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I think the idea of rearraging a bunch of contact data into a folder structure that the iPod can naviage is great, if limited.
The bigger piece of the pie, the one that Apple never game us with the Newton (and still hasn't) is a complete description of how to use the iPods Pixo embedded operating system to program other functions which are more familiar to PDA-people like: sorting, searching data enry via FW keyboard, or FW stylus if you could figure out how to make the display touch-sensative, being able to tell the machine "Make me an appointment with Carol at 5:00 next Tuesday for 2 hours, to ring 45 minues before", and it would auomatically look up Carol in the adressbook modules, check you calendar app to make sure there are no conflicts (and alearting you in that case), then placing the datbook entry, changing the ring parameter to "45 minues before meething" I dont' know if Newton Intelligence (built into the final MP2100) could do quit all that, but it might.
Right no, people trying to extend the iPod past "just an MP3 player" are stuck with the system the iPod has now - basicall a file browser. If Apple would release the lower-lvel APIs to access the hardware and compile C programs down to assembly (for porting Sphinx and Festival, as well a WICKED fast BrickOut game)
Apple did, after some pressure from the Newton community, release the in-house plug-ins and header/libray files for their MPW compilation system (God, what a beast) From the released stuff, people are starting to do some really cook stuff with it, as the recent beta test of an ATA card driver for the Newton by >a href="www.kallisys.com">Paul Guyou has shown, as well as the port of Waba for the Newton by Sean Luke. One person figured out how to do assembly language code programming for the StrongARM chip in Newton, and used this as the basis for a MOD file music player. Another project is aimed at porting an MP3 player to the Newton (I don't know if this is in working beta state yet, but I believe it it)
But many if not all of these endevours "going behind NewtonScript" would be much easier (and faster) if Apple could be persuaded to release all the appropriate headers, memory maps, memory proctection schema in public view (with a licence that says you can't use this in a competing product - althought that would have to be clarified as Apple to my knowledge has never definitively said yea or nea on ever producing a PDA again.
If the QuickDraw hooks were available (the Newton uses a stripped down SE-vintage quickdraw), then program like Waba, instead of using NewtonScript bytecode to do the drawing, which is slow, it could draw directly do the screen. Having the interface to the "Inker Port" which runs the pen input device, would make getting taps and drags to activate the applet faster, as you would have to go though NewtonScript to get them as is done now.
If the full specs relating all the communications claases in the "below-Newtonscipt" layer were known, it would be easier to access the serial port, eternet cards from down there.
Some people call for the entire source code to be released, but from what I've heard it was an enourmous mess of speghetti code. But the headers and glue files for the current machines (100,120,130,2000,2100 I believe) could help access these lower level features, which seem to be becoming more an more important as the few Newton users left push their machines to their limits and face compatibility problem with desktop systems.
I don't know about Apple releaseing the entire source code. On one hand, if they released the whole thing, we'd have it but no roadmap; on the other hand, if they cleaned in up, took out the headers and glue, wrote some more comments, it would be VERY expensivive for them (especially as most of the original Newton people are gone from apple) However, in the case that they released EVERYTHING, a community of developers would quickly develop I'm sure to try to figure out what the code does, what should be thrown away in a new implementation of a PDA, and what would be of use to current Newton developers.
Persuading Apple to release the source to the connectivity applications (Newton Book Maker, Newton Tool Kit, and Newton Connection Utilities) would also help, as these apps are the ONLY apps that can interface with the Dock application built into the Newton's ROM. The authentication protocol used includes a DES-encrypted challenge-respononse. This is a BIT of a hitch to making new connectvity apps that can work with the native Dock (as you'd have to after you'd wiped the Newton clean)
I aggree completely (although I don't get SciFi). Yout forgot to mention the most recent Star Trek spinoff (or should it be spinout?) Enterprise.
I still hold out a little hope for Enterprise, because I personally think the story idea about the first days of deep-space exploration is a good one, it does seem to be succumbing to the hormone craze you mention, in a way that even Voyager didn't (at least not initially). I hope they do more with their semi-coherant story arc of the "temporal cold war" in Enterprise, and it would be nice if they entered the Vulcan Symmetrists movement (Vulcan eco-terrorists trying to protect the "galactic ecology") that's taken up in William Shatner's Ashes of Eden trilogy. I don't know if this is an "official" part of the ST universe (but then, if Shatner writes it, it pretty much could be considered official.
Another show that has fallen to low heights is the current season of Andromeda. Although there I think there is a continuing arc, as I've read it's based on a "lost script" of Rodenberry's, as EFC was. About EFC, dammit, when is Street going to crack the last level of the riddle and we can be rid of the damn thing!
The other bill, authored by Democratic Sen. Gloria Romero aims to [...] manufactuers [...] set up a system for taking back obsolete devices, or pay a fee to the state.
That sounds like what the second bill would do. I agree that this is the better way to do it. We have a curb-side recycling program in Bloomington, Indiana, and it's not really clear how much of the stuff picked up actually gets recycled, and not just tossed in the fill.
The real question is: what is the cost of "recycled screws" vs "virgin-metal screws" (really bad mysognistic pun, I know)? If there is no economic incentive there, manufacturers won't do it, unless as you say, the gov't levvies a big enough tax on the manufactuers to make it economically worth their while to do so.
Recycling individual components I would think would be really difficult, if you're talking about the chip-and-capacitor level. I mean, a lot of the chips used are ASICS, so basically can't be reused except by the same manufacturers, and then you have the question of "circuit burn-out/weakening". Plus, this means that you have to get the chips off the board, sort them, etc..
On the other hand, if you're talking about reusing whole HDs, video cards, NICs, etc, you're absolutely right. Although you still have the question of whether the components have been weakened (especially with the HDDs)
Rant on Econ of Recycling:
One problem I see is when you hear about "recycling plastics" or cans or whatever, people are talking about taking the plastic/aluminium/steel, sorting it, melting it down or whatever they do to process it, reforming it into new bottles/cans/whatever, and then selling it. Or trying to sell it, if it's not cheaper than virgin material. But what if we just took all those milk jugs (tops too!)/soda cans/etc and just threw them into a hole somewhere? Not a landfill, but a place where we knew where they were, so that when (if) the time comes that the virgin material gets radically more expensive, then we can dig it up and start to recycle it, and then it would be economically feasible. (I say 'if' because the human race might manage to destroy itself before then, or we might invent a Mr. Fusion type engine, or we might actually start to colonize the inner solar system, or... you get the idea)
What happens if the Performer (eg. Brittany) and the Producer (whatever label she's with at the moment) don't agree on terms of distrution, reproduction, etc? Who trumps whom? Would this make it easier for performers to sue their management for their copyrights (assuming they decided not to be Sheep any longer..)
This isn't exactly about Canada and the DMCA, but is slightly related, having to do with corporate repression and Canada. When exactly is the government of Québec going to sue most of Hollywood for making it illegal for them to play French movies (region 2) in Québec (region 1)? This has got to really piss off the Canadians who speak French; I know it would me (Hmm, it might still, I might take up French again and start buying DVD movies..)
If the WTO allows corporations to sue governements (I think I remember some reference to an environmental suit brought against the Mexican gov't), then shouldn't the reverse be true? (Of course, that's assuming the world is just and fair, which it most decidedly is not)
Come to think of it, could the EU (which is already investigating US media companies for price-fixing, anti-trust, and maybe other things), and the Australians (who seem to be concerned with DVD pricing and other things) AND Québec all band together to lauch a multinational assault on the media companies? (That would be fun to watch: real nation-states duking it out against corporate nation-states.)
I was thinking just the other day (actually, a week ago..) that this would be a wonderful business opportunity. So, somebody have a truckload of money for LOTS of bandwidth, storage space, and really fast MPEG encoders? Oh, and a legal team to make the suits see that this could possibly make them a lot of money?
This will probably never get read by anyone, considering there are 400+ comments already.. But I've noticed I've been getting a bunch of spam lately. Except it's all gibberish, because I don't have two-byte language support installed on MacOS X.. And even if I did, I don't read Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Punjabi, or Sanskit.. I would bet neither do 80 percent of the other people who get the spam..
What a new low. First it was spam we didn't want to read, now it's spam we can't read. And the worst part of it? I don't event know how to unsubscribe (or let them know they have a 'live one'..) So I just delete it.
I get about 50 spams a day (in addition to the 300 or so messages I get from various lists that just get filled away in folders). Some day soon, I'll get tired of it all and get a new email address. Until then, it's not worth the trouble to try to get off the lists.
if I defined all the enum lables as finals in Java, and then used them in switch statements/assigns on variables, I don't get the type-checking I do in C. So in C:
enum PersonType aPerson = Desktop;
would be flagged as an error, but in Java the equivalent
int PersonType = DESKTOP;
would be perfectly fine as far as the compiler is concerned.
How about forming an umbrealla organization that could provide legal representation and protection, that would collect dues from FSF,/., SF (maybe), the LiViD project, and anyone else who could get sued under DMCA, etc. Not that I would be the one to organize such a think, or even think it is particularly a good idea. Just a though.
But remember that a lot of the stuff on SF is GPL'd (or BSD'd or PAL'd, or whatever). If SF did such a thing (which would be very stupid IMO), it would be Slashdotted faster than you could say 'Gnu' (resulting in, oh, about $2000 more bandwidth traffic for them..) Then SF could be setting themselves up for an enormous class-action lawsuit. Which might actually not be a bad thing, in a very macabre sort of way, it would be something that would start to get legal precedets of open-source stuff laid down.
Apple would do something like this...
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Clear Hard Drive Mods
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Hmm.. This sounds like something Apple would make. Design a completely clear computer, with a clear hard drive, a clear power supply, and maybe clear circuit boards if you could get PCBs made of clear material. Sure, it would cost a heck of a lot of money, since Apple would have to get the components custom made (to clean room specs, mind you), but it would also be cool as hell.
I've never played FF6, but this idea does sound hellishly cool. Although I wonder how clean the code to the engine is? Anybody have connections at Square?
The thing that struck me was how the post to/. said that marketers had to run around slapping stickers over the Win95 compatiility logo/words on the packages. But the only games that use DX8.x are probably at most 2 years old (I don't keep up with Direct-Anything, so I don't know when it came out). Did MS know that they were going to EOL 95 for DX8.x when they wrote the spec for DX? If they did, why on Earth didn't they just tell the game developers not to list DX8.x games as Win95 compatible.
I didn't see anything else in the comments section about this (although, as usual, the S/N was low, the density was high, and I allotted myself under 2 minutes to skim it all..). It just seems that this, in addition to being rather nasty of MS (maybe), is also kind of stupid that they don't even know there own plans well enough to inform their developers...
Just remember, Jo Rowling has a consulting role for the film. At least for the first one, we'll have to see about the others. She's also apparently being very particular about the kinds of merchandising she'll allow with the Harry Potter theme: for example, she wouldn't allow Totes to make a candy-cane umbrella with the HP logo because, "the candy-cane theme wouldn't exist in Harry Potter's world" (whatever *that* means) (This was from an article back in the WSJ)
Note: 'Harry Potter' is a registered tradmark of J K. Rowling, Warner Brothers, or whoever the hell owns the rights.
Slashdot Mirror
Now if only PC vendors would stop including them so we could be rid of the things.
Yeah, that would be nice. Except that I've got a Compaq 1270 (I know, a shitty laptop - in my defense I didn't buy it), and since Win98SE can't start up from the CD, I have to use a boot floppy to run it.
[rant] Okay, time for a rant: this is rather odd: Compaq's own restore CD (which also installs tons of crap I don't want) works as a boot CD, and the default boot disk that Win98SE creates has a driver for the CD drive (I assume it's a semi-standard ATAPI one). So then why the hell can't MS just make the CD be bootable! (for those of use fortunate enough to have semi-standard ATAPI CD-ROM drives), other than that making it bootable would also make it easier to use when pirated.
Now when I want to install from scratch, I have to hunt around for a floppy (I use Macs, so I have precious few of them around anymore), then run the Win98 setup program from within Win98 to create a boot disk, then restart with the boot disk and run the setup program off the CD. If I've hosed Windows so badly that I can't even do that, I either have to wait 3 hours for the compaq restore cd to reinstall all of it's crap, or use Virtual PC on the Mac to make the boot disk (I need that specific boot disk because it has the CD-ROM drivers on it..) [/rant]
Give this person 5 karma points for creativity!
A classic Catch22 recursive paradox: if we donnate more, we will get lobbyists. But we won't donnate more unless we see lobbyists trying to get things done in Wa$hington. Which means there will be no lobbyists.
On the plus side, at least I don't have to change my spending habits-- since I prefer plain, black sneakers and Nike only sells shoes that, if they were cars, would have been driven by pimps in the 70's.
- sweltering-inside crap for me!)
Here, here. I prefer Converse tennis shoes ("Chuck Taylors"), even though they wear out after about a year (though they do get a LOT of wear). That and "real" shoes - meaning lace up (none of this sneaker/boulbous-plastic-monstrocity-that-must-be
No they couldn't, because they don't own the files, the user that created them does.
This argument aside, they wouldn't because it would only feed into the DOJ case against them (assuming the case was still open and Ashcroft didn't decide to just roll over for them)
The same would go with an editing/creation program which allowed import of copyrighted material (e.g. an e-book editor). Its primary purpose is to create content and modify your created content. The fact that it may let you import and modify someone else's content is a side-effect
Why hasn't Adobe gone after GhostScript then? Can't it open protected PS and PDF files?
And is PDF encoding considered "protection" regarless of any bit or encryption? I mean, PDF can very easily specify the exact placement of every single character on the page, which would make getting meaningful strings of text back out rather difficult without OCR-like algorithms. (I should shut up - don't want to give them ideas)
This statement reinforced why this (mis-)use of the DMCA is a clear violation of free speech as protected by the First Ammendment (theoretically), althought I believe that the First Ammendment only applies to the government doing the censoring, not corporate individuals. If it is protected speech (IANAL), then I can tell someone in words how to do it, i.e. "Find bit x and set it to 0". But I can't distribute that in code, nor apparently even in source form.
Hmm, I wonder why the DVD CCA hasn't gone after the guy who wrote the haiku? Are they afraid of bad press? More bad press?
Interesting. It's at +4 now, labled as Informative. I don't know about the various political fights that go on in the OSS movement, but Malcontent's prediction seems to be wrong..
Why is this modded 2? (it was modded 1 when I first called it up, at this particular moment it's modded 2, it may be 3 a few minutes from now..) This should at the very least be modded as 'informative' because it certainly is (assuming it's not a hoax)..
"Godless moderators.."
IMO there is all sorts of software this kind of model could be used for. BeOS is my favorite example. It's a well-designed, incredibly stable, fast OS (from what I've heard; I've never used it myself), and now that Palm has bought it, it will probably never see the light of day as a desktop OS again.
I see this as one of the great ironies of U.S. antitrust law: because Microsft has about 90% market-share and therefore is a "monopoly", the DOJ can sue Microsoft for "potentially" stifling innovation (which is only provable when there was an actual technology that was "crushed", like Java [maybe]). But Palm can go right ahead and sit on the BeOS forever, clearly supressing innovation (since it is a demonstrable fact that the BeOS as a desktop OS did exist before Palm go it and stopped devlopment), and the DOJ can do nothing, because Palm is not a "monopoly" having at most 25% market-share.
Part of the rationale behind the anti-trust laws should be to foster innovation ("idea competition"), not just to foster price-competition. It should be I think, but sadly it isn't.
My other pet piece of source-code I'd like to see released is parts of the code relating to the Apple Newton, but that's another comment [on Apple and the NewtonOS].
The bigger piece of the pie, the one that Apple never game us with the Newton (and still hasn't) is a complete description of how to use the iPods Pixo embedded operating system to program other functions which are more familiar to PDA-people like: sorting, searching data enry via FW keyboard, or FW stylus if you could figure out how to make the display touch-sensative, being able to tell the machine "Make me an appointment with Carol at 5:00 next Tuesday for 2 hours, to ring 45 minues before", and it would auomatically look up Carol in the adressbook modules, check you calendar app to make sure there are no conflicts (and alearting you in that case), then placing the datbook entry, changing the ring parameter to "45 minues before meething" I dont' know if Newton Intelligence (built into the final MP2100) could do quit all that, but it might.
Right no, people trying to extend the iPod past "just an MP3 player" are stuck with the system the iPod has now - basicall a file browser. If Apple would release the lower-lvel APIs to access the hardware and compile C programs down to assembly (for porting Sphinx and Festival, as well a WICKED fast BrickOut game)
Apple did, after some pressure from the Newton community, release the in-house plug-ins and header/libray files for their MPW compilation system (God, what a beast) From the released stuff, people are starting to do some really cook stuff with it, as the recent beta test of an ATA card driver for the Newton by >a href="www.kallisys.com">Paul Guyou has shown, as well as the port of Waba for the Newton by Sean Luke. One person figured out how to do assembly language code programming for the StrongARM chip in Newton, and used this as the basis for a MOD file music player. Another project is aimed at porting an MP3 player to the Newton (I don't know if this is in working beta state yet, but I believe it it)
But many if not all of these endevours "going behind NewtonScript" would be much easier (and faster) if Apple could be persuaded to release all the appropriate headers, memory maps, memory proctection schema in public view (with a licence that says you can't use this in a competing product - althought that would have to be clarified as Apple to my knowledge has never definitively said yea or nea on ever producing a PDA again.
If the QuickDraw hooks were available (the Newton uses a stripped down SE-vintage quickdraw), then program like Waba, instead of using NewtonScript bytecode to do the drawing, which is slow, it could draw directly do the screen. Having the interface to the "Inker Port" which runs the pen input device, would make getting taps and drags to activate the applet faster, as you would have to go though NewtonScript to get them as is done now. If the full specs relating all the communications claases in the "below-Newtonscipt" layer were known, it would be easier to access the serial port, eternet cards from down there.
Some people call for the entire source code to be released, but from what I've heard it was an enourmous mess of speghetti code. But the headers and glue files for the current machines (100,120,130,2000,2100 I believe) could help access these lower level features, which seem to be becoming more an more important as the few Newton users left push their machines to their limits and face compatibility problem with desktop systems.
I don't know about Apple releaseing the entire source code. On one hand, if they released the whole thing, we'd have it but no roadmap; on the other hand, if they cleaned in up, took out the headers and glue, wrote some more comments, it would be VERY expensivive for them (especially as most of the original Newton people are gone from apple) However, in the case that they released EVERYTHING, a community of developers would quickly develop I'm sure to try to figure out what the code does, what should be thrown away in a new implementation of a PDA, and what would be of use to current Newton developers.
Persuading Apple to release the source to the connectivity applications (Newton Book Maker, Newton Tool Kit, and Newton Connection Utilities) would also help, as these apps are the ONLY apps that can interface with the Dock application built into the Newton's ROM. The authentication protocol used includes a DES-encrypted challenge-respononse. This is a BIT of a hitch to making new connectvity apps that can work with the native Dock (as you'd have to after you'd wiped the Newton clean)
I still hold out a little hope for Enterprise, because I personally think the story idea about the first days of deep-space exploration is a good one, it does seem to be succumbing to the hormone craze you mention, in a way that even Voyager didn't (at least not initially). I hope they do more with their semi-coherant story arc of the "temporal cold war" in Enterprise, and it would be nice if they entered the Vulcan Symmetrists movement (Vulcan eco-terrorists trying to protect the "galactic ecology") that's taken up in William Shatner's Ashes of Eden trilogy. I don't know if this is an "official" part of the ST universe (but then, if Shatner writes it, it pretty much could be considered official.
Another show that has fallen to low heights is the current season of Andromeda. Although there I think there is a continuing arc, as I've read it's based on a "lost script" of Rodenberry's, as EFC was. About EFC, dammit, when is Street going to crack the last level of the riddle and we can be rid of the damn thing!
That sounds like what the second bill would do. I agree that this is the better way to do it. We have a curb-side recycling program in Bloomington, Indiana, and it's not really clear how much of the stuff picked up actually gets recycled, and not just tossed in the fill.
The real question is: what is the cost of "recycled screws" vs "virgin-metal screws" (really bad mysognistic pun, I know)? If there is no economic incentive there, manufacturers won't do it, unless as you say, the gov't levvies a big enough tax on the manufactuers to make it economically worth their while to do so.
Recycling individual components I would think would be really difficult, if you're talking about the chip-and-capacitor level. I mean, a lot of the chips used are ASICS, so basically can't be reused except by the same manufacturers, and then you have the question of "circuit burn-out/weakening". Plus, this means that you have to get the chips off the board, sort them, etc..
On the other hand, if you're talking about reusing whole HDs, video cards, NICs, etc, you're absolutely right. Although you still have the question of whether the components have been weakened (especially with the HDDs)
Rant on Econ of Recycling: ... you get the idea)
One problem I see is when you hear about "recycling plastics" or cans or whatever, people are talking about taking the plastic/aluminium/steel, sorting it, melting it down or whatever they do to process it, reforming it into new bottles/cans/whatever, and then selling it. Or trying to sell it, if it's not cheaper than virgin material. But what if we just took all those milk jugs (tops too!)/soda cans/etc and just threw them into a hole somewhere? Not a landfill, but a place where we knew where they were, so that when (if) the time comes that the virgin material gets radically more expensive, then we can dig it up and start to recycle it, and then it would be economically feasible. (I say 'if' because the human race might manage to destroy itself before then, or we might invent a Mr. Fusion type engine, or we might actually start to colonize the inner solar system, or
> . It's like outlawing the picking of locks made of butter.
I second the comment about adding an 'Inspired analogy' moderation category. And IMO the 'butter lock' definately counts!
What happens if the Performer (eg. Brittany) and the Producer (whatever label she's with at the moment) don't agree on terms of distrution, reproduction, etc? Who trumps whom? Would this make it easier for performers to sue their management for their copyrights (assuming they decided not to be Sheep any longer..)
This isn't exactly about Canada and the DMCA, but is slightly related, having to do with corporate repression and Canada. When exactly is the government of Québec going to sue most of Hollywood for making it illegal for them to play French movies (region 2) in Québec (region 1)? This has got to really piss off the Canadians who speak French; I know it would me (Hmm, it might still, I might take up French again and start buying DVD movies..)
If the WTO allows corporations to sue governements (I think I remember some reference to an environmental suit brought against the Mexican gov't), then shouldn't the reverse be true? (Of course, that's assuming the world is just and fair, which it most decidedly is not)
Come to think of it, could the EU (which is already investigating US media companies for price-fixing, anti-trust, and maybe other things), and the Australians (who seem to be concerned with DVD pricing and other things) AND Québec all band together to lauch a multinational assault on the media companies? (That would be fun to watch: real nation-states duking it out against corporate nation-states.)
I was thinking just the other day (actually, a week ago..) that this would be a wonderful business opportunity. So, somebody have a truckload of money for LOTS of bandwidth, storage space, and really fast MPEG encoders? Oh, and a legal team to make the suits see that this could possibly make them a lot of money?
Jim
What a new low. First it was spam we didn't want to read, now it's spam we can't read. And the worst part of it? I don't event know how to unsubscribe (or let them know they have a 'live one'..) So I just delete it.
I get about 50 spams a day (in addition to the 300 or so messages I get from various lists that just get filled away in folders). Some day soon, I'll get tired of it all and get a new email address. Until then, it's not worth the trouble to try to get off the lists.
Someone further down said:
>An enum is just a primative aliased by a name.
Yes, they are, so I can write the C code
enum color={red,green,blue};
switch (color) red:--; green:--; blue:--;
(my sntax may be wrong, but you get the idea)
as Java:
static final RED=1, GREEN=2, BLUE=3;
switch (color) RED:--; GREEN:--; BLUE:--;
(don't remember if you can have mutiple vars inited in the decl, but you get the idea)
But what if I have two enums "ranges" with some of the same names? Like:
enum PersonType={Client, Customer, Vendor, Supplier};
enum ComputerType={Client, Server, Desktop};
if I defined all the enum lables as finals in Java, and then used them in switch statements/assigns on variables, I don't get the type-checking I do in C. So in C:
enum PersonType aPerson = Desktop;
would be flagged as an error, but in Java the equivalent
int PersonType = DESKTOP;
would be perfectly fine as far as the compiler is concerned.
This could be a problem..
How about forming an umbrealla organization that could provide legal representation and protection, that would collect dues from FSF, /., SF (maybe), the LiViD project, and anyone else who could get sued under DMCA, etc. Not that I would be the one to organize such a think, or even think it is particularly a good idea. Just a though.
But remember that a lot of the stuff on SF is GPL'd (or BSD'd or PAL'd, or whatever). If SF did such a thing (which would be very stupid IMO), it would be Slashdotted faster than you could say 'Gnu' (resulting in, oh, about $2000 more bandwidth traffic for them..) Then SF could be setting themselves up for an enormous class-action lawsuit. Which might actually not be a bad thing, in a very macabre sort of way, it would be something that would start to get legal precedets of open-source stuff laid down.
Hmm.. This sounds like something Apple would make. Design a completely clear computer, with a clear hard drive, a clear power supply, and maybe clear circuit boards if you could get PCBs made of clear material. Sure, it would cost a heck of a lot of money, since Apple would have to get the components custom made (to clean room specs, mind you), but it would also be cool as hell.
I've never played FF6, but this idea does sound hellishly cool. Although I wonder how clean the code to the engine is? Anybody have connections at Square?
I didn't see anything else in the comments section about this (although, as usual, the S/N was low, the density was high, and I allotted myself under 2 minutes to skim it all..). It just seems that this, in addition to being rather nasty of MS (maybe), is also kind of stupid that they don't even know there own plans well enough to inform their developers...
Just remember, Jo Rowling has a consulting role for the film. At least for the first one, we'll have to see about the others. She's also apparently being very particular about the kinds of merchandising she'll allow with the Harry Potter theme: for example, she wouldn't allow Totes to make a candy-cane umbrella with the HP logo because, "the candy-cane theme wouldn't exist in Harry Potter's world" (whatever *that* means) (This was from an article back in the WSJ)
Note: 'Harry Potter' is a registered tradmark of J K. Rowling, Warner Brothers, or whoever the hell owns the rights.