Good comments from all and maybe this has been said before but I am EXCITED as hell to watch this happen.
Private spaceflight is a long standing theme of MANY sci fi favorites.
Its the next great frontier, the next new world.
We have been reading about the "early days" of space exploration from the position of the future.
Stories about clipper ships taking off in the distance.
I think once things happen, they are going to start happening very quickly.
If not in our lifetimes in our childrens lifetime, commercial space enterprises and orbital manufacturing will be a reality.
I have a business class internet account at home. It comes with static ips which resolve back to my domain name which....guess what...IS PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE.
So under many situations an IP address is not personally identifiable, there are also many where it is.
I use an anonymizing service to keep my personal information out of whois, but that still doesn't mean my home IP address isn't uniquely identified as "belonging" to me.
I tend to think of an IP address like a phone number. Are phone numbers considered personally identifiable?
if yes then IP addresses should be treated accordingly.
Only when a business violates an individual's rights through force or fraud should the government get involved.
This is part of the problem though. The companies are being given the same rights of an individual, but have influence far and above any individual ever would.
Case in point - copyright
Copyright was originally applied to individuals and would expire shortly after their lifetime.
Companies are for the most part somewhat immortal and the individuals that run them are not individually responsible for their decisions.
They are only beholden to the owners or shareholders which is ultimately all about the money.
Those with the money can influence and manipulate market forces in their favor.
So now we have a situation where an entity has rights which should only apply to individuals, with the resources to influence the regulators in their favor.
Sure sure I am crying "it's the lobbists! its the lobbists!" But THAT IS part of the problem. Unfortunately I don't really see things changing anytime soon.
I would guess that the optics make up the majority of the cost of these devices both in actual dollars and manhours.
The detectors, cameras and other instrumentation would come in a close second while the structure, power, navigation, and communications systems are probably largely built of off the shelf stuff.
Cameras and instruments get better and more sensitive, other systems require periodic maintenance and repair while good optics generally stay good provided they aren't physically damaged.
I would think the smartest use of cash is build the most expensive and accurate optics system and make all other parts field replaceable.
in short I don't think that 'disposable' space telescopes would be viable from the optics perspective alone.
Perhaps someone who knows more about the cost breakdowns work out.
Well good thing for you guys Degrees of arc (as it applies to the sky) is a universal measurement and requires no pesky conversion between metric and standard.
6 degrees of sky in the US is the same as 6 degrees of sky in the EU.
the other celestial coordinate is minutes of arc.
as the sky appears to move from east to west, this movement is called right ascension and is calculated in minutes seconds and hours with midnight (00) cutting through the constellation of pegasus. There are 24 hours of arc (ie the time it takes the earth to make one rotation, hence all constellations "appear" in our sky in a given day, however the sun obscures them for a portion of each day) this is where the term arc second and arc minute comes from.
Declination is the north south direction and is measured in degrees with +90 degrees being the north celestial pole, while -90 is the southern celestial pole. the ecliptic, also known as the celestial equator is at 0. The ecliptic is not the same as Zenith as Zenith is a relative value. Here in the pacific northwest zenith is about 40 degrees declination.
Objects are located with a Right ascension and Declination. Sort of like a celestial lat/lon. the measurements are universal so there's no decimal to standard conversion.
An RA of 24'00'00 is the same as a RA of 00'00'00
Astronomy is a fascinating subject. its only been recently that I have really gotten a sense of my overall location on the planet in regards to the rest of the universe. The concept that I am looking at things which are farther away than anything on the earth to me and the fact that the moon is really "out there" can be humbling.
I remember I was at a star party watching the crescent moon rise before the sun and I realized that I am looking at the moon the same way I would look across a valley at a distant mountain peak. I think that many people have this mental image of the night sky as being 1 dimensional like a movie screen and the stars are projected upon it but the reality is that you are staring across the gulf of almost incomprehensible distance. It can really make you feel small.
Goto New Zealand. Awesome country, beautiful landscape, incredible skies.
I remember one night I got up to use the head and walked outside at about 3 in the morning in may and looked up and saw the LMC and SMC. Far more awe inspiring than andromeda to the naked eye. I wish I had spent more time there with a telescope but it just wasn't in the cards. I am truly envious of the southern skies folks.
I have never lived in Hawaii but my fiancee grew up there.
Listening to the stories of Hawaii, It sounds like most of the local population is barely making a living.
Hawaii is an expensive place to live and computers haven't quite supplanted the Television. One could argue that TV still isn't ubiquitous in the US, however I would wager that there are far more households with televisions than there are with computers.
So another possible reason is that people may not have the means to vote electronically.
I am perfectly fine to pay for the gas and take the time to go vote.
If I have to goto an internet cafe and pay to do it once I get there, I might be less inclined.
Sure there is the library but I don't think that a couple of terminals at the public library are really going to pick up the slack.
Not saying this is why there were fewer votes, a simple look at the demographics of who voted would go quite far in helping to answer the question though.
First off, this statement is complete bullshit: "However, if you have more than seven or eight tabs open they become pretty much useless"
Not only that but the article says that its not unusual for there to be 20+ tabs open...umm so if the first were true that means one of two things.
Either the statement is false, or the users are deluded and aren't really getting anything out of those 20+ tabs.
Personally I tend to have at MINIMUM 10 tabs going. Infact my "home page" is several tabs: Google start page, slashdot, penny arcade, webmail, gmail(because the homepage doesn't support https in the gadget), woot, facebook, and Skyhound(astronomy thing). Granted that's only 8 tabs, however I always have a couple extra depending on where I am. At work I will have the intranet page, my department page, and some sql related pages as well. at home it might be something related to astrophotography or glassblowing, etc.
Personally I do a lot of googling, and I tend to open slashdot stories in new tabs and links in new tabs simply because it helps me manage the data. I am going to try the treetabs addon as that sounds like the perfect solution to my biggest problem which is keeping track of everything.
Just my.02 in that you cant in one line claim to see 20+ processes on a regular basis and then say more than 6 tabs is useless.
Seriously, am I the only one who could care less about the DN franchise?
Not trying to be a troll here, but seriously. The games themselves seemed more like leisure suit larry meets first person shooter.
the games didn't push the envelope or really add much to the genre yet it seems like there are a ton of people that are like "OMG Duke Nukem!"
Perhaps I am missing something but I really don't care if DNF ever sees the light of day.
At this rate I just want them to pull the plug and let it die. As others have stated there's no real engine work here so nothing lost there. At this point it seems like they would just lose the artwork and whatever plotline they have.
Just my.02 as I can't figure out what the draw is and why so many people care.
I think the water is deeper than you make it sound.
I consider myself to be technically savvy and I actually like messing around with computers.
Gaming used to be a big reason why I don't run linux, but now its become media.
Until I can play HD disc based content with linux WITHOUT having to dick around with the damn thing for a couple of days I will NEVER have linux in my HT.
in fact that highlights one of linux's biggest Achilles heels.
I already have to fight with my HTPC on a fairly regular basis and its windows. It seems like every time I have run linux as a desktop (Done redhat, gentoo, debian, ubuntu, mandrake, suse) It always seems like I spend a significant amount of time just getting things to work.
Just like the iphone....there's an app for that. Yeah but the only problem is there's about a million of them, and they all have different requirements, some work better than others, and they are all different than what the average computer user is used to using.
I used to have an Ubuntu box out in my garage. I ended up blowing it out and putting XP back on it. Why? Winamp. I tried several different media players and none of them came close to the performance I got out of winamp. My music is out on a NAS, I just point winamp at the directory and it builds a library. then I select the songs I want and it plays them with no annoying pauses between songs and with cool visualizations (ala milkdrop)
I know that this is slightly off topic and a little rantish, but marketshare doesn't happen magically. The reality is that even if linux's marketshare on desktops was 10-15%, that doesn't amount to much. Linux has some SERIOUS downsides for the average user. Until those are addressed, I think even 10-15% marketshare is unattainable.
The biggest problem is that with windows and mac, you are free to be a computer user.
With linux you have to be a SysAdmin and its not a job for everyone. I get annoyed when I have to fiddle with my windows box just to watch the newest movie releases. I get really annoyed when I have to do it for mundane things like playing music.
As others have pointed out already, there will always be someone who pays the most for the best simply to have the best. Right now this is a fairly large group of people.
Eventually however, once realtime photorealism is realized at a complexity level that rivals reality (think stadium full of fans, battlefields full of soldiers, reefs teeming with virtual life)and becomes the norm, the high end will cease to be relevant.
Entertainment has always been the driving force behind graphics performance. Eventually at a consumer level it will be irrelevant. There will still be a high end market but it will be for multi screen custom installations in a commercial setting.
So do I think a $100 video card signals the beginning of the end? Probably not. Will we eventually reach a point where basic computers can push photorealistic experiences, absolutely.
Much in the same way processor speed has become somewhat irrelevant in todays markets, framerates and polygons will cease to be relevant measures of performance.
By the time that happens we will have some other thing for the rich kids to blow their money on for bragging rights.
Fixed it for ya. Seriously, they are in school to pay attention and learn, not sit there an text people.
There fixed it even more for ya. It has been my experience that in most cases where kids misbehave or do things for attention its usually the fault of the parents for either not taking an active enough role in their child's life or for not properly reprimanding them when they act out.
I never did shit like this in school, and if I had, one call to my mother and my ass would have been in a sling.
Her favorite line "I brought you into this world, I can take you out!"
You know....I think you might be onto something here.
as a previous poster pointed out, this might be about trying to beat apple at the media game by offering a more restrictive, lower quality, cheaper DRM.
Consider that one of the biggest threats to the **AA's of the world is more powerful home computers which put inexpensive and powerful tools into the hands of people that have the means to turn out a saleable product by themselves. (Jose Gonzales comes to mind. He recorded his first album in his apartment by himself.)
If I can prevent users from making copies of their own content, I make it difficult for independent artists to produce content. When I take away the ability for the common man to create his own media, I reinforce the idea that I have to "play by the rules" and go through the "proper channels" to get my production to market.
Its a little tinfoil-hatty I know, and we will always be able to read deeper into things and see connections that the perpetrators of this "cooperative" endeavor may not even be aware of. And once aware I'd expect little more than a "I guess its just a little un-intended collateral damage....oh well. extra double bonus for us and our friends"
Its too bad that movies aren't like concerts.
Its real easy to put cash in the pockets of the artists. Goto the shows. Buy the merch. Support the artist directly.
Cheap and powerful pcs make being an independent artist possible, but only so long as content can be freely created. Once you limit that you put the power of realizing the creative efforts back in the hands of the middle men, because they will be the only ones with access to the hardware that can make it happen.
I don't really think they are thinking this way, but it is an interesting proposition.
I was perusing Google earth the other day and I noticed that the sea floor was already shown with some coastal areas being VERY detailed.
check out the northwest coast of the US for a good example.
I don't know if this is an example of whats to come or if whats to come is going to be even better but I welcome higher resolution imagery of our planet.
My example fails. How long it takes to download a file has less to do with your bandwidth and more to do with how many sources you have, vs popularity, vs how much bandwidth the sources have.
So while it may be possible to download a large file in a reasonable amount of time, my experience has been that they generally take several hours or more to download. Which again has some to do with the size of your pipe, but it has more to do with what, where, and who is at the other end.
I agree with your basic premise that the vast majority of filesharing involves "technically illegal" material.
A better analogy would be if you broke into my house and copied all the contents of my laptop and/or ipod and then left. I tell the police that my data has been stolen but can't prove it, since its all still there.
Its difficult to apply logic and reasoning based on physical goods to bits of data which can be reproduced perfectly and VERY easily.
You can't accurately gauge how much "damage" has been done because technically nothing was damaged. The sharee still has a perfectly usable copy of what ever was shared with whomever and the copyright "owner" is out no more revenue than they would be if the sharee sold the CD used. In the second sale example the seller is responsible for removing the contents from their systems, however since RIAA can't invade your home and seize your computers (yet), enforcing that obligation on the seller is impossible. Granted this analogy has its problems and to be accurate the seller would have to be able to sell an infinite number of copies, that however brings us back to my previous statement about laws designed to regulate physical "things" can't be applied to something which can be infinitely copied perfectly. If I could push a button and produce an identical copy of a car, is that stealing?
I especially liked how you placed the artists first in your list of who we are wronging when you know damn well that they are the LAST people on the list. And lets not forget that when the money does actually show for the artist, RIAA and the like charge the artists for things like breakage (WTF? last time I checked, we weren't using records in the mainstream anymore)
I posit a different approach.
Download all the music you possibly can. But go to the shows when the artists come to your town. It used to be that the music was essentially advertising for the artists when they come to perform. So by stealing the CD you are hurting RIAA but by patronizing the shows and buying the merch at the shows more money goes directly to the artists.
OH NOES! that means that being a musician might actually require some dedication and GASP...TALENT!!!
It used to be that being a successful musician meant producing a quality product and touring for your money.
Am I stealing when I learn how to play my favorite song on the instrument of choice?
How far do you go down this road? Am I eventually going to get charged a fee for humming or singing the "hook" of a song?
Lowid or not, you shouldn't be scared to post your opinions in the open just because people here might disagree with you. If you have been here long enough and contribute regularly and competently you can afford a little Karma to play devils advocate.
It reminds me of an old saying(not THAT old but old in regards to the internet)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a semi-truck full of backup tapes.
Considering that many of us are running around with 100+ gig pocket drives, downloading (at least for some of us) is mostly a thing of the past. At a local level and even a regional level, a guy in a car with a 500GB drive has more bandwidth than *most* residential and small business internet connections. I don't know about you but the last time I tried to download a multi-gig file it took a few days. Even flat out it would take several hours at least.
I think RIAA and the like are in for a very very hard uphill battle on this.
There are also far reaching effects of this type of relationship. As a previous poster commented;
"Corporate america is creating a legal regime and prosecution system outside the law."
Thats exactly what this is. RIAA can't win legally so they make a deal with the ISPs to cut off customers who are file sharing or worse, just enough pressure and cooperation to release customer information that can then be used to "coerce" individuals into "compliance".
Also, doesn't this put the ISPs into potentially hot water? What happens when one of their subscribers argues that its the ISP's responsibility to prevent sharing and since they failed to protect the copyright on behalf of RIAA, its not the fault of the subscriber? IANAL but it seems to me that this may be more trouble than its worth. I know the ISPs are no angels but really this is like getting into bed with the devil.
I think that's exactly the point. We aren't even talking about a reasonable confusion with stereotypical extremist types. McCarthy is alive and well thankyouverymuch.
An engine requires routine maintenance to ensure trouble free operation. That maintenance routine is described in the operators manual.
What sort of maintenance is required for an optical disk drive?
As someone pointed out, consoles are not portable. Standard operation would not involve moving the item while it was on. Would you sue a hard drive manufacturer because the heads on your hard drive crashed when you dropped your laptop on the table? No.
Would you sue sony for scratching your overpriced blueray disc because it got scratched when you moved the unit while it was on? NO.
Here's a better analogy.
you produce a product which has an intended use. During development someone says "hey if I do this while I am using it, it breaks". Its not designed to do that. nor is that use consistent with the intended operational parameters. This is not a design flaw unless the use which produces the problem is similar enough to the intended use to presume a high incidence of mis-use.
This is really about a lawyer who wants a piece of microsofts pie. Class action lawsuits while capable of forcing a change on the business being sued, do little more than fill the pockets of the lawyers on both sides.
How about suing for common sense? Is it the blender manufacturers fault that you dropped the spoon into it while it was on? (no blendtec rebuttals please)
I have a Comcast Teleworker account with 2 static ips, 14-20 mbs down 2.5mbs out for about 100 a month.
It was a 6 month 50 dollar deal that ratcheted up to 99.95.
I have a SEPARATE residential cable account for my HD addiction.
So I suspect that you may be able to call and only get this service which would allow you to forgo TV.
My service seems more reliable and when I call with a problem its usually resolved fairly quickly.
If you bothered to RTFA you would have found out that the authors were only able to cite one example for which Google "ponied up" by removing the offending ad as soon as they were notified. Hell if you bothered to read the summary you would have seen that.
That doesn't sound like a blind eye.
Quit trolling
Furthermore its a fine line between due diligence and big brother. Especially in in today's internet climate. I am not surprised that the group doing the adwords doesn't know enough about the group doing the filtering to be able to filter automatically. Its very easy to say Google should know what Google is doing but we all know that interdepartmental communications in large companies sometimes don't work all that well.
It would be interesting if the bloggers that posted this "poke the big guy piece" had more than just this one incident. It would also be interesting to know how many other sites have been removed. If this was the first and they are now going to be crosschecking, then it shouldn't happen again.
Slashdot Mirror
Private spaceflight is a long standing theme of MANY sci fi favorites.
Its the next great frontier, the next new world.
We have been reading about the "early days" of space exploration from the position of the future.
Stories about clipper ships taking off in the distance.
I think once things happen, they are going to start happening very quickly.
If not in our lifetimes in our childrens lifetime, commercial space enterprises and orbital manufacturing will be a reality.
exciting times indeed!
I have a business class internet account at home. It comes with static ips which resolve back to my domain name which....guess what...IS PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE.
So under many situations an IP address is not personally identifiable, there are also many where it is.
I use an anonymizing service to keep my personal information out of whois, but that still doesn't mean my home IP address isn't uniquely identified as "belonging" to me.
I tend to think of an IP address like a phone number. Are phone numbers considered personally identifiable?
if yes then IP addresses should be treated accordingly.
Only when a business violates an individual's rights through force or fraud should the government get involved.
This is part of the problem though. The companies are being given the same rights of an individual, but have influence far and above any individual ever would.
Case in point - copyright
Copyright was originally applied to individuals and would expire shortly after their lifetime.
Companies are for the most part somewhat immortal and the individuals that run them are not individually responsible for their decisions .
They are only beholden to the owners or shareholders which is ultimately all about the money.
Those with the money can influence and manipulate market forces in their favor.
So now we have a situation where an entity has rights which should only apply to individuals, with the resources to influence the regulators in their favor.
Sure sure I am crying "it's the lobbists! its the lobbists!" But THAT IS part of the problem. Unfortunately I don't really see things changing anytime soon.
The detectors, cameras and other instrumentation would come in a close second while the structure, power, navigation, and communications systems are probably largely built of off the shelf stuff.
Cameras and instruments get better and more sensitive, other systems require periodic maintenance and repair while good optics generally stay good provided they aren't physically damaged.
I would think the smartest use of cash is build the most expensive and accurate optics system and make all other parts field replaceable.
in short I don't think that 'disposable' space telescopes would be viable from the optics perspective alone.
Perhaps someone who knows more about the cost breakdowns work out.
If not off site backup, we as a species need to get some planetary redundancy and figure out how to truly exist outside earth.
I think that we are destined to lose this planet, in fact I think its essential for us as a species to learn that harsh lesson.
Perhaps that's how it works, we either make it through or we don't. If we don't then wait a few million years....something else will popup.
6 degrees of sky in the US is the same as 6 degrees of sky in the EU.
the other celestial coordinate is minutes of arc.
as the sky appears to move from east to west, this movement is called right ascension and is calculated in minutes seconds and hours with midnight (00) cutting through the constellation of pegasus. There are 24 hours of arc (ie the time it takes the earth to make one rotation, hence all constellations "appear" in our sky in a given day, however the sun obscures them for a portion of each day) this is where the term arc second and arc minute comes from.
Declination is the north south direction and is measured in degrees with +90 degrees being the north celestial pole, while -90 is the southern celestial pole. the ecliptic, also known as the celestial equator is at 0. The ecliptic is not the same as Zenith as Zenith is a relative value. Here in the pacific northwest zenith is about 40 degrees declination.
Objects are located with a Right ascension and Declination. Sort of like a celestial lat/lon. the measurements are universal so there's no decimal to standard conversion.
An RA of 24'00'00 is the same as a RA of 00'00'00
Astronomy is a fascinating subject. its only been recently that I have really gotten a sense of my overall location on the planet in regards to the rest of the universe. The concept that I am looking at things which are farther away than anything on the earth to me and the fact that the moon is really "out there" can be humbling.
I remember I was at a star party watching the crescent moon rise before the sun and I realized that I am looking at the moon the same way I would look across a valley at a distant mountain peak. I think that many people have this mental image of the night sky as being 1 dimensional like a movie screen and the stars are projected upon it but the reality is that you are staring across the gulf of almost incomprehensible distance. It can really make you feel small.
Goto New Zealand. Awesome country, beautiful landscape, incredible skies.
I remember one night I got up to use the head and walked outside at about 3 in the morning in may and looked up and saw the LMC and SMC. Far more awe inspiring than andromeda to the naked eye. I wish I had spent more time there with a telescope but it just wasn't in the cards. I am truly envious of the southern skies folks.
Listening to the stories of Hawaii, It sounds like most of the local population is barely making a living.
Hawaii is an expensive place to live and computers haven't quite supplanted the Television. One could argue that TV still isn't ubiquitous in the US, however I would wager that there are far more households with televisions than there are with computers.
So another possible reason is that people may not have the means to vote electronically.
I am perfectly fine to pay for the gas and take the time to go vote.
If I have to goto an internet cafe and pay to do it once I get there, I might be less inclined.
Sure there is the library but I don't think that a couple of terminals at the public library are really going to pick up the slack.
Not saying this is why there were fewer votes, a simple look at the demographics of who voted would go quite far in helping to answer the question though.
First off, this statement is complete bullshit: "However, if you have more than seven or eight tabs open they become pretty much useless"
Not only that but the article says that its not unusual for there to be 20+ tabs open...umm so if the first were true that means one of two things.
Either the statement is false, or the users are deluded and aren't really getting anything out of those 20+ tabs.
Personally I tend to have at MINIMUM 10 tabs going. Infact my "home page" is several tabs: Google start page, slashdot, penny arcade, webmail, gmail(because the homepage doesn't support https in the gadget), woot, facebook, and Skyhound(astronomy thing). Granted that's only 8 tabs, however I always have a couple extra depending on where I am. At work I will have the intranet page, my department page, and some sql related pages as well. at home it might be something related to astrophotography or glassblowing, etc.
Personally I do a lot of googling, and I tend to open slashdot stories in new tabs and links in new tabs simply because it helps me manage the data. I am going to try the treetabs addon as that sounds like the perfect solution to my biggest problem which is keeping track of everything.
Just my .02 in that you cant in one line claim to see 20+ processes on a regular basis and then say more than 6 tabs is useless.
Not trying to be a troll here, but seriously. The games themselves seemed more like leisure suit larry meets first person shooter.
the games didn't push the envelope or really add much to the genre yet it seems like there are a ton of people that are like "OMG Duke Nukem!"
Perhaps I am missing something but I really don't care if DNF ever sees the light of day.
At this rate I just want them to pull the plug and let it die. As others have stated there's no real engine work here so nothing lost there. At this point it seems like they would just lose the artwork and whatever plotline they have.
Just my .02 as I can't figure out what the draw is and why so many people care.
I consider myself to be technically savvy and I actually like messing around with computers.
Gaming used to be a big reason why I don't run linux, but now its become media.
Until I can play HD disc based content with linux WITHOUT having to dick around with the damn thing for a couple of days I will NEVER have linux in my HT.
in fact that highlights one of linux's biggest Achilles heels.
I already have to fight with my HTPC on a fairly regular basis and its windows. It seems like every time I have run linux as a desktop (Done redhat, gentoo, debian, ubuntu, mandrake, suse) It always seems like I spend a significant amount of time just getting things to work.
Just like the iphone....there's an app for that. Yeah but the only problem is there's about a million of them, and they all have different requirements, some work better than others, and they are all different than what the average computer user is used to using.
I used to have an Ubuntu box out in my garage. I ended up blowing it out and putting XP back on it. Why? Winamp. I tried several different media players and none of them came close to the performance I got out of winamp. My music is out on a NAS, I just point winamp at the directory and it builds a library. then I select the songs I want and it plays them with no annoying pauses between songs and with cool visualizations (ala milkdrop)
I know that this is slightly off topic and a little rantish, but marketshare doesn't happen magically. The reality is that even if linux's marketshare on desktops was 10-15%, that doesn't amount to much. Linux has some SERIOUS downsides for the average user. Until those are addressed, I think even 10-15% marketshare is unattainable.
The biggest problem is that with windows and mac, you are free to be a computer user.
With linux you have to be a SysAdmin and its not a job for everyone. I get annoyed when I have to fiddle with my windows box just to watch the newest movie releases. I get really annoyed when I have to do it for mundane things like playing music.
Eventually however, once realtime photorealism is realized at a complexity level that rivals reality (think stadium full of fans, battlefields full of soldiers, reefs teeming with virtual life)and becomes the norm, the high end will cease to be relevant.
Entertainment has always been the driving force behind graphics performance. Eventually at a consumer level it will be irrelevant. There will still be a high end market but it will be for multi screen custom installations in a commercial setting.
So do I think a $100 video card signals the beginning of the end? Probably not. Will we eventually reach a point where basic computers can push photorealistic experiences, absolutely.
Much in the same way processor speed has become somewhat irrelevant in todays markets, framerates and polygons will cease to be relevant measures of performance.
By the time that happens we will have some other thing for the rich kids to blow their money on for bragging rights.
C'mon we know that there is NO WAY IN HELL that a $500 ethernet cable is going to be worth it.
I think this is funny personally. If I had mod points I would use them.
Trollish, No.
The poster brings up a very poignant and VERY on-topic question even if it was tactless. Not all of us have social skills.
If the poster had posted anon THEN I would consider it a troll.
Fixed it for ya. Seriously, they are in school to pay attention and learn, not sit there an text people.
There fixed it even more for ya. It has been my experience that in most cases where kids misbehave or do things for attention its usually the fault of the parents for either not taking an active enough role in their child's life or for not properly reprimanding them when they act out.
I never did shit like this in school, and if I had, one call to my mother and my ass would have been in a sling.
Her favorite line "I brought you into this world, I can take you out!"
spare the rod and spoil the child indeed.
as a previous poster pointed out, this might be about trying to beat apple at the media game by offering a more restrictive, lower quality, cheaper DRM.
Consider that one of the biggest threats to the **AA's of the world is more powerful home computers which put inexpensive and powerful tools into the hands of people that have the means to turn out a saleable product by themselves. (Jose Gonzales comes to mind. He recorded his first album in his apartment by himself.)
If I can prevent users from making copies of their own content, I make it difficult for independent artists to produce content. When I take away the ability for the common man to create his own media, I reinforce the idea that I have to "play by the rules" and go through the "proper channels" to get my production to market.
Its a little tinfoil-hatty I know, and we will always be able to read deeper into things and see connections that the perpetrators of this "cooperative" endeavor may not even be aware of. And once aware I'd expect little more than a "I guess its just a little un-intended collateral damage....oh well. extra double bonus for us and our friends"
Its too bad that movies aren't like concerts. Its real easy to put cash in the pockets of the artists. Goto the shows. Buy the merch. Support the artist directly.
Cheap and powerful pcs make being an independent artist possible, but only so long as content can be freely created. Once you limit that you put the power of realizing the creative efforts back in the hands of the middle men, because they will be the only ones with access to the hardware that can make it happen.
I don't really think they are thinking this way, but it is an interesting proposition.
check out the northwest coast of the US for a good example.
I don't know if this is an example of whats to come or if whats to come is going to be even better but I welcome higher resolution imagery of our planet.
My example fails. How long it takes to download a file has less to do with your bandwidth and more to do with how many sources you have, vs popularity, vs how much bandwidth the sources have.
So while it may be possible to download a large file in a reasonable amount of time, my experience has been that they generally take several hours or more to download. Which again has some to do with the size of your pipe, but it has more to do with what, where, and who is at the other end.
I agree with your basic premise that the vast majority of filesharing involves "technically illegal" material.
A better analogy would be if you broke into my house and copied all the contents of my laptop and/or ipod and then left. I tell the police that my data has been stolen but can't prove it, since its all still there.
Its difficult to apply logic and reasoning based on physical goods to bits of data which can be reproduced perfectly and VERY easily.
You can't accurately gauge how much "damage" has been done because technically nothing was damaged. The sharee still has a perfectly usable copy of what ever was shared with whomever and the copyright "owner" is out no more revenue than they would be if the sharee sold the CD used. In the second sale example the seller is responsible for removing the contents from their systems, however since RIAA can't invade your home and seize your computers (yet), enforcing that obligation on the seller is impossible. Granted this analogy has its problems and to be accurate the seller would have to be able to sell an infinite number of copies, that however brings us back to my previous statement about laws designed to regulate physical "things" can't be applied to something which can be infinitely copied perfectly. If I could push a button and produce an identical copy of a car, is that stealing?
I especially liked how you placed the artists first in your list of who we are wronging when you know damn well that they are the LAST people on the list. And lets not forget that when the money does actually show for the artist, RIAA and the like charge the artists for things like breakage (WTF? last time I checked, we weren't using records in the mainstream anymore)
I posit a different approach.
Download all the music you possibly can. But go to the shows when the artists come to your town. It used to be that the music was essentially advertising for the artists when they come to perform. So by stealing the CD you are hurting RIAA but by patronizing the shows and buying the merch at the shows more money goes directly to the artists.
OH NOES! that means that being a musician might actually require some dedication and GASP...TALENT!!! It used to be that being a successful musician meant producing a quality product and touring for your money.
Am I stealing when I learn how to play my favorite song on the instrument of choice?
How far do you go down this road? Am I eventually going to get charged a fee for humming or singing the "hook" of a song?
Lowid or not, you shouldn't be scared to post your opinions in the open just because people here might disagree with you. If you have been here long enough and contribute regularly and competently you can afford a little Karma to play devils advocate.
It reminds me of an old saying(not THAT old but old in regards to the internet)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a semi-truck full of backup tapes.
Considering that many of us are running around with 100+ gig pocket drives, downloading (at least for some of us) is mostly a thing of the past. At a local level and even a regional level, a guy in a car with a 500GB drive has more bandwidth than *most* residential and small business internet connections. I don't know about you but the last time I tried to download a multi-gig file it took a few days. Even flat out it would take several hours at least.
I think RIAA and the like are in for a very very hard uphill battle on this. There are also far reaching effects of this type of relationship. As a previous poster commented;
"Corporate america is creating a legal regime and prosecution system outside the law."
Thats exactly what this is. RIAA can't win legally so they make a deal with the ISPs to cut off customers who are file sharing or worse, just enough pressure and cooperation to release customer information that can then be used to "coerce" individuals into "compliance".
Also, doesn't this put the ISPs into potentially hot water? What happens when one of their subscribers argues that its the ISP's responsibility to prevent sharing and since they failed to protect the copyright on behalf of RIAA, its not the fault of the subscriber? IANAL but it seems to me that this may be more trouble than its worth. I know the ISPs are no angels but really this is like getting into bed with the devil.
If I grow my own organically, I know what is in it.
Find me a credible source showing any significant number of deaths caused by marijuana as the primary source.
Prescription drugs kill more people annually than cannabis.
Let me say that again so you understand. Legally prescribed drugs, ones that are LEGAL by definition kill more people each year than marijuana.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/28281668/
http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30
Not that it would be okay otherwise.
An engine requires routine maintenance to ensure trouble free operation. That maintenance routine is described in the operators manual.
What sort of maintenance is required for an optical disk drive?
As someone pointed out, consoles are not portable. Standard operation would not involve moving the item while it was on. Would you sue a hard drive manufacturer because the heads on your hard drive crashed when you dropped your laptop on the table? No. Would you sue sony for scratching your overpriced blueray disc because it got scratched when you moved the unit while it was on? NO.
Here's a better analogy.
you produce a product which has an intended use. During development someone says "hey if I do this while I am using it, it breaks". Its not designed to do that. nor is that use consistent with the intended operational parameters. This is not a design flaw unless the use which produces the problem is similar enough to the intended use to presume a high incidence of mis-use.
This is really about a lawyer who wants a piece of microsofts pie. Class action lawsuits while capable of forcing a change on the business being sued, do little more than fill the pockets of the lawyers on both sides.
How about suing for common sense? Is it the blender manufacturers fault that you dropped the spoon into it while it was on? (no blendtec rebuttals please)
I have a Comcast Teleworker account with 2 static ips, 14-20 mbs down 2.5mbs out for about 100 a month.
It was a 6 month 50 dollar deal that ratcheted up to 99.95.
I have a SEPARATE residential cable account for my HD addiction. So I suspect that you may be able to call and only get this service which would allow you to forgo TV.
My service seems more reliable and when I call with a problem its usually resolved fairly quickly.
That doesn't sound like a blind eye.
Quit trolling
Furthermore its a fine line between due diligence and big brother. Especially in in today's internet climate. I am not surprised that the group doing the adwords doesn't know enough about the group doing the filtering to be able to filter automatically. Its very easy to say Google should know what Google is doing but we all know that interdepartmental communications in large companies sometimes don't work all that well.
It would be interesting if the bloggers that posted this "poke the big guy piece" had more than just this one incident. It would also be interesting to know how many other sites have been removed. If this was the first and they are now going to be crosschecking, then it shouldn't happen again.