Developers don't like having a lot of different versions of their software out in the world because it means they have to maintain those versions. Adding some sort of default rollback ability implies that devs will have to continue to support those old versions. That's not going to be very popular.
This only tracks the amount a device is used, not who is using it. If you want to prevent (or at least discourage) unclaimed use, you'd have to tie this to some sort of alert system. You'd probably have to write software that notices increased power draw, checks for a sign-up, and alerts someone if no one is signed up to use the device.
This could work; however, it would only serve to notice violations after the fact. With real-time monitoring, it could catch violations in progress, but someone would have to go, check the device, and yell at the offending party (which mightn't be reasonable). This system probably wouldn't prevent unclaimed use before it happens.
Hm. If you don't want to restrict access to the room, and don't want to restrict access to power, you'll have to restrict access to the machines themselves. You could apply a padlock to a moving part of the device (or perhaps a cage around its controls). You'd then store the keys in a central place and require people to sign out those keys when they want to use the device.
If you don't want to rely on people's good faith in signing things out, you could have someone else control the keys. This would require some manual work, but it could probably be done by a department secretary or someone else who's already at a desk - you wouldn't have to put someone in the room itself, and it would presumably be a very small part of their job.
You could conceivably store the keys in some sort of container with electronic access control as well, but that may be more trouble than it's worth.
I think that the music from Homeworld definitely deserves consideration. The combat themes help to highlight the different personalities of your enemies, and the thematic music for each music matches the deep-space atmosphere almost perfectly. The soundtrack was actually so popular that it was released as a separate CD in the "Game of the Year" edition.
Personally, I'd put their use of Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei" (the choral version of his Adagio for Strings) at the top of any games-related music list, but they seem to be focusing on music especially composed for a game.
This law only applies to goods sold to CA residents. The very first sentence of the article states this. If this law applies to you, it means you're a Californian and can vote for your state reps.
Actually, it also means a connection between two bodies of water - such as the Strait of Gibraltar, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. That definition makes more sense for a connectivity company.
This is actually the company responsible for making the MILES gear the post above mentions (or at least a relative of the system that seems to be marketed worldwide to law enforcement and military). They're located in New Zealand, but they were bought by Cubic Corporation, a California company that, according to this FAS article and their own website, actually provides MILES to the US military.
Will the motor companies become the next RIAA when it is possible to make a perfect copy of any car? What will Coca-Cola say when I can nano-replicate coke from water and hydrocarbons?
They'll probably just say that your Coke tastes like Pepsi or something.
Seriously, I think exact duplication of an item will probably be a bit tricky, even with nanomanufacturing. Many/. readers are probably familiar with Star Trek replicators, and the more anal among us probably remember that most replicators can't get foodstuffs perfectly right due to "resolution" limitations. It may just be their way to prevent replicating living beings, but it makes sense.
Making an exact duplicate of a given object would require exact knowledge of that object's state - certainly down to the bonds between its atoms, possibly down to the spin of its electrons (or even smaller parts!) That oft-quoted Heisenberg uncertainty principle means that, once we get to that level, we won't be able to learn the exact state of an item. It probably doesn't matter for your Coke, but it might matter for the metallic structure of the can it's in. Duplicating the metallurgical qualities of a car's engine block, or the electric properties of a silicon chip, may be beyond what nanotech can do.
With that fact in mind, the manufacturers may still be able to produce a better product than your homemade knock-off. If that's true, than manufacturers won't be limited to making money off of patents, copyrights, and licensing.
(By the way, a very funny webcomic set in the 31st century, Schlock Mercenary, considered and dealt with this issue. I've linked a specific relevant strip
here.)
Does this sound like a possible good contender for a general purpose replacement for x86 as an "Open CPU" that would work well with F/OSS apps? One that can't be tied down with DRM in such a way that only large megacorps (I won't name them, except to call them "Microsoft" and "Intel". Oh hell I named them whoops) can end up defining what may or may not run?
I'm not so sure about that. The article said that, "...IBM will still continue to control many of the most important elements of the Power architecture, such as its instruction set...". I bet that if IBM wanted to include some sort of hook for DRM, they'd still be able to do so regardless of the objection of potential collaborators.
So I'm not the only person who read that as "if you ask questions about the security screening process, you get more security screening"? Vicious circle, anyone?
How can the individual improve _quickly_?
on
Can Software Kill?
·
· Score: 1
I think that most people in the industry understand that software quality can be a life-or-death problem. But, as the Eweek article states, the experts in software QA know that "perfection is impossible". Even Slashdot knows it - the random quote of the page I got while writing this reply was: Never make any mistaeks. -- Anonymous, in a mail discussion about to a kernel bug report
Given that fact, what steps can we - the individual programmer - take NOW to help the situation? I say "the individual programmer" because one person usually can't change a whole project's development methodology (or switch the project over to *Ada:) ).
*Caveat: I've never used Ada myself, and yes, I know it's got a rep as a real BDSM language, but some respected friends and colleagues who've worked on DoD projects tell me that it does help the programmer avoid many self-inflicted foot wounds.
If the RIAA is actually trying to stop P2P music sharing, then shutting the offenders down after the fact is only somewhat effective; the material still gets out there.
Moreover, killing the servers isn't much of a deterrent - the worst that usually happens is loss of the ISP account or connection. Some schools might take disciplinary action, but most students I know don't perceive it as enough of a threat to stop them.
Before this, most students thought "I'm not big enough of a target for the companies to come after me". I guess this is their attempt to change that image - these are only local P2P network operators, and not even in the same galaxy as Napster/KaZaA/Chinese bootleg mills.
For individual users, this would be great and make sense and help them out. This will do nothing but hurt the end users is companies are allowed to do it though.
You've got a valid point, but how do you enforce this sort of difference?
To me, this conjures up the idea of "scalping" software. Some states make selling tickets illegal unless you're the event organizer or a registered ticket agent - that's the current state of most EULAs. Other states make it legal to re-sell tickets, so long as you only sell them for face value (or some small markup).
A "limited resale law" would prevent third parties from buying bundled products just to "scalp" them. However, how do you set the price for a piece of software? Is it the retail price? The bundle price? The 50-license-pack price? I can't think of any system that allows resale without "scalping" when you can't set a hard and fast price for the item being sold.
Maybe their webmasteres were reading/. instead of posting the press releases. Then, they saw this article and were worried their managers would catch them:)
But to just sweep this away at first glance because "well, you're just translating from one number to another number" is.. i have to use the word ridiculous again.
Hm...
From what I read in the article, the project wasn't useful just because it linked a phone number, but because it made that information accessible to both sides of the network.
As a standalone database, this wouldn't be much more than a curiosity, or good practice in huge distributed systems. It's when it's linked to other 'bridging' services that it becomes incrediby useful.
And, honestly, I don't see those bridging services getting as much attention as they could.
"You want to know how much this draws? Around 4 watts, for the whole system." In another pocket, two smallish batteries.
4 watts is admittedly a nice, small number. However, "two smallish [camcorder] batteries" is still extra weight to carry around--and is neither unobtrusive nor form-fitting.
I wonder if anyone has looked into human-powered systems for this. I think that some of this is being researched. They might not have to completely replace batteries--they could allow the user to recharge the batteries while simply walking or moving around.
Slashdot Mirror
Developers don't like having a lot of different versions of their software out in the world because it means they have to maintain those versions. Adding some sort of default rollback ability implies that devs will have to continue to support those old versions. That's not going to be very popular.
This only tracks the amount a device is used, not who is using it. If you want to prevent (or at least discourage) unclaimed use, you'd have to tie this to some sort of alert system. You'd probably have to write software that notices increased power draw, checks for a sign-up, and alerts someone if no one is signed up to use the device.
This could work; however, it would only serve to notice violations after the fact. With real-time monitoring, it could catch violations in progress, but someone would have to go, check the device, and yell at the offending party (which mightn't be reasonable). This system probably wouldn't prevent unclaimed use before it happens.
Hm. If you don't want to restrict access to the room, and don't want to restrict access to power, you'll have to restrict access to the machines themselves. You could apply a padlock to a moving part of the device (or perhaps a cage around its controls). You'd then store the keys in a central place and require people to sign out those keys when they want to use the device.
If you don't want to rely on people's good faith in signing things out, you could have someone else control the keys. This would require some manual work, but it could probably be done by a department secretary or someone else who's already at a desk - you wouldn't have to put someone in the room itself, and it would presumably be a very small part of their job.
You could conceivably store the keys in some sort of container with electronic access control as well, but that may be more trouble than it's worth.
When you chat with Google via XMPP, are you logged in with a Google account or using federation somehow?
I think that the music from Homeworld definitely deserves consideration. The combat themes help to highlight the different personalities of your enemies, and the thematic music for each music matches the deep-space atmosphere almost perfectly. The soundtrack was actually so popular that it was released as a separate CD in the "Game of the Year" edition.
Personally, I'd put their use of Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei" (the choral version of his Adagio for Strings) at the top of any games-related music list, but they seem to be focusing on music especially composed for a game.
No, it's not.
This law only applies to goods sold to CA residents. The very first sentence of the article states this. If this law applies to you, it means you're a Californian and can vote for your state reps.
Actually, it also means a connection between two bodies of water - such as the Strait of Gibraltar, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. That definition makes more sense for a connectivity company.
This is actually the company responsible for making the MILES gear the post above mentions (or at least a relative of the system that seems to be marketed worldwide to law enforcement and military). They're located in New Zealand, but they were bought by Cubic Corporation, a California company that, according to this FAS article and their own website, actually provides MILES to the US military.
Will the motor companies become the next RIAA when it is possible to make a perfect copy of any car? What will Coca-Cola say when I can nano-replicate coke from water and hydrocarbons?
They'll probably just say that your Coke tastes like Pepsi or something.
Seriously, I think exact duplication of an item will probably be a bit tricky, even with nanomanufacturing. Many /. readers are probably familiar with Star Trek replicators, and the more anal among us probably remember that most replicators can't get foodstuffs perfectly right due to "resolution" limitations. It may just be their way to prevent replicating living beings, but it makes sense.
Making an exact duplicate of a given object would require exact knowledge of that object's state - certainly down to the bonds between its atoms, possibly down to the spin of its electrons (or even smaller parts!) That oft-quoted Heisenberg uncertainty principle means that, once we get to that level, we won't be able to learn the exact state of an item. It probably doesn't matter for your Coke, but it might matter for the metallic structure of the can it's in. Duplicating the metallurgical qualities of a car's engine block, or the electric properties of a silicon chip, may be beyond what nanotech can do.
With that fact in mind, the manufacturers may still be able to produce a better product than your homemade knock-off. If that's true, than manufacturers won't be limited to making money off of patents, copyrights, and licensing.
(By the way, a very funny webcomic set in the 31st century, Schlock Mercenary, considered and dealt with this issue. I've linked a specific relevant strip here.)
I'm not so sure about that. The article said that, "...IBM will still continue to control many of the most important elements of the Power architecture, such as its instruction set...". I bet that if IBM wanted to include some sort of hook for DRM, they'd still be able to do so regardless of the objection of potential collaborators.
So I'm not the only person who read that as "if you ask questions about the security screening process, you get more security screening"? Vicious circle, anyone?
I think that most people in the industry understand that software quality can be a life-or-death problem. But, as the Eweek article states, the experts in software QA know that "perfection is impossible". Even Slashdot knows it - the random quote of the page I got while writing this reply was:
:) ).
Never make any mistaeks. -- Anonymous, in a mail discussion about to a kernel bug report
Given that fact, what steps can we - the individual programmer - take NOW to help the situation? I say "the individual programmer" because one person usually can't change a whole project's development methodology (or switch the project over to *Ada
*Caveat: I've never used Ada myself, and yes, I know it's got a rep as a real BDSM language, but some respected friends and colleagues who've worked on DoD projects tell me that it does help the programmer avoid many self-inflicted foot wounds.
Precisely.
If the RIAA is actually trying to stop P2P music sharing, then shutting the offenders down after the fact is only somewhat effective; the material still gets out there.
Moreover, killing the servers isn't much of a deterrent - the worst that usually happens is loss of the ISP account or connection. Some schools might take disciplinary action, but most students I know don't perceive it as enough of a threat to stop them.
Before this, most students thought "I'm not big enough of a target for the companies to come after me". I guess this is their attempt to change that image - these are only local P2P network operators, and not even in the same galaxy as Napster/KaZaA/Chinese bootleg mills.
You've got a valid point, but how do you enforce this sort of difference?
To me, this conjures up the idea of "scalping" software. Some states make selling tickets illegal unless you're the event organizer or a registered ticket agent - that's the current state of most EULAs. Other states make it legal to re-sell tickets, so long as you only sell them for face value (or some small markup).
A "limited resale law" would prevent third parties from buying bundled products just to "scalp" them. However, how do you set the price for a piece of software? Is it the retail price? The bundle price? The 50-license-pack price? I can't think of any system that allows resale without "scalping" when you can't set a hard and fast price for the item being sold.
Maybe their webmasteres were reading /. instead of posting the press releases. Then, they saw this article and were worried their managers would catch them :)
Hm...
From what I read in the article, the project wasn't useful just because it linked a phone number, but because it made that information accessible to both sides of the network.
As a standalone database, this wouldn't be much more than a curiosity, or good practice in huge distributed systems. It's when it's linked to other 'bridging' services that it becomes incrediby useful.
And, honestly, I don't see those bridging services getting as much attention as they could.
4 watts is admittedly a nice, small number. However, "two smallish [camcorder] batteries" is still extra weight to carry around--and is neither unobtrusive nor form-fitting.
I wonder if anyone has looked into human-powered systems for this. I think that some of this is being researched. They might not have to completely replace batteries--they could allow the user to recharge the batteries while simply walking or moving around.
I did find one URL with some information on human-powered systems. It's a paper from a conference back in 1997, at http://spi.aubu rn. edu/Workshops/Prospector_IX/prospector_ix.html. If anyone finds anything else, go ahead and post it.
Actually...that would be pretty easy. Just e-mail your request to this address. He'll be glad to send you a few.