Yes, most or all have money as a major factor in decisions.
I don't know how many have their music available on their sites, but I know it happens with some of the smaller bands. I've never checked into licensing rights. As you say, nobody follows them.
The more popular bands, particularly younger bands, are less likely to be donation-based and more commercial, although concerts even still are almost always cheaper than mainstream. I typically pay $10-25 to see the most popular bands, and it's all general admission normally. None of the $50 tickets you see in the mainstream.
CD prices have gone steadily up the last few years along with the mainstream and are generally in the same ballpark unless you find a band and label that are unusually generous.
While "some people are just reporting any disc they have trouble with, without investigating things like bad hardware or scratched discs," the overwhelming number of people who have submitted to my site are techies, not Joe Consumer. They have tested most of these discs quite thoroughly, as the notes linked to each incident will attest. I believe this list is *very* trustworthy.
Maybe it's just me and the ones I've looked at, but most of the ones I have looked at used only one CD or at most 2. This is too small of a sample size to draw any valid conclusion from, no matter how many drives they fail on. If you can show me 20 or 30 out of 100 copies failing regularly, I'll buy it. Anything much less than that can be explained by a combination of small sample sizes, normal quality problems, scratched CDs, and paranoia.
As for the label owning the music, I forgot earlier that DCTalk is using a secular label. I would really be suspicious if this were a Christian label, as they have more of a tendency to share the artists' values towards money and distribution.
My statement was not really that off-base. Most Christian bands use Christian music labels- not your typical secular labels that readily screw the artists. As a market niche, Christian music has different characteristics that labels must be sensitive to. Most Christian music is sold through Christian bookstores, and the Christian sections in most regular music stores are very small. Many Christian concerts are done for donations only. In my hometown, the Christian radio station is run completely on donations with no commercial advertisements. In other words, the Christian music industry is not about money, and most don't want it to be.
As far as labels go, some are subsidiaries of mainstream labels, and others are independent jobs.
The one thing I didn't think about in my original post is that DCTalk signed with a mainstream label to get larger distribution. But that is the exception, not the rule. In the past 20 years, perhaps 10 or less Christian bands have turned to mainstream labels. (DCTalk, Jars of Clay, U2, Michael W. Smith, and Amy Grant are the ones that come to mind.)
I don't think the list is very trust-worthy. DCTalk's Supernatural has been out for 3 years, and I have copies, both legally bought and ripped. Maybe they added protection on a recent production run, but that seems unlikely because any "piracy" damage is already done. Not to mention DCTalk is a Christian band; they want their message spread as wide as possible, even if it means losing some money.
I think some people are just reporting any disc they have trouble with, without investigating things like bad hardware or scratched discs. Just spreading paranoia.
Well, I agree with most people here that the lack of information directly from MIT is fishy. The author's invalid email address, no mention of the Advanced Operating Systems Group on the LCS site, or any mention of Cesium.... Strong hints of a possible hoax.
But a closer look at LCS is rather interesting-
1. Work on exokernels. Doesn't seem groundbreaking giving Java's history, but fits the description for Cesium's platform module. Nice slide show in the documentation. http://www.pdos.lcs.mit.edu/exo/
2. Work on OODBMS. Applicable to Cesium's storage module. Apparently named Thor, which is mentioned as a module in the exokernel work noted above. http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/pubs/pdf/MIT-L CS-TR-626.pdf (warning- 95 page thesis in PDF)
This is just what I managed to turn up quickly that could be applied to Cesium in the manner the article described. Is Cesium real? I don't know, maybe some student got wild ideas after hearing snatches of project reports in a meeting or something, but it looks more real after searching the site. Take a look before you judge.
The sense I get from the media at this point makes the plan look more like this:
1. Suppress enemy air defenses. Some other important targets are also being hit in the early stage, such as the Taliban headquarters in Kandahar which has already been reported as hit.
2. Once the air campaign softens ground opposition, the Northern Alliance and supposedly some southern tribes will start a heavy ground offensive. This may provide cover for special operations forces to get further intelligence. Reports are already coming in of defections of Taliban troops.
3. Deliver food and medical supplies whenever possible, beginning with air drops and following up with truck routes and even using pack animals once the ground is relatively safe.
4. Capture or kill bin Laden and his top lieutenants using special forces.
5. The Northern Alliance has a deal with the exiled king to create a "broad-based government" (democratically elected?), and other groups have been invited to join it. Even disidents within the Taliban have been said to possibly join. The king is very old, having ruled 40 years and been in exile for 20+, and seems to have no interest in being much more than a figurehead. Although I haven't heard, I would not be surprised if peacekeepers were involved in the transition to a new government. The demand that the terrorist camps be open to inspection makes it seem plausible that peacekeepers could be used. The Northern Alliance is a group of warlords, and my fear is that they might overthrow a democratically elected government at the first opportunity.
There are frequent posts on slashdot and elsewhere about the bad laws coming out of Congress regarding computers. I know, congressmen, like the average person, is computer ignorant. But we've been going the wrong way trying to correct this. Most/. users just come complain on slashdot. Occasionally someone reminds people to write their representatives.
Writing a representative is a great idea, but what catches the attention of lawmakers more? A powerful lobby group.
We have the FSF, but it's association with GNU and Stallman make it unappealing with too many computer hobbyists. Having a lobby group that takes stands divisive within the community only divides our lobby. The power of a lobby comes from votes and money, but if a lobby group divides its community it lacks votes and money from the community.
Although I'm not really aware of any other organizations representing the computer hobbyist community that lobby Congress often, but I'm sure they're out there. Maybe the community needs to create a new inclusive organization specifically as a Congressional lobby. We could call it the American Cyber Liberties Union. Maybe not.
People: Write your representatives NOW. Find a group that represents your views and join NOW, donate some money to lobby Congress NOW. If you can't find a group you agree with, get together and form one. Don't let your views on the more controversial issues such as the GPL, open source, or browser wars or whatever keep you from making your voice heard in Congress on the issues that are widely agreed on within the community.
We have reached a time when are "cyber liberties" are coming under dramatically increased attack in the wake of the recent threats to America. We must make our voice heard NOW if we want to continue to enjoy our hobby and computers the way we wish.
This is the first I've heard of the conspirators from the future being from the mirror universe, and I doubt it's true. I've seen a leaked draft of the pilot's script, and I can at least say that their identity is not revealed in that draft.
The idea of it being people from the mirror universe simply doesn't sound plausible given what's known about the new series and the mirror universe of DS9. The Terrans of DS9 had to borrow plans for the Defiant and had little knowledge of the ST universe. The time travel, genetic engineering, and understanding of ST universe history necessary to manage the conspiracy would be beyond them for a good while after their liberation. I don't mind the idea of a "Temporal Cold War", but making the future aliens be from the mirror universe is too far-fetched for me, and I won't believe it's true until I see it on TV.
I think I'd rather see the conspirators be post-DS9 humans from the ST universe. Perhaps Section 31. But if they were going to do that plot, they should've shown us the post-DS9 Federation first. It could've been interesting (and still might be done eventually)- after the war with the Dominion, the Federation is in shambles. Relations with the other empires have been shaken up, peace and trade have been disturbed, and Earth has experienced martial law for the first time in quite a while. Perhaps we might even have seen the Federation unravel. But the future would definitely be different from the civilization that showed up in TNG and DS9.
How will this affect overclocking? Particularly if AMD is truly successful in thoroughly hiding the true clock speed from the user in both the BIOS and OS? (Not that that will happen- XP is shipping with code that will still report the clock, as Tom's is reporting.) Clock speeds can change (as in overclocking), but model numbers never should.
Apparently most offending plugins can be rewritten to use ActiveX (which still violates the patent but remains supported?) For Java this means that not only is Java no longer included by default on Windows systems, but the plugin used for adding Java capabilities is (probably) no longer compatible with IE at all. Just as it appeared that most people would be happy having Sun's version of Java widely available as a plugin instead of MS's corrupted version, MS has thrown another wrench in the plans.
It's really about time for W3C to step in and standardize APIs for embeddable web content. I know Eolas has the patent, but it's not unusual to see companies licensing at no or reduced cost for patents that are involved in standards on condition that the standard is properly followed. Eolas will get little or nothing if MS circumvents the patent with.NET and breaks compatibility with everyone else. We really do need a standard cheap way to make universally acceptable plugins/embedded code. The alternative is to code two or three times or see viable browsers and other software unable to compete because of patents on the means of compatibility. A standard could increase both productivity and competition.
I must say I like the quote from Cringely- "Almost the same thing happened during the anti-trust trial when Microsoft offered to create a deliberately retarded version of Windows without Internet Explorer, essentially threatening the court with really bad software if Redmond didn't get its way." You mean Windows hasn't always been "really bad software"?!? Hmm... and "deliberately retarded" too....
IIRC, the DMCA does require "reasonably effective" means of protection- somewhat vague, but if it were enforced that way the protection schemes would probably have to be stronger. The problem is that the legal deterrent itself is much more than "reasonably effective" no matter how weak the encryption, just being faced with the time and money required to defend yourself whether guilty or innocent. This is one reason why the law needs to be repealed.
I hope but doubt that Skylarov can get off on the reasonable effectiveness clause so that companies think twice.
Similarly, there are some licensing models that effectively surrender
the revenue-generating potential of software. Some of these would
lead us back to the computing model of the 1970's, when users received
from hardware companies software that was offered for free, but was
provided at the expense of tying customers to a single hardware
vendor.
...And some lead us to the current computing model, where users receive from a software company software that is offered for free, but is provided at the expense of tying customers to a single software vendor.
Perhaps we should force them to open source Windows and IE! When everyone sees how hideous and dangerous that code is, there won't be anymore monopoly!
Perhaps it's a reflection of current American introspection/narcissism, but I think there's more to it. There is definitely some influence from postmodern literature, but there is also a lack of current world issues that are well-suited to the treatment Star Trek has often given them (not a lack of world issues, but those that exist are either out of the public mind or not easily adaptable to ST). Star Trek has never really been a straight shoot-'em-up-blow-'em-up meaningless series.
All art draws from life, and Star Trek draws most heavily from world affairs. My high school history teacher would say that the Klingons in TOS were originally developed from our communist enemies of the time. TNG had the Borg at a time when the prospective invasive growth of technology appeared daunting and there was concern about humans tearing down and assimilating new areas into the urban landscape. In DS9, the entire plot thread regarding the shape-shifters and the Dominion shows heavy influence from the terrorist threat that had public awareness at the time. The highly spiritual society of Bajor was heavily involved, as Israel was at the time. Those episodes were written around the time when the U.S. was struggling with the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings. (was bin Laden in the public eye then?) The ST writers at that time were very lucky that they set the show up well at its beginning to tackle those issues as they developed late in the show's run.
So what happens now? We haven't had a significant military or security threat heavily in the public eye for a significant length of time during the past few years. World hunger, poverty, AIDS, and similar persistent issues have been the main obstacle in world affairs, and these issues just don't entertain in Star Trek for long.
Fortunately for us now in terms of possible Star Trek fuel (not that this is a good think for the world), relations with China are beginning to sour and missile defense is slowly grabbing public awareness. What would be interesting for series V is that the Romulans have always appeared to be the closest thing ST had to an analogue of the Chinese, and if I'm not mistaken the ST timeline dictates no contact with the Romulans until the TOS era. How the writers handle that if they do choose China relations as a focus would be interesting. If you introduce a new species to play such a prominent role in series V, you need to kill them off or reduce their role by the end of the series so people don't ask why they don't pop up in other series. Series V is better set up for dealing with an issue like missile defense or the growth of the European Union, neither of which is really exciting. Relations with the Vulcans also appear to be a key theme, but I've yet to figure out their real world analogue. They seem to be more of an arbitary parental race. (Perhaps an analogue for the Europeans?)
As for Voyager, it started off great for a TNG-type exploration series. Being cast into the Delta Quadrant where everything was new for exploring, the possibilites were wide open. We had public awareness of rapid technology growth, and, well, the writers must've just lost sight of opportunity. Or maybe they didn't want to deal with the Borg so much again and wear it out. The incidents with the Q were much more entertaining than the TNG Q episodes, but they wouldn't run with it (and probably shouldn't). As for all the subconscious issues and dream-games, I didn't think they used them that much. I missed a good bit of the series, but only the Year of Hell storyline and the episode about some weird temporary clones of them stick out in my mind as really "wasting time".
I doubt an employer would allow a contract that would open source code that is useful to the company. For one thing it's giving code to competitors, and for another licenses such as the GPL are generally considered too viral for commercial use.
If anything could work here, it'd be a contract allowing the employee to work on open source projects that are NOT useful to the company. Why should my company care if I give away code related to Mozilla if the company doesn't create browsers? It may even help the company. Just look at Microsoft, they paid to have Internet Explorer developed when it wasn't in their business area. Sure, they got name placement and a browser built into Windows, but they never made money off of it and they spent millions defending it in court. So what did they get out of it? They helped the popularity of web browsing. Now people spend tons and tons of time on Windows doing web browsing. And look at their competition at Netscape. It's been said that if Netscape had been successful longer a new platform may have eventually developed to compete with Microsoft.
Web browsers may not be a very good example since so many side issues got tied up in IE, but it's a scenario that's happened repeatedly. Intel, IBM, Sun- they all develop stuff and give it away to create demand for their core businesses. Look at Bell Labs, they develop technology and post it on the web to draw potential licensees to take it to market where it'll create demand for their business, and they freely admit that they can't possibly afford to take all of their technology to market themselves.
As long as code doesn't aid a competitor or hurt the company, draws no resources from the company, and doesn't hurt the quality of the employee's work for the company, open source development should be allowed.
Don't expect such a schema coming from a group like W3C any time soon. If it's going to happen, it's gotta start with someone writing a schema, implementing it in a suite, and then pushing it to be a de facto standard. Not in the Microsoft style; it has to be open and easy to implement. It's gotta be "Here's our schema, use it."
With the XML parsers out there, like Apache's, there's a foundation to build on, and suite-makers can add XML editors and viewers in the process. HTML support could be consolidated into the functionality also.
Now I just want to see someone go out and actually do it instead of talking. I'd love to work on it myself, but I don't have much of a background to start it on my own.
The reason that the catalog retailers didn't charge sales tax is because it would be a nightmare to have tax permits in all states, know all the rates and so on.
That's not the whole story. The truth is that the use tax is a slippery way around the interstate commerce clause that is of dubious legality. It's never been really challenged in court, and many don't believe it would hold up. The closest thing (at least that I know of) to an applicable court ruling was a case where the Supreme Court ruled that nexus- the term used for a what makes a business subject to a government's tax jurisdiction- is "a permanent physical presence" until Congress says otherwise. The courts later ruled that having a website on an isp's server in a state, for example, is not a permanent physical presence. Typically it requires something like property ownership to form nexus.
Many states (not all, I believe) decided that the only way around their legal problem was to directly charge the resident the tax after the transaction. The use tax can hardly be considered part of the transaction. Generally it is an entry on your annual tax forms. The states are aware of how questionable the practice is, so it is never really enforced.
Businesses (say, involved in B2B transactions on the net) pay anyway to avoid even the slightest appearance of illegality. Fortunately for the states right now (although it hurts their arguments for an internet sales tax), businesses made up about 80% of Internet sales in the last major accounting study.
Why do so many people here post about this being overkill for graphics? Sure, a modern graphics card with adequate memory can saturate a monitor or tv, but Nvidia's not doing incredible AI for me. With chips like these, now while my GPU is spitting out all those pretty pictures my proc can be planning on its next 100,000 moves.
Wouldn't this be cool for strategy/simulation games? AI wouldn't do as much for me in a frag fest, but this would be cool if I could upgrade my old 486-era Civil War strategy game to this and face off with Robert E. Lee.
Question- how feasible will it be to "print" on both sides of e-paper? I doubt there is a real known answer yet, but I'm wondering how easily it can be made two-sided without increasing weight and cost. You'd rather have 150 2-sided sheets than 300 1-sided ones.... Of course, if the circuitry/ink cannot be reduced by making it 2-sided, you're stuck.
Of course, with their own little improvements, starting with the name- Microsoft C#. Let's hope it falls flat.
One thing's not clear to me though. Does the new license deal allow MS to keep the non-compliant Java in IE, or will users have to use the Java plugin? As a developer I hate to force users to trouble with installing a plugin even though it makes things so much easier for me. No "native" Java support in IE might actually help C# can ground if IE maintains 90% market share and makes Java inconvenient. I think I'll pull for Java though.
(Or any other non-qwerty keyboard software).
I use a Microsoft Natural Keyboard with Dvorak set in Windows. Since my keyboard sends out signals in Qwerty to be interpreted into Dvorak in software, 2 out of the 3 possible technologies (including the most likely, a hardware bug) the FBI might have used would have confused them. (evil laughter)
Unless, of course, they intercepted a message like this one....
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, most or all have money as a major factor in decisions.
I don't know how many have their music available on their sites, but I know it happens with some of the smaller bands. I've never checked into licensing rights. As you say, nobody follows them.
The more popular bands, particularly younger bands, are less likely to be donation-based and more commercial, although concerts even still are almost always cheaper than mainstream. I typically pay $10-25 to see the most popular bands, and it's all general admission normally. None of the $50 tickets you see in the mainstream.
CD prices have gone steadily up the last few years along with the mainstream and are generally in the same ballpark unless you find a band and label that are unusually generous.
Maybe it's just me and the ones I've looked at, but most of the ones I have looked at used only one CD or at most 2. This is too small of a sample size to draw any valid conclusion from, no matter how many drives they fail on. If you can show me 20 or 30 out of 100 copies failing regularly, I'll buy it. Anything much less than that can be explained by a combination of small sample sizes, normal quality problems, scratched CDs, and paranoia.
As for the label owning the music, I forgot earlier that DCTalk is using a secular label. I would really be suspicious if this were a Christian label, as they have more of a tendency to share the artists' values towards money and distribution.
My statement was not really that off-base. Most Christian bands use Christian music labels- not your typical secular labels that readily screw the artists. As a market niche, Christian music has different characteristics that labels must be sensitive to. Most Christian music is sold through Christian bookstores, and the Christian sections in most regular music stores are very small. Many Christian concerts are done for donations only. In my hometown, the Christian radio station is run completely on donations with no commercial advertisements. In other words, the Christian music industry is not about money, and most don't want it to be.
As far as labels go, some are subsidiaries of mainstream labels, and others are independent jobs.
The one thing I didn't think about in my original post is that DCTalk signed with a mainstream label to get larger distribution. But that is the exception, not the rule. In the past 20 years, perhaps 10 or less Christian bands have turned to mainstream labels. (DCTalk, Jars of Clay, U2, Michael W. Smith, and Amy Grant are the ones that come to mind.)
I don't think the list is very trust-worthy. DCTalk's Supernatural has been out for 3 years, and I have copies, both legally bought and ripped. Maybe they added protection on a recent production run, but that seems unlikely because any "piracy" damage is already done. Not to mention DCTalk is a Christian band; they want their message spread as wide as possible, even if it means losing some money.
I think some people are just reporting any disc they have trouble with, without investigating things like bad hardware or scratched discs. Just spreading paranoia.
Well, I agree with most people here that the lack of information directly from MIT is fishy. The author's invalid email address, no mention of the Advanced Operating Systems Group on the LCS site, or any mention of Cesium.... Strong hints of a possible hoax.
L CS-TR-626.pdf (warning- 95 page thesis in PDF)
But a closer look at LCS is rather interesting-
1. Work on exokernels. Doesn't seem groundbreaking giving Java's history, but fits the description for Cesium's platform module. Nice slide show in the documentation. http://www.pdos.lcs.mit.edu/exo/
2. Work on OODBMS. Applicable to Cesium's storage module. Apparently named Thor, which is mentioned as a module in the exokernel work noted above. http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/pubs/pdf/MIT-
This is just what I managed to turn up quickly that could be applied to Cesium in the manner the article described. Is Cesium real? I don't know, maybe some student got wild ideas after hearing snatches of project reports in a meeting or something, but it looks more real after searching the site. Take a look before you judge.
...adding GNU to a name just makes it silly.
In other news, Richard Stallman is considering changing the GNU Project's name to Monty Python and hawking its software as parodies of the real stuff.
The sense I get from the media at this point makes the plan look more like this:
1. Suppress enemy air defenses. Some other important targets are also being hit in the early stage, such as the Taliban headquarters in Kandahar which has already been reported as hit.
2. Once the air campaign softens ground opposition, the Northern Alliance and supposedly some southern tribes will start a heavy ground offensive. This may provide cover for special operations forces to get further intelligence. Reports are already coming in of defections of Taliban troops.
3. Deliver food and medical supplies whenever possible, beginning with air drops and following up with truck routes and even using pack animals once the ground is relatively safe.
4. Capture or kill bin Laden and his top lieutenants using special forces.
5. The Northern Alliance has a deal with the exiled king to create a "broad-based government" (democratically elected?), and other groups have been invited to join it. Even disidents within the Taliban have been said to possibly join. The king is very old, having ruled 40 years and been in exile for 20+, and seems to have no interest in being much more than a figurehead. Although I haven't heard, I would not be surprised if peacekeepers were involved in the transition to a new government. The demand that the terrorist camps be open to inspection makes it seem plausible that peacekeepers could be used. The Northern Alliance is a group of warlords, and my fear is that they might overthrow a democratically elected government at the first opportunity.
There are frequent posts on slashdot and elsewhere about the bad laws coming out of Congress regarding computers. I know, congressmen, like the average person, is computer ignorant. But we've been going the wrong way trying to correct this. Most /. users just come complain on slashdot. Occasionally someone reminds people to write their representatives.
Writing a representative is a great idea, but what catches the attention of lawmakers more? A powerful lobby group.
We have the FSF, but it's association with GNU and Stallman make it unappealing with too many computer hobbyists. Having a lobby group that takes stands divisive within the community only divides our lobby. The power of a lobby comes from votes and money, but if a lobby group divides its community it lacks votes and money from the community.
Although I'm not really aware of any other organizations representing the computer hobbyist community that lobby Congress often, but I'm sure they're out there. Maybe the community needs to create a new inclusive organization specifically as a Congressional lobby. We could call it the American Cyber Liberties Union. Maybe not.
People: Write your representatives NOW. Find a group that represents your views and join NOW, donate some money to lobby Congress NOW. If you can't find a group you agree with, get together and form one. Don't let your views on the more controversial issues such as the GPL, open source, or browser wars or whatever keep you from making your voice heard in Congress on the issues that are widely agreed on within the community.
We have reached a time when are "cyber liberties" are coming under dramatically increased attack in the wake of the recent threats to America. We must make our voice heard NOW if we want to continue to enjoy our hobby and computers the way we wish.
...noneofyour.biz
This is the first I've heard of the conspirators from the future being from the mirror universe, and I doubt it's true. I've seen a leaked draft of the pilot's script, and I can at least say that their identity is not revealed in that draft.
The idea of it being people from the mirror universe simply doesn't sound plausible given what's known about the new series and the mirror universe of DS9. The Terrans of DS9 had to borrow plans for the Defiant and had little knowledge of the ST universe. The time travel, genetic engineering, and understanding of ST universe history necessary to manage the conspiracy would be beyond them for a good while after their liberation. I don't mind the idea of a "Temporal Cold War", but making the future aliens be from the mirror universe is too far-fetched for me, and I won't believe it's true until I see it on TV.
I think I'd rather see the conspirators be post-DS9 humans from the ST universe. Perhaps Section 31. But if they were going to do that plot, they should've shown us the post-DS9 Federation first. It could've been interesting (and still might be done eventually)- after the war with the Dominion, the Federation is in shambles. Relations with the other empires have been shaken up, peace and trade have been disturbed, and Earth has experienced martial law for the first time in quite a while. Perhaps we might even have seen the Federation unravel. But the future would definitely be different from the civilization that showed up in TNG and DS9.
How will this affect overclocking? Particularly if AMD is truly successful in thoroughly hiding the true clock speed from the user in both the BIOS and OS? (Not that that will happen- XP is shipping with code that will still report the clock, as Tom's is reporting.) Clock speeds can change (as in overclocking), but model numbers never should.
Apparently most offending plugins can be rewritten to use ActiveX (which still violates the patent but remains supported?) For Java this means that not only is Java no longer included by default on Windows systems, but the plugin used for adding Java capabilities is (probably) no longer compatible with IE at all. Just as it appeared that most people would be happy having Sun's version of Java widely available as a plugin instead of MS's corrupted version, MS has thrown another wrench in the plans.
.NET and breaks compatibility with everyone else. We really do need a standard cheap way to make universally acceptable plugins/embedded code. The alternative is to code two or three times or see viable browsers and other software unable to compete because of patents on the means of compatibility. A standard could increase both productivity and competition.
It's really about time for W3C to step in and standardize APIs for embeddable web content. I know Eolas has the patent, but it's not unusual to see companies licensing at no or reduced cost for patents that are involved in standards on condition that the standard is properly followed. Eolas will get little or nothing if MS circumvents the patent with
I must say I like the quote from Cringely- "Almost the same thing happened during the anti-trust trial when Microsoft offered to create a deliberately retarded version of Windows without Internet Explorer, essentially threatening the court with really bad software if Redmond didn't get its way." You mean Windows hasn't always been "really bad software"?!? Hmm... and "deliberately retarded" too....
IIRC, the DMCA does require "reasonably effective" means of protection- somewhat vague, but if it were enforced that way the protection schemes would probably have to be stronger. The problem is that the legal deterrent itself is much more than "reasonably effective" no matter how weak the encryption, just being faced with the time and money required to defend yourself whether guilty or innocent. This is one reason why the law needs to be repealed.
I hope but doubt that Skylarov can get off on the reasonable effectiveness clause so that companies think twice.
Similarly, there are some licensing models that effectively surrender the revenue-generating potential of software. Some of these would lead us back to the computing model of the 1970's, when users received from hardware companies software that was offered for free, but was provided at the expense of tying customers to a single hardware vendor.
...And some lead us to the current computing model, where users receive from a software company software that is offered for free, but is provided at the expense of tying customers to a single software vendor.
Perhaps we should force them to open source Windows and IE! When everyone sees how hideous and dangerous that code is, there won't be anymore monopoly!
j/k
Perhaps it's a reflection of current American introspection/narcissism, but I think there's more to it. There is definitely some influence from postmodern literature, but there is also a lack of current world issues that are well-suited to the treatment Star Trek has often given them (not a lack of world issues, but those that exist are either out of the public mind or not easily adaptable to ST). Star Trek has never really been a straight shoot-'em-up-blow-'em-up meaningless series.
All art draws from life, and Star Trek draws most heavily from world affairs. My high school history teacher would say that the Klingons in TOS were originally developed from our communist enemies of the time. TNG had the Borg at a time when the prospective invasive growth of technology appeared daunting and there was concern about humans tearing down and assimilating new areas into the urban landscape. In DS9, the entire plot thread regarding the shape-shifters and the Dominion shows heavy influence from the terrorist threat that had public awareness at the time. The highly spiritual society of Bajor was heavily involved, as Israel was at the time. Those episodes were written around the time when the U.S. was struggling with the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings. (was bin Laden in the public eye then?) The ST writers at that time were very lucky that they set the show up well at its beginning to tackle those issues as they developed late in the show's run.
So what happens now? We haven't had a significant military or security threat heavily in the public eye for a significant length of time during the past few years. World hunger, poverty, AIDS, and similar persistent issues have been the main obstacle in world affairs, and these issues just don't entertain in Star Trek for long.
Fortunately for us now in terms of possible Star Trek fuel (not that this is a good think for the world), relations with China are beginning to sour and missile defense is slowly grabbing public awareness. What would be interesting for series V is that the Romulans have always appeared to be the closest thing ST had to an analogue of the Chinese, and if I'm not mistaken the ST timeline dictates no contact with the Romulans until the TOS era. How the writers handle that if they do choose China relations as a focus would be interesting. If you introduce a new species to play such a prominent role in series V, you need to kill them off or reduce their role by the end of the series so people don't ask why they don't pop up in other series. Series V is better set up for dealing with an issue like missile defense or the growth of the European Union, neither of which is really exciting. Relations with the Vulcans also appear to be a key theme, but I've yet to figure out their real world analogue. They seem to be more of an arbitary parental race. (Perhaps an analogue for the Europeans?)
As for Voyager, it started off great for a TNG-type exploration series. Being cast into the Delta Quadrant where everything was new for exploring, the possibilites were wide open. We had public awareness of rapid technology growth, and, well, the writers must've just lost sight of opportunity. Or maybe they didn't want to deal with the Borg so much again and wear it out. The incidents with the Q were much more entertaining than the TNG Q episodes, but they wouldn't run with it (and probably shouldn't). As for all the subconscious issues and dream-games, I didn't think they used them that much. I missed a good bit of the series, but only the Year of Hell storyline and the episode about some weird temporary clones of them stick out in my mind as really "wasting time".
I doubt an employer would allow a contract that would open source code that is useful to the company. For one thing it's giving code to competitors, and for another licenses such as the GPL are generally considered too viral for commercial use.
If anything could work here, it'd be a contract allowing the employee to work on open source projects that are NOT useful to the company. Why should my company care if I give away code related to Mozilla if the company doesn't create browsers? It may even help the company. Just look at Microsoft, they paid to have Internet Explorer developed when it wasn't in their business area. Sure, they got name placement and a browser built into Windows, but they never made money off of it and they spent millions defending it in court. So what did they get out of it? They helped the popularity of web browsing. Now people spend tons and tons of time on Windows doing web browsing. And look at their competition at Netscape. It's been said that if Netscape had been successful longer a new platform may have eventually developed to compete with Microsoft.
Web browsers may not be a very good example since so many side issues got tied up in IE, but it's a scenario that's happened repeatedly. Intel, IBM, Sun- they all develop stuff and give it away to create demand for their core businesses. Look at Bell Labs, they develop technology and post it on the web to draw potential licensees to take it to market where it'll create demand for their business, and they freely admit that they can't possibly afford to take all of their technology to market themselves.
As long as code doesn't aid a competitor or hurt the company, draws no resources from the company, and doesn't hurt the quality of the employee's work for the company, open source development should be allowed.
Don't expect such a schema coming from a group like W3C any time soon. If it's going to happen, it's gotta start with someone writing a schema, implementing it in a suite, and then pushing it to be a de facto standard. Not in the Microsoft style; it has to be open and easy to implement. It's gotta be "Here's our schema, use it."
With the XML parsers out there, like Apache's, there's a foundation to build on, and suite-makers can add XML editors and viewers in the process. HTML support could be consolidated into the functionality also.
Now I just want to see someone go out and actually do it instead of talking. I'd love to work on it myself, but I don't have much of a background to start it on my own.
That's not the whole story. The truth is that the use tax is a slippery way around the interstate commerce clause that is of dubious legality. It's never been really challenged in court, and many don't believe it would hold up. The closest thing (at least that I know of) to an applicable court ruling was a case where the Supreme Court ruled that nexus- the term used for a what makes a business subject to a government's tax jurisdiction- is "a permanent physical presence" until Congress says otherwise. The courts later ruled that having a website on an isp's server in a state, for example, is not a permanent physical presence. Typically it requires something like property ownership to form nexus.
Many states (not all, I believe) decided that the only way around their legal problem was to directly charge the resident the tax after the transaction. The use tax can hardly be considered part of the transaction. Generally it is an entry on your annual tax forms. The states are aware of how questionable the practice is, so it is never really enforced.
Businesses (say, involved in B2B transactions on the net) pay anyway to avoid even the slightest appearance of illegality. Fortunately for the states right now (although it hurts their arguments for an internet sales tax), businesses made up about 80% of Internet sales in the last major accounting study.
No wonder those new Pentium 4s are baked. Oh well, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Bon appetit!
Why do so many people here post about this being overkill for graphics? Sure, a modern graphics card with adequate memory can saturate a monitor or tv, but Nvidia's not doing incredible AI for me. With chips like these, now while my GPU is spitting out all those pretty pictures my proc can be planning on its next 100,000 moves.
Wouldn't this be cool for strategy/simulation games? AI wouldn't do as much for me in a frag fest, but this would be cool if I could upgrade my old 486-era Civil War strategy game to this and face off with Robert E. Lee.
"There are 6 billion people on the planet, and if everyone on the planet had a Weblog, we'd be better off."
6 billion weblogs, now that would be a nightmare. Can you imagine all the server space??
Question- how feasible will it be to "print" on both sides of e-paper? I doubt there is a real known answer yet, but I'm wondering how easily it can be made two-sided without increasing weight and cost. You'd rather have 150 2-sided sheets than 300 1-sided ones.... Of course, if the circuitry/ink cannot be reduced by making it 2-sided, you're stuck.
Of course, with their own little improvements, starting with the name- Microsoft C#. Let's hope it falls flat.
One thing's not clear to me though. Does the new license deal allow MS to keep the non-compliant Java in IE, or will users have to use the Java plugin? As a developer I hate to force users to trouble with installing a plugin even though it makes things so much easier for me. No "native" Java support in IE might actually help C# can ground if IE maintains 90% market share and makes Java inconvenient. I think I'll pull for Java though.
(Or any other non-qwerty keyboard software).
I use a Microsoft Natural Keyboard with Dvorak set in Windows. Since my keyboard sends out signals in Qwerty to be interpreted into Dvorak in software, 2 out of the 3 possible technologies (including the most likely, a hardware bug) the FBI might have used would have confused them. (evil laughter)
Unless, of course, they intercepted a message like this one....