The clueless can use it in permanent "hotsync" mode, and have it automatically synchronize your MP3's between your iPod and your computer. Combine that with the charging-through-firewire and the relative simplicity of iTunes, and you have a product that even the village idiot can enjoy. (at least, the Village Idiot with a Mac.)
For the clueful, it can be used as a 5GB firewire hard disk if you need it to. This can come in very handy -- my wife already wants one, and this is one of the reasons.
However, there are two critical problems I see with it. The first, of course, is the price. Expect this story to be the sequel to the Cube, which everyone thought was cool, and too expensive to actually buy.
Second, expect the RIAA (and Apple Records) to SUE THE PANTS off of Apple! (And hear the Village idiot cry when his new, un-rippable CD's won't work on his new iPod).
I saw one of the demo kiosks. I was kind of disappointed that there was only one demo that wasn't "Non-interactive". I was amused at the title of the last non-interactive demo - "Microsoft Legal Information" or something similarly ominous.
I was afraid to look at it because it was probably a EULA that would legally bind me to buy XBox games exclusively, and turn in all my Playstation games to the console Police (or something like that).
Do you have any references for your assertion that the human brain in fact works by computing?
I don't think I made my point very well. We can imitate the human brain through massive computing power, but we won't get a true 'thinking' AI until we find out how the brain works (i.e. the Principles of Thought.)
Assembling a computer with the speed and density of a human brain won't mean it'll suddenly magically become self-aware, open it's IO and and engage us in conversation.
Somebody much more intelligent than I am (I forget who it was) made the following observation:
When man first tried to fly, we imitated the birds. We made feathery wings, flapped them, and promptly fell. It wasn't until someone (Bernoulli?) figured out the concepts behind flight that we realized that it wasn't the feathered wings that did the job, but the lift they created. Developing the Principles of Flight led to Flying Machines.
In a similar manner, contemporary AI simply imitates the human brain by making loads of calculations. Onve we get to the root principles behind thought itself, then we can make a self-aware artificial doohicky. (Can we even really call it a computer at that point?) Without the Principles of thought, AI's will be intelligent expert systems, but not self-aware.
Geez... Perhaps I should have posted this in the AI story! Anyway, let the (-1 Offtopic)s begin! My karma can take it.
It makes it harder for legislation in America, such as the SSSCA to kill the OS and makes it more likely to succeed in the long run.
The optimist in me wants to believe you, but the pessimist in me thinks that lawmakers in the USA won't care, and will watch as the rest of the world migrates away from US-based DRM-enabled OS's. It might even turn into our patriotic duty to Buy American when it comes to OS's!
Just because the OS may get outlawed in the U.S. doesn't mean that the rest of the world can't use it (to their competitive advantage).
Look again: first two paragraphs are a wee bit different (by my memory: anybody have the original from this morning?).
Well, right on the top, the article says it was last modified 2:00 a.m. Oct. 15, 2001 PDT . In big red letters. Well, maybe the letters are a little small.
Anyway, I don't remember any difference in the article. I suppose that doesn't mean there couldn't have been, though.
Try to keep up... The article Timothy posted was about the fact that the RIAA wanted the right to hack in. This article has to do with the RIAA backing down from their earlier position.
That's funny... the links in both articles are the same. And I'm sure that the article never got "updated", because it said the same thing at 9 this morning than it does now.
Hacking is terrorism, but Hacking to defend copyrights is legal if you have enough Cash to by a Congressman, and get him to make legislation that says so? Have I got that right?
Remember, one man's Terrorist is another man's Freedom Fighter.
I attended a conference that IBM was at, and saw their software running on a WinCE palmtop. It's essentially the same engine as their ViaVoice engine, just stripped down a bit. They said that to get it to work on a Palm, they essentially built a small voice-recognition computer into an add-on module and interfaced it with the Palm though the serial port. I'm not sure if that's what they're talking about in this article. In theory, this little doohicky can run alongside any computer with a communications port, big or little.
The ViaVoice people had a Linux desktop running the software also, and IBM also had rack-mount Linux servers on display. They even gave out neat Penguin lapel pins!
I sent E-mails to both Hillary and Rick before the NY Senate election asking their opinion on certain topics. Rick's E-mail generated no response, and Hillary thanked me for her support (which I never gave in her E-mail). This, combined with several other factors, caused me to vote for NEITHER ONE in the election.
I read about the kind of bills that are being considered (from more noteworthy sites than just/.), and how strongly I disagree with them. However, between working overtime, commuting, and being with my family, the last thing I feel compelled to do when I have free time is write a letter.
On the one hand, I don't want to just mail out a boilerplate letter that states several things, some of which I may not agree with. On the other hand, if I put in the time to send a well-researched letter, by the time I find enough time to so it, the issue will not be relevant anymore!
So, I donate to the EFF occasionally, and wait for the time when I'll be motivated enough to put off other aspects of my life to write these letters. Oh well. I should exercise, too, but I don't.
I've always wondered: would a phone call to a congressman's local office do any good? Will talking to a staffer for five minutes get any results?
Nukes back on the table?
on
Bert Is Evil
·
· Score: 5, Funny
You think Afghanistan is in trouble now?
Just wait until the U.S congress finds out that they've violated copyrights! They're doomed now!
You make bathtime lots of fun!
on
Bert Is Evil
·
· Score: 2
If his parents didn't take away his rubber ducky when he was younger, imagine how different things would have been...
Just grab the edges and bend til it breaks, I do it with failed CDRs all the time. Good stress reliever.
Yeah, but does that really destroy the CD beyond hope of recovery? I'm not up on CD Recovery technology.
Perhaps what's needed is a USB dongle, with an external switch that fries the flash RAM inside, rendering it unusable, and unreadable even to people trained in data recovery. Then again, if you have one, you obviously have something to hide, so expect the government to make them illegal soon.
I'd be happy if Microsoft had the huevos to not even bother to dispute the charges and just pulled all of its software out of the EU, flipping them the bird and leaving them to scramble for dry ground. It'd be a trial by fire for free software supporters, and I'd be very interested to see how it turns out.
We can only hope! Can you imagine all that money that used to go to MS licenses going instead to fund new software development because Microsoft is too arrogant to play nice, so it takes its ball and goes home? Something good would come out of that, I'm sure.
The first thing that would be done is every single MS proprietaty protocol will be reverse-engineered (and legally, too, at least for Europe!). Even if those of us in the U.S. wouldn't be able to use it legally, I'm sure it would be useful to us.
At work, we've been worried that our boss is tracking our bathroom time to make sure we're "productive" enough on company time. And these guys are posting their bathrom usage on the Net? How ironic.
Sometimes, people in this forum too broadly define the term "freedom", or confuse "freedom" with "essential freedom". There are certain freedoms that we used to have that we will no longer have in the future. I can live with that, if it means that it will have a real impact on whether or not something like what happened last week happens again. Don't give me that Liberty and Security line again, I believe that most of what is proposed (i.e. expansion of wiretap authority to cover people and not just individual communications devices) will do more good than harm. There have been suspensions of constitutional freedoms in trying times in the past (Lincoln did a lot of this during the Civil War), and almost all of them were temporary.
However, some of the things being proposed on the technology front, (specifically Encryption Backdoors), will do absolutely nothing to make us more secure, and will in fact, make us less secure. All it does is show us how ignorant our legislators are w/r/t technology. Terrorists won't upgrade to the Govt-approved Crypto software, or will encrypt their messages before using it (just using Pronouns can go a long way.). Non-terrorists will have traded some security for absolutely nothing. When terrorists find the back door, we'll all be in trouble.
I know this and you know this, but I just don't have the heart to write Hillary or Chuck (my senators) and tell them this while the state and the country mourns.
Yes, I read the definition. (parts of it follow...)
1.A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
2.An official, as in the armed forces, who examines personal mail and official dispatches to remove information considered secret or a risk to security.
...
1. (Antiq.) One of two magistrates of Rome who took a register of the number and property of citizens, and who also exercised the office of inspector of morals and conduct.
2. One who is empowered to examine manuscripts before they are committed to the press, and to forbid their publication if they contain anything obnoxious; -- an official in some European countries.
censor n : a person who is authorized to read publications or correspondence or to watch theatrical performances and suppress in whole or in part anything considered obscene or politically unacceptable v 1: forbid the public distribution of; as of movies or newspapers [syn: ban] 2: subject to political, religious, or moral censorship; "This magazine is censored by the government"
I thought it was obvious that while they never said "Governments are the only ones that can censor", the root of the word lies in the Roman government and all the examples imply "authority" that only a government, secular or religious, can provide, and can compel compliance through the force of law. It can't be censorship if just one source is restricted, as in these radio stations, because the music is still legal, they're just not playing it for a while. Perhaps its not as obvious to others...
The Censor is grated authority by some governing body, be it political or religious (in any case, not you), and tells you what you can or can't do with your own property and ideas, giving you no say in the matter.
In effect, we will all have different "clearance levels" in regular civilian society, which will decide for us whether we are stopped, interviewed, strip searched; what our freedom of movement and consumer activity will be; and what kinds of security-vital private sector training, such as computer or pilot skills, that we can enjoy.
Citizen Foobar! What is that you're doing? You just got off that escalator! Can't you see that's an Orange escalator? You know that you only have Red clearance, and are supposed to use the Red Rope that's hanging outside the window, over the moat with the spikes in it. What if someone with Orange clearance had needed that escalator, and had to get out of your way? Report for Termination immediately (in that Blue booth right there), and have a nice day!
Fuckit, its a national disaster just break the god-damn licensing issues.. Love to see MS try to sue the Red-Cross in their time of need.
I think this is rather sad also, but not because of Microsoft. After all, Microsoft is donating money and technical support, which is sorely needed. They should be commended for it, even in this forum.
What I think is sad is that the Red Cross thinks that they NEED software licenses to be donated. As the previous poster so eloquently put it, nobody would be upset, under the circumstances, if they just got ONE copy of Office and put it on all their laptops. But they think they need 50. Sad.
I couldn't agree more with the other posts. Get yourself an old PC, and go nuts.
Since the poster seemed concerned about power, does anyone know details about how to reduce power consumption on a motherboard? One would assume that, since it is being used as a router, APM Sleep/Suspend is out of the question.
I recently upgraded the Motherboard in my router (an old 486 w/ Pentuim Overdrive) because I eventually want to run Apache on it (and 4MB 30-pin SIMMS are expensive compared to SDRAM!) I got my hands on an AT motherboard with USB (I had to make some "creative modifications" to the case, since the new MB had higher heat-sinks.) I got the lowest-frequency K6 chip I could find, and a cheap 64MB Memory stick. I have no clue how much power Its wasting while I'm here at work, and would be interested in knowing how to reduce it further.
We could level the site and put up a memorial and a new park, but I feel that the best memorial will be a bigger Trade Center Complex, with two bigger towers, which will become a new symbol of American resiliance.
I grew up in New York City, and I know a bit about the spirit of the city. Its people are all very resiliant, and will show the world that they can handle this tragedy. They will take time to mourn, of course, but after, they will have to go on with their lives. Their lives will be changed, for sure, but they will go on, because they can't live any other way.
Slashdot Mirror
For the clueful, it can be used as a 5GB firewire hard disk if you need it to. This can come in very handy -- my wife already wants one, and this is one of the reasons.
However, there are two critical problems I see with it. The first, of course, is the price. Expect this story to be the sequel to the Cube, which everyone thought was cool, and too expensive to actually buy.
Second, expect the RIAA (and Apple Records) to SUE THE PANTS off of Apple! (And hear the Village idiot cry when his new, un-rippable CD's won't work on his new iPod).
I was afraid to look at it because it was probably a EULA that would legally bind me to buy XBox games exclusively, and turn in all my Playstation games to the console Police (or something like that).
I don't think I made my point very well. We can imitate the human brain through massive computing power, but we won't get a true 'thinking' AI until we find out how the brain works (i.e. the Principles of Thought.)
Somebody much more intelligent than I am (I forget who it was) made the following observation:
When man first tried to fly, we imitated the birds. We made feathery wings, flapped them, and promptly fell. It wasn't until someone (Bernoulli?) figured out the concepts behind flight that we realized that it wasn't the feathered wings that did the job, but the lift they created. Developing the Principles of Flight led to Flying Machines.
In a similar manner, contemporary AI simply imitates the human brain by making loads of calculations. Onve we get to the root principles behind thought itself, then we can make a self-aware artificial doohicky. (Can we even really call it a computer at that point?) Without the Principles of thought, AI's will be intelligent expert systems, but not self-aware.
Geez... Perhaps I should have posted this in the AI story! Anyway, let the (-1 Offtopic)s begin! My karma can take it.
The optimist in me wants to believe you, but the pessimist in me thinks that lawmakers in the USA won't care, and will watch as the rest of the world migrates away from US-based DRM-enabled OS's. It might even turn into our patriotic duty to Buy American when it comes to OS's!
Just because the OS may get outlawed in the U.S. doesn't mean that the rest of the world can't use it (to their competitive advantage).
Well, right on the top, the article says it was last modified 2:00 a.m. Oct. 15, 2001 PDT . In big red letters. Well, maybe the letters are a little small.
Anyway, I don't remember any difference in the article. I suppose that doesn't mean there couldn't have been, though.
That's funny... the links in both articles are the same. And I'm sure that the article never got "updated", because it said the same thing at 9 this morning than it does now.
Taco, Do you even read slashdot anymore? Timothy posted this a few hours ado, and it's already got 500 comments!
Remember, one man's Terrorist is another man's Freedom Fighter.
They said that to get it to work on a Palm, they essentially built a small voice-recognition computer into an add-on module and interfaced it with the Palm though the serial port. I'm not sure if that's what they're talking about in this article. In theory, this little doohicky can run alongside any computer with a communications port, big or little.
The ViaVoice people had a Linux desktop running the software also, and IBM also had rack-mount Linux servers on display. They even gave out neat Penguin lapel pins!
I read about the kind of bills that are being considered (from more noteworthy sites than just /.), and how strongly I disagree with them. However, between working overtime, commuting, and being with my family, the last thing I feel compelled to do when I have free time is write a letter.
On the one hand, I don't want to just mail out a boilerplate letter that states several things, some of which I may not agree with. On the other hand, if I put in the time to send a well-researched letter, by the time I find enough time to so it, the issue will not be relevant anymore!
So, I donate to the EFF occasionally, and wait for the time when I'll be motivated enough to put off other aspects of my life to write these letters. Oh well. I should exercise, too, but I don't.
I've always wondered: would a phone call to a congressman's local office do any good? Will talking to a staffer for five minutes get any results?
You think Afghanistan is in trouble now?
Just wait until the U.S congress finds out that they've violated copyrights!
They're doomed now!
If his parents didn't take away his rubber ducky when he was younger, imagine how different things would have been...
Yeah, but does that really destroy the CD beyond hope of recovery? I'm not up on CD Recovery technology.
Perhaps what's needed is a USB dongle, with an external switch that fries the flash RAM inside, rendering it unusable, and unreadable even to people trained in data recovery. Then again, if you have one, you obviously have something to hide, so expect the government to make them illegal soon.
We can only hope! Can you imagine all that money that used to go to MS licenses going instead to fund new software development because Microsoft is too arrogant to play nice, so it takes its ball and goes home? Something good would come out of that, I'm sure.
The first thing that would be done is every single MS proprietaty protocol will be reverse-engineered (and legally, too, at least for Europe!). Even if those of us in the U.S. wouldn't be able to use it legally, I'm sure it would be useful to us.
At work, we've been worried that our boss is tracking our bathroom time to make sure we're "productive" enough on company time. And these guys are posting their bathrom usage on the Net? How ironic.
However, some of the things being proposed on the technology front, (specifically Encryption Backdoors), will do absolutely nothing to make us more secure, and will in fact, make us less secure. All it does is show us how ignorant our legislators are w/r/t technology. Terrorists won't upgrade to the Govt-approved Crypto software, or will encrypt their messages before using it (just using Pronouns can go a long way.). Non-terrorists will have traded some security for absolutely nothing. When terrorists find the back door, we'll all be in trouble.
I know this and you know this, but I just don't have the heart to write Hillary or Chuck (my senators) and tell them this while the state and the country mourns.
As in 'Admin' spelled backwards?
1.A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
2.An official, as in the armed forces, who examines personal mail and official dispatches to remove information considered secret or a risk to security.
...
1. (Antiq.) One of two magistrates of Rome who took a register of the number and property of citizens, and who also exercised the office of inspector of morals and conduct.
2. One who is empowered to examine manuscripts before they are committed to the press, and to forbid their publication if they contain anything obnoxious; -- an official in some European countries.
censor n : a person who is authorized to read publications or correspondence or to watch theatrical performances and suppress in whole or in part anything considered obscene or politically unacceptable v 1: forbid the public distribution of; as of movies or newspapers [syn: ban] 2: subject to political, religious, or moral censorship; "This magazine is censored by the government"
I thought it was obvious that while they never said "Governments are the only ones that can censor", the root of the word lies in the Roman government and all the examples imply "authority" that only a government, secular or religious, can provide, and can compel compliance through the force of law. It can't be censorship if just one source is restricted, as in these radio stations, because the music is still legal, they're just not playing it for a while. Perhaps its not as obvious to others...
Umm, yeah, that's kinda the definition.
The Censor is grated authority by some governing body, be it political or religious (in any case, not you), and tells you what you can or can't do with your own property and ideas, giving you no say in the matter.
Citizen Foobar! What is that you're doing? You just got off that escalator! Can't you see that's an Orange escalator? You know that you only have Red clearance, and are supposed to use the Red Rope that's hanging outside the window, over the moat with the spikes in it. What if someone with Orange clearance had needed that escalator, and had to get out of your way? Report for Termination immediately (in that Blue booth right there), and have a nice day!
My policy is to not click on any link at Slashdot that mentions Goats. Peiod.
I think this is rather sad also, but not because of Microsoft. After all, Microsoft is donating money and technical support, which is sorely needed. They should be commended for it, even in this forum.
What I think is sad is that the Red Cross thinks that they NEED software licenses to be donated. As the previous poster so eloquently put it, nobody would be upset, under the circumstances, if they just got ONE copy of Office and put it on all their laptops. But they think they need 50. Sad.
Since the poster seemed concerned about power, does anyone know details about how to reduce power consumption on a motherboard? One would assume that, since it is being used as a router, APM Sleep/Suspend is out of the question.
I recently upgraded the Motherboard in my router (an old 486 w/ Pentuim Overdrive) because I eventually want to run Apache on it (and 4MB 30-pin SIMMS are expensive compared to SDRAM!) I got my hands on an AT motherboard with USB (I had to make some "creative modifications" to the case, since the new MB had higher heat-sinks.) I got the lowest-frequency K6 chip I could find, and a cheap 64MB Memory stick. I have no clue how much power Its wasting while I'm here at work, and would be interested in knowing how to reduce it further.
We could level the site and put up a memorial and a new park, but I feel that the best memorial will be a bigger Trade Center Complex, with two bigger towers, which will become a new symbol of American resiliance.
I grew up in New York City, and I know a bit about the spirit of the city. Its people are all very resiliant, and will show the world that they can handle this tragedy. They will take time to mourn, of course, but after, they will have to go on with their lives. Their lives will be changed, for sure, but they will go on, because they can't live any other way.