One strange thing that I recently heard about from a friend is the practice of making ads on speculation. Some creative aspiring set of artist (directors, camera folks, etc) will get together and basically make an ad for free for some random company in the hopes of either selling them the rights to it after the fact or in the hopes of getting future gigs.
These ads tend to be quite a lot more interesting than those produced by your more conservative ad companies. For example, there was a speculation tampax commercial where a woman in goggles and pristine, white undies get hosed down with an firehose of blood -- very visually striking and much more creative than regular tampax ads. Yes, it's a commercial, but its very well done. And the folks putting these out are very likely to go on to more than ads as they get more funding, reputations, etc. The same might be happening in the music industry; don't know.
Still, the creators are starting to find ways to cut out some of the middlemen. There's bound to be better ways and creative minds are likely to find some. Don't give up hope yet....
Actually, you should run right out and purchase at least one of these broken CDs... then promptly return it with complaints. The more returns they have, the more likely it is that they'll listen, eh?
WARNING: using arm rests while typing can cause severe injury! I actually would rest my arms on them while typing and this led to tendonitis at both of my elbows. This is a very common injury and incredibly easy to avoid. If you have arm rests, just be sure to lower them to a point that they will not even brush your elbows/arms while typing.
Problem is that it takes up quite a bit of space which == more trucks to ship that sucker around which == more consumption of fuel, etc.
Re: Gov't agencies patenting anything - huh?
on
Spies in the Forests
·
· Score: 1
Ignoring for a minute the exact patent....
I'm a little confused about the consequences of a government agency, which uses the citizens' money, patenting anything. Do the citizens and that country's companies get free licenses then since it was publicly funded? eh? What about the case of a, again, public school holding a patent?
There are two reasons for extreme secrecy. Either you really do have something important to hide (think Manhattan Project) or you want to drum up interest (think GeForce 256). But if you're just drumming up interest, you need to let a few crumbs slip. Transmetta's air-tight secrecy is not worth its cost of implementation if they're not actually hiding anything worthwhile.
A third reason might be to prevent being sued off the face of the planet by big hairy competitors. Whether they are on to something or not, a lawsuit would surely distract them ($$$ + time) from development.
A fourth reason might to give themselves some flexibility. Maybe they have a general and basic idea of what they want to make but are not sure if it will work or not. Better to try it out in secret rather than getting everyone's hopes up and looking like fools if it flops or turns out to be infeasible.
I'm sure others can continue coming up with more scenarios....
How long do the batteries last on an Aero? One of my favorite things about Pilots is that I can basically forget about power consumption for weeks at a time without fear. Also, even when the batteries are too drained to turn on and use, there's still enough juice left for keeping my data alive for about a month. Unfortunately, I just smashed the screen on my pilot so I'm in the market for a replacement. Must fit in my pocket, not need constant replacement of batteries, and still be useful (mostly for reference and for reminders). Sounds like I'll be buying a Palm IIIx.
Instead of mailing the image/text/whatever to a specific recipent, you could use a less trackable (for both sender and reciever) way of distributing it. Putting it up on somewhere that offers free anonymous web space would be good; posting to one of the alt.binaries.* would work too. Then anyone could grab it at their whim and easily hide their identity thru various anonymizers, internet coffee shop, library, etc.
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One strange thing that I recently heard about from a friend is the practice of making ads on speculation. Some creative aspiring set of artist (directors, camera folks, etc) will get together and basically make an ad for free for some random company in the hopes of either selling them the rights to it after the fact or in the hopes of getting future gigs.
These ads tend to be quite a lot more interesting than those produced by your more conservative ad companies. For example, there was a speculation tampax commercial where a woman in goggles and pristine, white undies get hosed down with an firehose of blood -- very visually striking and much more creative than regular tampax ads. Yes, it's a commercial, but its very well done. And the folks putting these out are very likely to go on to more than ads as they get more funding, reputations, etc. The same might be happening in the music industry; don't know.
Still, the creators are starting to find ways to cut out some of the middlemen. There's bound to be better ways and creative minds are likely to find some. Don't give up hope yet....
Actually, you should run right out and purchase at least one of these broken CDs... then promptly return it with complaints. The more returns they have, the more likely it is that they'll listen, eh?
I'd recommend mostly books on theory with a few books on specific implementations mixed in to show the theory in actual use. Some examples:
Operating systems
Networking
Hardware
Algorithms & Data Structures
WARNING: using arm rests while typing can cause severe injury! I actually would rest my arms on them while typing and this led to tendonitis at both of my elbows. This is a very common injury and incredibly easy to avoid. If you have arm rests, just be sure to lower them to a point that they will not even brush your elbows/arms while typing.
A good source of more info would be It's not carpal tunnel syndrome or the typing injury faq.
Problem is that it takes up quite a bit of space which == more trucks to ship that sucker around which == more consumption of fuel, etc.
Ignoring for a minute the exact patent....
I'm a little confused about the consequences of a government agency, which uses the citizens' money, patenting anything. Do the citizens and that country's companies get free licenses then since it was publicly funded? eh? What about the case of a, again, public school holding a patent?
Any ideas?
There are two reasons for extreme secrecy. Either you really do have something important to hide (think Manhattan Project) or you want to drum up interest (think GeForce 256). But if you're just drumming up interest, you need to let a few crumbs slip. Transmetta's air-tight secrecy is not worth its cost of implementation if they're not actually hiding anything worthwhile.
A third reason might be to prevent being sued off the face of the planet by big hairy competitors. Whether they are on to something or not, a lawsuit would surely distract them ($$$ + time) from development.
A fourth reason might to give themselves some flexibility. Maybe they have a general and basic idea of what they want to make but are not sure if it will work or not. Better to try it out in secret rather than getting everyone's hopes up and looking like fools if it flops or turns out to be infeasible.
I'm sure others can continue coming up with more scenarios....
How long do the batteries last on an Aero? One of my favorite things about Pilots is that I can basically forget about power consumption for weeks at a time without fear. Also, even when the batteries are too drained to turn on and use, there's still enough juice left for keeping my data alive for about a month. Unfortunately, I just smashed the screen on my pilot so I'm in the market for a replacement. Must fit in my pocket, not need constant replacement of batteries, and still be useful (mostly for reference and for reminders). Sounds like I'll be buying a Palm IIIx.
BTW, a bunch of useful Steganography info can be found at:
http://www.jjtc.com/Steganography/
A (probably incomplete) list of steganography software packages for various OSs can be found at:
http://members.iquest.net/~mrm il/stego/software.html
Instead of mailing the image/text/whatever to a specific recipent, you could use a less trackable (for both sender and reciever) way of distributing it. Putting it up on somewhere that offers free anonymous web space would be good; posting to one of the alt.binaries.* would work too. Then anyone could grab it at their whim and easily hide their identity thru various anonymizers, internet coffee shop, library, etc.