It wouldn't go to Britney if you did't download Britney. Computers can keep track of everything automatically (with software of course), and so your tax will be split up and given to EXACTLY who you downloaded. You download 1 artist, they get 100%. You download 2, they get 50% each.
There is a reason why theft and violence should be made illegal, and so they have. It isn't like everything we can do is illegal by default. There is no reason for copying to be made ILLEGAL other than to support the distribution business model that would otherwise be out of date. It was legal before they made it illegal.
Information is free. Did you pay for everything you know? Only for what you've been charged, and not the other way around.
I understand its place in the Apple product line, but in general there have been smaller and lighter notebooks on the market for a long time. For its weight, Air doesn't even have an internal DVD drive.
We already know that we can make infinite copies of data for free. Everyone with broadband access can hypothetically have absolutely everything. There is no longer a distribution cost. So what we have here are artificial constraints set by the government to prevent distribution, allowing the content creators to retain control of copying, so that they can charge you for this costless task.
Instead of having the government spend all of its resources enforcing a law that constrains *a very good thing* such as free duplication, why doesn't the government create new laws to help reinvent the industry in a way that keeps up with advances in paradigms in ways that will benefit its citizens?
For example, what if the government decided that all music labels would sell their music THROUGH the government, with the government providing a universal, flat rate subscription service for ALL music. The record labels would then get paid a percentage of the governments music revenue based on what percentage of music distributed was theirs. The fee could even be based on income levels, and could be as low as 10 dollars a month average. This is the equivalent of 10 album purchases per person per year, which is surely far above the current average. Fine, privatize this if the government can't be trusted, but even with privatization, such a system implemented with laws far surpasses the benefits of the current system implemented with the current laws.
Something like this could never happen because as it is the government is a system that is incapable of innovation, but wouldn't it be great if it could. There are so many problems the government could solve, if only the government could innovate... They can use the Law to code society intelligently, and build social applications with that code to serve its people. Only the government has control over the Law.
would be a more accurate word since intelligence is actually just the work of the programmer. As evidence, AI is yet to be smarter than the person who programmed it.
With software is it even possible to ship a product without a defect?
In any other industry the manufacturer is responsible for their products. With software, the situation is quite different because software runs in an environment, and the environment has its own defects. It also evolves and changes. For example, a Windows application can break at anytime because of something in Windows or something new on the system. This doesn't just include mistakes. Sometimes a perfectly harmless update or patch can have adverse effects .
Of course, none of this matters because all software ships with a disclaimer. So REAL doesn't really care... But still it is an interesting problem.
This article is about a news organization using semantic tools to help extract and manipulate certain data. Sure, they are related a little maybe, but if related meant equal, then every computer would break.
Just because the word "semantic" matches, they've confused the two domains, and if humans can't even do it, I wonder what our automated semantic web would look like with robots trying to make connections. I cannot even begin to imagine how hackable that would be.
Hiring a professional is cheaper and faster than becoming a professional yourself.
Imagine this problem was the other way around: A graphics person needs to code a web site and build applications. As a programmer, can you seriously recommend any "PHP in 24 hours" or "C++ for dummies" books? Would you refer them to any sites with a ton of code snippets to copy and paste? For fun, sure. But if you need the job done, and done professionally, they would have to hire a programmer, no doubt about it. As a programmer you know how much hard work went into obtaining your skills and it is the same for graphics. And just as programmers have their expensive tools, so do graphic designers. When you hire someone with those tools, you avoid paying for them yourself.
Just as there are a ton of pseudo hackers (those who say they can program but can't), graphics is not much different. Just like it takes a good programmer to find a good programmer, it takes a good designer to spot a good designer. You are, admittedly, not a good designer, so assume you are degner-blind. Fortunately, you have a workaround in your situation because you are working for a client. Have your client pick out the designer or tell you what designs they like.
You need three sets of bookmarks. The first set should include all of the sites of potential design firms or freelancers you can hire. You probably want somebody local, who can visit your office in person. If they don't have a web site and an online portfolio, DO NOT HIRE THEM. The second list should include all of the pretty big corporate web sites. This could include sun.com, apple.com, microsoft.com... not because of their products, but because we know they spent a lof of money and got their site done by a high profile web publishing firm. The third set of bookmarks should include all of your rival companies in your industry. Your primary goal is to look better than them.
Go through all of these sites with your client/boss, and have them pick out what they like and dislike. At the end, the problem should boil down to you asking your potential web designer "can you create a web site like [insert clients favorite site] and make it do [function requirements here] and include everything that I put [link to all content or current site] for under [budget]".
To make the process easier for the designer, you should have all of the content ready beforehand, and have an extensive list of example sites that represent what you want and don't want.
Also, although this sounds cruel, be harsh when critiquing the design work. It is also wise to send them back to the drawing board once or twice even if you do like their first product. If their first version was better, you can always decide on it later. But it is always good to push your designers to their creative limits, as they will come back with something better more times than not.
I am not questioning that taking your meds is important. There are many obvious cases where it would result in a fatality. I am questioning the math. As it is so often the case, these companies love to make problems sound bigger than they are and inflate their financial projections.
Also, they make it sound like they are solving a 10 billion dollar problem, but even assuming this figure is correct, their product does not solve 100% of the problem. If they are trying to profit, they will also be billing the same people, and contributing to the cost, unless they can prove that their product really works.
An example of a better, yet simpler solution off the top of my head would be automated phone calls or pages. The hospital or doctor can have an automated reminder machine that would call their patients when it is time to take their meds. This would work even with memory challenged patients, and would require zero learning.
I wonder if they used the logic that 10% of hospital visits = 10% of the healthcare industry, because wouldn't that be neglecting the nature of the visits? I would assume that the 10% of hospital visits resulting from forgetting to take pills would have a greater chance of being taken care of fairly easily... Like, "ok here are your meds and a cup of water". Sure, some problems will be more serious, but still.
In response to:
it is estimated that this accounts for 10% of all hospital visits and costs the healthcare system $100 billion per year and $60 billion to the pharmaceutical industry
Japanese arcades are very different from the US. They always keep up with the latest, usually have multiple people working there at any time, and have clean machines and floors. If a button doesn't respond right you can raise your hand and they'll replace it and give you credit.
The main boost in arcade popularity came with Street Fighter 2. Everyone was playing it, and all the school kids would stop by after school. It also provided an extremely high return rate compared to traditional arcade games where players would play as long as 20 to 30 minutes per game. Two players would go at it and one will surely lose and would only play for about 2 minutes.
The fighting games carried the arcades for a good 5 years. But after that, nothing really matched the popularity and profitability of fighting games. Although extremely popular, the main problem with gambling games at arcades is that it is illegal to gamble. So they are all just playing with tokens that cannot get turned back to cash. Of course, there is real horse racing where gambling is legal, and there are pachinco and slot machine parlors where gambling is also legal. So a lot of private arcades closed fairly quickly once they stopped making much money and turned into pachinco joints.
Namco is actually quite late in closing a lot of their stores. They make a lot of the large arcade games and are a big arcade game manufacturer, so it is understandable that they were a little late to fold, but regardless, arcades closing in Japan is extremely old news. They are also probably just using Wii as a modern excuse, since most arcade games have been ported successfully to non-Wii consoles. The dancing games are a prime example. In fact no arcade to Wii ports really come to mind...
In Japan the pachinco industry is far larger than the video game industry. In 2003, Sammy which sells Pachinco and Slot machines bought out all of Sega's stock.
and neither is privacy. This company is going to have a very hard time selling a solution to a problem they won't admit to. Most companies that gather information consider it a resource, and would rather gather it and promise privacy, than to not gather it and actually provide privacy.
Consumers might adopt a solution like this if it were up to them, but I doubt anyone would pay for it, and no, this does require cooperation of both parties, so it is not up to them, and will not work independently on the consumer side.
I know the poster wanted to make the title catchy, but come on now. Humor with celebrity references is not quite one of the stregths of the slashdot demographic. Look at the replies! they are just horrible:(
A reference is a link. "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd" is a link. If it weren't a link, then it wouldn't get traversed and become a source of traffic!
And DTD and SGML might be older than W3C, but we are talking about HTML and XHTML which are W3C standards. W3C is the one that decided that their "standards" must comply with DTD and SGML, eventhough there are plenty of anomilies and special rules that browsers know how to handle anyway.
I prefer not even using the dtd declaration, and I am guessing that 99% of the pages served do not need it. Only when you are seriously pushing HTML to its limits do DTD differences come into play anyway. And most html coders know that keeping HTML simple and doing everything on the server side using tools like PHP is far better, because assuming the browser is fully compliant to each DTD version is unreliable. Mainly because browsers don't fully comply with W3C anyway.
They insist that every document begin with a declaration that includes a link to their site. Now they are complaining about traffic.
The link in the declaration serves absolutely NO purpose other than to comply with the standard that they created. It sounds like the whole purpose was so that they could have every source page begin with a link to their site. Serves the right.
It's compatibility with Word and Excel most of the corporate world are worried about. It's Photoshop and After Effects for the design people.
Not only is the OS invisible, it really provides no value, and is a non-factor. The only value is in its capability to run applications, as are game consoles and their ability to run games. Users wouldn't install Windows even if it were free, just as they don't install Linux eventhough IT IS free.
I was refering to the physical hijacking and seizing of the aircraft, as in removing the pilot from the controls. You are correct about hijacking using hostages. A stuborn pilot can deny any demands. But even if they do go where they are told, as long as it isn't into the white house, why not take the trip to save some lives? There are better ways to get out of a country though.
Too bad they won't be able to fix existing planes, but I would seriously consider this for all new designs if I were genuinely worried about security. The next generation of mamoth planes would definitely benefit from this. It would have a bathroom too obviously.
Slashdot Mirror
It wouldn't go to Britney if you did't download Britney. Computers can keep track of everything automatically (with software of course), and so your tax will be split up and given to EXACTLY who you downloaded. You download 1 artist, they get 100%. You download 2, they get 50% each.
There is a reason why theft and violence should be made illegal, and so they have. It isn't like everything we can do is illegal by default. There is no reason for copying to be made ILLEGAL other than to support the distribution business model that would otherwise be out of date. It was legal before they made it illegal.
Information is free. Did you pay for everything you know? Only for what you've been charged, and not the other way around.
I understand its place in the Apple product line, but in general there have been smaller and lighter notebooks on the market for a long time. For its weight, Air doesn't even have an internal DVD drive.
Here is a notebook from 2004 that is only 0.07 inches thicker than MacBook Air, and that is only at the hinge. The rest of the notebook is only 0.39 inches thick:
http://www.vaio.sony.co.jp/Products/PCG-X505CP/parts.html
These guys are kicking themselves in the head right now... If only they flattened the hinge!! (I am sure they could've)
We already know that we can make infinite copies of data for free. Everyone with broadband access can hypothetically have absolutely everything. There is no longer a distribution cost. So what we have here are artificial constraints set by the government to prevent distribution, allowing the content creators to retain control of copying, so that they can charge you for this costless task.
Instead of having the government spend all of its resources enforcing a law that constrains *a very good thing* such as free duplication, why doesn't the government create new laws to help reinvent the industry in a way that keeps up with advances in paradigms in ways that will benefit its citizens?
For example, what if the government decided that all music labels would sell their music THROUGH the government, with the government providing a universal, flat rate subscription service for ALL music. The record labels would then get paid a percentage of the governments music revenue based on what percentage of music distributed was theirs. The fee could even be based on income levels, and could be as low as 10 dollars a month average. This is the equivalent of 10 album purchases per person per year, which is surely far above the current average. Fine, privatize this if the government can't be trusted, but even with privatization, such a system implemented with laws far surpasses the benefits of the current system implemented with the current laws.
Something like this could never happen because as it is the government is a system that is incapable of innovation, but wouldn't it be great if it could. There are so many problems the government could solve, if only the government could innovate... They can use the Law to code society intelligently, and build social applications with that code to serve its people. Only the government has control over the Law.
would be a more accurate word since intelligence is actually just the work of the programmer. As evidence, AI is yet to be smarter than the person who programmed it.
'If you can go in and revoke a _child_ and then demand a ransom, it's a fantastic way of attacking a business.'
Anything can be blamed for anything with the help of "experts".
With software is it even possible to ship a product without a defect?
In any other industry the manufacturer is responsible for their products. With software, the situation is quite different because software runs in an environment, and the environment has its own defects. It also evolves and changes. For example, a Windows application can break at anytime because of something in Windows or something new on the system. This doesn't just include mistakes. Sometimes a perfectly harmless update or patch can have adverse effects .
Of course, none of this matters because all software ships with a disclaimer. So REAL doesn't really care... But still it is an interesting problem.
In reponse to: My basic proposition is that if an averagely intelligent human can
the same thing,
I apologize if it was just me unable to detect the sarcasm.
The semantic web refers to a specific attempt/vision put forth by w3c.
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
This article is about a news organization using semantic tools to help extract and manipulate certain data. Sure, they are related a little maybe, but if related meant equal, then every computer would break.
Just because the word "semantic" matches, they've confused the two domains, and if humans can't even do it, I wonder what our automated semantic web would look like with robots trying to make connections. I cannot even begin to imagine how hackable that would be.
It would be even better if they actually didn't have such info.
Hiring a professional is cheaper and faster than becoming a professional yourself.
Imagine this problem was the other way around: A graphics person needs to code a web site and build applications. As a programmer, can you seriously recommend any "PHP in 24 hours" or "C++ for dummies" books? Would you refer them to any sites with a ton of code snippets to copy and paste? For fun, sure. But if you need the job done, and done professionally, they would have to hire a programmer, no doubt about it. As a programmer you know how much hard work went into obtaining your skills and it is the same for graphics. And just as programmers have their expensive tools, so do graphic designers. When you hire someone with those tools, you avoid paying for them yourself.
Just as there are a ton of pseudo hackers (those who say they can program but can't), graphics is not much different. Just like it takes a good programmer to find a good programmer, it takes a good designer to spot a good designer. You are, admittedly, not a good designer, so assume you are degner-blind. Fortunately, you have a workaround in your situation because you are working for a client. Have your client pick out the designer or tell you what designs they like.
You need three sets of bookmarks. The first set should include all of the sites of potential design firms or freelancers you can hire. You probably want somebody local, who can visit your office in person. If they don't have a web site and an online portfolio, DO NOT HIRE THEM. The second list should include all of the pretty big corporate web sites. This could include sun.com, apple.com, microsoft.com... not because of their products, but because we know they spent a lof of money and got their site done by a high profile web publishing firm. The third set of bookmarks should include all of your rival companies in your industry. Your primary goal is to look better than them.
Go through all of these sites with your client/boss, and have them pick out what they like and dislike. At the end, the problem should boil down to you asking your potential web designer "can you create a web site like [insert clients favorite site] and make it do [function requirements here] and include everything that I put [link to all content or current site] for under [budget]".
To make the process easier for the designer, you should have all of the content ready beforehand, and have an extensive list of example sites that represent what you want and don't want.
Also, although this sounds cruel, be harsh when critiquing the design work. It is also wise to send them back to the drawing board once or twice even if you do like their first product. If their first version was better, you can always decide on it later. But it is always good to push your designers to their creative limits, as they will come back with something better more times than not.
Good luck.
Wouldn't Windows fall under adware? Looking at the checklist it seems like they all apply... Especially Vista.
:(
On a side note, when I click on an email address in my Windows Mail, it opens Office Outlook. No, it is not set as my default mailer
I am not questioning that taking your meds is important. There are many obvious cases where it would result in a fatality. I am questioning the math. As it is so often the case, these companies love to make problems sound bigger than they are and inflate their financial projections.
Also, they make it sound like they are solving a 10 billion dollar problem, but even assuming this figure is correct, their product does not solve 100% of the problem. If they are trying to profit, they will also be billing the same people, and contributing to the cost, unless they can prove that their product really works.
An example of a better, yet simpler solution off the top of my head would be automated phone calls or pages. The hospital or doctor can have an automated reminder machine that would call their patients when it is time to take their meds. This would work even with memory challenged patients, and would require zero learning.
In response to: it is estimated that this accounts for 10% of all hospital visits and costs the healthcare system $100 billion per year and $60 billion to the pharmaceutical industry
Japanese arcades are very different from the US. They always keep up with the latest, usually have multiple people working there at any time, and have clean machines and floors. If a button doesn't respond right you can raise your hand and they'll replace it and give you credit.
The main boost in arcade popularity came with Street Fighter 2. Everyone was playing it, and all the school kids would stop by after school. It also provided an extremely high return rate compared to traditional arcade games where players would play as long as 20 to 30 minutes per game. Two players would go at it and one will surely lose and would only play for about 2 minutes.
The fighting games carried the arcades for a good 5 years. But after that, nothing really matched the popularity and profitability of fighting games. Although extremely popular, the main problem with gambling games at arcades is that it is illegal to gamble. So they are all just playing with tokens that cannot get turned back to cash. Of course, there is real horse racing where gambling is legal, and there are pachinco and slot machine parlors where gambling is also legal. So a lot of private arcades closed fairly quickly once they stopped making much money and turned into pachinco joints.
Namco is actually quite late in closing a lot of their stores. They make a lot of the large arcade games and are a big arcade game manufacturer, so it is understandable that they were a little late to fold, but regardless, arcades closing in Japan is extremely old news. They are also probably just using Wii as a modern excuse, since most arcade games have been ported successfully to non-Wii consoles. The dancing games are a prime example. In fact no arcade to Wii ports really come to mind...
In Japan the pachinco industry is far larger than the video game industry. In 2003, Sammy which sells Pachinco and Slot machines bought out all of Sega's stock.
Just FYI.
and neither is privacy. This company is going to have a very hard time selling a solution to a problem they won't admit to. Most companies that gather information consider it a resource, and would rather gather it and promise privacy, than to not gather it and actually provide privacy.
Consumers might adopt a solution like this if it were up to them, but I doubt anyone would pay for it, and no, this does require cooperation of both parties, so it is not up to them, and will not work independently on the consumer side.
I know the poster wanted to make the title catchy, but come on now. Humor with celebrity references is not quite one of the stregths of the slashdot demographic. Look at the replies! they are just horrible :(
A reference is a link. "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd" is a link. If it weren't a link, then it wouldn't get traversed and become a source of traffic!
And DTD and SGML might be older than W3C, but we are talking about HTML and XHTML which are W3C standards. W3C is the one that decided that their "standards" must comply with DTD and SGML, eventhough there are plenty of anomilies and special rules that browsers know how to handle anyway.
I prefer not even using the dtd declaration, and I am guessing that 99% of the pages served do not need it. Only when you are seriously pushing HTML to its limits do DTD differences come into play anyway. And most html coders know that keeping HTML simple and doing everything on the server side using tools like PHP is far better, because assuming the browser is fully compliant to each DTD version is unreliable. Mainly because browsers don't fully comply with W3C anyway.
They insist that every document begin with a declaration that includes a link to their site. Now they are complaining about traffic.
The link in the declaration serves absolutely NO purpose other than to comply with the standard that they created. It sounds like the whole purpose was so that they could have every source page begin with a link to their site. Serves the right.
It's compatibility with Word and Excel most of the corporate world are worried about. It's Photoshop and After Effects for the design people.
Not only is the OS invisible, it really provides no value, and is a non-factor. The only value is in its capability to run applications, as are game consoles and their ability to run games. Users wouldn't install Windows even if it were free, just as they don't install Linux eventhough IT IS free.
I was refering to the physical hijacking and seizing of the aircraft, as in removing the pilot from the controls. You are correct about hijacking using hostages. A stuborn pilot can deny any demands. But even if they do go where they are told, as long as it isn't into the white house, why not take the trip to save some lives? There are better ways to get out of a country though.
It might be just me, but whenever I open the top page an ad at the top right corner covers half of the latest post.
Too bad they won't be able to fix existing planes, but I would seriously consider this for all new designs if I were genuinely worried about security. The next generation of mamoth planes would definitely benefit from this. It would have a bathroom too obviously.