In this article Timex recently announced a new watch with messaging capabilities. They worked with Motorola and Skytel, apparently. The only problem is that there is no way to send messages, only to receive them for now. Still, it might be good for IT guys who need to get urgent "our network has been compromised by script kiddies get your ass over here" messages, but don't want the inconvenience of carrying another device.
I think that the hard part is getting companies to realize that it's free as in speech, not free as in beer. As much as I like free (price) software, I think opinions won't be changed unless OSS moves to a buy-our-product-and-get-the-freely-modifiable-sour ce-code model instead of being able to download it without cost on the Internet. That way companiess will make the solid business decision which avoids lock-in and the problems it causes ("Hey, we can modify FooApp in house instead of having to upgrade"). An extension of this option is to have a collaboration between related businesses on a project (a bit like Apache) that creates a basic version of an app that can be customized to suit each business' needs. This gives the benefits of a large bug-tracking team which is the major advantage of open source, while avoiding the "hippy-dippy Richard Stallman information wants to be free" attitude that scares businesses.
I think the story in Minority Report is that in THE FUTURE (TM) there are psychics who can predict what crimes will be committed and by whom. The main character is a psychic, and he predicts that he will murder someone. Whether he believes he is capable of murder turns into a morality play about free will versus destiny.
I got a funny lookin' hed.
Peepul say it dont look like a hed at all, tho'
Thay say it look like a bucket o' sar-deens.
But thay be rong -- it mah hed!
Dude, lay off the cough syrup, already. We're starting to worry about you.
I guess the authorites assumed that only criminals can afford tickets to the Super Bowl!
LOL. "Outlaw football and only outlaws will have football."
Re:Been done here for ages, and it works.
on
The Unblinking Eye
·
· Score: 3
Do you think our democracy "worked" as you describe for the folks of darker complexion who were discouraged from voting in Florida by police checkpoints near the polls
From what I've read, those claims were fairly baseless; the police checkpoint was a mile and a half away from the polls, and was a response to crime committed in the area. That being said, your overall point about "choice" in American politics is legitimate: we got to choose between the son of a former president and the son of a former senator, and for all intents and purposes it was a tie, perhaps justifying Nader's observation that there were no real differences between the two.
I think you'd be hard pressed to explain how California's disastrous power situation stems from knee-jerk environmentalism.
Actually, environmentalism is part of the equation, as well as the aforementioned "deregulation." Due to pressure by environmentalist groups, CA hasn't built a new power plant in 12 years, while the demand for power has gone up due to growth in the high tech sector. As a result, California has to buy its power from other states and countries. When the "deregulation" was imlemented, it made it legally more difficult to raise prices on consumers. Since CA didn't have the necessary native-produced power to accommodate everyone and power companies weren't allowed to raise rates to reduce people's consumption, they had to buy more and more power from outside sources (losing money to do it). So, bad things might have happened without pressure from environmentalist groups, but it wouldn't have been this bad.
[Fade in on Gates and Jobs sitting in a car on a city street]
Jobs: I heard you were in Europe recently? Gates: Yeah. It's like America, but there's a lot of little differences though. Jobs: Like what? Gates: For example, you know what they call a mouse in France? Jobs: You mean they don't call it a mouse? Gates: Naw, the language difference. They call it 'le souris.' Jobs: That's pretty fscked up. Now let's kill some people.
I see what they're doing... They'll license this "DreamCast on a chip" to the cable companies. It'll be something like this:
Me: Hi, I'd like to sign up for cable service. Cable Company: Okay, would you like the movie channels too? Me: I guess. CC: Do you have a computer? We also have high speed internet access. Me: sure. CC:Do you like video games? You can download and play Sega DreamCast games on your cable box for only an extra $10 a month. Me: Ten dollars a month!?! That's cheaper than HBO! Sign me up!
I agree; I thought the voicebox guy was a vivid image that might prevent people from smoking, and I can imagine that his generation didn't know smoking caused cancer. But the second ad with the 46 year old woman's husband was stupid. Assuming she died recently, this means she started smoking in the 1970s, well within the era of Surgeon General warnings, and a few years before the antismoking groups really got started. She knew it caused cancer, but smoked anyway and died, and now we're supposed to be mad at the tobacco companies? I feel sorry for her family, but where is the personal responsibility.
Hehe. I used to use the same sig on my e-mail, and I had enough problems explaining to non tech people what it meant, let alone what a "leet haxor" was, so I doubt those people are ready for another level of obscurity...
The XFL is about image far more than the NFL is. The image is "we're violent beast men that will focus on cracking heads instead of 'protecting the quarterback' or dancing after touchdowns, then go home and diddle the well-endowed cheerleaders afterwards," but it's an image nonetheless. (It's owned by Vince McMahon for cryin' out loud!) That being said, I can hardly wait for the season to begin.
Anyone in favor of replacing Natalie Portman with Britany Spears
Naw, Britney would have to be in a major scifi movie trilogy to appeal to the/. crowd. Maybe she can make a cameo in the "Lord of the Rings" films as Frodo's ladyfriend, Dildo Boobins.
I know its chic to criticize advertising, and I like a good postmodern novel as well as anybody, but I think that characterizing advertising as "everything that's wrong with capitalism" is an exaggeration. First of all, capitalism (and European capitalism/socialism where governments tax but don't nationalize industry) has led to the first large affluent class in history. Rather than having bread lines, most Americans have disposable income. Second, history shows that people like having stuff, whether its commoners' wooden dolls or nobles' pricey silks from far-off lands. The desire to have stuff may well have to do with social status (e.g. Bordieu's theory of "cultural capital") or Freud's "death drive", the avoidance of thinking about one's mortality by preoccupying your mind with worldly matters.
But it's not the "fault" of capitalism; rather, capitalism gives people the ability to fulfill their desire to collect. Advertising, then, is a way to get people to collect your product instead of the numerous others available.
And its not all that fun to watch science. Unless the experiment involves toxic chemicals or fire. Reminds me of the "Far Side" cartoon where (IIRC) evil alien overlords force their human prisoner to differentiate equations in a packed stadium for their amusement.
I'm just waiting for Aerosmith to get back on heroin and start rocking again. Their last three albums are all sound alike "sensitive" ballads. I mean, if you're going to wear vinyl form-fitting pants at sixty years old, you gotta have attitude, man. Drugs, songs about drugs, sex with barely legal groupies, songs about said groupies, and obscene lip/tongue gestures are what made them rock gods in the seventies. Had Steven Tyler molested Britney live on stage before an audience of millions, I would have a newfound respect for them. As it is, they suck.
They just (the game has been over for 10 or 15 minutes) replayed the old school Pepsi commercial with Cindy Crawford. Sweet! Forget your cgi Jar-Jar wassup aliens; this is how commercials were meant to be made. Now why couldn't we have had a super slow-mo 280 degree camera pan of her?
I liked the "What are you doing" commercial better, even if it is a mildly offensive piece of class warfare contrasting "the beer of the common man" against the "beer of yuppie stockbrokers." "Watching the financial recap, drinking an import" fits my dad to a tee. One of two commercials this year that actually made me laugh. (The other one was the cameo by the tattered pets.com sock in the e*trade ghosttown.)
Believe me, they've thought of this. When experimenting with crops, genetic engineers deliberately make them so they can't reproduce. As a result, Farmer Max could theoretically grow normal corn next to feed corn genetically modified to make his pigs more healthy, next to corn artificially high in vitamins that people don't get in the third world, and the corn won't interbreed.
I think you will find that Mozart did not have any copyright protection!
...Which is the point exactly. Copyright is an attempt to proect artists and artisans from a different era, and may need some revamping. Seeing a Mozart impersonator in Vegas is much different from listening to the real deal: if there were, say, bootleg wax cylinders of "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," I bet he would've been pissed. The reason for copyright (to protect an individual's creative works and allow him/her to profit from those works others find useful) is not linked to the current implementation of that policy, which should be modified for new economic moment (we're moving from a need-based culture to a gift-based one; the whole "end of scarcity" argument in the article). Of course, how to modify the system while still accomplishing its goals is the million dollar question.
Good point. The argument as I understand it, though, is not the application of Locke's views on ownership, but his views on property law. There is a big difference in these two concepts: property law is based not upon owning anything in the traditonal sense, but upon getting a set of rights when you live on a piece of property. By living somewhere for a certain time (or getting a transferrable claim from someone who has) you get the right to not be removed from that land, to use the land as you see fit (building, farming, etc.), you have the right to profit from such actions, etc. This is different from "possession is 80 percent of the law," since there is an abstract system at play where essentially nobody "owns" the land (it's all public domain) but you get certain protections that allow you to use it over time (and pass it down to your children when you're done).
The whole point of the patent system is to encourage scientific discovery. The patent system exists "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." The way the system is supposed to work is like so: It takes a lot of money to map a genome, and this way the individual/company can make some money off their discovery. If there were no patent law, they a) wouldn't be as motivated to explore, b) if they did map the genome and made some genetically modified products (but didn't patent them), they wouldn't have to share the details of the discovery because it would be a trade secret (like the formula for Coke; there are stiff penalties if someone leaks it, and competitors are barred from trying to infiltrate Coca Cola headquarters to learn it; they must independently discover the formula to have a legal claim). This way, the details of the discovery are available to other scientists, though they are limited in applying the knowledge for a short period of time (around 20 years, IIRC) while the discoverer can make a proft.
Slashdot Mirror
Or get that bobbing head bird to hit the keyboard like Homer Simpson did.
In this article Timex recently announced a new watch with messaging capabilities. They worked with Motorola and Skytel, apparently. The only problem is that there is no way to send messages, only to receive them for now. Still, it might be good for IT guys who need to get urgent "our network has been compromised by script kiddies get your ass over here" messages, but don't want the inconvenience of carrying another device.
I think that the hard part is getting companies to realize that it's free as in speech, not free as in beer. As much as I like free (price) software, I think opinions won't be changed unless OSS moves to a buy-our-product-and-get-the-freely-modifiable-sour ce-code model instead of being able to download it without cost on the Internet. That way companiess will make the solid business decision which avoids lock-in and the problems it causes ("Hey, we can modify FooApp in house instead of having to upgrade"). An extension of this option is to have a collaboration between related businesses on a project (a bit like Apache) that creates a basic version of an app that can be customized to suit each business' needs. This gives the benefits of a large bug-tracking team which is the major advantage of open source, while avoiding the "hippy-dippy Richard Stallman information wants to be free" attitude that scares businesses.
I think the story in Minority Report is that in THE FUTURE (TM) there are psychics who can predict what crimes will be committed and by whom. The main character is a psychic, and he predicts that he will murder someone. Whether he believes he is capable of murder turns into a morality play about free will versus destiny.
Dude, lay off the cough syrup, already. We're starting to worry about you.
LOL. "Outlaw football and only outlaws will have football."
From what I've read, those claims were fairly baseless; the police checkpoint was a mile and a half away from the polls, and was a response to crime committed in the area. That being said, your overall point about "choice" in American politics is legitimate: we got to choose between the son of a former president and the son of a former senator, and for all intents and purposes it was a tie, perhaps justifying Nader's observation that there were no real differences between the two.
Actually, environmentalism is part of the equation, as well as the aforementioned "deregulation." Due to pressure by environmentalist groups, CA hasn't built a new power plant in 12 years, while the demand for power has gone up due to growth in the high tech sector. As a result, California has to buy its power from other states and countries. When the "deregulation" was imlemented, it made it legally more difficult to raise prices on consumers. Since CA didn't have the necessary native-produced power to accommodate everyone and power companies weren't allowed to raise rates to reduce people's consumption, they had to buy more and more power from outside sources (losing money to do it). So, bad things might have happened without pressure from environmentalist groups, but it wouldn't have been this bad.
[Fade in on Gates and Jobs sitting in a car on a city street]
Jobs: I heard you were in Europe recently?
Gates: Yeah. It's like America, but there's a lot of little differences though.
Jobs: Like what?
Gates: For example, you know what they call a mouse in France?
Jobs: You mean they don't call it a mouse?
Gates: Naw, the language difference. They call it 'le souris.'
Jobs: That's pretty fscked up. Now let's kill some people.
[Cue music]
Yeah, but it will probably do better than the "Jesus the Miniseries" on television a few months ago. Would that make Linus bigger than Jesus?
Me: Hi, I'd like to sign up for cable service.
Cable Company: Okay, would you like the movie channels too?
Me: I guess.
CC: Do you have a computer? We also have high speed internet access.
Me: sure.
CC:Do you like video games? You can download and play Sega DreamCast games on your cable box for only an extra $10 a month.
Me: Ten dollars a month!?! That's cheaper than HBO! Sign me up!
I agree; I thought the voicebox guy was a vivid image that might prevent people from smoking, and I can imagine that his generation didn't know smoking caused cancer. But the second ad with the 46 year old woman's husband was stupid. Assuming she died recently, this means she started smoking in the 1970s, well within the era of Surgeon General warnings, and a few years before the antismoking groups really got started. She knew it caused cancer, but smoked anyway and died, and now we're supposed to be mad at the tobacco companies? I feel sorry for her family, but where is the personal responsibility.
Hehe. I used to use the same sig on my e-mail, and I had enough problems explaining to non tech people what it meant, let alone what a "leet haxor" was, so I doubt those people are ready for another level of obscurity...
The XFL is about image far more than the NFL is. The image is "we're violent beast men that will focus on cracking heads instead of 'protecting the quarterback' or dancing after touchdowns, then go home and diddle the well-endowed cheerleaders afterwards," but it's an image nonetheless. (It's owned by Vince McMahon for cryin' out loud!) That being said, I can hardly wait for the season to begin.
Naw, Britney would have to be in a major scifi movie trilogy to appeal to the /. crowd. Maybe she can make a cameo in the "Lord of the Rings" films as Frodo's ladyfriend, Dildo Boobins.
But it's not the "fault" of capitalism; rather, capitalism gives people the ability to fulfill their desire to collect. Advertising, then, is a way to get people to collect your product instead of the numerous others available.
I thought it was too predictable. Maybe I wasn't drunk enough.
And its not all that fun to watch science. Unless the experiment involves toxic chemicals or fire. Reminds me of the "Far Side" cartoon where (IIRC) evil alien overlords force their human prisoner to differentiate equations in a packed stadium for their amusement.
I'm just waiting for Aerosmith to get back on heroin and start rocking again. Their last three albums are all sound alike "sensitive" ballads. I mean, if you're going to wear vinyl form-fitting pants at sixty years old, you gotta have attitude, man. Drugs, songs about drugs, sex with barely legal groupies, songs about said groupies, and obscene lip/tongue gestures are what made them rock gods in the seventies. Had Steven Tyler molested Britney live on stage before an audience of millions, I would have a newfound respect for them. As it is, they suck.
They just (the game has been over for 10 or 15 minutes) replayed the old school Pepsi commercial with Cindy Crawford. Sweet! Forget your cgi Jar-Jar wassup aliens; this is how commercials were meant to be made. Now why couldn't we have had a super slow-mo 280 degree camera pan of her?
I liked the "What are you doing" commercial better, even if it is a mildly offensive piece of class warfare contrasting "the beer of the common man" against the "beer of yuppie stockbrokers." "Watching the financial recap, drinking an import" fits my dad to a tee. One of two commercials this year that actually made me laugh. (The other one was the cameo by the tattered pets.com sock in the e*trade ghosttown.)
Believe me, they've thought of this. When experimenting with crops, genetic engineers deliberately make them so they can't reproduce. As a result, Farmer Max could theoretically grow normal corn next to feed corn genetically modified to make his pigs more healthy, next to corn artificially high in vitamins that people don't get in the third world, and the corn won't interbreed.
...Which is the point exactly. Copyright is an attempt to proect artists and artisans from a different era, and may need some revamping. Seeing a Mozart impersonator in Vegas is much different from listening to the real deal: if there were, say, bootleg wax cylinders of "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," I bet he would've been pissed. The reason for copyright (to protect an individual's creative works and allow him/her to profit from those works others find useful) is not linked to the current implementation of that policy, which should be modified for new economic moment (we're moving from a need-based culture to a gift-based one; the whole "end of scarcity" argument in the article). Of course, how to modify the system while still accomplishing its goals is the million dollar question.
Good point. The argument as I understand it, though, is not the application of Locke's views on ownership, but his views on property law. There is a big difference in these two concepts: property law is based not upon owning anything in the traditonal sense, but upon getting a set of rights when you live on a piece of property. By living somewhere for a certain time (or getting a transferrable claim from someone who has) you get the right to not be removed from that land, to use the land as you see fit (building, farming, etc.), you have the right to profit from such actions, etc. This is different from "possession is 80 percent of the law," since there is an abstract system at play where essentially nobody "owns" the land (it's all public domain) but you get certain protections that allow you to use it over time (and pass it down to your children when you're done).
The whole point of the patent system is to encourage scientific discovery. The patent system exists "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." The way the system is supposed to work is like so: It takes a lot of money to map a genome, and this way the individual/company can make some money off their discovery. If there were no patent law, they a) wouldn't be as motivated to explore, b) if they did map the genome and made some genetically modified products (but didn't patent them), they wouldn't have to share the details of the discovery because it would be a trade secret (like the formula for Coke; there are stiff penalties if someone leaks it, and competitors are barred from trying to infiltrate Coca Cola headquarters to learn it; they must independently discover the formula to have a legal claim). This way, the details of the discovery are available to other scientists, though they are limited in applying the knowledge for a short period of time (around 20 years, IIRC) while the discoverer can make a proft.