I have to say, the Apache web server is quite a high quality piece of work. The fact that an obscure security issue has been found is a good sign that developers and users are on top of things in the constant struggle against remote exploiters.
I am confident that a fix will be available very shortly. Serious sysadmins will have their servers patched sooner than any serious damage takes place. I don't have the same confidence when it comes to Microsoft's products.
I'd like to see Mozilla and GNOME join forces. Their project goals, which are already quite similar (Internet operating system versus network object model environment), would be merged. As one project, an efficient, platform-independant desktop environment would become reality. Its quality would blow away anything made by Microsoft or Apple. I see a consolidation of that nature heavily reducing the amount of duplicated work. And it would work because it would be cool.
This has got to be the most horrible development in the entertainment industry since the death of the BetaMax. It's all about the video cassette. DVD sucks! Sing to the tune of 'Who's afraid of the big bad wolf':
D-V-D is a piece of shit,
a piece of shit,
a piece of shit,
D-V-D is a piece of shit,
la la la la la!
Seriously, now... I won't be caught dead in a Circuit City. They pissed me off a number of times, most notably when they lost record of a hefty payment I made, and I had to jump through a number of hoops to prove that I paid, when I could have been lounging around my house, enjoying a Negra Modelo, or fixing my Hemicuda instead. And then, when they supported DIVX--remember the pay-per-view DVD-like disc company run by a bunch of sleezy lawyers? And people bought a thing called DIVX GOLD, that was supposed to "unlock" your discs for unlimited viewing? Now that DIVX is gone, they can't view the movies they BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! DIVX was the last straw. So I don't give a damn what Circuit City does, because they SUCK and I don't support them.
The next thing you know, scientists will be able to grow any part of the body in factories. Companies will compete on the speed of delivery. If you get sent to the hospital with a broken heart or something, they'll hook you up to a plastic one in the meantime, and within 24 hours, your replacement heart will arrive, UPS next day air.
Once that's perfected, people will order a bunch of spare parts beforehand and store them in their garage refrigerators. Suppose you're in the garage cutting some two-by-fours and you accidently cut your arm off. A quick call to the paramedics and they'll be at your place within a few minutes to thaw and install your spare arm on-site, while you look the other way and enjoy a Negra Modelo.
See, there shouldn't be a law against making copy-protected CDs, because then you'd have to make specific statutes for and against every format out there, and the next thing you know, the government has some 100,000 pages of law describing what is allowed and what isn't on a shiny disk with a hole in the center.
Most tech-savvy users know what to do with various CD formats anyway.
On the other hand, since most people who buy CDs don't know jack about technology (and probably don't know what a molecule is either), CDs sold as audio CDs should carry PROMINENT warning labels on the front and back of the case. It should cover about 1/4 of the surface of the cover, and read in large letters: "WARNING! This CD is crippled by copy protection. Nearly all CD players in the world cannot play this CD."
Actually, the law should state that if someone picks up one of these defective CDs not knowing of its crippleware, and discovers it doesn't work in a CD player of some type or other, the music industry is required to refund their money plus a penalty to cover inconvenience, supply a free, uncrippled copy, and an unlimited, nonexclusive, transferable license to do anything with that free copy, including but not limited to reproduction, sale, loan, rental, etc., without compensating the recording industry in any way. Furthermore, the recording industry would send that person a bottle of Negra Modelo for each copy that person sells without compensating the recording industry. (The recording industry would be required to pay twice the price for each bottle of Negra Modelo it buys.) The government would require the recording industry to spend 99% of their profits advertising this law, so that everybody would know and take advantage of the recording industry. (The other 1% would be paid to a government committee whose sole purpose is figuring out new and innovative ways to screw over the recording industry.) I believe that would be a reasonable and prudent solution to the problems posed by the evil recording industry. Those bastards.
Many science fiction books have been written on terraforming another planet, such as Mars, making it possible for humans to live there. I think the solution to global warming is so obvious, I don't know why the scientists haven't thought of this one:
Terraform the world's deserts! Seriously. Transport large amounts of dirt mixed with clay, horse shit, compost and seeds of various plants in large dump trucks with a mechanism to evenly release this material from the back of the truck, onto the ground. The truck would pull behind it a piece of military-strength farm equipment that digs into the ground and mixes this dirt with the existing sand. These truckloads would only cover an area about 10 feet wide and maybe 200 feet long. I'd say you'd need about 100 of these trucks to build a small oasis in the desert. In this oasis, dig a deep hole every 20 feet or so and plant pre-grown trees of various types in it, filling the hole entirely with the horse shit mixture I described above. Install a huge water tower next to the oasis, and constantly spray water mixed with nutrients onto the oasis.
Next step: Once the first oasis starts to grow and turn into a small habitat, use the experience gained to install similar oases every few miles in every direction. Once this grid of oases covers the entire desert, start installing new ones between existing oases.
Within ten years, with constant work and lots of funding, a desert can be turned into a forest. When this forest gets mature enough, it will automatically start to rain there because of vapors being released into the air. This should take place in as many parts of the world as possible, leaving a few deserts here and there, because there's a reason they're a part of the landscape.
Build a bunch of space stations where the whole ecology is engineered to be a proper cycle. All trash would be turned back into food inside the space station; food for people, animals and plants. With the experience gained in space, cities on Earth would be engineered and "retrofitted" to perform similar cycles. All products and manufacturing facilities would be engineered to act as a proper member of the cycle. As such, all garbage will be prevented entirely, as it would actually be a product for further growth. At the same time, the use of fossil fuels would stop, and other, more environmentally friendly methods would be used. All of this would take place over the next hundred years or so. (Hey, if technology and the human ability to accomplish huge things has developed so rapidly over the past 200 years, surely all of this can become reality in the next 100.)
The point is that by the time global temperatures would have melted the ice caps and caused the next Noah's flood, it would be prevented because the temperatures--and indeed the whole Earth system--would have been balanced once again. At that point, it would be time to put snow machines all over Alaska and the surrounding islands to rebuild the permafrost.
A web browser in the BIOS, eh? That's kind of like having a web browser in the operating system... the same operating system that doesn't have a built-in spelling checker, but has a web browser built in. That makes a lot of sense.
No, I've got a better idea. Make a BIOS that contains the whole damn operating system. Seriously. You turn the computer on and it's on within about 5 seconds and ready to rumble. There's no waiting for the BIOS to bring up the bootloader, and the bootloader to bring up the other bootloader, and that bootloader to bring up a menu of operating systems, and that will bring up the bootloader, which will bring up the bootloader, which will boot the kernel, which will start all your shit. No, instead, there would be a session set up at the BIOS manufacturer's facility, and when you turn the computer on, it'll do some hardwired shit like turn the hard drive on and shit, and then the operation system comes on, but it never boots--the image in memory is the saved state of what it was doing when the BIOS manufacturer "captured" the session and burnt it on the BIOS. Then, there is no booting, no shutting down, no nothing. The operating system never knew it was just off two seconds ago. Of course, some shit would have to be initialized, like finding the DHCP host, or figgering out the time, or other shit like that, but the addresses of those things in memory could be initialized with the proper values just before starting the shit up. This would prevent problems like people's system folders gettig all fucked up, and they'll have to spend less time reinstalling and more time drinking Negra Modelo. Oh well.
Solution to a depressing problem.
on
Ruling the Root
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· Score: 1
Hey, I have a BETTER idea! Set up your own damn domain name servers, and allow everyone to get domain names first-come-first-served. FREE. And there's no such thing as suing someone for using your company name in their domain name or some bullshit like that. Then, the whole world will switch to this new domain name system in less than a minute and a half, and ICANN or whatever those idjits are called will disappear off the face of the Earth. And the RIAA will push the MPAA to the east and vanquish them. And the people will push the RIAA into the west until they fall off the edge of the world, and the people will drink Negra Modelo, and there will be much rejoicing in the land.
Nintendo ROCKS! The original Nintendo, the one that went bad after a few years and kids had to blow into the game cartridges in hopes of getting the damn thing to boot properly. Ah, those were the good ol' days. Not like now, with PS2s where you put a DVD in and play a game with life-like graphics. Back in the day, the graphics were blocky and crappy, so they were made up for in the quality of the games. Nowadays, games SUCK, but nobody cares because the graphics look so cool. It's like Microsoft's stupid excuse for an alleged operating system. They put all sorts of fancy graphics on that piece of crap, trying to persuade people that it works properly, but I know the truth: Windows SUCKS! But Negra Modelo rocks! I can't wait until Negra Modelo ships an operating system; it'll be just as good as the ale. And that's why the original Nintendo rocks!!! I can't wait until NetBSD comes on a Nintendo game cartridge that you have to blow into to make it boot. Oh well.
C for graphics, eh?!?!? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. Want fast graphics? Code that shit in tight assembly, utilizing all kinds of special processor tricks earned through many years of hard-core determination in squeezing every last cycle out of the hardware, and then some. I don't care if it takes a year to implement something that could be implemented in a day using this Cg or Gc or whatever it's called. The market is a piece of shit, don't pay attention to it. I don't care that people want shit now. Management is irrelevant. Customers are irrelevant. Do it right. Do it in assembly. And when it comes time to port that shit to another platform, you'll have to write it all over again, because assembly language is as portable as a coal mine. (Ever tried to move one?) And that's the way Real Programmers (tm) do it, like Mel, not wimps like you. C is for wimps.
There are amazing emerging technologies out there. The most recent is the semiconductor diode, an area of continuing study. But you'll probably want to get involved in emerging circuitry for AM radios. This will allow such things as stereophonic broadcasts on the AM band. To quote from a recent magazine, "Circuits will have to be designed to increase the bandwidth and cut the distortion, as well as to encode and decode the stereo information, in AM transmitters and receivers." (Electronic Design, May 27, 2002, page 26 "Flashback")
Analysts estimate that this technology will emerge as the most profitable market in the technology sector since the invention of the light bulb and the Negra Modelo bottling machine.
It's like the Sprite commercial. "You wanna play all-star basketball? Practice. You want a good friggen soda or whatever? Drink Sprite." I like that one because they're not trying to advertise that drinking Sprite will make you an all-star basketball player or whatever.
So you wanna get good at shootin' pool? Go to a bar that's got pool tables, see, order a pint of Negra Modelo, walk up to the nearest chick who looks about 30 years old, and ask her to shoot pool with you. Go to the pool table, drop a bunch of quarters inside, take a huge gulp of Negra Modelo, and then start playing. Yeah, you're gonna lose, because all 30 year old chicks who hang out at bars kick ass at pool. But play about ten games or so, and when you finish your pint, get another one. As you get progressively more drunk, your accuracy will increase, and your embarassment at sucking so bad will decrease. Do this about two or three nights a week--ask the chick which nights she hangs out there, because all 30 year old chicks at bars hang out at that bar on certain days--and before you know it, you're a pro. No need to cheat.
Oh well... does anybody ever listen to ME?! Not until it's too late. Ooooooooooooh well.
Dude... It isn't as if people aren't wasting enough time in front of that damn tube. And now they're gonna make it 3d?!?!?!?! Why not just build a damn holodeck, like in Star Trek or whatever. Like that one episode, "Ship in a Bottle" (for those of you who don't remember, it's the one where the blind dude and Data ask the computer for a Sherlock Holmes mystery that would be a challenge for Data to solve. And the computer gave it to them. I would have just asked for a bottle of Negra Modelo, but they asked for a bottle with the whole friggen Startrek Enterprise inside.) And when Windows goes crazy, you'll think you're walking around your house, but you're still in the holodeck and weird shit is happening all around. That would be really friggen weird.
I think the Internet domain name system should be regulated in such a way that everything is separated into well-defined hierarchies.
First, domain names owned by any government agency, business or individual worldwide would be organized under a two letter country code corresponding to the country where the server is physically located. If someone or something has servers physically located in multiple countries, then and only then can they get a domain name that isn't organized under a country code (but the name itself would have to be identical).
Domain names would further be organized by the type of services offered. So.com would apply to for-profit companies;.org to non-profit organizations ONLY;.edu to educational institutions, and I suppose something like.pri for private individual(s). I don't know if there's use for a.net, unless someone can define exactly what it's for. So a university in the U.S. would be something.edu.us. A university with servers in multiple countries would get something.edu, something.edu.us, something.edu.mx, etc. for all the countries involved. Or something like that. Then, the domain name holder subdivides their domain into various parts. And names are first-come, first served once again. Let people buy and sell domain names all they want, and I don't care what problems it brings up.
Oh yeah, and get people used to the fact that websites aren't www.something.com. It's gonna be a pretty darn technological world soon (if it isn't already)... it's time for people to be a bit more educated and a lot less stupid. Ooooooooh well. Time for another Negra Modelo.
This is unacceptable! There is no excuse for any government or entity in power in any country or state in the world for prosecuting anybody for publishing anything! There should be an international law that guarentees every person's rights throughout the world as stated in the original Constitution of the united States, taking into consideration the years of experiences gained by millions of Americans who have given equal rights to women, blacks, and anybody else for that matter. In other words, the ideas of our forefathers should be applied to everywhere in the world. I think all the people of the world should be horrified by this criminal act on the part of Zimbabwe's government, and we should all write a hundred letters a day in protest, and mail them all to Zimbabwe's offices. The next thing you know, Zimbabwe becomes the world's leading supplier of recycled paper, and they'll be so busy doing that, they won't have time to prosecute anybody anymore.
I can tell you this much: I certainly DID shiver when I read that sentence. I can tell you that reading George Orwell's 1984 will help you (or anybody) put this kind of thing into perspective. If things like this continue to happen, Digital Rights Management will soon be the way of the world, and there will be no such thing as property. Imagine having to pay royalties, or taxes, or rent, whatever you want to call it, on all of your belongings, which actually don't belong to you, but are merely licensed to you for your temporary use. Can you imagine the disastrous effects of something like that?
Don't believe that things are moving in this direction? Just think of what happens when every corporation starts running to the federal government for legislation every time their profits fall a little.
Just one more thing that I must add to my original post on this matter. It is high time that corporations STOP running to the federal government for new legislation every time something happens in the market that lowers their profits. And it is high time that the federal government pass a law banning laws to protect the profits of corporations (with the exception of the original copyright, trademark and patent laws, which provide quite enough protection anyway). There is no such thing as a right to profit. When a corporation's profits decline, they should figure out ways to compete through better products, higher efficiency, simply better marketing. Setting costs, for example, is a part of marketing, and I believe the music industry in particular should lower the prices of new CDs. If a new CD cost only five bucks more than a used one, many people would say, "Oh, it's only five bucks more, I'll just get the new one." Instead, new CDs are priced outrageously, and when people don't buy, the music industry runs crying to the federal government.
If something isn't done to stop this trend, we'll soon find ourselves paying taxes to corporations for the use of every product we own and have paid for.
This has got to be the most fscked up and outrageous thing I have ever read! The record industry has absolutely NO RIGHT whatsoever to demand payment for used CD sales because those CDs have already been bought and paid for.
If Joe sells Bob a cow, Joe can't charge Bob a tax if Bob decides to sell that cow to Bill. That's just how it goes.
The record industry is a greedy, disgusting bunch of corporate scum, with no respect whatsoever for anybody or anything. They are NOT protecting artists, because the artists whose content is published are forced to sign over their copyright to the record company! Only independant artists are not affected, and those are the only artists whose works should be supported by those of us who hate the record industry.
The next thing you know, you'll have to pay Home Depot a royalty every time you flip on or off a light switch that you bought in their store. Absolutely ridiculous.
Read George Orwell's 1984. It will really open your eyes.
These are seriously the best screenshots of GNOME that I've ever seen. Honestly, most screenshots out there do look like barf, all cluttered up, with colors that don't match. It's no wonder that a lot of folks out there hiss at GNOME. I think someone should submit a bug report telling the GNOME folks that their default screen should look like these screenshots. I'm not kidding!
Somewhere in Michael Abrash's awesome Black Book of Graphics Programming, he mentions that his grandfather (IIRC) used to do the cross-word puzzle in every sunday's newspaper... in INK. And he never messed up or had so much as a smudge on the paper. The reason is that before he wrote anything down, he thought about it from every angle, and only wrote when he was sure his answer was right.
I try to do the same when I code. Overall, things are drawn out in flow charts, state machine diagrams and whatnot, but when I write an individual routine, I sit back and think it through quite a bit before I write anything down. The point is that although I do move things around or write code to see it, I try to think as much as possible and type as little as possible. The results tend to be a lot shorter and work quite well, if I may say so myself.
And I'm one of those "visual learners" who needs to see stuff with my eyes. But my rule of thumb is that if I can't work a routine out in my head, it's too complicated and I need to take another approach.
As a side note, I am very strict on formatting. I format the code perfectly to my specifications as I write it. (1TBS, spacing between operators.) There's no such program as a pretty-formatter on my systems. Since I take such care, I hardly ever miss a semicolon or other punctuation mark.
Oh, and one other thing... When it comes to debuggers, definitely use them! Make sure you specify some really harsh test cases, and after you write a routine or a small system of routines, bust out the debugger and watch every line execute, and as you do, ask yourself, "What could possibly go wrong on this line?" You'll be shocked and amazed at how many flaws you'll find in what looks like innocent code. And use Lint. But when it comes to tests, if you can do it on paper, you know your shit.
Bwaaaaaaahaaaaaaahaaaaaaahaaaaahaaaahaaaahaahaha ha hahahah!!
Microsoft. Where do you want to go today? Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This virus is valuable intellectual property and is protected by copyright law and international treaty. Do not make illegal copies of this virus.
You've raised a good point. Here we are, in a day and age when there are hundreds, if not thousands, of geeks out there who would love to build the next home theater component, whether it's for P2P television or some kind of streaming video box or whatnot, and the folks with the content see this as a threat rather than jumping on it as an enormous business opportunity.
When phonograph records were invented, the music industry was horrified that nobody would attend concerts any longer. When film emerged, theaters saw their own end as folks would no longer attend live performances. And when the video tape player became available to the consumer, cinemas worried that nobody would attend the movie theater.
Am I wrong in assuming that these technologies have actually increased the worth of these businesses? For live music and theater productions, just check out Ticket Master! There are hundreds of performances every single day! As for the movie theater, have you seen the lines at the ticket booths lately? Sure, there might be 10 or 100 or 1000 or even 10000 geeks out there who will pass up the "real" performance for some crappy downloaded version played in a little window on their computer with people's heads in the way, but the rest of the world will continue to support theaters and concerts.
I believe the numbers of live theater productions, live concerts and movies in the theater have increased by several orders of magnitude since the invention of recordable media. If only the dull, boring gray-haired old men in management of the RIAA and MPAA would understand that and use MP3, P2P, and every other "obstacle" to their advantage, rather than try to fight an impossible battle against good technologies, causing the government to pass all kinds of laws reminicient of George Orwell's 1984.
The media companies are supposed to think of innovative ways to move content around BEFORE the pirates do it for them! But once again, the ever-important "bottom line" way of thinking among the idiot management crowd causes them to favor some silly numbers over good, solid technical knowledge and decisions, and that is what screws up their bottom line in the first place! Management thinks they don't need to know or get involved in the details. What those dumb-asses don't understand is that try as you might, those details NEED attention, because they are what compose the overall picture. And they need MANAGEMENT'S ATTENTION, just as much as the attention of the lower-level employees who deal with the details first-hand. And management needs to fully comprehend the depths and importance of these details. If they manage a programming company, they should study programming. They don't need to program, that's the programmers' job. But they need to understand, in order to make better decisions. They can't just say, "Well, why isn't it done?" Or, "You say it'll take a month, but you have two weeks to get it done." Well, excuse me, but if it takes a month, it'll be done in a month, and not a moment sooner. Management needs to understand that. And management of the RIAA, MPAA and all the media companies need to understand that the world changes, businesses rise and fall, and their time has come and gone... or, they will choose to understand that those ever-pesky details of their business need to change, and maybe, MAYBE they'll be able to profit from these changes.
Regardless of what happens in the world, it is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE for companies of ANY type to have laws passed (like DMCA, SSSCA, etc) to protect their alleged right to profits, because they have no such right in any sense of the word. The government provides patents, copyrights and trademarks. With the original limitations, those are quite enough to provide ample protection for any business.
Your argument that the government can't pay a penalty to the people because the money comes from the people is a valid one.
In that case, I propose a better solution: This is a way to actually fine the government, for a poor job even though the government gets its money from the people. It's very simple. If the government wrongs you in any way, a really hefty sum of cash money is hand-delivered to you within 24 hours of your request. (In addition to other things, the government would impose published time limits on itself to complete every process it takes upon itself, regardless of what it is, eliminating the all-too-common cases when government tells you, "it'll be done when it'll be done; don't call us, we'll call you." When the government exceeds its time limit, it pays you a pretty hefty sum for each day overdue.)
Where does this money come from? The amount of money the government loses through the fines it pays will be paid for by the people who caused the problem in the first place: The people of the government, whether they're employees, elected officials, or whatever. The amount spent in fines will be computed so that an equal percentage is deducted from each official's or employee's pay. Suppose the government loses 320,000,000 dollars in fines it pays in one year, and it's computed to be 18.92% of what it pays its employees. (I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass... they aren't real-world values in any sense.) Every government employee and official would subsequently lose 18.92% of their pay. This way, government penalties on itself won't be paid with taxpayer dollars. They'll be paid by the employees who cause the penalties in the first place, and those employees who earn more will lose more from this process.
If you think this is a bit unfair to the government employees, the same system described above would provide means for folks to donate money to the government when they feel the government has done an exceptionally good job at something. This money would be split according to the same methods and to the same people who lose when the government pays a penalty. (Yeah, I know nobody will actually donate, but the system would be in place.)
What does this solve? Government employees often treat people with contempt. This system gives government employees and officials a really damn good incentive to do an exceptional job, if only because they'll be punished personally when they screw you over.
This ruling is a great way for folks to give Microsoft the raspberry... It reminds me of the little wanna-be demonstration that took place in Redmond about two years ago when some Linux bitch-boys tried to get their money back for unwanted copies of preinstalled Windows.
Except this ruling actually accomplishes something. Personally, I believe a few changes need to be made to Windows.
The initial startup screen is one thing. The first time Windows is started--and I know this already happens so read on for the changes--the user should be presented with Microsoft's EULA with the option to accept or decline. This EULA would, obviously, exclude from its own terms the "use" of Windows up to and including this acceptance/declining process. If the user accepts, everything proceeds as normal. If not, they'll be presented instructions for receiving their refund within a day or two. Following that, the partitions on the hard disk would be removed in preparation for another operating system. (And to prevent theft of Microsoft's valuable intellectual property, which they so kindly permit us to use on the rare occasions that it actually functions correctly.)
Windows should be made to coexist peacefully with other operating systems. For one thing, it pisses me off that every time Windows is reinstalled or certain other functions performed, Windows overwrites the MBR, making it a real pain for users of multiple operating systems to maintain their Windows installation. Things of this nature should be removed.
Microsoft should provide a six-pack of Negra Modelo to customers who supply a 1000 word essay detailing their reasons for refusing Microsoft's EULA and opting to take a different approach.
Microsoft should provide a generous monetary reward to any competing developer who can supply a 1000 word essay that actually justifies accepting Microsoft's EULA in the face of their evil actions against the whole software industry.
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I have to say, the Apache web server is quite a high quality piece of work. The fact that an obscure security issue has been found is a good sign that developers and users are on top of things in the constant struggle against remote exploiters.
I am confident that a fix will be available very shortly. Serious sysadmins will have their servers patched sooner than any serious damage takes place. I don't have the same confidence when it comes to Microsoft's products.
I'd like to see Mozilla and GNOME join forces. Their project goals, which are already quite similar (Internet operating system versus network object model environment), would be merged. As one project, an efficient, platform-independant desktop environment would become reality. Its quality would blow away anything made by Microsoft or Apple. I see a consolidation of that nature heavily reducing the amount of duplicated work. And it would work because it would be cool.
This has got to be the most horrible development in the entertainment industry since the death of the BetaMax. It's all about the video cassette. DVD sucks! Sing to the tune of 'Who's afraid of the big bad wolf':
D-V-D is a piece of shit,
a piece of shit,
a piece of shit,
D-V-D is a piece of shit,
la la la la la!
Seriously, now... I won't be caught dead in a Circuit City. They pissed me off a number of times, most notably when they lost record of a hefty payment I made, and I had to jump through a number of hoops to prove that I paid, when I could have been lounging around my house, enjoying a Negra Modelo, or fixing my Hemicuda instead. And then, when they supported DIVX--remember the pay-per-view DVD-like disc company run by a bunch of sleezy lawyers? And people bought a thing called DIVX GOLD, that was supposed to "unlock" your discs for unlimited viewing? Now that DIVX is gone, they can't view the movies they BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! DIVX was the last straw. So I don't give a damn what Circuit City does, because they SUCK and I don't support them.
The next thing you know, scientists will be able to grow any part of the body in factories. Companies will compete on the speed of delivery. If you get sent to the hospital with a broken heart or something, they'll hook you up to a plastic one in the meantime, and within 24 hours, your replacement heart will arrive, UPS next day air.
Once that's perfected, people will order a bunch of spare parts beforehand and store them in their garage refrigerators. Suppose you're in the garage cutting some two-by-fours and you accidently cut your arm off. A quick call to the paramedics and they'll be at your place within a few minutes to thaw and install your spare arm on-site, while you look the other way and enjoy a Negra Modelo.
See, there shouldn't be a law against making copy-protected CDs, because then you'd have to make specific statutes for and against every format out there, and the next thing you know, the government has some 100,000 pages of law describing what is allowed and what isn't on a shiny disk with a hole in the center.
Most tech-savvy users know what to do with various CD formats anyway.
On the other hand, since most people who buy CDs don't know jack about technology (and probably don't know what a molecule is either), CDs sold as audio CDs should carry PROMINENT warning labels on the front and back of the case. It should cover about 1/4 of the surface of the cover, and read in large letters: "WARNING! This CD is crippled by copy protection. Nearly all CD players in the world cannot play this CD."
Actually, the law should state that if someone picks up one of these defective CDs not knowing of its crippleware, and discovers it doesn't work in a CD player of some type or other, the music industry is required to refund their money plus a penalty to cover inconvenience, supply a free, uncrippled copy, and an unlimited, nonexclusive, transferable license to do anything with that free copy, including but not limited to reproduction, sale, loan, rental, etc., without compensating the recording industry in any way. Furthermore, the recording industry would send that person a bottle of Negra Modelo for each copy that person sells without compensating the recording industry. (The recording industry would be required to pay twice the price for each bottle of Negra Modelo it buys.) The government would require the recording industry to spend 99% of their profits advertising this law, so that everybody would know and take advantage of the recording industry. (The other 1% would be paid to a government committee whose sole purpose is figuring out new and innovative ways to screw over the recording industry.) I believe that would be a reasonable and prudent solution to the problems posed by the evil recording industry. Those bastards.
Many science fiction books have been written on terraforming another planet, such as Mars, making it possible for humans to live there. I think the solution to global warming is so obvious, I don't know why the scientists haven't thought of this one:
Terraform the world's deserts! Seriously. Transport large amounts of dirt mixed with clay, horse shit, compost and seeds of various plants in large dump trucks with a mechanism to evenly release this material from the back of the truck, onto the ground. The truck would pull behind it a piece of military-strength farm equipment that digs into the ground and mixes this dirt with the existing sand. These truckloads would only cover an area about 10 feet wide and maybe 200 feet long. I'd say you'd need about 100 of these trucks to build a small oasis in the desert. In this oasis, dig a deep hole every 20 feet or so and plant pre-grown trees of various types in it, filling the hole entirely with the horse shit mixture I described above. Install a huge water tower next to the oasis, and constantly spray water mixed with nutrients onto the oasis.
Next step: Once the first oasis starts to grow and turn into a small habitat, use the experience gained to install similar oases every few miles in every direction. Once this grid of oases covers the entire desert, start installing new ones between existing oases.
Within ten years, with constant work and lots of funding, a desert can be turned into a forest. When this forest gets mature enough, it will automatically start to rain there because of vapors being released into the air. This should take place in as many parts of the world as possible, leaving a few deserts here and there, because there's a reason they're a part of the landscape.
Build a bunch of space stations where the whole ecology is engineered to be a proper cycle. All trash would be turned back into food inside the space station; food for people, animals and plants. With the experience gained in space, cities on Earth would be engineered and "retrofitted" to perform similar cycles. All products and manufacturing facilities would be engineered to act as a proper member of the cycle. As such, all garbage will be prevented entirely, as it would actually be a product for further growth. At the same time, the use of fossil fuels would stop, and other, more environmentally friendly methods would be used. All of this would take place over the next hundred years or so. (Hey, if technology and the human ability to accomplish huge things has developed so rapidly over the past 200 years, surely all of this can become reality in the next 100.)
The point is that by the time global temperatures would have melted the ice caps and caused the next Noah's flood, it would be prevented because the temperatures--and indeed the whole Earth system--would have been balanced once again. At that point, it would be time to put snow machines all over Alaska and the surrounding islands to rebuild the permafrost.
A web browser in the BIOS, eh? That's kind of like having a web browser in the operating system... the same operating system that doesn't have a built-in spelling checker, but has a web browser built in. That makes a lot of sense.
No, I've got a better idea. Make a BIOS that contains the whole damn operating system. Seriously. You turn the computer on and it's on within about 5 seconds and ready to rumble. There's no waiting for the BIOS to bring up the bootloader, and the bootloader to bring up the other bootloader, and that bootloader to bring up a menu of operating systems, and that will bring up the bootloader, which will bring up the bootloader, which will boot the kernel, which will start all your shit. No, instead, there would be a session set up at the BIOS manufacturer's facility, and when you turn the computer on, it'll do some hardwired shit like turn the hard drive on and shit, and then the operation system comes on, but it never boots--the image in memory is the saved state of what it was doing when the BIOS manufacturer "captured" the session and burnt it on the BIOS. Then, there is no booting, no shutting down, no nothing. The operating system never knew it was just off two seconds ago. Of course, some shit would have to be initialized, like finding the DHCP host, or figgering out the time, or other shit like that, but the addresses of those things in memory could be initialized with the proper values just before starting the shit up. This would prevent problems like people's system folders gettig all fucked up, and they'll have to spend less time reinstalling and more time drinking Negra Modelo. Oh well.
Hey, I have a BETTER idea! Set up your own damn domain name servers, and allow everyone to get domain names first-come-first-served. FREE. And there's no such thing as suing someone for using your company name in their domain name or some bullshit like that. Then, the whole world will switch to this new domain name system in less than a minute and a half, and ICANN or whatever those idjits are called will disappear off the face of the Earth. And the RIAA will push the MPAA to the east and vanquish them. And the people will push the RIAA into the west until they fall off the edge of the world, and the people will drink Negra Modelo, and there will be much rejoicing in the land.
Nintendo ROCKS! The original Nintendo, the one that went bad after a few years and kids had to blow into the game cartridges in hopes of getting the damn thing to boot properly. Ah, those were the good ol' days. Not like now, with PS2s where you put a DVD in and play a game with life-like graphics. Back in the day, the graphics were blocky and crappy, so they were made up for in the quality of the games. Nowadays, games SUCK, but nobody cares because the graphics look so cool. It's like Microsoft's stupid excuse for an alleged operating system. They put all sorts of fancy graphics on that piece of crap, trying to persuade people that it works properly, but I know the truth: Windows SUCKS! But Negra Modelo rocks! I can't wait until Negra Modelo ships an operating system; it'll be just as good as the ale. And that's why the original Nintendo rocks!!! I can't wait until NetBSD comes on a Nintendo game cartridge that you have to blow into to make it boot. Oh well.
C for graphics, eh?!?!? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. Want fast graphics? Code that shit in tight assembly, utilizing all kinds of special processor tricks earned through many years of hard-core determination in squeezing every last cycle out of the hardware, and then some. I don't care if it takes a year to implement something that could be implemented in a day using this Cg or Gc or whatever it's called. The market is a piece of shit, don't pay attention to it. I don't care that people want shit now. Management is irrelevant. Customers are irrelevant. Do it right. Do it in assembly. And when it comes time to port that shit to another platform, you'll have to write it all over again, because assembly language is as portable as a coal mine. (Ever tried to move one?) And that's the way Real Programmers (tm) do it, like Mel, not wimps like you. C is for wimps.
There are amazing emerging technologies out there. The most recent is the semiconductor diode, an area of continuing study. But you'll probably want to get involved in emerging circuitry for AM radios. This will allow such things as stereophonic broadcasts on the AM band. To quote from a recent magazine, "Circuits will have to be designed to increase the bandwidth and cut the distortion, as well as to encode and decode the stereo information, in AM transmitters and receivers." (Electronic Design, May 27, 2002, page 26 "Flashback")
Analysts estimate that this technology will emerge as the most profitable market in the technology sector since the invention of the light bulb and the Negra Modelo bottling machine.
Ooooooooooh well.
This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard!!!
It's like the Sprite commercial. "You wanna play all-star basketball? Practice. You want a good friggen soda or whatever? Drink Sprite." I like that one because they're not trying to advertise that drinking Sprite will make you an all-star basketball player or whatever.
So you wanna get good at shootin' pool? Go to a bar that's got pool tables, see, order a pint of Negra Modelo, walk up to the nearest chick who looks about 30 years old, and ask her to shoot pool with you. Go to the pool table, drop a bunch of quarters inside, take a huge gulp of Negra Modelo, and then start playing. Yeah, you're gonna lose, because all 30 year old chicks who hang out at bars kick ass at pool. But play about ten games or so, and when you finish your pint, get another one. As you get progressively more drunk, your accuracy will increase, and your embarassment at sucking so bad will decrease. Do this about two or three nights a week--ask the chick which nights she hangs out there, because all 30 year old chicks at bars hang out at that bar on certain days--and before you know it, you're a pro. No need to cheat.
Oh well... does anybody ever listen to ME?! Not until it's too late. Ooooooooooooh well.
Dude... It isn't as if people aren't wasting enough time in front of that damn tube. And now they're gonna make it 3d?!?!?!?! Why not just build a damn holodeck, like in Star Trek or whatever. Like that one episode, "Ship in a Bottle" (for those of you who don't remember, it's the one where the blind dude and Data ask the computer for a Sherlock Holmes mystery that would be a challenge for Data to solve. And the computer gave it to them. I would have just asked for a bottle of Negra Modelo, but they asked for a bottle with the whole friggen Startrek Enterprise inside.) And when Windows goes crazy, you'll think you're walking around your house, but you're still in the holodeck and weird shit is happening all around. That would be really friggen weird.
I think the Internet domain name system should be regulated in such a way that everything is separated into well-defined hierarchies.
First, domain names owned by any government agency, business or individual worldwide would be organized under a two letter country code corresponding to the country where the server is physically located. If someone or something has servers physically located in multiple countries, then and only then can they get a domain name that isn't organized under a country code (but the name itself would have to be identical).
Domain names would further be organized by the type of services offered. So .com would apply to for-profit companies; .org to non-profit organizations ONLY; .edu to educational institutions, and I suppose something like .pri for private individual(s). I don't know if there's use for a .net, unless someone can define exactly what it's for. So a university in the U.S. would be something.edu.us. A university with servers in multiple countries would get something.edu, something.edu.us, something.edu.mx, etc. for all the countries involved. Or something like that. Then, the domain name holder subdivides their domain into various parts. And names are first-come, first served once again. Let people buy and sell domain names all they want, and I don't care what problems it brings up.
Oh yeah, and get people used to the fact that websites aren't www.something.com. It's gonna be a pretty darn technological world soon (if it isn't already)... it's time for people to be a bit more educated and a lot less stupid. Ooooooooh well. Time for another Negra Modelo.
This is unacceptable! There is no excuse for any government or entity in power in any country or state in the world for prosecuting anybody for publishing anything! There should be an international law that guarentees every person's rights throughout the world as stated in the original Constitution of the united States, taking into consideration the years of experiences gained by millions of Americans who have given equal rights to women, blacks, and anybody else for that matter. In other words, the ideas of our forefathers should be applied to everywhere in the world. I think all the people of the world should be horrified by this criminal act on the part of Zimbabwe's government, and we should all write a hundred letters a day in protest, and mail them all to Zimbabwe's offices. The next thing you know, Zimbabwe becomes the world's leading supplier of recycled paper, and they'll be so busy doing that, they won't have time to prosecute anybody anymore.
Oooooooooooooh well.
Don't believe that things are moving in this direction? Just think of what happens when every corporation starts running to the federal government for legislation every time their profits fall a little.
Just one more thing that I must add to my original post on this matter. It is high time that corporations STOP running to the federal government for new legislation every time something happens in the market that lowers their profits. And it is high time that the federal government pass a law banning laws to protect the profits of corporations (with the exception of the original copyright, trademark and patent laws, which provide quite enough protection anyway). There is no such thing as a right to profit. When a corporation's profits decline, they should figure out ways to compete through better products, higher efficiency, simply better marketing. Setting costs, for example, is a part of marketing, and I believe the music industry in particular should lower the prices of new CDs. If a new CD cost only five bucks more than a used one, many people would say, "Oh, it's only five bucks more, I'll just get the new one." Instead, new CDs are priced outrageously, and when people don't buy, the music industry runs crying to the federal government.
If something isn't done to stop this trend, we'll soon find ourselves paying taxes to corporations for the use of every product we own and have paid for.
This has got to be the most fscked up and outrageous thing I have ever read! The record industry has absolutely NO RIGHT whatsoever to demand payment for used CD sales because those CDs have already been bought and paid for.
If Joe sells Bob a cow, Joe can't charge Bob a tax if Bob decides to sell that cow to Bill. That's just how it goes.
The record industry is a greedy, disgusting bunch of corporate scum, with no respect whatsoever for anybody or anything. They are NOT protecting artists, because the artists whose content is published are forced to sign over their copyright to the record company! Only independant artists are not affected, and those are the only artists whose works should be supported by those of us who hate the record industry.
The next thing you know, you'll have to pay Home Depot a royalty every time you flip on or off a light switch that you bought in their store. Absolutely ridiculous.
Read George Orwell's 1984. It will really open your eyes.
These are seriously the best screenshots of GNOME that I've ever seen. Honestly, most screenshots out there do look like barf, all cluttered up, with colors that don't match. It's no wonder that a lot of folks out there hiss at GNOME. I think someone should submit a bug report telling the GNOME folks that their default screen should look like these screenshots. I'm not kidding!
There's a reason the tests are on paper.
Somewhere in Michael Abrash's awesome Black Book of Graphics Programming, he mentions that his grandfather (IIRC) used to do the cross-word puzzle in every sunday's newspaper... in INK. And he never messed up or had so much as a smudge on the paper. The reason is that before he wrote anything down, he thought about it from every angle, and only wrote when he was sure his answer was right.
I try to do the same when I code. Overall, things are drawn out in flow charts, state machine diagrams and whatnot, but when I write an individual routine, I sit back and think it through quite a bit before I write anything down. The point is that although I do move things around or write code to see it, I try to think as much as possible and type as little as possible. The results tend to be a lot shorter and work quite well, if I may say so myself.
And I'm one of those "visual learners" who needs to see stuff with my eyes. But my rule of thumb is that if I can't work a routine out in my head, it's too complicated and I need to take another approach.
As a side note, I am very strict on formatting. I format the code perfectly to my specifications as I write it. (1TBS, spacing between operators.) There's no such program as a pretty-formatter on my systems. Since I take such care, I hardly ever miss a semicolon or other punctuation mark.
Oh, and one other thing... When it comes to debuggers, definitely use them! Make sure you specify some really harsh test cases, and after you write a routine or a small system of routines, bust out the debugger and watch every line execute, and as you do, ask yourself, "What could possibly go wrong on this line?" You'll be shocked and amazed at how many flaws you'll find in what looks like innocent code. And use Lint. But when it comes to tests, if you can do it on paper, you know your shit.
Bwaaaaaaahaaaaaaahaaaaaaahaaaaahaaaahaaaahaahaha ha hahahah!!
Microsoft. Where do you want to go today? Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This virus is valuable intellectual property and is protected by copyright law and international treaty. Do not make illegal copies of this virus.
FreeBSD rocks.
You've raised a good point. Here we are, in a day and age when there are hundreds, if not thousands, of geeks out there who would love to build the next home theater component, whether it's for P2P television or some kind of streaming video box or whatnot, and the folks with the content see this as a threat rather than jumping on it as an enormous business opportunity.
When phonograph records were invented, the music industry was horrified that nobody would attend concerts any longer. When film emerged, theaters saw their own end as folks would no longer attend live performances. And when the video tape player became available to the consumer, cinemas worried that nobody would attend the movie theater.
Am I wrong in assuming that these technologies have actually increased the worth of these businesses? For live music and theater productions, just check out Ticket Master! There are hundreds of performances every single day! As for the movie theater, have you seen the lines at the ticket booths lately? Sure, there might be 10 or 100 or 1000 or even 10000 geeks out there who will pass up the "real" performance for some crappy downloaded version played in a little window on their computer with people's heads in the way, but the rest of the world will continue to support theaters and concerts.
I believe the numbers of live theater productions, live concerts and movies in the theater have increased by several orders of magnitude since the invention of recordable media. If only the dull, boring gray-haired old men in management of the RIAA and MPAA would understand that and use MP3, P2P, and every other "obstacle" to their advantage, rather than try to fight an impossible battle against good technologies, causing the government to pass all kinds of laws reminicient of George Orwell's 1984.
The media companies are supposed to think of innovative ways to move content around BEFORE the pirates do it for them! But once again, the ever-important "bottom line" way of thinking among the idiot management crowd causes them to favor some silly numbers over good, solid technical knowledge and decisions, and that is what screws up their bottom line in the first place! Management thinks they don't need to know or get involved in the details. What those dumb-asses don't understand is that try as you might, those details NEED attention, because they are what compose the overall picture. And they need MANAGEMENT'S ATTENTION, just as much as the attention of the lower-level employees who deal with the details first-hand. And management needs to fully comprehend the depths and importance of these details. If they manage a programming company, they should study programming. They don't need to program, that's the programmers' job. But they need to understand, in order to make better decisions. They can't just say, "Well, why isn't it done?" Or, "You say it'll take a month, but you have two weeks to get it done." Well, excuse me, but if it takes a month, it'll be done in a month, and not a moment sooner. Management needs to understand that. And management of the RIAA, MPAA and all the media companies need to understand that the world changes, businesses rise and fall, and their time has come and gone... or, they will choose to understand that those ever-pesky details of their business need to change, and maybe, MAYBE they'll be able to profit from these changes.
Regardless of what happens in the world, it is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE for companies of ANY type to have laws passed (like DMCA, SSSCA, etc) to protect their alleged right to profits, because they have no such right in any sense of the word. The government provides patents, copyrights and trademarks. With the original limitations, those are quite enough to provide ample protection for any business.
That's because the MPAA is a bunch of stupid bastards who don't know anything except their bottom line. Those sons of bitches.
MPAASUX would be a cool license plate number.
Your argument that the government can't pay a penalty to the people because the money comes from the people is a valid one.
In that case, I propose a better solution: This is a way to actually fine the government, for a poor job even though the government gets its money from the people. It's very simple. If the government wrongs you in any way, a really hefty sum of cash money is hand-delivered to you within 24 hours of your request. (In addition to other things, the government would impose published time limits on itself to complete every process it takes upon itself, regardless of what it is, eliminating the all-too-common cases when government tells you, "it'll be done when it'll be done; don't call us, we'll call you." When the government exceeds its time limit, it pays you a pretty hefty sum for each day overdue.)
Where does this money come from? The amount of money the government loses through the fines it pays will be paid for by the people who caused the problem in the first place: The people of the government, whether they're employees, elected officials, or whatever. The amount spent in fines will be computed so that an equal percentage is deducted from each official's or employee's pay. Suppose the government loses 320,000,000 dollars in fines it pays in one year, and it's computed to be 18.92% of what it pays its employees. (I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass... they aren't real-world values in any sense.) Every government employee and official would subsequently lose 18.92% of their pay. This way, government penalties on itself won't be paid with taxpayer dollars. They'll be paid by the employees who cause the penalties in the first place, and those employees who earn more will lose more from this process.
If you think this is a bit unfair to the government employees, the same system described above would provide means for folks to donate money to the government when they feel the government has done an exceptionally good job at something. This money would be split according to the same methods and to the same people who lose when the government pays a penalty. (Yeah, I know nobody will actually donate, but the system would be in place.)
What does this solve? Government employees often treat people with contempt. This system gives government employees and officials a really damn good incentive to do an exceptional job, if only because they'll be punished personally when they screw you over.
This ruling is a great way for folks to give Microsoft the raspberry... It reminds me of the little wanna-be demonstration that took place in Redmond about two years ago when some Linux bitch-boys tried to get their money back for unwanted copies of preinstalled Windows.
Except this ruling actually accomplishes something. Personally, I believe a few changes need to be made to Windows.
- The initial startup screen is one thing. The first time Windows is started--and I know this already happens so read on for the changes--the user should be presented with Microsoft's EULA with the option to accept or decline. This EULA would, obviously, exclude from its own terms the "use" of Windows up to and including this acceptance/declining process. If the user accepts, everything proceeds as normal. If not, they'll be presented instructions for receiving their refund within a day or two. Following that, the partitions on the hard disk would be removed in preparation for another operating system. (And to prevent theft of Microsoft's valuable intellectual property, which they so kindly permit us to use on the rare occasions that it actually functions correctly.)
- Windows should be made to coexist peacefully with other operating systems. For one thing, it pisses me off that every time Windows is reinstalled or certain other functions performed, Windows overwrites the MBR, making it a real pain for users of multiple operating systems to maintain their Windows installation. Things of this nature should be removed.
- Microsoft should provide a six-pack of Negra Modelo to customers who supply a 1000 word essay detailing their reasons for refusing Microsoft's EULA and opting to take a different approach.
- Microsoft should provide a generous monetary reward to any competing developer who can supply a 1000 word essay that actually justifies accepting Microsoft's EULA in the face of their evil actions against the whole software industry.
Oooooooooooh well.