I mean, besides being crass, it's also obvious -- so why point
it out? Sure, we all naturally wonder what might happen to the
software, but is it worth actually discussing?
Yes - Because otherwise, the fact that some guy might have killed
his wife doesn't even come close to "News for Nerds".
Consider if this involved Linus instead of Hans... Without ReiserFS,
although a loss no doubt, we have plenty of alternatives. But without
ongoing kernel development, Linux doesn't exist.
Call it crass if you want, but this only matters because
of ReiserFS. Quite the reversal of what you might see on a less
group-targeted news site, the wife counts as incidental
to our interest in this situation.
And for what benefit? So that some people can get stuff for free?
I don't want everything for free, in some sort of misguided sense of personal
entitlement. I want everything Free, in the RMS sense. You can call
that equally misguided if you like, but I have no self-interest motive to that
whatsoever. I really honestly see it as better for our culture and our species,
if we don't say "Sorry, someone else came up with something too similar five years
ago, even though you have the far superior idea". Even if that far superior idea
deliberately derives from the previous idea, wouldn't you rather have an
HDTV than a B&W tube, despite the relatively tiny incremental difference between
the two?
But Free doesn't mean free. I would (and do - I own literally hundreds
of CDs I've purchased either at shows or directly from the bands' websites) pay artists
for their work, to encourage them to make more, even though I have absolutely no problem
finding and downloading the same music for free despite copyright laws. For that
matter, most of the lesser-known musicians I enjoy, I found by downloading their material
for free before shelling out any cash for their CDs and/or concert.
It's possible - look at Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning, but how long did it take
to make, and is it really a substitute for every other film you've ever seen?
I agree, the current copyright system makes it much easier for a lucky few to
make it really, really big, thanks to the "kindness" of a major publisher/label/distributor.
But on the flip side, how many truly revolutionary ideas got squashed in favor of a
(really amazingly bad) sequel to a known moneymaker (eg, Star Trek IV)?
And as for whether or not more would get made to make up for the big-budget productions...
I can't speak for books, but for (visual) art and music, many people don't realize
what a HUGE underground community exists. Some suck, some only mediocre, some really
good. A tiny fraction of the great ones get "signed" and "make it" (and NOT the "greatest
of the great", by any stretch of the imagination - Just a matter of luck beyond a certain
level of skill). How would that situation change in the absence of big-daddy-Bertlesman?
I really don't have the answer to that, but I can't imagine it as any less fair, to the individual
artists. They (the vast majority of unsigned) would all make exactly the same playing clubs
and working a day job. And the superstars? We might have more of them who make it a little less
overhyped-big. We might have fewer overall. But we wouldn't have BMG to take a
cut in either case. And that doesn't really bother me.
I'm not American so this doesn't bother me, but I'm guessing that you are
Yes, true indeed. I live in the US. But as much as it may surprise some people, not
all Americans think only of how they can maximize their profit by exploiting others,
whether on the national scale, the corporate scale, or just greedily filling our wallets
with the suffering of others.
"America" means a set of lines on a globe. I don't give a damn about our economy (and apparently
neither does our president - cue rimshot) if it only comes at the expense of the rest of the
world. Would I walk away from Omelas? Probably not, as I consider myself a pragmatic idealist
(if someone needs to suffer, better that I don't). But that doesn't make it any more
right, and if a small sacrifice on my part means a much larger gain for everyone, I see that as
just about the greatest "good" realizeable in the world as it exists.
But this effectively puts a lot of people out of a job. You can't
charge for support on a book, after all.
Do you necessarily consider that a "bad" thing?
Tolkein worked as a professor, and wrote LotR as a labor of love.
Compare that to the fact that some substantial group of
"authors" make a living writing Harlequin Romance novels.
In the absence of copyrights, LotR would still exist. As would
millions of trees now pulped and printed with soft-core porn for
bored housewives.
No doubt you can name exceptions, assorted masters of their trade
who started out doing it as a day job and evolved into fame. But
for every one of them, I can give you a hundred who honed their
art for its own sake, and only started profiting from it when
they sheepishly let a family member, friend, coworker, or whatever
see their real work. And once such a person "makes" it,
people tend to insist on the real thing. When the Beatles attained
fame in the US, you had hundreds of pathetic clones with names
and music in some cases bordering on the infringing (and in some
cases, so unrelated as to make a mockery of the concept of copying).
Yet, the public could tell the difference, and while John, Paul,
George, and Ringo remain in demand even today, The Liverpool Kids
only exist as humorous side-notes in vinyl-ripped MP3 traders' blogs.
No. Communism (again, in theory) deals with actual goods, not ideas.
If we share a pound of sugar between us, we can't each use the full
pound. Communism would say "to each according to his needs" on how
best to distribute that physically limited resource. If we share an
MP3, however, we can both listen to it at the same time. If we share
a library of source code snippets between us, not only can we both
use them at the same time, but doing so enables us to write new code
faster than one of us alone.
Besides the idea that a collective culture can grant rights
wholly is B.S. anyways
Like the right to a limited monopoly for your creative efforts?
I agree with you, here - Thus my point that we really only have
one natural right as regards intellectual property, the right not
to ever reveal it in the first place.
Who, then, has incentive to create? Don't give me art-for-art's
sake, at some point everyone had a patron of some form or another.
I code for the love of coding. My "patron", aka my employer, makes
requests concerning the direction of my code-artistic expression;
but I don't code to make a buck, I make a buck because I code.
I've known artists and musicians who have told me almost the exact
same thing about their own disciplines, so I don't think I extend
my own feelings unfairly here. I just can't imagine not coding,
I think I'd go crazy not getting the ideas out of my head (though
perhaps I could learn some way to compile and run code inside my
own head, but I'd consider that as coming pretty close to crazy
already). I've found a way to make that pay my bills, but I'd
do it in my spare time even if I worked as a stocker at WallyWorld.
Certainly you alone by definition can't speak for a "common good".
I agree completely. But the FP topic didn't read "pla Leaves Google
Vulnerable".
I don't speak only for myself here. I speak for millions of
active posters of (possibly copyright violating) content
on the web, and quite possibly billions of tacitly
accepting viewers of that same content.
First, a big mistake is conflating patents and copyrights.
Not the same at all.
They both grant a supposedly-limited monopoly to make use of a
created work. They have differing lengths and, at least originally,
you needed to take positive steps to obtain both (look
up the copyright status of Romero's Night of the Living Dead
if you think otherwise).
Both currently require considerable financial resources to
successfully defend in court.
As their only real difference, copyright covers the specific expression
of an idea, while patents cover the underlying idea itself. On the
bright side of this badly-tarnished coin, patents don't last as long
(though clever pharmaceutical company lawyers have recently found
ways to chain them together to get a few extra years before any
generics can hit the market).
So, yes, I lump them into the same fundamentally-broken category.
Horrah for you that you donate software and got a 9-5
writing it. Someone writing a novel does not have that luxury.
Actually, it worked pretty much exactly like that before
the current era of copyrights. They called it "patronage", and
it produced the bulk of our classic works of literature, music,
art, and even the foundations of modern science.
It also produced (and drew from, of course) public domain
precedents for later writers, musicians, artists, and scientists.
Pyramus and Thisbe begat Romeo and Juliet begat
West Side Story; I can't even count how many modern pop
songs have part of the two lower-range themes from Pachelbel's
Canon as their baseline; Einstein did nothing more impressive
than solve Maxwell's dilemma.
Nothing in the context of human culture exists in isolation.
Calling something "new" amounts to climbing a mountain one
day, then climbing it again six months later and calling
it a new mountain - The foliage might have changed, but the
mountain hasn't.
Yes, in an ideal world, some form of extremely limited
IP law seems like a good idea. In practice, every exclusionary
granting of certain rights and benefits to one person/group over
another has rapidly degenerated into a self-perpetuating polarization
of "haves" and "have-nots".
And what if someone removed your means to
"get yours" to begin with? [...] What if you are an author? You want someone to copy
your work whole and pass it off as their own?
What, before I wrote it?;-)
And yes, actually, if I wrote a book and made enough to
comfortably retire on, have fun gnawing on the leftovers,
it harms me not at all. And if I don't have the popularity
of someone like JK Rowling who could retire after her one
well-known series (itself massively ripped off from another
author, ironically (in the context of this topic) enough)?
Then (as I do in reality) I'd damned well better not quit
my day job, even if that day job means writing a new book
every year or two.
You might be ok with that but who the hell are you to
tell me I should be too?
"I" form the culture that you draw 99% of even the most creative
and new ideas from; "I" give you an audience to sell to. And even
under our current system (at least as intended, if not the farce we
have now), "I" have granted you a metacontractual limited
monopoly on what you borrowed from my culture, for the purpose of
enriching that culture as a form of repayment-with-interest.
You have one, and only one, natural "right" as a petulant means of
depriving me of your ideas - Keep them to yourself. If you don't
like those terms, don't create. Simple as that.
IP / copyright were created to support the individual,
not the business
Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents, AFAIK the record for an
individual.
Today, assuming a non-lawyer could write a 100% compliant
single-claim application, get it accepted on the first try,
and no one ever challenges that patent, it would cost over
1.5 million dollars just to hold that same number for their
standard patentable lifetime. That represents a minimum;
figures I've seen for the "real" cost of getting and holding
a patent come out in the $10k-20k range, and that still
assumes no significant challenges to the patent.
Support the individual? Not bloody likely.
Either that or they haven't produced anything of value in
their own life.
I code for a living (in part). In my spare time, I code for
free and for fun, including (most usefully, and I don't mind
bragging a bit) custom data analysis software for four university
affiliated research groups in three states.
I already "got mine", and I work a 9-to-5 to keep it (not that I
consider work in any way "noble", but I certainly don't
think the world owes me a free ride just because of a great idea
I had 15 years ago). I don't want yours too, and if you can profit
from picking through my garbage, bless you for recycling.
Once again, a great example of the excluded middle argument
that has no basis in reality and instead is based on some wanted
utopia that doesn't exist.
Please search Google's arguably-copyright-violating database for
the phrase "Free and Open Source Software". This particular "utopia"
exists to the degree we make it, no more, and no less. Unlike
virtually all historical human endeavors, however, once FOSS improves
the world - Nothing short of the complete collapse of civilazation can
undo that improvement. Not laws, not money, not religions, not bullets.
You cannot monetize other people's content without their approval
And here we have, in one choice of wording in one sentence, the embodyment
of everything wrong with out entire IP system.
We need to line asshats like this need up against the wall, ASAP. Yes,
YouTube hosts quite a lot of copyrighted content. Yes, Google has deeper
pockets. So what?
Camwhores aside, anyone considering suing GooTube does not have the
advancement of human culture in mind - Or even their own sales! They
just want a quick buck via legislation rather than work. YouTube
has taken what amounts to the "abandonware" of the media market, and
made it popular again even in a low-quality format. Sales of cheesy
80s videos collections have skyrocketed thanks to YouTube, and at
least some major labels haven't failed to notice this. But
it only takes a single holdout, who considers their
one-hit-underground-wonder as the single most important pile of
dung on the planet, to make YouTube the next Napster.
We don't need an overhaul of IP law (and yes, I do include the
whole plate of copyright, trademark, patents, and the rest in that
term, quite deliberately), we need it completely done away with. We
need a judiciary that has at least a basic grasp of the technology
they keep making very dangerous decisions about. And we need
people who talk about "monetizing" anything other than physically
backed currency taken out back and shot.
Firewalls dont present a problem...........i read this as.....the
software connects back to home by connecting to TCP port 80.
You done with that strawman yet? I'd like a whack at it...
If you use VoIP, you must have firewall rules allowing
VoIP traffic out (and probably back in, but not neccessary for
spying on the user).
Thus, this trojan would only need to connect the same way as your
legitimate VoIP client. It could even act more-or-less like real VoIP
traffic, since it basically needs to duplicate a legitimate call
into a 3-way call with one hidden party (the police).
So yes, even a crappy software-only firewall could block the
traffic from this trojan - But in doing so, it would also effectively
disable VoIP, making the trojan unnecessary.
Now, you could certainly set up an out-of-channel means to tell
an external firewall to allow a single VoIP session to a single
designated IP address (ie, log into your gateway machine and
manually enter the rule). But how many people will actually
do that each time they want to make a phone call?
Does college matter in the security field anymore, or are
certifications the way to go?
Let me put it this way - College won't teach you to think like
a geek. It gives someone who already has the right mindset
a huge toolbox with which to work. If you need to ask
"should I go to college or take a cert", go to college.
That said, you can still graduate college an idiot. Even in
the engineering disciplines. Certs demonstrate to a potential
employer that a particular group has accepted your proficiency
in some fairly specific subject - Netware, Oracle, Windows XP,
Redhat ASP, and so on. Although you can pass certs while
still not having a clue about the target subject, you'll at least
need to memorize most of the testbase, which I suppose counts
for something.
So, which will help you more?
The 4-year degree. If you have an MCSE, you have fairly
poor overlap of skills with a 'nix shop; vice-versa for
an RHCE. If you have a BS in CS, you (most likely) have
an understanding of the fundamental principles of programming
and, with some learning curve, can write code on any target
platform required of you.
I'm guessing you haven't had to run up twenty or so side by side
either - it's almost enough to require therapy!
Nope, as my highest, I've only done eight at once. And I'll admit
the music did clash a bit with itself (though I went down the
line and started them all on-beat with one another - "Interesting"
effect, though I don't think I'd call it all that enjoyable).
No wait! Someone will make DJ trance/tecno remixes of it.
Actually, a bit closer to the "ambient" subgenre, I have to admit I
really do like the XP post-installation music. Not enough that I'd
add it to my normal playlists, but I do let it play through to the end
(far longer than necessary) when I have occasion to do an install.
As for Vista - Good move on MS's part to leave the startup sound changeable,
considering that VERY few people actually do change their
sounds, while I can think of no better way to guarantee that people will
use something else than to force the issue.
O RLY? A lot of power monopolies seem to charge each residential customer $100
or more per year even if the customer uses no power.
Which has what, exactly, to do with "grid tie inverters"?
Although I have not personally experienced such flat fees from any of the
several electric companies I've used, it wouldn't surprise me if such
companies do indeed exist. Considering, however, that I usually pay
over $100 per month for my electricity, I would still consider
dropping that to only $100 per year one hell of a savings!
You buy a $400 system and games, then pay someone
else $300 to play it for you?
WTF is wrong with people these days, seriosly?
Simple - The combination of three factors:
1) Widespread acceptance of reward in a token economy as a
primary reinforcement. You can compare this to sexual fetishes,
where the object of the fetish can elicit a stronger response
than "real" sexual activity.
2) The use of money - A "token" economy even if also the basis of
the "real" economy - has conditioned most humans from a VERY young
age into exactly what I describe in #1.
3) The easy creation of new shared token economies by videogame
companies online.
These lead to exactly what you bemoan - We've gone so far from
the original reinforcers (food, sex) via a virtually ubiquitous
subsitution (money can buy food and sex), to the point where
people can no longer fully separate one token from another (points
in a video game may lead to improved pack status, but can't exchange
for food or sex). People "know" that the tokens issued by their
home govevernment have a certain consensual fungibility, which
points in a video game do not; but they "feel" more-or-less
equally satisfying to collect.
the company has fitted inside each drive a 0.6 millimeter-thick piece
of glass
A typical double-sided DVD consists of two 0.6mm polycarbonate layers
sandwitched back-to-back.
So basically, this just trades a cheap external more-or-less disposeable
disc with an attached and well-protected media layer, for an expensive
internal (to the drive) point of failure, with a separate, very fragile
media layer.
Woo woo, where oh where can I trade my entire DVD collection in for
some of these magic beans?
The price of a DVD or CD doesn't come from the cost of a few grams of
polycarbonate, it comes from the cost to license the content. This
seems like a useless device - unless they have the goal of increasing
the frequency with which people need to replace movies they already
bought, due to physical failure.
The big problem with wind power is that on top of that price, you also
have to invest in a huge (and very expensive) energy storage system that
can supply your entire energy needs for at least a day when there is
little/no wind.
Not true - You only need that if you plan to go completely off-grid. If
you just want to cut your electric bill (possibly to the point of making
it negative) and do your part to help save the environment, you can throw
up a windmill or two, a few solar panels, whatever, and just install a
grid tie inverter. On the plus side, these cost far less than battery
banks (which still need an inverter, just a less complex one) and last
longer, but you won't have power if the grid goes down.
You can also get hybrid inverters, that switch to off-grid during
a blackout, usually but not necessarily supplemented by a small
battery bank, which can give the best of both worlds as long as you
have either rare blackouts or very steady wind.
No, this addresses probably the single biggest problem in
finally starting an age of human exploration of space - How
to cheaply and efficiently get materials off-planet. It might
not work for living things or sensitive experiments, but it
would work wonders for some of the more mundane limiting factors
to working in space, such as building materials, water, fuel,
and the like.
Interestingly, "fuel" might count as the most useful supply
to fling cheaply into space - Current launch vehicles need to
carry, from the ground, all the fuel for getting off planet,
carrying out their mission, and returning home. Having a refueling
station in orbit would drastically reduce the cost-per-kg even
for conventional vehicles.
I also wonder how much energy it would use to do such a thing
compared to the energy expended launching the payload using a
conventional solid/liquid fuel rocket.
Describing it in terms of cost-per-unit-of-mass takes exactly
that into consideration. If it costs only 1% of what we have
now, that translates more-or-less to using 1% of the amount of
energy. Going back to the idea of flinging fuel into orbit,
keep in mind that current systems "waste" most of their energy
lifting fuel that they will burn in the process of getting to
orbit (as well as that needed in orbit and to get back).
Is there any chance something other than the drives is causing the failures? Bad power? Too little cooling?
I have to strongly suspect so... I know the occasional "bad batch" of drives makes it out the
door, and certain specific models fail at a high rate (ie, the legendary "deathstars"), but honestly,
I've never personally had a drive fail on me. At my current job, babysitting somewhere around 50 computers
in a fairly harsh industrial environment, I've had only three drives fail ever (and two of those
lived in laptops, an environment known for eating even the best of drives).
You can call my sample statistically insignificant, but I just find it nearly unbelievable that anyone could
have multiple drives fail on them in a short period of time, without some environmental factor (not
necessarily the "fault" of the owner, but not an inherently defective drive, either) speeding those drives
to the grave. Heat, shock (impact), poor power, something must have caused the problem.
The core 2 duo has a TDP of 65W (75 for the "Extreme"). The X2s had 85, then
65, and now a mere 35W, or basically half of the core 2 duo.
memory bandwidth and latency is still behind X2s, but
I know you don't really care about those "facts"
Well, considering I mentioned them, you might not want to
assume quite so much...
And yes, I called them "abysmal", because they haven't even
caught up to the X2, despite having a year and a half since
the X2s came out to play catch-up.
Poor overall performance
Would you like links to a similarly stacked test showing the X2s
trouncing the C2D?
Here,
how about one that matches a few of your linked benchmarks, yet shows the
opposite result? Funny how that works.
Again, Intel has merely "caught up". Performing on par with an 18-month
old chip, I consider a poor showing indeed - particularly when you
consider that, while Intel has played its hand, AMD (beyond releasing
lower power versions) still hasn't fully revealed its next gen yet.
You need to pull AMD's dick out of your mouth and try again.
Gone are the days when you can buy something (an Athlon XP) that
delivers 95% of the intel equivalent for half the price (saving hundreds
of dollars), or offering a value processor (The good'ol Duron) that
kicked the living crap out of a faster Intel mainstream CPU for a tad
more than nothing.
True - Instead, you can now get an AMD chip that delivers almost
twice the performance on half the power for the same price as the
"comparable" Intel offering.
And I write that not as an AMD fanboy, but someone who really did
have high hopes for the core 2 duo. Boy did Intel screw that
pooch... Poor overall performance (for a supposedly whole new chip
gen, compared to its predecessors), abysmal memory performance, and
while it has okay peak power use (just okay), it still comes
in several times that of the X2s when idle (ie, 90% of most systems'
uptime).
Now, to address the FP issue - I can summarize why AM2 hasn't taken
off in one number - "939". About a year ago, I bought a few 939 boards
with the first gen of 90nm Athlon 64s 3000s, and they still perform
admirably. Now that the X2 parts have dropped, I plan to upgrade in
the next month or two, without needing to swap anything except
the CPU out, to almost 4x the horsepower with a socket 939 X2 4800+.
And I don't even need that, I would consider it a luxury (CPU
speeds just don't jump ahead like they used to, so my current PCs may
well remain useful long enough to actually wear out and die, rather
than going to an early grave due to technology making them less powerful
than a typical calculator).
One and only one feature might get me to upgrade to an AM2 board - The
ADD partnumbered chips (35W max) which AFAIK only run on AM2. But since
those currently don't seem to exist as anything but samples (despite
their official release), my itch to upgrade to the 4800 just for the
hell of it may win out.
typically a few levels, usually towards the end - drag on and
offer nothing new or interesting in terms of gameplay, and that's
why so many go unfinished IMO.
Agreed completely. I can't even count how many games I've
gotten 99% of the way through, just a plot-point or two from
the end... Then got bored levelling up; or searching the entire
game world pixel-by-pixel looking for the
Otherwise-Useless-Weapon-of -Final-Badguy-Instant-Death (without
which your party dies by the second round no matter how powerful);
Or playing an impossibly difficult yet not very fun mini-game for
no reason other than to get the Key of FooBar that lets me access
the final boss.
After a day or two of nothing but "kill, kill, kill, level, rest" or
"dig, take one step, dig, take one step, dig, buy more peppers...",
I'll usually stop playing for a while. Then when I come back, and
resume that same mindless task for another day or two, I just quit
altogether.
I know most of the slashdot crowd is going to deride this
move on Apple's part as completely stupid.
Stupid? Hell no! "Convenient".
Although I don't often agree with Apple's bizarre worldview, I have
ranted against the use of the various forms of the word "podcast"
since I first heard it. If Apple wants to kill a form of free
positive PR and take out an annoying neologism at the same time,
bless 'em.
Podcast... Jeezus, people, how commercial have we become? A
podcast amounts to nothing more than an audio file available
for download, no different than any other MP3 on the web. It
doesn't need its own term just because Billy Blogger did
a crappy voiceover between two tracks.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, besides being crass, it's also obvious -- so why point it out? Sure, we all naturally wonder what might happen to the software, but is it worth actually discussing?
Yes - Because otherwise, the fact that some guy might have killed his wife doesn't even come close to "News for Nerds".
Consider if this involved Linus instead of Hans... Without ReiserFS, although a loss no doubt, we have plenty of alternatives. But without ongoing kernel development, Linux doesn't exist.
Call it crass if you want, but this only matters because of ReiserFS. Quite the reversal of what you might see on a less group-targeted news site, the wife counts as incidental to our interest in this situation.
Loss of communication can mean only one thing...
... but I hate movie quotes, bring your own conclusions.
:)
Some men, you just can't reach?
Sorry.
And for what benefit? So that some people can get stuff for free?
I don't want everything for free, in some sort of misguided sense of personal entitlement. I want everything Free, in the RMS sense. You can call that equally misguided if you like, but I have no self-interest motive to that whatsoever. I really honestly see it as better for our culture and our species, if we don't say "Sorry, someone else came up with something too similar five years ago, even though you have the far superior idea". Even if that far superior idea deliberately derives from the previous idea, wouldn't you rather have an HDTV than a B&W tube, despite the relatively tiny incremental difference between the two?
But Free doesn't mean free. I would (and do - I own literally hundreds of CDs I've purchased either at shows or directly from the bands' websites) pay artists for their work, to encourage them to make more, even though I have absolutely no problem finding and downloading the same music for free despite copyright laws. For that matter, most of the lesser-known musicians I enjoy, I found by downloading their material for free before shelling out any cash for their CDs and/or concert.
It's possible - look at Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning, but how long did it take to make, and is it really a substitute for every other film you've ever seen?
I agree, the current copyright system makes it much easier for a lucky few to make it really, really big, thanks to the "kindness" of a major publisher/label/distributor. But on the flip side, how many truly revolutionary ideas got squashed in favor of a (really amazingly bad) sequel to a known moneymaker (eg, Star Trek IV)?
And as for whether or not more would get made to make up for the big-budget productions...
I can't speak for books, but for (visual) art and music, many people don't realize what a HUGE underground community exists. Some suck, some only mediocre, some really good. A tiny fraction of the great ones get "signed" and "make it" (and NOT the "greatest of the great", by any stretch of the imagination - Just a matter of luck beyond a certain level of skill). How would that situation change in the absence of big-daddy-Bertlesman? I really don't have the answer to that, but I can't imagine it as any less fair, to the individual artists. They (the vast majority of unsigned) would all make exactly the same playing clubs and working a day job. And the superstars? We might have more of them who make it a little less overhyped-big. We might have fewer overall. But we wouldn't have BMG to take a cut in either case. And that doesn't really bother me.
I'm not American so this doesn't bother me, but I'm guessing that you are
Yes, true indeed. I live in the US. But as much as it may surprise some people, not all Americans think only of how they can maximize their profit by exploiting others, whether on the national scale, the corporate scale, or just greedily filling our wallets with the suffering of others.
"America" means a set of lines on a globe. I don't give a damn about our economy (and apparently neither does our president - cue rimshot) if it only comes at the expense of the rest of the world. Would I walk away from Omelas? Probably not, as I consider myself a pragmatic idealist (if someone needs to suffer, better that I don't). But that doesn't make it any more right, and if a small sacrifice on my part means a much larger gain for everyone, I see that as just about the greatest "good" realizeable in the world as it exists.
But this effectively puts a lot of people out of a job. You can't charge for support on a book, after all.
Do you necessarily consider that a "bad" thing?
Tolkein worked as a professor, and wrote LotR as a labor of love.
Compare that to the fact that some substantial group of "authors" make a living writing Harlequin Romance novels.
In the absence of copyrights, LotR would still exist. As would millions of trees now pulped and printed with soft-core porn for bored housewives.
No doubt you can name exceptions, assorted masters of their trade who started out doing it as a day job and evolved into fame. But for every one of them, I can give you a hundred who honed their art for its own sake, and only started profiting from it when they sheepishly let a family member, friend, coworker, or whatever see their real work. And once such a person "makes" it, people tend to insist on the real thing. When the Beatles attained fame in the US, you had hundreds of pathetic clones with names and music in some cases bordering on the infringing (and in some cases, so unrelated as to make a mockery of the concept of copying). Yet, the public could tell the difference, and while John, Paul, George, and Ringo remain in demand even today, The Liverpool Kids only exist as humorous side-notes in vinyl-ripped MP3 traders' blogs.
Isn't what you suggest a form of communism?
No. Communism (again, in theory) deals with actual goods, not ideas. If we share a pound of sugar between us, we can't each use the full pound. Communism would say "to each according to his needs" on how best to distribute that physically limited resource. If we share an MP3, however, we can both listen to it at the same time. If we share a library of source code snippets between us, not only can we both use them at the same time, but doing so enables us to write new code faster than one of us alone.
Besides the idea that a collective culture can grant rights wholly is B.S. anyways
Like the right to a limited monopoly for your creative efforts?
I agree with you, here - Thus my point that we really only have one natural right as regards intellectual property, the right not to ever reveal it in the first place.
Who, then, has incentive to create? Don't give me art-for-art's sake, at some point everyone had a patron of some form or another.
I code for the love of coding. My "patron", aka my employer, makes requests concerning the direction of my code-artistic expression; but I don't code to make a buck, I make a buck because I code.
I've known artists and musicians who have told me almost the exact same thing about their own disciplines, so I don't think I extend my own feelings unfairly here. I just can't imagine not coding, I think I'd go crazy not getting the ideas out of my head (though perhaps I could learn some way to compile and run code inside my own head, but I'd consider that as coming pretty close to crazy already). I've found a way to make that pay my bills, but I'd do it in my spare time even if I worked as a stocker at WallyWorld.
Certainly you alone by definition can't speak for a "common good".
I agree completely. But the FP topic didn't read "pla Leaves Google Vulnerable".
I don't speak only for myself here. I speak for millions of active posters of (possibly copyright violating) content on the web, and quite possibly billions of tacitly accepting viewers of that same content.
First, a big mistake is conflating patents and copyrights. Not the same at all.
They both grant a supposedly-limited monopoly to make use of a created work. They have differing lengths and, at least originally, you needed to take positive steps to obtain both (look up the copyright status of Romero's Night of the Living Dead if you think otherwise).
Both currently require considerable financial resources to successfully defend in court.
As their only real difference, copyright covers the specific expression of an idea, while patents cover the underlying idea itself. On the bright side of this badly-tarnished coin, patents don't last as long (though clever pharmaceutical company lawyers have recently found ways to chain them together to get a few extra years before any generics can hit the market).
So, yes, I lump them into the same fundamentally-broken category.
Horrah for you that you donate software and got a 9-5 writing it. Someone writing a novel does not have that luxury.
Actually, it worked pretty much exactly like that before the current era of copyrights. They called it "patronage", and it produced the bulk of our classic works of literature, music, art, and even the foundations of modern science.
It also produced (and drew from, of course) public domain precedents for later writers, musicians, artists, and scientists. Pyramus and Thisbe begat Romeo and Juliet begat West Side Story; I can't even count how many modern pop songs have part of the two lower-range themes from Pachelbel's Canon as their baseline; Einstein did nothing more impressive than solve Maxwell's dilemma.
Nothing in the context of human culture exists in isolation. Calling something "new" amounts to climbing a mountain one day, then climbing it again six months later and calling it a new mountain - The foliage might have changed, but the mountain hasn't.
You confuse purpose with implementation.
;-)
And communism could work, in theory.
Yes, in an ideal world, some form of extremely limited IP law seems like a good idea. In practice, every exclusionary granting of certain rights and benefits to one person/group over another has rapidly degenerated into a self-perpetuating polarization of "haves" and "have-nots".
And what if someone removed your means to "get yours" to begin with?
[...]
What if you are an author? You want someone to copy your work whole and pass it off as their own?
What, before I wrote it?
And yes, actually, if I wrote a book and made enough to comfortably retire on, have fun gnawing on the leftovers, it harms me not at all. And if I don't have the popularity of someone like JK Rowling who could retire after her one well-known series (itself massively ripped off from another author, ironically (in the context of this topic) enough)? Then (as I do in reality) I'd damned well better not quit my day job, even if that day job means writing a new book every year or two.
You might be ok with that but who the hell are you to tell me I should be too?
"I" form the culture that you draw 99% of even the most creative and new ideas from; "I" give you an audience to sell to. And even under our current system (at least as intended, if not the farce we have now), "I" have granted you a metacontractual limited monopoly on what you borrowed from my culture, for the purpose of enriching that culture as a form of repayment-with-interest.
You have one, and only one, natural "right" as a petulant means of depriving me of your ideas - Keep them to yourself. If you don't like those terms, don't create. Simple as that.
IP / copyright were created to support the individual, not the business
Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents, AFAIK the record for an individual.
Today, assuming a non-lawyer could write a 100% compliant single-claim application, get it accepted on the first try, and no one ever challenges that patent, it would cost over 1.5 million dollars just to hold that same number for their standard patentable lifetime. That represents a minimum; figures I've seen for the "real" cost of getting and holding a patent come out in the $10k-20k range, and that still assumes no significant challenges to the patent.
Support the individual? Not bloody likely.
Either that or they haven't produced anything of value in their own life.
I code for a living (in part). In my spare time, I code for free and for fun, including (most usefully, and I don't mind bragging a bit) custom data analysis software for four university affiliated research groups in three states.
I already "got mine", and I work a 9-to-5 to keep it (not that I consider work in any way "noble", but I certainly don't think the world owes me a free ride just because of a great idea I had 15 years ago). I don't want yours too, and if you can profit from picking through my garbage, bless you for recycling.
Once again, a great example of the excluded middle argument that has no basis in reality and instead is based on some wanted utopia that doesn't exist.
Please search Google's arguably-copyright-violating database for the phrase "Free and Open Source Software". This particular "utopia" exists to the degree we make it, no more, and no less. Unlike virtually all historical human endeavors, however, once FOSS improves the world - Nothing short of the complete collapse of civilazation can undo that improvement. Not laws, not money, not religions, not bullets.
You cannot monetize other people's content without their approval
And here we have, in one choice of wording in one sentence, the embodyment of everything wrong with out entire IP system.
We need to line asshats like this need up against the wall, ASAP. Yes, YouTube hosts quite a lot of copyrighted content. Yes, Google has deeper pockets. So what?
Camwhores aside, anyone considering suing GooTube does not have the advancement of human culture in mind - Or even their own sales! They just want a quick buck via legislation rather than work. YouTube has taken what amounts to the "abandonware" of the media market, and made it popular again even in a low-quality format. Sales of cheesy 80s videos collections have skyrocketed thanks to YouTube, and at least some major labels haven't failed to notice this. But it only takes a single holdout, who considers their one-hit-underground-wonder as the single most important pile of dung on the planet, to make YouTube the next Napster.
We don't need an overhaul of IP law (and yes, I do include the whole plate of copyright, trademark, patents, and the rest in that term, quite deliberately), we need it completely done away with. We need a judiciary that has at least a basic grasp of the technology they keep making very dangerous decisions about. And we need people who talk about "monetizing" anything other than physically backed currency taken out back and shot.
Firewalls dont present a problem...........i read this as.....the software connects back to home by connecting to TCP port 80.
You done with that strawman yet? I'd like a whack at it...
If you use VoIP, you must have firewall rules allowing VoIP traffic out (and probably back in, but not neccessary for spying on the user).
Thus, this trojan would only need to connect the same way as your legitimate VoIP client. It could even act more-or-less like real VoIP traffic, since it basically needs to duplicate a legitimate call into a 3-way call with one hidden party (the police).
So yes, even a crappy software-only firewall could block the traffic from this trojan - But in doing so, it would also effectively disable VoIP, making the trojan unnecessary.
Now, you could certainly set up an out-of-channel means to tell an external firewall to allow a single VoIP session to a single designated IP address (ie, log into your gateway machine and manually enter the rule). But how many people will actually do that each time they want to make a phone call?
Does college matter in the security field anymore, or are certifications the way to go?
Let me put it this way - College won't teach you to think like a geek. It gives someone who already has the right mindset a huge toolbox with which to work. If you need to ask "should I go to college or take a cert", go to college.
That said, you can still graduate college an idiot. Even in the engineering disciplines. Certs demonstrate to a potential employer that a particular group has accepted your proficiency in some fairly specific subject - Netware, Oracle, Windows XP, Redhat ASP, and so on. Although you can pass certs while still not having a clue about the target subject, you'll at least need to memorize most of the testbase, which I suppose counts for something.
So, which will help you more?
The 4-year degree. If you have an MCSE, you have fairly poor overlap of skills with a 'nix shop; vice-versa for an RHCE. If you have a BS in CS, you (most likely) have an understanding of the fundamental principles of programming and, with some learning curve, can write code on any target platform required of you.
I'm guessing you haven't had to run up twenty or so side by side either - it's almost enough to require therapy!
Nope, as my highest, I've only done eight at once. And I'll admit the music did clash a bit with itself (though I went down the line and started them all on-beat with one another - "Interesting" effect, though I don't think I'd call it all that enjoyable).
No wait! Someone will make DJ trance/tecno remixes of it.
Actually, a bit closer to the "ambient" subgenre, I have to admit I really do like the XP post-installation music. Not enough that I'd add it to my normal playlists, but I do let it play through to the end (far longer than necessary) when I have occasion to do an install.
As for Vista - Good move on MS's part to leave the startup sound changeable, considering that VERY few people actually do change their sounds, while I can think of no better way to guarantee that people will use something else than to force the issue.
O RLY? A lot of power monopolies seem to charge each residential customer $100 or more per year even if the customer uses no power.
Which has what, exactly, to do with "grid tie inverters"?
Although I have not personally experienced such flat fees from any of the several electric companies I've used, it wouldn't surprise me if such companies do indeed exist. Considering, however, that I usually pay over $100 per month for my electricity, I would still consider dropping that to only $100 per year one hell of a savings!
You buy a $400 system and games, then pay someone else $300 to play it for you?
WTF is wrong with people these days, seriosly?
Simple - The combination of three factors:
1) Widespread acceptance of reward in a token economy as a primary reinforcement. You can compare this to sexual fetishes, where the object of the fetish can elicit a stronger response than "real" sexual activity.
2) The use of money - A "token" economy even if also the basis of the "real" economy - has conditioned most humans from a VERY young age into exactly what I describe in #1.
3) The easy creation of new shared token economies by videogame companies online.
These lead to exactly what you bemoan - We've gone so far from the original reinforcers (food, sex) via a virtually ubiquitous subsitution (money can buy food and sex), to the point where people can no longer fully separate one token from another (points in a video game may lead to improved pack status, but can't exchange for food or sex). People "know" that the tokens issued by their home govevernment have a certain consensual fungibility, which points in a video game do not; but they "feel" more-or-less equally satisfying to collect.
the company has fitted inside each drive a 0.6 millimeter-thick piece of glass
A typical double-sided DVD consists of two 0.6mm polycarbonate layers sandwitched back-to-back.
So basically, this just trades a cheap external more-or-less disposeable disc with an attached and well-protected media layer, for an expensive internal (to the drive) point of failure, with a separate, very fragile media layer.
Woo woo, where oh where can I trade my entire DVD collection in for some of these magic beans?
The price of a DVD or CD doesn't come from the cost of a few grams of polycarbonate, it comes from the cost to license the content. This seems like a useless device - unless they have the goal of increasing the frequency with which people need to replace movies they already bought, due to physical failure.
The big problem with wind power is that on top of that price, you also have to invest in a huge (and very expensive) energy storage system that can supply your entire energy needs for at least a day when there is little/no wind.
Not true - You only need that if you plan to go completely off-grid. If you just want to cut your electric bill (possibly to the point of making it negative) and do your part to help save the environment, you can throw up a windmill or two, a few solar panels, whatever, and just install a grid tie inverter. On the plus side, these cost far less than battery banks (which still need an inverter, just a less complex one) and last longer, but you won't have power if the grid goes down.
You can also get hybrid inverters, that switch to off-grid during a blackout, usually but not necessarily supplemented by a small battery bank, which can give the best of both worlds as long as you have either rare blackouts or very steady wind.
Is this a solution looking for a problem?
No, this addresses probably the single biggest problem in finally starting an age of human exploration of space - How to cheaply and efficiently get materials off-planet. It might not work for living things or sensitive experiments, but it would work wonders for some of the more mundane limiting factors to working in space, such as building materials, water, fuel, and the like.
Interestingly, "fuel" might count as the most useful supply to fling cheaply into space - Current launch vehicles need to carry, from the ground, all the fuel for getting off planet, carrying out their mission, and returning home. Having a refueling station in orbit would drastically reduce the cost-per-kg even for conventional vehicles.
I also wonder how much energy it would use to do such a thing compared to the energy expended launching the payload using a conventional solid/liquid fuel rocket.
Describing it in terms of cost-per-unit-of-mass takes exactly that into consideration. If it costs only 1% of what we have now, that translates more-or-less to using 1% of the amount of energy. Going back to the idea of flinging fuel into orbit, keep in mind that current systems "waste" most of their energy lifting fuel that they will burn in the process of getting to orbit (as well as that needed in orbit and to get back).
Is there any chance something other than the drives is causing the failures? Bad power? Too little cooling?
I have to strongly suspect so... I know the occasional "bad batch" of drives makes it out the door, and certain specific models fail at a high rate (ie, the legendary "deathstars"), but honestly, I've never personally had a drive fail on me. At my current job, babysitting somewhere around 50 computers in a fairly harsh industrial environment, I've had only three drives fail ever (and two of those lived in laptops, an environment known for eating even the best of drives).
You can call my sample statistically insignificant, but I just find it nearly unbelievable that anyone could have multiple drives fail on them in a short period of time, without some environmental factor (not necessarily the "fault" of the owner, but not an inherently defective drive, either) speeding those drives to the grave. Heat, shock (impact), poor power, something must have caused the problem.
peak power use (just okay)
The core 2 duo has a TDP of 65W (75 for the "Extreme"). The X2s had 85, then 65, and now a mere 35W, or basically half of the core 2 duo.
memory bandwidth and latency is still behind X2s, but I know you don't really care about those "facts"
Well, considering I mentioned them, you might not want to assume quite so much...
And yes, I called them "abysmal", because they haven't even caught up to the X2, despite having a year and a half since the X2s came out to play catch-up.
Poor overall performance
Would you like links to a similarly stacked test showing the X2s trouncing the C2D?
Here, how about one that matches a few of your linked benchmarks, yet shows the opposite result? Funny how that works.
Again, Intel has merely "caught up". Performing on par with an 18-month old chip, I consider a poor showing indeed - particularly when you consider that, while Intel has played its hand, AMD (beyond releasing lower power versions) still hasn't fully revealed its next gen yet.
You need to pull AMD's dick out of your mouth and try again.
Did I mumble?
Gone are the days when you can buy something (an Athlon XP) that delivers 95% of the intel equivalent for half the price (saving hundreds of dollars), or offering a value processor (The good'ol Duron) that kicked the living crap out of a faster Intel mainstream CPU for a tad more than nothing.
True - Instead, you can now get an AMD chip that delivers almost twice the performance on half the power for the same price as the "comparable" Intel offering.
And I write that not as an AMD fanboy, but someone who really did have high hopes for the core 2 duo. Boy did Intel screw that pooch... Poor overall performance (for a supposedly whole new chip gen, compared to its predecessors), abysmal memory performance, and while it has okay peak power use (just okay), it still comes in several times that of the X2s when idle (ie, 90% of most systems' uptime).
Now, to address the FP issue - I can summarize why AM2 hasn't taken off in one number - "939". About a year ago, I bought a few 939 boards with the first gen of 90nm Athlon 64s 3000s, and they still perform admirably. Now that the X2 parts have dropped, I plan to upgrade in the next month or two, without needing to swap anything except the CPU out, to almost 4x the horsepower with a socket 939 X2 4800+. And I don't even need that, I would consider it a luxury (CPU speeds just don't jump ahead like they used to, so my current PCs may well remain useful long enough to actually wear out and die, rather than going to an early grave due to technology making them less powerful than a typical calculator).
One and only one feature might get me to upgrade to an AM2 board - The ADD partnumbered chips (35W max) which AFAIK only run on AM2. But since those currently don't seem to exist as anything but samples (despite their official release), my itch to upgrade to the 4800 just for the hell of it may win out.
typically a few levels, usually towards the end - drag on and offer nothing new or interesting in terms of gameplay, and that's why so many go unfinished IMO.
Agreed completely. I can't even count how many games I've gotten 99% of the way through, just a plot-point or two from the end... Then got bored levelling up; or searching the entire game world pixel-by-pixel looking for the Otherwise-Useless-Weapon-of -Final-Badguy-Instant-Death (without which your party dies by the second round no matter how powerful); Or playing an impossibly difficult yet not very fun mini-game for no reason other than to get the Key of FooBar that lets me access the final boss.
After a day or two of nothing but "kill, kill, kill, level, rest" or "dig, take one step, dig, take one step, dig, buy more peppers...", I'll usually stop playing for a while. Then when I come back, and resume that same mindless task for another day or two, I just quit altogether.
"It will list federal grants and contracts greater than $25,000, except for those classified for national security reasons."
In other news, the president has just issued an executive order classifying all government spending over $25,000, for national security reasons.
The Holocene is the relatively warm period that has existed for almost 12,000 years, since the end of the last major ice age.
Holo-(s)cene? Ohhhh boy. Cue the Matrix jokes...
I know most of the slashdot crowd is going to deride this move on Apple's part as completely stupid.
Stupid? Hell no! "Convenient".
Although I don't often agree with Apple's bizarre worldview, I have ranted against the use of the various forms of the word "podcast" since I first heard it. If Apple wants to kill a form of free positive PR and take out an annoying neologism at the same time, bless 'em.
Podcast... Jeezus, people, how commercial have we become? A podcast amounts to nothing more than an audio file available for download, no different than any other MP3 on the web. It doesn't need its own term just because Billy Blogger did a crappy voiceover between two tracks.