These are the usual weak arguments that are brought forth. There is no possible moral defence to pirating movies, its not a necessity of life. You can't afford to see the latest Hollywood hundred million dollar plus epic waste of time? First of all you haven't missed much, second of all there are a lot of free entertainment options that don't rely on infringing on somebody elses property.
There is no moral imperative that insists that he essentially donate his works to freeloaders who can afford 600 megabytes or more of storage space, a net connection to download it and a machine studly enough to view the file. There isn't even any moral imperative that he say insist that a certain number of seats are set aside as freebies for the poor.
People shouldn't shed any tears at all for smaller men who get bullied by bigger ones because they choose to start the fight.
One of the things they try to avoid are people out to make a killing on short term gains. It's in a FAQ or something on E*trade, so they try to screen out people who will buy in on the IPO and sell hours/days/weeks/months later.
Copyright violation is copyright violation. George Lucas is using legal means to slap the wrists of little kiddies who distribute property he holds a copyright on. Good for him. It won't really work but its amazing so many people hold it against him.
If I tomorrow grab the source tree for Linux, strip out all that nasty copyright information and redistribute it sans license (or maybe under my own license) hoards of screaming Free Software zealots would beat down my door bearing torches and rightfully so.
The success or lack of success of the object who's copyright is being violated doesn't make a difference except in the minds of the deadbeats who think everything everywhere should be free regardless of the authors intent.
Is violating the GPL on Linux any more ethical now than it was say 4 years ago when it was less successful?
It sounds like LEGO will be releasing a driver development kit that is more helpful to people working in alternate languages etc. From the FAQ:
Will LEGO MINDSTORMS release a Software Developer's Kit? We have released a Software Developer's Kit (SDK), which includes a license to utilize the underlying technology for the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System 1.0. The SDK has documentation to enable advanced users to write commands to the RCX from alternative programming environments, such as Visual Basic. This documentation provides much greater access to the full range of commands and functions built inside the RCX.
The first release of the SDK focuses on communicating with the RCX from Windows applications, as the current drivers are designed for this environment.
Steps are being taken now to revise the architecture of the drivers to be much more platform independent. This will give users more options for leveraging the power of the RCX. Once the new drivers have been developed and tested, we will release a revised and more powerful SDK. We expect the second SDK to be released in 1999.
Use of the SDK and the underlying technology is strictly under the terms of the SDK licensing agreement and is only for noncommercial use. The LEGO Group retains all rights to the product and the underlying technology.
Right now I hold Starbridge Systems in as much esteem as I hold American Computer. Starbridge systems makes provably bogus performance claims. They're not overstated nor are they misleading, they're bogus. Maybe they do have something but their marketing department is overzealous and/or stupid, either way having such obviously false information sure makes it look like a scam.
It's an interesting idea but I don't think it'd work. Suppose I run a semi-fake client. It processes keys as normal but also churns out fake key responses. In that case the client would report a successful crack for those puzzles while still swamping distributed.net in fake solutions.
In order for real high tech companies (I'm not talking about the AOL's or the amazon.com's of the world) to compete they have to differentiate. To do this means that their principle scientists generate new ideas that give them an edge over the competition. In order to protect their intellectual property its in their best interest to patent it otherwise other companies just feed on the R&D expenditure of the real technology leaders.
If people and corporations were honest this wouldn't be necessary. They're not, so it is. Certain software patents may make it seem like the patent system is useless but that isn't true. It needs some work, but without the protection that patents and patent litigation affords no company would stick their out to break new ground. It'd be much safer to just wait for somebody else (probably academic institutions) to come up with technology and pilfer it.
Michael Chricton wrote the book. I think I spelled the name somewhat wrong, sorry.
That life mirrors science fiction (or art in general) is only true to a limited extent. The less understood the science in question the less accurate the statement is. Jurassic Park only made use of dribblings of science fact mixed in with a lot more fiction to propel the story along. That's ok, its fiction, it isn't an essay.
Suppose tomorrow we find out somebody has reproduced dinosaurs on an isolated island in the south pacific. Also suppose that these people abandon it for whatever reason. If certain predators such as the velociraptor were as efficient as portrayed in the movie the population would quickly die out. The birth rate of what the velociraptor consider foods just wouldn't be fast enough to maintain its food supply. The large herbivores would defoliate the island quicker than new foilage could grow.
The point is that the book was written with a goal in mind: Dinosaurs run amock due to the capricious actions of scientific man. A certain amount of science fact to make the recreation of dinosaurs plausible was added. A whole lot of abuse of science went on to not only let the island run away but generate a sequel (or is it at 2 sequels now?)
These extinct birds are a lot more understood than dinosaurs as well. Details such as its diet, flight range, mating habits and any special dietary staples may well be known. So for instance if it prefers to dine on an insect which is also preferred to be dined on by a 'modern' avian then it can be taken into consideration. Hopefully this is being done otherwise these people aren't scientists.
I've noticed that whenever a contraversial scientific discovery or application of a technique is brought up in the press the same thing happens. Everybody points to Hollywood science fiction movies as some sort of proof that the scheme will be the doom of mankind. These are just stories, they're meant to entertain and occasionaly enlighten. The emphasis is entertainment though.
The public loves to see science gone awry and so science fiction authors and script writers use scientific cause and effect hyperbole to make money. This is a shame because in reality science and the scientific method has helped mankind more than its harmed it. Plagues were dampened in the bad old days by the scientific method: A statician noticed a correlation between disease outbreaks and proximities to contaminated water. The scientific method kept our ancestors alive: Eating berries from this bush makes us ill. Science brought us vaccines, analgesics, anti-inflamattories etc.
This doesn't mean blindly accept all scientific concepts or endeavours, but don't point at by-and-large poorly written science fiction as evidence.
Re:If I went back to school now I'd study: History
on
Quickie Fu
·
· Score: 2
This is true to an extant. It's mostly because its harder to gain credibility as a or judge credibility in a person who is degreed in a field tangential to what they want to specialize in. I've got some anecdotal evidence in the form of friends who either didn't go to college at all or went to college to study the liberal arts but who do work in IT. The web browser would've been created regardless of Mark's background. He may or may not have been a part of it. The concept of the web wasn't created by him, just an implementation of a tool for navigating through it.
As for why its harder for people with other degrees to break into computer science its mostly because before your resume is even looked at by a hiring manager or a technical person its pre-screened by a person trained to look for buzz words. They usually look at academic credentials first.
Usually if you look at the datasheets the companies such as Supermicro put out you'll see an asterix next to any specifications that relied on options which were in the pipeline but didn't exist at manufacture. The asterix states that the board hasn't been tested with the parts in question.
The engineers who design the motherboard can make pretty educated guesses as to what the electrical performance required at the socket will be for these parts. As long as the mechanical interface doesn't change and the electrical interface either sticks with preliminary information or doesn't change much from existing implementations they're in good shape. They protect themselves with the disclaimer: If the external manufactures don't make say a 1 gigabyte SDRAM with the projected specifications you can't sue then as it was just a best effort attempt.
There's a book thats basically an historical account of the British intelligence agencies during the World War II era and the autobiography of the author, Peter Wright. It seems to be out of print so I won't post an Amazon URL.
Anyway, one of their escapades was to insert a pair of microphones either in the room with or directly inside a typewriter keyboard. From the sounds recorded this way they could reproduce what the typist was typing. Sort of a low-tech (high-tech at the time!) implementation of a TEMPTEST-like scheme.
If you can find it try reading the book. It starts off as a fairly good read and reveals some of the real way espionage agencies can get information. The writing style deteriorates later on (fired the ghost writer or hired a different ghost writer?)
I had bothered to check their website and at the time they didn't display it.
Re:Will probably open at a large premium.
on
Red Hat IPO Update
·
· Score: 2
It'll open at a huge premium for sure. A lot of people will buy it just to ride the first 10 days inflated price. The only way that ordinary people will get in on the IPO itself is if they offer it via mail or electronic means. I got in on a few IPO's while I was an undergrad this way... mail them a cheque for 500 bucks and you get 40some shares. It doesn't look like they're doing this though.
Re:This isn't the old Amiga - it's a Mac on steroi
on
Amiga Technology Brief
·
· Score: 2
The Amiga had coprocessors because consumer technology didn't exist that filled their needs at the time. A 3DFX card or what have you in a PCI slot is actually a specialized coprocessor. A chip like the newest ATI offerings are a system on a chip featuring a video processor and a 3d graphics coprocessor. PCI is just the bus used to connect it. The Amiga had some bus to connect their custom chips through as well, never having owned one I don't know the name.
Any analog recording undergoes lossy compression as well. Cutting an LP for instance involves making scratches in wax (approximately) and the scratching device can only respond to a certain range of frequencies.
It's a pretty sketchy article, and the patent so far hasn't even been granted from what I'm reading. The patent shouldn't be granted if its as vague as the article indicates. Prior to 1995 it was entirely possible to download music files and play them back on a portable device. Namely a laptop computer. Laptop type computing devices have been around for a while. I distinctly remember a MOD player or something on a friends clunky 8086 laptop in 1987 or 1988.
I don't know whether its that patents are so wrong or its that some people are so stupid, lazy and greedy. Though I suppose if those personality traits weren't so prevalent then patents wouldn't be needed.
The middle class in any country isn't who needs assistance. If the middle class is growing thats great.
It may be the result of biased North American media, but the general perception here is that a lot of people in what are termed third world countries are living in abject poverty. I'm not talking about commercials by for-profit charities which make a living by dribbling out pennies for every dollar contributed.
A lot of the people I've met who are from these countries would disagree that there is a large middle class.
CodeWarrior isn't shackled to RedHat. People with a clue are capable of running it under other Linux variants and are doing so. Some assumption had to be made about the installation, MetroWerks chose RedHat. No doubt RedHat did some campaigning for this. That's their perogative.
MetroWerks is releasing RedHat for Debian in the future according to their press releases. This may be the result of campainging by Debian. That's their perogative.
Users presently have a choice of an easy install under one Linux variant: RedHat. Soon they will have the choice of an easy install under two Linux variants: RedHat and Debian.
Clueful people will of course still be able to make it work with their variant of choice with additional effort. Any shackles against doing so are imposed purely by your skills.
If every linux vendor agreed on standard places to put things and standard technology this wouldn't be necessary. None of the vendors seem to be making any real comittment to doing so however (creating some ficticious standards body which recommends your distribution as the standard isn't a real comittment)
I don't work for MetroWerks, RedHat or Debian, though I used to be a satisfied customer of RedHat (not so satisfied anymore)
If it would actually accomplish any amount of good it wouldn't bother me at all. It won't accomplish anything so it does bother me. A lot of these underdeveloped nations have problems that make lack of internet access absolutely trivial in comparision. Little things like little water that we'd consider drinkable, lack of the ability to even farm at a scale large enough to support the community, lack of an educational system that might allow a few people to make it out alive, lack of anything greater than late 19th century medical technology, the presence of a government that feels the need to commit genocide against its own people. Just so that matter can be made even worse how about rampant overpopulation and birthrate.
A far more useful thing would be to encourage or enforce birth control to keep the populations in check with the carrying capacity of the land. Harsh? Yes. Is it any harsher than referring to the deaths of civilians (of any side) as collateral damage during any war-like campaign? No.
In most of these countries it won't be the people who get internet access, it'll be the oppressive government which also happens to keep their people in the dark ages.
Actually thats incorrect. Presently we watch TV drinking either Molson's or Labatt's beer while eating slabs of back bacon and wearing toques. After the investment we'll all be issued Microsoft logoed beer hats. Personally I feel that as long as the flow rate of the beer through the apparatus is fast enough I don't mind at all.
Slashdot Mirror
These are the usual weak arguments that are brought forth. There is no possible moral defence to pirating movies, its not a necessity of life. You can't afford to see the latest Hollywood hundred million dollar plus epic waste of time? First of all you haven't missed much, second of all there are a lot of free entertainment options that don't rely on infringing on somebody elses property.
There is no moral imperative that insists that he essentially donate his works to freeloaders who can afford 600 megabytes or more of storage space, a net connection to download it and a machine studly enough to view the file. There isn't even any moral imperative that he say insist that a certain number of seats are set aside as freebies for the poor.
People shouldn't shed any tears at all for smaller men who get bullied by bigger ones because they choose to start the fight.
One of the things they try to avoid are people out to make a killing on short term gains. It's in a FAQ or something on E*trade, so they try to screen out people who will buy in on the IPO and sell hours/days/weeks/months later.
Copyright violation is copyright violation. George Lucas is using legal means to slap the wrists of little kiddies who distribute property he holds a copyright on. Good for him. It won't really work but its amazing so many people hold it against him.
If I tomorrow grab the source tree for Linux, strip out all that nasty copyright information and redistribute it sans license (or maybe under my own license) hoards of screaming Free Software zealots would beat down my door bearing torches and rightfully so.
The success or lack of success of the object who's copyright is being violated doesn't make a difference except in the minds of the deadbeats who think everything everywhere should be free regardless of the authors intent.
Is violating the GPL on Linux any more ethical now than it was say 4 years ago when it was less successful?
It sounds like LEGO will be releasing a driver development kit that is more helpful to people working in alternate languages etc. From the FAQ:
Will LEGO MINDSTORMS release a Software Developer's Kit?
We have released a Software Developer's Kit (SDK), which includes a license to utilize the underlying
technology for the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System 1.0. The SDK has documentation to enable
advanced users to write commands to the RCX from alternative programming environments, such as Visual Basic.
This documentation provides much greater access to the full range of commands and functions built inside the
RCX.
The first release of the SDK focuses on communicating with the RCX from Windows applications, as the current
drivers are designed for this environment.
Steps are being taken now to revise the architecture of the drivers to be much more platform independent.
This will give users more options for leveraging the power of the RCX. Once the new drivers have been
developed and tested, we will release a revised and more powerful SDK. We expect the second SDK to be
released in 1999.
Use of the SDK and the underlying technology is strictly under the terms of the SDK licensing agreement and
is only for noncommercial use. The LEGO Group retains all rights to the product and the underlying
technology.
Right now I hold Starbridge Systems in as much esteem as I hold American Computer. Starbridge systems makes provably bogus performance claims. They're not overstated nor are they misleading, they're bogus. Maybe they do have something but their marketing department is overzealous and/or stupid, either way having such obviously false information sure makes it look like a scam.
It's an interesting idea but I don't think it'd work. Suppose I run a semi-fake client. It processes keys as normal but also churns out fake key responses. In that case the client would report a successful crack for those puzzles while still swamping distributed.net in fake solutions.
In order for real high tech companies (I'm not talking about the AOL's or the amazon.com's of the world) to compete they have to differentiate. To do this means that their principle scientists generate new ideas that give them an edge over the competition. In order to protect their intellectual property its in their best interest to patent it otherwise other companies just feed on the R&D expenditure of the real technology leaders.
If people and corporations were honest this wouldn't be necessary. They're not, so it is. Certain software patents may make it seem like the patent system is useless but that isn't true. It needs some work, but without the protection that patents and patent litigation affords no company would stick their out to break new ground. It'd be much safer to just wait for somebody else (probably academic institutions) to come up with technology and pilfer it.
Michael Chricton wrote the book. I think I spelled the name somewhat wrong, sorry.
That life mirrors science fiction (or art in general) is only true to a limited extent. The less understood the science in question the less accurate the statement is. Jurassic Park only made use of dribblings of science fact mixed in with a lot more fiction to propel the story along. That's ok, its fiction, it isn't an essay.
Suppose tomorrow we find out somebody has reproduced dinosaurs on an isolated island in the south pacific. Also suppose that these people abandon it for whatever reason. If certain predators such as the velociraptor were as efficient as portrayed in the movie the population would quickly die out. The birth rate of what the velociraptor consider foods just wouldn't be fast enough to maintain its food supply. The large herbivores would defoliate the island quicker than new foilage could grow.
The point is that the book was written with a goal in mind: Dinosaurs run amock due to the capricious actions of scientific man. A certain amount of science fact to make the recreation of dinosaurs plausible was added. A whole lot of abuse of science went on to not only let the island run away but generate a sequel (or is it at 2 sequels now?)
These extinct birds are a lot more understood than dinosaurs as well. Details such as its diet, flight range, mating habits and any special dietary staples may well be known. So for instance if it prefers to dine on an insect which is also preferred to be dined on by a 'modern' avian then it can be taken into consideration. Hopefully this is being done otherwise these people aren't scientists.
I've noticed that whenever a contraversial scientific discovery or application of a technique is brought up in the press the same thing happens. Everybody points to Hollywood science fiction movies as some sort of proof that the scheme will be the doom of mankind. These are just stories, they're meant to entertain and occasionaly enlighten. The emphasis is entertainment though.
The public loves to see science gone awry and so science fiction authors and script writers use scientific cause and effect hyperbole to make money. This is a shame because in reality science and the scientific method has helped mankind more than its harmed it. Plagues were dampened in the bad old days by the scientific method: A statician noticed a correlation between disease outbreaks and proximities to contaminated water. The scientific method kept our ancestors alive: Eating berries from this bush makes us ill. Science brought us vaccines, analgesics, anti-inflamattories etc.
This doesn't mean blindly accept all scientific concepts or endeavours, but don't point at by-and-large poorly written science fiction as evidence.
This is true to an extant. It's mostly because its harder to gain credibility as a or judge credibility in a person who is degreed in a field tangential to what they want to specialize in. I've got some anecdotal evidence in the form of friends who either didn't go to college at all or went to college to study the liberal arts but who do work in IT. The web browser would've been created regardless of Mark's background. He may or may not have been a part of it. The concept of the web wasn't created by him, just an implementation of a tool for navigating through it.
As for why its harder for people with other degrees to break into computer science its mostly because before your resume is even looked at by a hiring manager or a technical person its pre-screened by a person trained to look for buzz words. They usually look at academic credentials first.
Usually if you look at the datasheets the companies such as Supermicro put out you'll see an asterix next to any specifications that relied on options which were in the pipeline but didn't exist at manufacture. The asterix states that the board hasn't been tested with the parts in question.
The engineers who design the motherboard can make pretty educated guesses as to what the electrical performance required at the socket will be for these parts. As long as the mechanical interface doesn't change and the electrical interface either sticks with preliminary information or doesn't change much from existing implementations they're in good shape. They protect themselves with the disclaimer: If the external manufactures don't make say a 1 gigabyte SDRAM with the projected specifications you can't sue then as it was just a best effort attempt.
There's a book thats basically an historical account of the British intelligence agencies during the World War II era and the autobiography of the author, Peter Wright. It seems to be out of print so I won't post an Amazon URL.
Anyway, one of their escapades was to insert a pair of microphones either in the room with or directly inside a typewriter keyboard. From the sounds recorded this way they could reproduce what the typist was typing. Sort of a low-tech (high-tech at the time!) implementation of a TEMPTEST-like scheme.
If you can find it try reading the book. It starts off as a fairly good read and reveals some of the real way espionage agencies can get information. The writing style deteriorates later on (fired the ghost writer or hired a different ghost writer?)
I had bothered to check their website and at the time they didn't display it.
It'll open at a huge premium for sure. A lot of people will buy it just to ride the first 10 days inflated price. The only way that ordinary people will get in on the IPO itself is if they offer it via mail or electronic means. I got in on a few IPO's while I was an undergrad this way... mail them a cheque for 500 bucks and you get 40some shares. It doesn't look like they're doing this though.
The Amiga had coprocessors because consumer technology didn't exist that filled their needs at the time. A 3DFX card or what have you in a PCI slot is actually a specialized coprocessor. A chip like the newest ATI offerings are a system on a chip featuring a video processor and a 3d graphics coprocessor. PCI is just the bus used to connect it. The Amiga had some bus to connect their custom chips through as well, never having owned one I don't know the name.
Use non-lossy jpeg and they'll still look pretty. Not sure how well the compression will work though.
Any analog recording undergoes lossy compression as well. Cutting an LP for instance involves making scratches in wax (approximately) and the scratching device can only respond to a certain range of frequencies.
Err... CodeWarrior for Debian.
The patent hasn't been granted from what I can gather from the articles lack of information.
It's a pretty sketchy article, and the patent so far hasn't even been granted from what I'm reading. The patent shouldn't be granted if its as vague as the article indicates. Prior to 1995 it was entirely possible to download music files and play them back on a portable device. Namely a laptop computer. Laptop type computing devices have been around for a while. I distinctly remember a MOD player or something on a friends clunky 8086 laptop in 1987 or 1988.
I don't know whether its that patents are so wrong or its that some people are so stupid, lazy and greedy. Though I suppose if those personality traits weren't so prevalent then patents wouldn't be needed.
There's also something bigger, better and eventually cheaper on the horizon. If a system meets your needs now then get it.
The middle class in any country isn't who needs assistance. If the middle class is growing thats great.
It may be the result of biased North American media, but the general perception here is that a lot of people in what are termed third world countries are living in abject poverty. I'm not talking about commercials by for-profit charities which make a living by dribbling out pennies for every dollar contributed.
A lot of the people I've met who are from these countries would disagree that there is a large middle class.
CodeWarrior isn't shackled to RedHat. People with a clue are capable of running it under other Linux variants and are doing so. Some assumption had to be made about the installation, MetroWerks chose RedHat. No doubt RedHat did some campaigning for this. That's their perogative.
MetroWerks is releasing RedHat for Debian in the future according to their press releases. This may be the result of campainging by Debian. That's their perogative.
Users presently have a choice of an easy install under one Linux variant: RedHat. Soon they will have the choice of an easy install under two Linux variants: RedHat and Debian.
Clueful people will of course still be able to make it work with their variant of choice with additional effort. Any shackles against doing so are imposed purely by your skills.
If every linux vendor agreed on standard places to put things and standard technology this wouldn't be necessary. None of the vendors seem to be making any real comittment to doing so however (creating some ficticious standards body which recommends your distribution as the standard isn't a real comittment)
I don't work for MetroWerks, RedHat or Debian, though I used to be a satisfied customer of RedHat (not so satisfied anymore)
If it would actually accomplish any amount of good it wouldn't bother me at all. It won't accomplish anything so it does bother me. A lot of these underdeveloped nations have problems that make lack of internet access absolutely trivial in comparision. Little things like little water that we'd consider drinkable, lack of the ability to even farm at a scale large enough to support the community, lack of an educational system that might allow a few people to make it out alive, lack of anything greater than late 19th century medical technology, the presence of a government that feels the need to commit genocide against its own people. Just so that matter can be made even worse how about rampant overpopulation and birthrate.
A far more useful thing would be to encourage or enforce birth control to keep the populations in check with the carrying capacity of the land. Harsh? Yes. Is it any harsher than referring to the deaths of civilians (of any side) as collateral damage during any war-like campaign? No.
In most of these countries it won't be the people who get internet access, it'll be the oppressive government which also happens to keep their people in the dark ages.
Actually thats incorrect. Presently we watch TV drinking either Molson's or Labatt's beer while eating slabs of back bacon and wearing toques. After the investment we'll all be issued Microsoft logoed beer hats. Personally I feel that as long as the flow rate of the beer through the apparatus is fast enough I don't mind at all.