"Why is there a CPU capable of immense processing power in my workstation that will run idle for most of its life? "
Ive never understood this question.. Looks to me like its a rare product that has its performance potential maxed out all the time. My cars engine runs low (or not at all) most of its life. My ceiling fan isnt on "high" 24/7. The house doors arent swinging back and forth non-stop. Why arent we complaining about that?
Something else to consider in this situation is that HBO isnt getting this college students money, whether she d/l's the episode or not. In as much as laws/ethics are there to prevent harm to people, I dont see her making a poor ethical choice. There is no physical product being stolen, HBO is not losing an inventory that it could have sold to someone else. The only thing that is happening here is that she gets to see an show she would of had to have missed otherwise, short of finding someone else with HBO who would let her watch it.
It looks like from the 'CRT vs. LCD' section in the article that LCDs pretty much suck for accurate pre-press work. (lack of accurate/high quality color, color depth, contrast, and gamma) Which, if I understand things correctly, is a major portion of Apples market. Are the apple LCDs just that much better, or are they leaving the market for pre-press monitors to third parties?
I dont know if cheap, easy to make, displays are so great. Imagine video as ubiquitous as print. Animated everything. If billboards and other public ads are bad now, wait until they are done in video. Yuck.
>You may have been branded as a troll for that >comment, but only because Slashdot hates the >bitter truth. I would be pissed as hell if I was >a tax payer in that region and they wasted money >on those shitty little ibooks.
I really have to agree. If the computers are there to teach people computer skills, than they should be the same platform that they will most likely be using in the job market. I could understand if the macs were for the art department or something similar, or maybe if they had Linux boxen for the CompSci department, but considering that most of the students will go on to use windows computers (like it or not), they should be taught on them to prevent having to go through another learning curve. I know too many people (self included) who got macs at home because thats what there was at school, only to have to switch to an alterative platform because the mac wasnt compatable with the defacto standard.
However, if they are just there to do word processing or something similar, than it doesnt really matter.
This is probably going to get modded down as "Troll", but its an honest question.
Why, exactly is Andromeda so great? I was really suprised to see it lauded. I caught about 20 minutes of it once, and it seemed to be on about the same level of quality as the "Lost World" "Sheena", etc. It had "fan boy" written all over it. My wife left after about 2 minutes, laughing hysterically. The acting was horrible; there was a lot of other stuff wrong with it, but Ive repressed that knowledge apparently, because I cant remember specifics. Id have to watch it again to list its other faults, and id rather not.
If I wanted to watch bad sci fi, i would watch Andromeda. So im not really getting the "best sci-fi on tv" comments.
So, instead of users experiencing hours of downtime seperately, as is par for the course with the internet anyway, in the "Digital Pearl Harbor", it will all happen at once? Would anyone even be bothered?
"Oh. Another outage. Darn."
I think I experience a "Digital Pearl Harbor" about once a month with my Road Runner account.
Seeing words like 'sobering' and 'terrifying' applied to terrorist biowarfare seems a bit over the top to me. We stand a greater chance of dying in a car accident or any of a wide range of more mundane lethal incidents then we do of getting smallpox, anthrax, or getting a plane flown into our office building. Yet, people arent submitting hand-wringing posts about these incidents that have a much greater chance of killing us.
Looks like novelty is the issue here, (Look! heres a ~new~ way we can die!) not potential lethality.
UPS is not the only company that does this. I used to work for RPS, and the amount of damage and theft of packages was outrageous. Anything that was breakable and wasnt packed to survive nuclear detonation was trashed. Workers would regularly open packages that shipped to retailers and lift articles of clothing, drop kick 'fragile' packages across the loading docks, etc. etc. etc.
However, looking at the pictures, I dont think that the computers were packed properly. If they were in the original styrofoam casings, they probably would have been fine. Bubble wrap (unless you want to wrap it a foot thick) wont cut it for computer equipment.
Might this robot work for telepresence? Explore mars with a remote controlled Asimo? (granted, lag time would be a problem, but if we can make it smart enough to somewhat take care of itself...) Use a fuel cell to power it, (im assuming its using normal batteries right now) and we could get most of the thrill (for the audience) and flexability of a manned exploration with none of the stresses of prolonged space travel on the human body. I doubt the tech is stable enough to be used for NASA work, but maybe in the near future?
>Thank god you stepped forward to bring calm and >order to Slashdot!
Apparently people considered that posters advice to be necessary, seeing as how the parent is now sitting at +3 insightful. "Oh! We ~shouldnt~ panic! We almost forgot!"
Unbelievable.
Anyway, Im putting money down that this is just a random accident, and not an attempted terrorist act.
"So either present compelling evidence that ten-year-olds seeing some underage and probably illegally compelled porn acress getting anally raped by twenty guys isn't damaging his/her attitudes towards themselves and the opposite sex. And have that evidence be compelling enough to persuade some typical suburban parents."
Yet, any kid with cable can flip on the box and watch someone get shot, or beheaded, or mauled, or any of a wide variety of horrible deaths. But heaven forbid they may be exposed online to people having sex.
The problem is, AFAIK, there has never been a credible study that shows that porn -does- have the negative impact that people are saying it does. If people are trying to prevent access, the burden of proof should be on them. Most of the examples given by the shocked "family values" people are anecdotal. If we want to go that route, Ted Bundy liked cheerleader magazines. Maybe we should restrict childrens access to football games.
Looks to me like this is just an extension of the 'sex is dirty' mindset, with shrills like 'Dr' Laura fanning the fires by making up crap about children getting 'hooked on porn' at public libraries.
> I think we should welcome the opportunity to
> create entities who possess thought processes
> entirely outside our experience
This is probably one of those trite sci fi things, but how do we know we havent done that already? If the thought process is entirely outside of our experience, how are we going to recognize it? Wasnt our human behavior used to define what consititutes 'thought process'?
The web itself may have some sort of intelligence to it, and we just dont recognize it. Hell, the entire universe could be alive and wondering about stuff, and because of problems of scale, we cant tell it is.
>Draw the line at exploitation. Are women being exploited? Then it's pornography and should be banned. It's important to understand these issues by the power bases they perpetuate.
This is so extreme im having a hard time believing its serious. But anyway..
Define "exploitation" here. If, you plan on eliminating porn only because it exploits women, I think that if we follow through on that and apply it to the rest of the world, we should ban most if not all of what goes on in our lives.
Factory work can easily be described as expolitative. Women probably worked on the computer you are using. Yet you use it. Same with the clothes you are wearing and the food you are eating that is harvested by exploited workers. I am forced into working at a boring job because I need money. Etc. etc.
Dearie, -life- is exploitative. The time to opt out is now.
Its seemed to me that corporations/businesses are more amoral than evil. Morality doesnt even enter the equasion when we are talking about an enity that exists primarily (or solely) to create money, unless its required to generate profit.
Ricofencer said: "Yes, and the way around it will be illegal thanks to the DCMA. The law is very straight forward on that. Any attempt to market or distribute a device whose sole intent is to avoid copy protection is illegal. "
I think that "sole intent" is the key word here. Macrovision filters are sold in the backs of electronics magazines under the pretense that they boost your signal and make it clearer.
As long as there is some way that the mechanism that defeats copy protection can be used for some legitmate use, its legal, as far as I can tell.
>I really like bands like cannibal corpse, >The words don't matter to me, its all about the >instruments. Bands like cannibal corpse == the >bringer of evil, but their guitar work is amazing
I listened to a bit of Cannibal Corpse when I was a teenager, and if I remember their music correctly, their vocals are much (if not exactly) like listening to Cookie Monster screaming "I CUM BLOOD!!!". So I can appreciate why one would focus on their guitar work. Which was nice.:)
Slashdot Mirror
"Why is there a CPU capable of immense processing power in my workstation that will run idle for most of its life? "
Ive never understood this question.. Looks to me like its a rare product that has its performance potential maxed out all the time. My cars engine runs low (or not at all) most of its life. My ceiling fan isnt on "high" 24/7. The house doors arent swinging back and forth non-stop. Why arent we complaining about that?
Something else to consider in this situation is that HBO isnt getting this college students money, whether she d/l's the episode or not. In as much as laws/ethics are there to prevent harm to people, I dont see her making a poor ethical choice. There is no physical product being stolen, HBO is not losing an inventory that it could have sold to someone else. The only thing that is happening here is that she gets to see an show she would of had to have missed otherwise, short of finding someone else with HBO who would let her watch it.
It looks like from the 'CRT vs. LCD' section in the article that LCDs pretty much suck for accurate pre-press work. (lack of accurate/high quality color, color depth, contrast, and gamma) Which, if I understand things correctly, is a major portion of Apples market. Are the apple LCDs just that much better, or are they leaving the market for pre-press monitors to third parties?
Considering what a lead zepplin that Jini was, im not going to fall over myself in excitement for this new system.
I dont know if cheap, easy to make, displays are so great. Imagine video as ubiquitous as print. Animated everything. If billboards and other public ads are bad now, wait until they are done in video. Yuck.
>You may have been branded as a troll for that >comment, but only because Slashdot hates the >bitter truth. I would be pissed as hell if I was >a tax payer in that region and they wasted money >on those shitty little ibooks.
I really have to agree. If the computers are there to teach people computer skills, than they should be the same platform that they will most likely be using in the job market. I could understand if the macs were for the art department or something similar, or maybe if they had Linux boxen for the CompSci department, but considering that most of the students will go on to use windows computers (like it or not), they should be taught on them to prevent having to go through another learning curve. I know too many people (self included) who got macs at home because thats what there was at school, only to have to switch to an alterative platform because the mac wasnt compatable with the defacto standard.
However, if they are just there to do word processing or something similar, than it doesnt really matter.
This is probably going to get modded down as "Troll", but its an honest question.
Why, exactly is Andromeda so great? I was really suprised to see it lauded. I caught about 20 minutes of it once, and it seemed to be on about the same level of quality as the "Lost World" "Sheena", etc. It had "fan boy" written all over it. My wife left after about 2 minutes, laughing hysterically. The acting was horrible; there was a lot of other stuff wrong with it, but Ive repressed that knowledge apparently, because I cant remember specifics. Id have to watch it again to list its other faults, and id rather not.
If I wanted to watch bad sci fi, i would watch Andromeda. So im not really getting the "best sci-fi on tv" comments.
So, instead of users experiencing hours of downtime seperately, as is par for the course with the internet anyway, in the "Digital Pearl Harbor", it will all happen at once? Would anyone even be bothered?
"Oh. Another outage. Darn."
I think I experience a "Digital Pearl Harbor" about once a month with my Road Runner account.
Seeing words like 'sobering' and 'terrifying' applied to terrorist biowarfare seems a bit over the top to me. We stand a greater chance of dying in a car accident or any of a wide range of more mundane lethal incidents then we do of getting smallpox, anthrax, or getting a plane flown into our office building. Yet, people arent submitting hand-wringing posts about these incidents that have a much greater chance of killing us.
Looks like novelty is the issue here, (Look! heres a ~new~ way we can die!) not potential lethality.
UPS is not the only company that does this. I used to work for RPS, and the amount of damage and theft of packages was outrageous. Anything that was breakable and wasnt packed to survive nuclear detonation was trashed. Workers would regularly open packages that shipped to retailers and lift articles of clothing, drop kick 'fragile' packages across the loading docks, etc. etc. etc.
However, looking at the pictures, I dont think that the computers were packed properly. If they were in the original styrofoam casings, they probably would have been fine. Bubble wrap (unless you want to wrap it a foot thick) wont cut it for computer equipment.
Might this robot work for telepresence? Explore mars with a remote controlled Asimo? (granted, lag time would be a problem, but if we can make it smart enough to somewhat take care of itself...) Use a fuel cell to power it, (im assuming its using normal batteries right now) and we could get most of the thrill (for the audience) and flexability of a manned exploration with none of the stresses of prolonged space travel on the human body. I doubt the tech is stable enough to be used for NASA work, but maybe in the near future?
>Thank god you stepped forward to bring calm and >order to Slashdot!
Apparently people considered that posters advice to be necessary, seeing as how the parent is now sitting at +3 insightful. "Oh! We ~shouldnt~ panic! We almost forgot!"
Unbelievable.
Anyway, Im putting money down that this is just a random accident, and not an attempted terrorist act.
"So either present compelling evidence that ten-year-olds seeing some underage and probably illegally compelled porn acress getting anally raped by twenty guys isn't damaging his/her attitudes towards themselves and the opposite sex. And have that evidence be compelling enough to persuade some typical suburban parents."
Yet, any kid with cable can flip on the box and watch someone get shot, or beheaded, or mauled, or any of a wide variety of horrible deaths. But heaven forbid they may be exposed online to people having sex.
The problem is, AFAIK, there has never been a credible study that shows that porn -does- have the negative impact that people are saying it does. If people are trying to prevent access, the burden of proof should be on them. Most of the examples given by the shocked "family values" people are anecdotal. If we want to go that route, Ted Bundy liked cheerleader magazines. Maybe we should restrict childrens access to football games.
Looks to me like this is just an extension of the 'sex is dirty' mindset, with shrills like 'Dr' Laura fanning the fires by making up crap about children getting 'hooked on porn' at public libraries.
steven
> I think we should welcome the opportunity to
> create entities who possess thought processes
> entirely outside our experience
This is probably one of those trite sci fi things, but how do we know we havent done that already? If the thought process is entirely outside of our experience, how are we going to recognize it? Wasnt our human behavior used to define what consititutes 'thought process'?
The web itself may have some sort of intelligence to it, and we just dont recognize it. Hell, the entire universe could be alive and wondering about stuff, and because of problems of scale, we cant tell it is.
>Draw the line at exploitation. Are women being exploited? Then it's pornography and should be banned. It's important to understand these issues by the power bases they perpetuate.
This is so extreme im having a hard time believing its serious. But anyway..
Define "exploitation" here. If, you plan on eliminating porn only because it exploits women, I think that if we follow through on that and apply it to the rest of the world, we should ban most if not all of what goes on in our lives.
Factory work can easily be described as expolitative. Women probably worked on the computer you are using. Yet you use it. Same with the clothes you are wearing and the food you are eating that is harvested by exploited workers. I am forced into working at a boring job because I need money. Etc. etc.
Dearie, -life- is exploitative. The time to opt out is now.
Its seemed to me that corporations/businesses are more amoral than evil. Morality doesnt even enter the equasion when we are talking about an enity that exists primarily (or solely) to create money, unless its required to generate profit.
by StoryMan
> What's a DOOLY?
Probably 'dolly' misspelled.
Ricofencer said: "Yes, and the way around it will be illegal thanks to the DCMA. The law is very straight forward on that. Any attempt to market or distribute a device whose sole intent is to avoid copy protection is illegal. "
I think that "sole intent" is the key word here. Macrovision filters are sold in the backs of electronics magazines under the pretense that they boost your signal and make it clearer.
As long as there is some way that the mechanism that defeats copy protection can be used for some legitmate use, its legal, as far as I can tell.
>I really like bands like cannibal corpse, >The words don't matter to me, its all about the >instruments. Bands like cannibal corpse == the >bringer of evil, but their guitar work is amazing I listened to a bit of Cannibal Corpse when I was a teenager, and if I remember their music correctly, their vocals are much (if not exactly) like listening to Cookie Monster screaming "I CUM BLOOD!!!". So I can appreciate why one would focus on their guitar work. Which was nice. :)