I'm more inclined to think that while we "as a group" will want to make friends with it, a distinct minority of those involved in early contact will want to exploit them, if only to provide novelty items "made by native martians", similar to the way European colonization treated most indigenous people.
Those "poor backward natives" were exploited for goods, taken advantage of in trade deals, and used as a cheap source of local labor.
They're also going to run into the rather more important problem of properly sealed cabin doors, preventing them from gaining access to the cabin (and thus preventing them from piloting the plane in the first place).
True. Who here remembers when you could (usually as a child) ask to see the cockpit on the plane?:)
Something to remember is that some doors used to be locked to the flight deck, but the usual terrorist "technique" was to take a member of the flight crew/passenger and threaten to kill them if the pilot didn't open the door.
Pre-9/11 this usually worked, going back to the idea that you fly somewhere, and land, at which point the terrorist gets what they want and goes away, or SWAT boards the plane and you are rescued.
Post-9/11 this will fail, since you are all doomed if you open the door. Best response is probably to land at the closest airport near a SWAT equipped city and hope they can storm the plane before the terrorists can injure/kill some/most/all of the passengers. Of course, since you can keep the radio (since you've got the flight deck), they SHOULD theoretically be able to be ready for you, and ready to storm the plane as soon as you land (although that still may be 15-20 minutes which can be an eternity in these situations).
Actually we need to remember that there are REALLY two different things here.
There is the protocol specification, and there is the code (in essence a reference implementation).
I'd suggest that you could take the documents outlining the protocol specification and release them under copyleft, or, alternatively, just host the information in a Source-Forge project and start building momentum (if you build it, they will come).
Then release the sample binary under GPL (for the whole), with the actual "reference" libraries (I'm assuming its a bunch of libraries and not just everything in one binary), under LGPL.
That would provide the benefits to the protocol that they could be used by proprietary applications, while still maintaining the rights of the end-user and the community to any updates/changes to the LGPL protocol module. Alternatively, you could release the reference libraries under BSD licensing, but that could make them susceptible to being subverted until your protocol becomes a de-facto standard.
Don't forget that as a Copyright holder, you can offer to license the reference code to parties interested in using it beyond the LGPL boundaries also (don't forget to make assignment of copyright to you a requirement for accepting any patches to the reference code).
Just some thoughts, but then I'm not an Intellectual Property Lawyer. I'd suggest you find one.:)
God I cannot believe I get this reference to Worf's favourite drink and Whoopi Goldberg is the one who first gave it to him. I'm posting anonymous to hide my shame.
Shame is for the honorless!;)
Yeah, I immediately got the reference too, and was surprised when it seems more didn't. Of course ST:TNG has been out of production for quite some time... which only made me feel rather old.:(
Today's geeks don't understand the trials and tribulations we older ones had to endure.
When WE were young there was only ONE Star Trek, and Colonel Tigh was black.. and Athena was Adama's daughter... and Boomer and Starbuck were MEN!
Why, in OUR day, there were only THREE Star Wars films... and they were GOOD!
2) Regardless of #1 above, if all shots entered through the back then roll him over and shoot him at least once through the front and claim that as your first shot. CSI is just a TV show, they're not going to figure it out.
When they pull the bullet from the floor, they might get a little suspicious.
Why do the media and your government present those passengers as heroes?
Because, those passengers did something heroic.
On United Airlines Flight 93, black box recordings revealed that crew and passengers attempted to seize control of the plane from the hijackers after learning through phone calls that similarly hijacked planes had been crashed into buildings that morning.[21] According to the transcript of Flight 93's recorder, one of the hijackers gave the order to roll the plane once it became evident that they would lose control of the plane to the passengers
They were the only ones on any of the planes (besides the hijackers themselves), who knew the plan was to crash the plane into a building.
They could have chosen to disbelieve the information ("Who is crazy enough to do that? We should just wait."), instead, they chose to make sure that the plane they were on could NOT be used in that way.
I am sure they were all hoping they would live (who doesn't?), and they knew they were going to die if they did nothing, but their actions kept the terrorists from achieving their objective.
Bluntly, they were the only ones who were in the position to do something, and they acted, even though that action cost them their lives.
In that way they became Martyrs. Bitterly ironic given that they were the only way to stop other supposed "Martyrs" plans.
By releasing the client as LGPL, they can, in theory, ensure that it will be trivial for anybody putting together a linux distro or thin client image to include support for connecting to their VMware view stuff(which is, shall we say, unlikely to be OSS soon).
Since they've released the code as LGPL, could someone modify Xen to support the same communication protocol? (or is there a piece I'm missing?) THAT would certainly be OSS.
Yes... but notice that the one plane where people knew what they were going to do crashed into the middle of PA?
It doesn't matter anymore. Anyone trying to hijack a plane is going to run into the "problem" that people will remember the 9/11 modus operandi now and will most likely actively rebel.
Darn good thing too, at least there is a chance of them NOT being sheep in ALL situations.
The porn industry won't be satisfied until you can fit and entire human male, in a parka, with a set of golf clubs, completely into a woman via her orifices.
To quote a joke I heard a long time ago that old when I was young:
A man met an overweight woman in a bar. Being too drunk to care that she was ugly, he took her home to fuck her. They were going at it, and he had two fingers up her, when she started moaning 'More, more!' So he jammed in his whole hand, and still she wanted more. Stunned, he shoved his whole arm into her snatch and still she screamed 'More, more!'Fed up, he headbutted her slit and was sucked inside.
He wandered around for a bit until he heard a voice say "Hello? Is anyone here?" He answered "Damn... you too? I had a lighter in my pocket... if we can find it, we might be able to see a way out." The voice answered "Fuck... if we can find my keys, we can drive out."
I haven't found too many of the downloads too bad for the PS3 (the only exception was a couple of the Demos which were HUGE).
One of the nice features they implemented "recently" (in the past few months) in the XMB updates for the PS3 is that once you've loaded up your download queue, you can go to the "shutdown" option (top of the user menu).
It then asks you if it should wait and shut down after its finished downloading everything in your queue. In this case, downloading means installing also, so it will take care of downloading and installing anything and then shut down.
If there is something I want to install and I don't want to babysit it, then I just set it in the queue, set it to shutoff when its done, and watch some TV/read a book/go to sleep. When the PS3 turns off, its done, and I can play.:)
why, on the other two consoles, is the program size again 8 times larger? For just the DEMO?
Probably because the libraries for the other two consoles were bigger, creating a bigger minimum size for any game compiled for that platform.
Also, for quite a few games the "demo" is the full game minus an unlock key (of one or two hundred K), so the whole game is there, but you can't play it until you pay for the "full game" which causes the system to generate an unlock key, and then download it and apply it to your system.
So, you set life going. Give it long enough to reach that point of stagnation. Then throw a rock at it. This rock can be interpreted as a question from God: 'Have you evolved a spacefaring civilisation yet?' If the answer is no, the rock hits: mass extinction. Try again. If the answer is yes, the rock does not hit: spacefaring civilisation expands into the galaxy.
Ah, so if Black holes are where God divides by zero, Extinction Level Meteor Strikes are where God performs Bounds Checks?
If they're smart, they probably have a Prime Directive just like we have in our fictional Star Trek series, so that they don't screw up our development. Bringing high technology to primitive tribes here on Earth hasn't historically been very successful for the welfare of those peoples, so what makes us think advanced civilizations would do that to us?
Because they can have their Greblitzer assembled in China at 1/8th the price of anywhere else in the Galaxy, and they can pay for it in waste product from the transport air-exchanger (too many pesky heavy elements keep clogging that thing and yet the earthers seem to want them, even though the gold filter is spent).
Or perhaps they will come here and try to communicate with our plants, they being a plant based lifeform.
Or perhaps they are already here, observing us, and quietly taking over control of our culture/guiding us toward our destructions/shepherding us toward first contact (take your pick of one or all of the above).
Don't assume we know what they are going to do and why.
Now I don't know if this was due to the US market being so far behind the rest of the world...
Stop right there, you've got it in one.
The U.S. Cell phone market is ridiculously behind most of the developed world. Part of this is due to the market being largely controlled by a string of localized, relatively unregulated, non-governmental, incumbent monopolies (Verizon) with little competition or incentive to "innovate" beyond "how do we squeeze more $$$ from our customers?", and part of it is that the U.S. is such a relatively large market (area wise) compared to Europe/Japan, that even though a large percentage of the population might be concentrated along coastal areas and some central cities, it can still take quite a bit of time to roll out a given technology to a significant percentage of a region (not population, but region). You also have multiple competing technologies existing in multiple competing networks (AT&T+T-Mobile vs. Sprint vs. Verizon vs. ???).
Those, combined with the hereditary pricing (expected subsidized phones in exchange for multi-year contract commitments, both sides of a cell-to-cell call are expected to pay, high SMS prices, high data-plan prices, Vendor phone lock-in), make for a more stagnant market that is looking for something new and interesting, while at the same time you have a large number of people that may not want change carriers (or may not be able to at the time).
Mostly due to the cost, most people in the U.S. saw SmartPhones as primarily a business only niche (or perhaps a Business/Geek niche).
The iPhone changed a lot of that mostly because it changed people perceptions of smart phones. It provided a phone that looked like it would be fun to use (as opposed to the much more utilitarian look of most of the phone till then). I'd also imagine that the lack of a Qwerty keyboard make it look much less intimidating and "business-like". The fact that so many people were used to (and liked) the iPod probably helped garner quite a bit of good-will, and the thought that you could carry "one less device" by replacing an iPod Nano/Shuffle + Cell phone with an iPhone was probably a pretty big draw for a lot of people.
The fact that the iTunes store integrates so easily with the phones (and iPod touch's), and provides a quick and easy way for users to get apps (click to buy, sync and you're done as opposed to finding the app/web-site, buying each one from a different company, downloading them individually, unpacking as needed, synching them) has done a lot to further that reputation for "ease of use" (and helps explain why the attach rate for the iPhone is ridiculously high compared to any other smart phone on the market in the states).
I expect that one of the things that has been holding some people back is the current size differential between the iPod "classic" and the iPhone/iPod Touch. Once the latter models catch up to the classic, I'd expect to see Apple discontinue the classic, and you'll probably see an even greater uptick in iPhone sales. (another thing is the lock in with AT&T which probably won't play out before the "5 year exclusive" ends... 1 1/2 year down, 3 1/2 years to go:/ ).
it is also typical of Microsoft's arrogant attitude toward their users.
Kind of like how Apple sneaks Safari installs into iTunes updates?
Oh, oh, cognitive dissonance! Make it stop!
Haven't used iTunes or the Apple Updater in a while, huh?
Apple included the windows version of Safari for about a week as an update to iTunes. Since then its fixed the updater to display Safari (and presumably any other software they choose to port to windows), as an "Optional Install" in a separate frame at the bottom of the dialog. It also defaults to NOT installing it if Safari isn't already installed.
I would give up Microsoft Windows....but I like playing games.....
That was one of the main reasons I got a PS3.
My current Windows machine is ~3 years old (and I haven't had to reinstall Windows on it).
Its chugging along just fine, and I've got a fair amount of older apps and a few games I use on it.
For most of my gaming needs I prefer the PS3. The plus side has been gaming in front of the TV (which is bigger than my computer monitor), being able to host multiple players (which most of the PC games don't), and being able to sit on the couch/floor, which is much more relaxing sometimes than a chair.:)
The downside is having to share the TV with my wife, who isn't as much of a gamer.
Yeah, but why would the politicians outside his district make such an idiot decision?
Because if the politicians outside his district vote for THIS, he'll vote for some bit of politics that affect their district that he couldn't care less about.
I have to presume the FCC will relax the notice requirement for those stations that begin notification promptly (within a day or two) of the enactment of this bill.
Assuming the bill actually passes.
Don't forget, this is the second bill the Senate has passed. The House still has to pass one of their own. Assuming no major changes are needed to reconcile the two versions of the bill (Senate/House), the President still has to sign it.
Not saying it won't happen before the 17th (16 days and counting), but I'd like to think that it might NOT pass, and things would go as planned (despite all the wasted effort, and expense on the part of Congress).
I'm beginning if this whole thing isn't one big misdirection on the part of Congress, so that if things don't go smoothly on the 17th, they can appeal to their voters and say "we tried to get more time for a smoother transition, its not my fault, please re-elect me."
Slashdot Mirror
I'm more inclined to think that while we "as a group" will want to make friends with it, a distinct minority of those involved in early contact will want to exploit them, if only to provide novelty items "made by native martians", similar to the way European colonization treated most indigenous people.
Those "poor backward natives" were exploited for goods, taken advantage of in trade deals, and used as a cheap source of local labor.
True. Who here remembers when you could (usually as a child) ask to see the cockpit on the plane? :)
Something to remember is that some doors used to be locked to the flight deck, but the usual terrorist "technique" was to take a member of the flight crew/passenger and threaten to kill them if the pilot didn't open the door.
Pre-9/11 this usually worked, going back to the idea that you fly somewhere, and land, at which point the terrorist gets what they want and goes away, or SWAT boards the plane and you are rescued.
Post-9/11 this will fail, since you are all doomed if you open the door. Best response is probably to land at the closest airport near a SWAT equipped city and hope they can storm the plane before the terrorists can injure/kill some/most/all of the passengers. Of course, since you can keep the radio (since you've got the flight deck), they SHOULD theoretically be able to be ready for you, and ready to storm the plane as soon as you land (although that still may be 15-20 minutes which can be an eternity in these situations).
Actually we need to remember that there are REALLY two different things here.
There is the protocol specification, and there is the code (in essence a reference implementation).
I'd suggest that you could take the documents outlining the protocol specification and release them under copyleft, or, alternatively, just host the information in a Source-Forge project and start building momentum (if you build it, they will come).
Then release the sample binary under GPL (for the whole), with the actual "reference" libraries (I'm assuming its a bunch of libraries and not just everything in one binary), under LGPL.
That would provide the benefits to the protocol that they could be used by proprietary applications, while still maintaining the rights of the end-user and the community to any updates/changes to the LGPL protocol module. Alternatively, you could release the reference libraries under BSD licensing, but that could make them susceptible to being subverted until your protocol becomes a de-facto standard.
Don't forget that as a Copyright holder, you can offer to license the reference code to parties interested in using it beyond the LGPL boundaries also (don't forget to make assignment of copyright to you a requirement for accepting any patches to the reference code).
Just some thoughts, but then I'm not an Intellectual Property Lawyer. I'd suggest you find one. :)
Shame is for the honorless! ;)
Yeah, I immediately got the reference too, and was surprised when it seems more didn't. Of course ST:TNG has been out of production for quite some time ... which only made me feel rather old. :(
Today's geeks don't understand the trials and tribulations we older ones had to endure.
When WE were young there was only ONE Star Trek, and Colonel Tigh was black.. and Athena was Adama's daughter... and Boomer and Starbuck were MEN!
Why, in OUR day, there were only THREE Star Wars films ... and they were GOOD!
When they pull the bullet from the floor, they might get a little suspicious.
Because, those passengers did something heroic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11
(and the actual news item sourced by Wikipedia:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,191520,00.html)
They were the only ones on any of the planes (besides the hijackers themselves), who knew the plan was to crash the plane into a building.
They could have chosen to disbelieve the information ("Who is crazy enough to do that? We should just wait."), instead, they chose to make sure that the plane they were on could NOT be used in that way.
I am sure they were all hoping they would live (who doesn't?), and they knew they were going to die if they did nothing, but their actions kept the terrorists from achieving their objective.
Bluntly, they were the only ones who were in the position to do something, and they acted, even though that action cost them their lives.
In that way they became Martyrs. Bitterly ironic given that they were the only way to stop other supposed "Martyrs" plans.
Since they've released the code as LGPL, could someone modify Xen to support the same communication protocol? (or is there a piece I'm missing?) THAT would certainly be OSS.
Quebec Foxtrot Tango.
(doing the same thing myself)
Yes ... but notice that the one plane where people knew what they were going to do crashed into the middle of PA?
It doesn't matter anymore. Anyone trying to hijack a plane is going to run into the "problem" that people will remember the 9/11 modus operandi now and will most likely actively rebel.
Darn good thing too, at least there is a chance of them NOT being sheep in ALL situations.
When asked if he had a smooth or ridged forehead, they refused to comment.
The one problem with this type of mine is that RFID requires energy.
Most RFID tags do not just actively broadcast, they are passive devices that only transmit when you hit them with a signal.
This means:
1) Your mine now needs a much bigger power source (depending on how long it needs to broadcast looking for an RFID).
2) It is BROADCASTING A SIGNAL which might make it very easy to find (once you know to look for it).
To quote a joke I heard a long time ago that old when I was young:
Now excuse me while I get modded into oblivion. :)
No, they let him out.
Now they are watching to see how long he can survive without a space suit.
Considering that a lot of the English speaking Canadians fled Quebec over the past decade or so ...
It more a case of "French Canada is Half Empty".
I haven't found too many of the downloads too bad for the PS3 (the only exception was a couple of the Demos which were HUGE).
One of the nice features they implemented "recently" (in the past few months) in the XMB updates for the PS3 is that once you've loaded up your download queue, you can go to the "shutdown" option (top of the user menu).
It then asks you if it should wait and shut down after its finished downloading everything in your queue. In this case, downloading means installing also, so it will take care of downloading and installing anything and then shut down.
If there is something I want to install and I don't want to babysit it, then I just set it in the queue, set it to shutoff when its done, and watch some TV/read a book/go to sleep. When the PS3 turns off, its done, and I can play. :)
Probably because the libraries for the other two consoles were bigger, creating a bigger minimum size for any game compiled for that platform.
Also, for quite a few games the "demo" is the full game minus an unlock key (of one or two hundred K), so the whole game is there, but you can't play it until you pay for the "full game" which causes the system to generate an unlock key, and then download it and apply it to your system.
Ah, so if Black holes are where God divides by zero, Extinction Level Meteor Strikes are where God performs Bounds Checks?
Because they can have their Greblitzer assembled in China at 1/8th the price of anywhere else in the Galaxy, and they can pay for it in waste product from the transport air-exchanger (too many pesky heavy elements keep clogging that thing and yet the earthers seem to want them, even though the gold filter is spent).
Or perhaps they will come here and try to communicate with our plants, they being a plant based lifeform.
Or perhaps they are already here, observing us, and quietly taking over control of our culture/guiding us toward our destructions/shepherding us toward first contact (take your pick of one or all of the above).
Don't assume we know what they are going to do and why.
To quote The O'neil "Alien minds are Alien".
You mean like Verizon's announcement of their 4G network?
(although it would still take a redesign of the phone to both add a user-facing camera, and make it work with a non-GMS phone network)
Stop right there, you've got it in one.
The U.S. Cell phone market is ridiculously behind most of the developed world. Part of this is due to the market being largely controlled by a string of localized, relatively unregulated, non-governmental, incumbent monopolies (Verizon) with little competition or incentive to "innovate" beyond "how do we squeeze more $$$ from our customers?", and part of it is that the U.S. is such a relatively large market (area wise) compared to Europe/Japan, that even though a large percentage of the population might be concentrated along coastal areas and some central cities, it can still take quite a bit of time to roll out a given technology to a significant percentage of a region (not population, but region). You also have multiple competing technologies existing in multiple competing networks (AT&T+T-Mobile vs. Sprint vs. Verizon vs. ???).
Those, combined with the hereditary pricing (expected subsidized phones in exchange for multi-year contract commitments, both sides of a cell-to-cell call are expected to pay, high SMS prices, high data-plan prices, Vendor phone lock-in), make for a more stagnant market that is looking for something new and interesting, while at the same time you have a large number of people that may not want change carriers (or may not be able to at the time).
Mostly due to the cost, most people in the U.S. saw SmartPhones as primarily a business only niche (or perhaps a Business/Geek niche).
The iPhone changed a lot of that mostly because it changed people perceptions of smart phones. It provided a phone that looked like it would be fun to use (as opposed to the much more utilitarian look of most of the phone till then). I'd also imagine that the lack of a Qwerty keyboard make it look much less intimidating and "business-like". The fact that so many people were used to (and liked) the iPod probably helped garner quite a bit of good-will, and the thought that you could carry "one less device" by replacing an iPod Nano/Shuffle + Cell phone with an iPhone was probably a pretty big draw for a lot of people.
The fact that the iTunes store integrates so easily with the phones (and iPod touch's), and provides a quick and easy way for users to get apps (click to buy, sync and you're done as opposed to finding the app/web-site, buying each one from a different company, downloading them individually, unpacking as needed, synching them) has done a lot to further that reputation for "ease of use" (and helps explain why the attach rate for the iPhone is ridiculously high compared to any other smart phone on the market in the states).
I expect that one of the things that has been holding some people back is the current size differential between the iPod "classic" and the iPhone/iPod Touch. Once the latter models catch up to the classic, I'd expect to see Apple discontinue the classic, and you'll probably see an even greater uptick in iPhone sales. (another thing is the lock in with AT&T which probably won't play out before the "5 year exclusive" ends ... 1 1/2 year down, 3 1/2 years to go :/ ).
The Icon is usually pretty stable.
Haven't used iTunes or the Apple Updater in a while, huh?
Apple included the windows version of Safari for about a week as an update to iTunes. Since then its fixed the updater to display Safari (and presumably any other software they choose to port to windows), as an "Optional Install" in a separate frame at the bottom of the dialog. It also defaults to NOT installing it if Safari isn't already installed.
(Darn, I hate feeding trolls)
That was one of the main reasons I got a PS3.
My current Windows machine is ~3 years old (and I haven't had to reinstall Windows on it).
Its chugging along just fine, and I've got a fair amount of older apps and a few games I use on it.
For most of my gaming needs I prefer the PS3. The plus side has been gaming in front of the TV (which is bigger than my computer monitor), being able to host multiple players (which most of the PC games don't), and being able to sit on the couch/floor, which is much more relaxing sometimes than a chair. :)
The downside is having to share the TV with my wife, who isn't as much of a gamer.
Because if the politicians outside his district vote for THIS, he'll vote for some bit of politics that affect their district that he couldn't care less about.
Assuming the bill actually passes.
Don't forget, this is the second bill the Senate has passed. The House still has to pass one of their own. Assuming no major changes are needed to reconcile the two versions of the bill (Senate/House), the President still has to sign it.
Not saying it won't happen before the 17th (16 days and counting), but I'd like to think that it might NOT pass, and things would go as planned (despite all the wasted effort, and expense on the part of Congress).
I'm beginning if this whole thing isn't one big misdirection on the part of Congress, so that if things don't go smoothly on the 17th, they can appeal to their voters and say "we tried to get more time for a smoother transition, its not my fault, please re-elect me."