1000 high resolution photographs - thats 1M/photo, not bad.
1000 200 pages novels - 200 pages is a bit skinny for a novel, but that is 25k/page! 4k/page is probably a better estimate. Maybe they didn't want to appear bookish by saying `625 400 page novels'
18 hours of high quality audio - Thats about 128kbps.
How about some other uses...
5 minutes of DV - Its fast enough at the platter, 38Mbps, but maybe not at the interface. They only claim 2.6MByte/sec there.
A nice Debian install - The seek time will hurt for this type of work, 12ms avg, 8.3ms avg latency.
1 year of my email - YMMV
But the killer app... Build a system with this for storage, one of their nice low power, high integration PPC chips for CPU, and their `toothbrush' eye projector displays, ViaVoice for input (and a keyboard jack), add a wireless interface and linux. They seem to have almost all of the pieces together now.
XMPS is a piece of GPL'd software which requires a non-GPLd library in order to function. This will inevitably inspire comparison to the KDE/Qt issues. Here are the key differences to head off the pointless name calling and bickering.
The key difference here is that the authors of XMPS clearly intended it to be used with this particular non-GPL library and that is believed by some (heresay says RMS himself) to create an implicit license.
I small minority of the KDE code was written without any intention that it would be linked to Qt. (e.g. kghostscript which derives a work from the GPLd ghostscript code)
The implicit license fuzziness can be avoided by adding a line to the copyright to be GPL plus it is allowed to be linked to the particular windows DLL.
And just to headoff the next logical subthread, that depends what the definition of `link' is, consider the spectrum...
source code included in main compile
source code compiled and objects linked in
object library linked
shared library linked
library accessed through CORBA/DCOM/RPC
library accessed through fork/exec/pipe
The GPL says...
For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all
modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
Over the years that definition of `modules' and `components' has wandered around in the spectrum of source, libraries, shared libraries, and ORBs. There is not currently a consensus and you will find reasonable and knowledgable people that differ on whether a DLL linked at runtime is a module or component of a program.
Matrox has standard dual cards and a line of semicustom quad cards. Good luck getting the quad, ours have been on order for months, but they are out there.
The last I saw XFree86 didn't like the duals, but the quad cards are just four single controllers glued down with a PCI bridge and should work fine with XFree86.
Goodness what an uncivil bunch of replies you have recieved.
You should check out the debian-arm mailing list over at www.debian.org. You will find several posts from me describing various versions of the Debian installation code for the potato release on Netwinders. It works quite well. Feel free to email me with specific questions, I'm sure you can figure out my e-mail address from my user record.
The simple answer is that copyright is economic censorship (ie. restricting the free distribution of information for economic reasons)
That has got to be one of the most self serving, amoral rationalizations I've heard in weeks!
censor - to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable1
For copyright to be economic censorship it would have to be the author or content creator performing the censorship, denying other access to the author's own work.
There seems to be an underlying assumption that all people should have the rights to any work. This is right in line with a 5 year old's code of ethics. Everything that exists is mine.
Authors create works for a many reasons, they may use copyright to ensure that their work is distributed as they intended. freenet itself contains a 6 page long copyright notice specifying what can and can not be done with freenet. Are we to believe that it does not apply and was accidentally included as one of the six files in the installation kit? Perhaps we are free to ignore it?
I can think of dozens of legitimate uses for freenet but it's creators should also honestly address its liabilities. If their goal is to create an tool for illegally distributing copyrighted material then acknowledge that and move on, if not then work to address it.
Note to self: Don't insult Judge
on
Microsoft Loses
·
· Score: 5
The last two paragraphs of the ruling contain a great parting shot, for a legal brief.
Microsoft counterclaims that the DOJ is using a federal court to enforce state laws in conflict with Microsoft's federally guaranteed rights.
Judge Jackson responds...
It is inconceivable that their resort to this Court could represent an effort on the part of the attorneys general to deprive Microsoft of rights guaranteed it under federal law, because this Court does not possess the power to act in contravention of federal law.
Yeah! Accuse your presiding judge of being an instrument in the subversion of federal law. That will make him like you.:-)
I purchased one of these for my wife's grandmother. Nice easy to use platform, does e-mail well and surfs. Javascript, no java, no PNG. Does fine on slashdot, CNN, etc...
Its a slick little box as is. The pointing device is not suitable for arthritic fingers, but they can take an PS/2 pointer as well.
The LCD is VERY sensitive to viewing angle, but if you only have one head on your neck that shouldn't be too bad. Its also very susceptible to ducking. Moving items vanish.
Their original plan was to sell them for $400 with a $5/mo ISP service. That didn't fly so they flipped to $200 and a $20/mo ISP at their xmas time introduction.
Now at $99 for a linux terminal I'm really excited. I feel a bit bad, since they are probably losing money at $99 and won't be making it up on the ISP service. Not bad enough to refrain from buying a couple though.:-)
Don't rule out iBooks either. $1600 gets you a lot of machine.
300MHz G3
12.1" TFT (800x600) ATI Rage
64MB/6GB/CD
10/100enet,56kbit modem
USB
6 hour batterlife.
I wish the firewire hadn't been deleted, but I haven't needed it yet. The screen is a bit tight depending on what programs you run. Thats a real 6 hour battery life. I routinely go 6 hours doing program development. Definately get the $100 Airport. Nothing like sitting back in the comfy chair or out in the yard handling support calls.
Ask and ye shall be linked. Look here for your very own business card CD-R blanks. Pricy compared to regular blanks ($2-$4 depending on quantity), but I never put a price on cool.
Lets not be confusing. The Quicktime specification is already open and available. I've obtained it and used it.
Many of the codecs are proprietary, mostly owned by entities other than Apple. It would be nice to be able to license these and Apple is the natural conduit for this.
I doubt we'll persuade Sorensen to abandon their technology and release it to the world, but I heard that Compaq at one time was going to license Quicktime for $1/cpu shipped. I'd gladly pay $1 (probably even more) for the right to use a good collection of video codecs.
That is, until someone develops a good free video codec that meets my need. Then I'll keep my dollar, but thats the market working.
Patent 6,003,108 is this little gem the was obvious to anyone that ever wrote a network device driver...
A method and system for interrupt-responsive execution of a communications protocol which obtains data sent by a sending computer a receiving computer via a communications interface. An interrupt handler routine is provided which includes the communications protocol. When data requested by an application executing on the receiving computer is received by the communications interface, an interrupt is sent by the communications interface to the CPU in the receiving computer. When this interrupt is received, the interrupt handler routine is immediately accessed and executed to timely execute the communications protocol. As a result, the communications protocol obtains the data from the communications interface before it can be overwritten by new data sent by the sending computer. The application program can then be executed at a later time to read the data obtained.
I haven't spent the hours required to understand all the details, but it sounds like every network stack I've ever worked with. It has a bunch of extraneous implementation details thrown into the claims to make exact matches of prior art unlikely, but that's probably just to drive up the cost of litigation.
I say "go on you silly patenters". It will take a large mass of ludicrous examples to motivate enough voters to overcome the industry lobbyists.
Well, I wouldn't mention it, I've already been slashdotted into the ground once and that was just a quickie fu, but you asked...
The Public 8-Ball is a robotic magic 8-ball driven by Lego bricks, RCX, and a radioshack motor (it's burnt up all my lego motors and they are just too expensive.) Hit it with Netscape and see your destiny in real time.
And please, if anyone has a Java applet to display a stream of JPEG frames let me know, then IE users can see the 8 ball too.
I may be slashdot resistant now. After a dozen or so people are queued for 8 ball shaking I start deflecting.
The fatal problem of a launcher program is that everything required to perform the client checks is included in the launcher and hence available for reverse engineering.
This is directly analogous to the DVD software decoder problem. If the binary is available, the algorithm and all the keys are available.
Having, shall we say, "studied", my share of copy protection schemes I can attest that very little of a binary must actually be understood to coerce it into changing its answer.
And just so its all out on the table, here's my roadmap for launcher breakers. Please note that none of this has been tried, I just dashed this list off with 2 minutes thought.
Use strace, if they use exec* to start the program, then patch exec to substitute your unclean program after the clean one is verified. (I'm thinking a preloaded library here, kernel patching is ok too.)
Pick a library or system call used in the client after it has been verified. Subvert it to replace the current executable but keep the file descriptors to the master loader open for use.
Disassemble the loader. Go to a nice quiet place and start reading, commenting, reassembling, and testing. Once you get the knack its surpisingly easy. While one of the most enjoyable experience to be had with a computer this is slower and should be the last resort. You will only need to do this if they have implemented from scratch their own loader, and they will rot in OS version compatability h*ll until users become disgusted with thier software.
Note: any apparent confessions in the above post were merely a "youthful indiscretion" and have certainly passed the appropriate statue of limitations.
``We don't know your gender, your age or anything except you're a Web browser visiting sites,'' Comet spokesman Ben Austin said. ``There's not a lot of reason to crunch that data because I don't see that it's in anyone's economic interests. We're stating for the record that
we don't do that and we never will.''
Ok, Comet won't do the correlation analysis, but then they don't have enough information to successfully correlate either. I'd feel much better if they promised not to sell their information to others. The large market analysis firms are the ones that will do the correlation.
Consider what you get if you buy the access logs for a bunch of web sites (some with login ids that can be tracked to house addresses, maybe from shipping information) and then add user tracker data like Comet that can identify a user between web sites. You can now track the user's access patterns across all the web sites, even those where he was anonymous.
This isn't anything too new, the banner ad companies do this already.
Redhat is buying Debian but the Debian constitution requires three motions to vote from four separate mailing lists followed by a period of discussion on the wording of the proposal to consider a proposal. The results are then tabulated using two thirds of the proof from Fermat's last theorem. Given the average life span of a human and the rate of admission to Debian all the developers will be dead by then.
For the humor impaired, none of the above is true.
Yes. It is one of the nicest malls in town. Large but very tasteful. Not that I'd know of course since I've been boycotting them for their abuse of the blight law. They don't seem to be suffering from my one man boycott. Maybe if my wife (aka princess of acquisitions) would join me in my efforts...:-)
I am from St. Louis and was here when the Galleria was built. The owners are used to getting there way. Maybe this time the tide won't stay out, but they've succeeded so far.
There was a smaller mall on the site which wanted to expand. The 80 or so quaint brick houses around them were reluctant to sell so they got Brentwood to blight the area. The blight laws are set up so the city can force the sale of property which is too run down to ever recover. They blighted a bunch of senior citizens, an audiologist, a yuppie wood working store, and a Ferrari dealer. You know once a Ferrari dealer moves in to the neighbohood there's no way it can recover.:-)
They currently want to expand across the street, but only if they get a special exemption from taxes and I believe low rate government backed bonds.
You say you've been doing it for 2 years? This patent's filed date is June 1995. Your prior art must have been a year before that if I recall correctly.
If your product really does implement their patent then you are in violation and the patent holder may ask you to stop your product or pay them royalties on all copies sold.
You may have the honor of spending the $100,000+ to get the patent overturned.
A commercial entity can license and use patented technology which is not permitted in the Linux kernel or free software. There are a number of patents floating around in the firewall field.
As long as we're grousing about lego shortcomings, how about durability?
I run a web site using some lego motors and the things aren't good for more than a million reversals under moderate load before their bearings seize up.
Thank goodness MIT published hints on how to retrofit regular cheap motors for the mind numbingly expensive Lego brand motors. (Expand shaft with layers of heat shrink rubber tubing until you can cram an 8 point gear or worm screw onto it. Probably a worm screw if you have a high RPM low torque motor.)
Well thats a little extreme for something that wants to point up in the air. How about if we squish the astronauts to 9gs? (The computers can fly until they become concious again.)
acceleration is 288fps^2, time on rail is 2.8 seconds, rail length is 1100 feet. Still fairly long.
I'm just guessing here, but if you lay the track flat you will lose the initial energy gains to air resistance in the longer atmospheric journey. This isn't going to be any wimpy tower either, multiply the shuttle mass by 9 to get the load on the 110 story tall tower, be sure to plan for lots of vibration. For those of you calculating along, the shuttle is about 2000 tons at lift off. You can probably deduct 20% of course for the savings of this system.
Maybe for non-human, sturdy payloads and outrageous accelerations this can work out.
#2 Unasnwered question: Why linear induction?
Assuming a preliminary kinetic boost is a winner, why linear induction? Aircraft carriers seem happy with steam catapults. How about conventional electric motors on a carriage? I'm reasonably sure these are more efficient for a given price if they can do the job.
I've been using a pair of iMacs for just over a year now. Only once have I had any use at all for a floppy, and that was because someone carried a document in for me to print. Good ridance to the floppy.
Slashdot Mirror
How about some other uses...
But the killer app...
Build a system with this for storage, one of their nice low power, high integration PPC chips for CPU, and their `toothbrush' eye projector displays, ViaVoice for input (and a keyboard jack), add a wireless interface and linux.
They seem to have almost all of the pieces together now.
The key difference here is that the authors of XMPS clearly intended it to be used with this particular non-GPL library and that is believed by some (heresay says RMS himself) to create an implicit license.
I small minority of the KDE code was written without any intention that it would be linked to Qt. (e.g. kghostscript which derives a work from the GPLd ghostscript code)
The implicit license fuzziness can be avoided by adding a line to the copyright to be GPL plus it is allowed to be linked to the particular windows DLL.
And just to headoff the next logical subthread, that depends what the definition of `link' is, consider the spectrum...
The GPL says...
Over the years that definition of `modules' and `components' has wandered around in the spectrum of source, libraries, shared libraries, and ORBs. There is not currently a consensus and you will find reasonable and knowledgable people that differ on whether a DLL linked at runtime is a module or component of a program.
Matrox has standard dual cards and a line of semicustom quad cards. Good luck getting the quad, ours have been on order for months, but they are out there.
The last I saw XFree86 didn't like the duals, but the quad cards are just four single controllers glued down with a PCI bridge and should work fine with XFree86.
Goodness what an uncivil bunch of replies you have recieved.
You should check out the debian-arm mailing list over at www.debian.org. You will find several posts from me describing various versions of the Debian installation code for the potato release on Netwinders. It works quite well. Feel free to email me with specific questions, I'm sure you can figure out my e-mail address from my user record.
For copyright to be economic censorship it would have to be the author or content creator performing the censorship, denying other access to the author's own work.
There seems to be an underlying assumption that all people should have the rights to any work. This is right in line with a 5 year old's code of ethics. Everything that exists is mine.
Authors create works for a many reasons, they may use copyright to ensure that their work is distributed as they intended. freenet itself contains a 6 page long copyright notice specifying what can and can not be done with freenet. Are we to believe that it does not apply and was accidentally included as one of the six files in the installation kit? Perhaps we are free to ignore it?
I can think of dozens of legitimate uses for freenet but it's creators should also honestly address its liabilities. If their goal is to create an tool for illegally distributing copyrighted material then acknowledge that and move on, if not then work to address it.
Microsoft counterclaims that the DOJ is using a federal court to enforce state laws in conflict with Microsoft's federally guaranteed rights.
Judge Jackson responds...
Yeah! Accuse your presiding judge of being an instrument in the subversion of federal law. That will make him like you.I purchased one of these for my wife's grandmother. Nice easy to use platform, does e-mail well and surfs. Javascript, no java, no PNG. Does fine on slashdot, CNN, etc...
:-)
Its a slick little box as is. The pointing device is not suitable for arthritic fingers, but they can take an PS/2 pointer as well.
The LCD is VERY sensitive to viewing angle, but if you only have one head on your neck that shouldn't be too bad. Its also very susceptible to ducking. Moving items vanish.
Their original plan was to sell them for $400 with a $5/mo ISP service. That didn't fly so they flipped to $200 and a $20/mo ISP at their xmas time introduction.
Now at $99 for a linux terminal I'm really excited. I feel a bit bad, since they are probably losing money at $99 and won't be making it up on the ISP service. Not bad enough to refrain from buying a couple though.
I wish the firewire hadn't been deleted, but I haven't needed it yet. The screen is a bit tight depending on what programs you run.
Thats a real 6 hour battery life. I routinely go 6 hours doing program development.
Definately get the $100 Airport. Nothing like sitting back in the comfy chair or out in the yard handling support calls.
Ask and ye shall be linked. Look here for your very own business card CD-R blanks. Pricy compared to regular blanks ($2-$4 depending on quantity), but I never put a price on cool.
No affiliation. I just know how to use Google.
Lets not be confusing. The Quicktime specification is already open and available. I've obtained it and used it.
Many of the codecs are proprietary, mostly owned by entities other than Apple. It would be nice to be able to license these and Apple is the natural conduit for this.
I doubt we'll persuade Sorensen to abandon their technology and release it to the world, but I heard that Compaq at one time was going to license Quicktime for $1/cpu shipped. I'd gladly pay $1 (probably even more) for the right to use a good collection of video codecs.
That is, until someone develops a good free video codec that meets my need. Then I'll keep my dollar, but thats the market working.
I haven't spent the hours required to understand all the details, but it sounds like every network stack I've ever worked with. It has a bunch of extraneous implementation details thrown into the claims to make exact matches of prior art unlikely, but that's probably just to drive up the cost of litigation.
I say "go on you silly patenters". It will take a large mass of ludicrous examples to motivate enough voters to overcome the industry lobbyists.
Well, I wouldn't mention it, I've already been slashdotted into the ground once and that was just a quickie fu, but you asked...
The Public 8-Ball is a robotic magic 8-ball driven by Lego bricks, RCX, and a radioshack motor (it's burnt up all my lego motors and they are just too expensive.) Hit it with Netscape and see your destiny in real time.
And please, if anyone has a Java applet to display a stream of JPEG frames let me know, then IE users can see the 8 ball too.
I may be slashdot resistant now. After a dozen or so people are queued for 8 ball shaking I start deflecting.
This is directly analogous to the DVD software decoder problem. If the binary is available, the algorithm and all the keys are available.
Having, shall we say, "studied", my share of copy protection schemes I can attest that very little of a binary must actually be understood to coerce it into changing its answer.
And just so its all out on the table, here's my roadmap for launcher breakers. Please note that none of this has been tried, I just dashed this list off with 2 minutes thought.
Note: any apparent confessions in the above post were merely a "youthful indiscretion" and have certainly passed the appropriate statue of limitations.
Consider what you get if you buy the access logs for a bunch of web sites (some with login ids that can be tracked to house addresses, maybe from shipping information) and then add user tracker data like Comet that can identify a user between web sites. You can now track the user's access patterns across all the web sites, even those where he was anonymous.
This isn't anything too new, the banner ad companies do this already.
Redhat is buying Debian but the Debian constitution requires three motions to vote from four separate mailing lists followed by a period of discussion on the wording of the proposal to consider a proposal. The results are then tabulated using two thirds of the proof from Fermat's last theorem. Given the average life span of a human and the rate of admission to Debian all the developers will be dead by then.
For the humor impaired, none of the above is true.
Yes. It is one of the nicest malls in town. Large but very tasteful. Not that I'd know of course since I've been boycotting them for their abuse of the blight law. They don't seem to be suffering from my one man boycott. Maybe if my wife (aka princess of acquisitions) would join me in my efforts... :-)
I am from St. Louis and was here when the Galleria was built. The owners are used to getting there way. Maybe this time the tide won't stay out, but they've succeeded so far.
:-)
There was a smaller mall on the site which wanted to expand. The 80 or so quaint brick houses around them were reluctant to sell so they got Brentwood to blight the area. The blight laws are set up so the city can force the sale of property which is too run down to ever recover. They blighted a bunch of senior citizens, an audiologist, a yuppie wood working store, and a Ferrari dealer. You know once a Ferrari dealer moves in to the neighbohood there's no way it can recover.
They currently want to expand across the street, but only if they get a special exemption from taxes and I believe low rate government backed bonds.
You say you've been doing it for 2 years? This patent's filed date is June 1995. Your prior art must have been a year before that if I recall correctly.
If your product really does implement their patent then you are in violation and the patent holder may ask you to stop your product or pay them royalties on all copies sold.
You may have the honor of spending the $100,000+ to get the patent overturned.
A commercial entity can license and use patented technology which is not permitted in the Linux kernel or free software. There are a number of patents floating around in the firewall field.
I note that you can get the findings in HTML, PDF, and WordPerfect 6 formats. Some popular format seems to be missing, now what could that be...
As long as we're grousing about lego shortcomings, how about durability?
I run a web site using some lego motors and the things aren't good for more than a million reversals under moderate load before their bearings seize up.
Thank goodness MIT published hints on how to retrofit regular cheap motors for the mind numbingly expensive Lego brand motors. (Expand shaft with layers of heat shrink rubber tubing until you can cram an 8 point gear or worm screw onto it. Probably a worm screw if you have a high RPM low torque motor.)
please pardon my imperial units, IANARS*
600mph = 880 feet per second
6g = 32fps^2 * 6 = 186fps^2
dig out HP-15c...
time on rail is 880/186, 4.7 seconds
distance = 1/2 acceleration * time^2 = 1/2 * 186 * 4.7^2 = 2000 feet!
Well thats a little extreme for something that wants to point up in the air. How about if we squish the astronauts to 9gs? (The computers can fly until they become concious again.)
acceleration is 288fps^2, time on rail is 2.8 seconds, rail length is 1100 feet. Still fairly long.
I'm just guessing here, but if you lay the track flat you will lose the initial energy gains to air resistance in the longer atmospheric journey. This isn't going to be any wimpy tower either, multiply the shuttle mass by 9 to get the load on the 110 story tall tower, be sure to plan for lots of vibration. For those of you calculating along, the shuttle is about 2000 tons at lift off. You can probably deduct 20% of course for the savings of this system.
Maybe for non-human, sturdy payloads and outrageous accelerations this can work out.
#2 Unasnwered question: Why linear induction?
Assuming a preliminary kinetic boost is a winner, why linear induction? Aircraft carriers seem happy with steam catapults. How about conventional electric motors on a carriage? I'm reasonably sure these are more efficient for a given price if they can do the job.
IANARS = I am not a rocket scientist
The SPIN-2 on terraserver is satellite imagery, the USGS is aerial photography. The USGS is sharper.
You can read about them at http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ter ra_where.asp.
At the risk of injecting a fact...
I've been using a pair of iMacs for just over a year now. Only once have I had any use at all for a floppy, and that was because someone carried a document in for me to print. Good ridance to the floppy.
yes I know it wouldn't because its not being used for a commericial transaction, but then that wouldn't be funny would it?