Near where I live is a fertile valley, which is now mostly paved over with a sea of warehouses. Meanwhile, the hills on either side of the valley are largely undeveloped. Why? Because it's cheaper to build in the valley and ship in food from elsewhere than it is to build in the hills and grow food locally.
Recently, the last agricultural business in the area -- a dairy -- was shut down because cow poop was getting into the river. Never mind the oil and gasoline run-off from the sea of asphault all around the dairy.
Oh, and where does our food come from? South America and the irrigated deserts of California. Los Angeles can't get enough drinking water; they're draining the Colorado River dry before it reaches the sea, and still they can't get enough water. Yet they grow rice in the desert!
And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we're idiots.
I worked for Boeing for over 19 years. There's a small access door on the 727 that never quite fit right. It's not flush, so it costs the airlines some small bit of extra fuel. Boeing's known about it from like Day 2 (if they'd known on Day 1 they would have fixed it). The cost of fixing it was always just a bit more than the projected production would justify. The engineers would say "it will take 30 airplanes to pay for this" and sales would come back "but we think we're only going to sell another 25". 1500 airplanes later, everyone involved is wishing they'd just fixed the damn thing.
This is typical corporate thinking. It's not a very hard leap to extend this thinking into safety areas, as others have pointed out with the Ford Pinto, etc. However, it is possible to draw the line; I never knew a safety issue at Boeing that wasn't addressed immediately, and before anyone mentions it, I can tell you from personal experience that the 737 rudder problem drove them absolutely nuts, because they really don't know why the damn things sometimes fail, and thus don't know how to fix it. They'd fix it if they could.
One hopes that Microsoft has the ability to figure out what's wrong with their code, but maybe they too really don't know what's wrong and thus don't know what to fix. Yet another arguement for open source. Note to Microsoft: showing everyone your code does not have to equal letting them copy it for free. I'd gladly pay for Windows even if the source were available; as proof I offer the fact that I gladly buy Linux distros.
I believe he's talking about stand-alone devices like iPods, not general purpose PCs, which -- if true -- would contradict my TiVo prediction. But I'll believe it's true when I see it, and I don't believe we'll ever see it on a non-Windows desktop.
There is no legitimate need for Digital Restrictions Management
You misspelled "Mandate"
Broken business model
on
Linux and DRM?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
DRM is a broken business model. Linux is never going to play these DRM'd Disney movies, because they'll require Microsoft's DRM and Microsoft will never allow that on anything but MS Windows. You'll see "Microsoft Office for Linux" before you see that.
If your Linux box will never play Microsoft DRM media, what will it play? You may offer a DRM scheme for Linux, but what content provider will adopt it, given Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop? Indeed, if DRM becomes widespread, I predict that TiVo is toast.
But I also predict that DRM will go the way of software copy protection and DIVX; Disney certainly won't sell me any DRM movies. Pay Eisner every time I view "Dumbo"? Sure -- I'll just never watch "Dumbo" again. One penny or one million dollars times zero viewings is the same royalty, Mikey. I lived without home video before (pre-1980s), and I can live without it again. Who's the dumbo in this scenario? Those who fail to learn from history (DIVX) are doomed to repeat it.
Every VCR I've ever owned has auto-played movies as soon as you insert them. If you knock out the "write-prevent" tab on a blank tape, they will try to play it, too.
I've even got VCR head cleaner tapes that use this feature and the "auto-rewind at the end" and "auto-eject after rewind" features. You just put the head cleaner in and let the machine clean its own heads. When the tape pops back out, you're done.
The way to avoid worms, viruses, etc. is to apply some common sense and be careful. For example, never open email attachments when you don't know who sent them.
Another example, which applies here, is to avoid certain software. The "A" in "AIM" stands for AOL; therefore, I've never installed AIM and thus I avoid this latest marketing ploy.
Similarly, the "Windows" in "Windows Messenger" stands for Microsoft Windows, so I disabled it. Yes, I run Windows (because I can't avoid it for a variety of reasons), but I only run it behind an OpenBSD firewall, and I also run ZoneAlarm and Norton Anti-Virus. As Gene Simmons says, if it's raining wear a raincoat.
Mod this "flamebait" if you must, but you know I'm right.
I clearly remember watching Alan Shephard's first sub-orbital flight on TV in my 2nd grade classroom and I've been a NASA supporter ever since. I even supported the International Space Station, even though it is of very limited scientific value, because I felt we as a species needed the experience working and living in space. I always saw the ISS as a first step toward greater goals.
However, if the President goes ahead with this stupid plan to kill current, working programs like Hubble while continuing to run up the Federal deficit to fund his personal vendetta in Iraq ("Merry Christmas, Daddy, I got Saddam for ya"), under the guise of sending people to Mars when there is little hope of actually doing that for anything close to an affordable price, then I will write my Congressman and Senators and urge that they vote to cut all funding for NASA. I will write them every time NASA funding is up for a vote until either I or NASA are dead.
Let me put it another way -- even if you do succeed in putting people on Mars, when you look back at the total cost you will realize that we could have kept Hubble alive for the price of sending soda pops to the astronauts on Mars. Maintaining Hubble is a drop in the proverbial bucket.
Solid science, like Hubble, should be NASA's number one priority. If cowtowing to their political masters is NASA's number one priority, then it's time for NASA to go.
The U.S. also has one of the most closed aerospace programs, run out of a not-so-secret Air Force base in Nevada that officially does not exist. Personally, I don't believe they retired the SR-71 without a replacement, and what sort of craft would exceed it's specs without venturing into space? When Boeing is looking at aircraft that can take passengers from New York to Tokyo in two hours -- and that happens to leave the atmosphere to do that -- what do you imagine the military is looking at?
They're secret because 1) the public can't see how much it costs, 2) the vehicles used are secret, and 3) they violate treaties prohibiting the militarization of space.
As long as thr Russians and Chinese are putting people into space, the USA will, too. The difference is that it may well be exclusively via secret military programs.
Nothing anyone writes is worth reporting on Slashdot if we can't read it. If clicking on the link brings up anything other than the article intended, then we can't read the article.
Bush won't kill the shuttle until the Air Force has another way to get soldiers into space. Perhaps they already do. Anyone else seen one of those "Aurora" planes lately?
I refuse to give personal information to read a newspaper. It doesn't matter that I can give fake information, it's the principle.
And it's not just the NYT -- other newspapers do it, too, and I refuse to register with them as well.
And yes, I don't register at my grocery store, either. I did register at Albertsons, because they explicitly have a box to check that says something along the lines of "I don't want to give you my personal information."
Of course, the Pocket PC Phone Edition also syncs with Outlook. My wife has one and she loves it. When you hold it up to your head it's a clunky phone and you can't take notes or look something up, but with the hands-free earbuds it becomes a PDA that also does phonecalls; you click on a phone number in Contacts and it dials it. Pretty slick.
If a movie is rated "G" I know it's "safe" for my kid. Jack V. is so anal that a "G" really means "General audience." But the ESRB is not that uptight, so an "E" isn't nearly as safe as a movie "G". That makes it essentially worthless to me. Your milage may vary.
I'm having trouble seeing why you're up in arms about Spider-Man punching someone in the first place.
It's not the punching, it's the killing. You may say he doesn't kill the bad guys, but that's how it looks to my kid.
I've got this amazing new invention which I call a remote control. I'll sell it to you for $500.
Ah, but to trigger your remote control I have to notice Falwell; ergo, it doesn't meet the spec.
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Recently, the last agricultural business in the area -- a dairy -- was shut down because cow poop was getting into the river. Never mind the oil and gasoline run-off from the sea of asphault all around the dairy.
Oh, and where does our food come from? South America and the irrigated deserts of California. Los Angeles can't get enough drinking water; they're draining the Colorado River dry before it reaches the sea, and still they can't get enough water. Yet they grow rice in the desert!
And we wonder why the rest of the world thinks we're idiots.
This is typical corporate thinking. It's not a very hard leap to extend this thinking into safety areas, as others have pointed out with the Ford Pinto, etc. However, it is possible to draw the line; I never knew a safety issue at Boeing that wasn't addressed immediately, and before anyone mentions it, I can tell you from personal experience that the 737 rudder problem drove them absolutely nuts, because they really don't know why the damn things sometimes fail, and thus don't know how to fix it. They'd fix it if they could.
One hopes that Microsoft has the ability to figure out what's wrong with their code, but maybe they too really don't know what's wrong and thus don't know what to fix. Yet another arguement for open source. Note to Microsoft: showing everyone your code does not have to equal letting them copy it for free. I'd gladly pay for Windows even if the source were available; as proof I offer the fact that I gladly buy Linux distros.
Cities grow up where people first settle, and people first settle where the land is fertile.
I don't have to imagine it, I'm reading it now!
I believe he's talking about stand-alone devices like iPods, not general purpose PCs, which -- if true -- would contradict my TiVo prediction. But I'll believe it's true when I see it, and I don't believe we'll ever see it on a non-Windows desktop.
If your Linux box will never play Microsoft DRM media, what will it play? You may offer a DRM scheme for Linux, but what content provider will adopt it, given Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop? Indeed, if DRM becomes widespread, I predict that TiVo is toast.
But I also predict that DRM will go the way of software copy protection and DIVX; Disney certainly won't sell me any DRM movies. Pay Eisner every time I view "Dumbo"? Sure -- I'll just never watch "Dumbo" again. One penny or one million dollars times zero viewings is the same royalty, Mikey. I lived without home video before (pre-1980s), and I can live without it again. Who's the dumbo in this scenario? Those who fail to learn from history (DIVX) are doomed to repeat it.
I've even got VCR head cleaner tapes that use this feature and the "auto-rewind at the end" and "auto-eject after rewind" features. You just put the head cleaner in and let the machine clean its own heads. When the tape pops back out, you're done.
Then you violated these patents. Report to the nearest Intellectual Property Enforcement Agency and have your memory erased, you thief!
Another example, which applies here, is to avoid certain software. The "A" in "AIM" stands for AOL; therefore, I've never installed AIM and thus I avoid this latest marketing ploy.
Similarly, the "Windows" in "Windows Messenger" stands for Microsoft Windows, so I disabled it. Yes, I run Windows (because I can't avoid it for a variety of reasons), but I only run it behind an OpenBSD firewall, and I also run ZoneAlarm and Norton Anti-Virus. As Gene Simmons says, if it's raining wear a raincoat.
Mod this "flamebait" if you must, but you know I'm right.
Feel free to cut and paste as you see fit.
I believe it was George Carlin who said that only in America could you stick any two things together and someone would buy it.
In your experience, do LCDs have the response time needed for quality gaming? I believe response time is the reason gamers stick with CRTs.
The U.S. also has one of the most closed aerospace programs, run out of a not-so-secret Air Force base in Nevada that officially does not exist. Personally, I don't believe they retired the SR-71 without a replacement, and what sort of craft would exceed it's specs without venturing into space? When Boeing is looking at aircraft that can take passengers from New York to Tokyo in two hours -- and that happens to leave the atmosphere to do that -- what do you imagine the military is looking at?
They're secret because 1) the public can't see how much it costs, 2) the vehicles used are secret, and 3) they violate treaties prohibiting the militarization of space.
As long as thr Russians and Chinese are putting people into space, the USA will, too. The difference is that it may well be exclusively via secret military programs.
Nothing anyone writes is worth reporting on Slashdot if we can't read it. If clicking on the link brings up anything other than the article intended, then we can't read the article.
That's why "public" anonymous accounts don't work. Some asshole always pees in the pool.
Bush won't kill the shuttle until the Air Force has another way to get soldiers into space. Perhaps they already do. Anyone else seen one of those "Aurora" planes lately?
And it's not just the NYT -- other newspapers do it, too, and I refuse to register with them as well.
And yes, I don't register at my grocery store, either. I did register at Albertsons, because they explicitly have a box to check that says something along the lines of "I don't want to give you my personal information."
Of course, the Pocket PC Phone Edition also syncs with Outlook. My wife has one and she loves it. When you hold it up to your head it's a clunky phone and you can't take notes or look something up, but with the hands-free earbuds it becomes a PDA that also does phonecalls; you click on a phone number in Contacts and it dials it. Pretty slick.
Ah, but to trigger your remote control I have to notice Falwell; ergo, it doesn't meet the spec.