Well I guess that about says it. Either you're against polution or against jobs. Take your pick.
Yeah Bush has problems thinking ahead. Better to burn more coal and oil now, and keep the costs down, so our economy doesn't suffer. It would be just terrible if we lost jobs on our way to making the planet uninhabitable...
Its the same idiotic way that he thinks about the economy. Better to have large deficits now, and deplete social security now, so things look good NOW. In 20 or 30 years when the economy is shot and social security is gone, things will royally suck, but hey thats not Bush's problem as long as things look good NOW. He's such a freaking moron...
How about being told that no matter what your people do, at least 10% MUST be classed as substandard performers.
Saw this same dumbass policy at Motorola (aka Freescale) a couple years back. I've since left, and all the good technically skilled people I know have left also. Best not to be the last one on that sinking ship...
Ironic thing is that it has the opposite of intended effect - most of the hardworking people who spend their time working instead of camped in meetings or sucking up to the VPs end up getting shafted as the lowest 10%. End result after years of that is a huge heirarchy of incompetent managers, and no one left to do the work. My recently freed coworker who left Freescale to join us mentioned that our old group which used to have 30 odd skilled designers now only has 1 left - they've since filled the open ranks with new grads. Laugh, yeah good luck with that...
Patents are public domain documents. They're open and accessible to just about every one. The only useful thing they do is grant the patentee the exclusive right to manufacture/use/license/etc. the patented method/process/item/etc for 20 years. After the patent expires, anyone can use it.
They don't do any *useful* thing at all. Tech journals are open and accessible to just about every one, and they have way more innovative ideas and way less legalese than patents (have you ever actually tried reading through a stack of patent applications? what a pile of obtuse crap).
For most patents I know, the inventor sits on his/her/corporate ass for years and hopes that someone else unknowingly infringes on it so they can collect a bunch of other peoples hard-earned money. Otherwise before the patent expires, you effectively kill the idea for 20 years. Great way to slow innovation and force people to redesign something that doesn't need to be redesigned.
So, in the 100MPG automobile scenario, if the auto companies bought the patent and just sat on it, then after 20 years, it would essentially be worthless as anyone could then go make the 100MPG car and the big auto companies would be out of business.
Not really, the auto companies will continue to generate derivatives of the design and repatent those ad-nauseum. And given how current patent examinations fail to uncover or simply ignore prior art (and they clearly don't understand the concepts of obviousness or innovation), they effectively dump the burden of proof onto the court system and world at large.
What I find amusing about this whole mess is that the big corporate players are getting reamed by the patent rules they created. Patents are not good at all for innovation (if you want innovation try reading a technical journal sometime), they are only good for corporate greed (and only sometimes at that).
Lexar Jump drives are rumored to be poorly made, but I have no personal knowledge.
I've gone from a Lexar Jump drive to a Sandisk Micro (not mini). The Lexar was pretty poorly made, the case was plastic and the loop for clipping it on things was also plastic. After a few months of use the loop was starting to crack and I found it had corrupted data one day, so I upgraded to the micro. (once the flash starts to get corrupted I figured its time to get something else..)
The Sandisk Micro is nearly the ideal case and form factor. Its entirely enclosed in a metal can, with a large metal loop at the end for clipping to keychain. Surrounding that is a clear rubber plastic layer for absorbing impact. Bright (very bright) blue LED light on the end when its plugged in and transferring data. Very small (smaller than any other one I've seen) such that I keep it clipped on the keychain all the time. Cheap too - $36 for 256mb from newegg...
their support staff said to "check that my video driver was current", and I eventually gave up and got a refund.
Speaking of drivers, its too bad this thing is from ATI because it means the drivers will blow. I've already been burned a couple times by ATI cards with their POS drivers. One card I got had a TV tuner, but for that card ATI -never- managed to release a fully functional driver on Windows, much less anything else. When I called in to tech support for help, their proposed solution was to reformat the drive, reinstall windows, and try the crappy drivers again... yeah, thanks for nothing... only a year or so later did I manage to pull it out of the bottom of a box and get it semi-functional under linux using the xawtv stuff (which frankly says something about ATI's incompetence in that the only drivers that ever worked were written by a 3rd party on an OS they don't support). For specialty stuff like this drivers are everything, and I have no faith in ATI when it comes to that (esp under linux).
The INDUCE Act does not outlaw, and the RIAA/MPAA, are not opposed to P2P technology itself. Professor Susan Crawford, positively quoted in a previous Slashdot story about the INDUCE Act, says, "The Act (to be proposed tomorrow by songwriter Sen. Hatch and others) amends the copyright law to say that anyone who 'induces' copyright infringement is himself/itself an infringer."
The act is about is preventing copyright infringement via P2P, not about P2P. Believe me, Orrin Hatch, the RIAA, and the MPAA have absolutely no problem if some P2P network replaces Google as the search engine of choice.
More to the point, the RIAA/MPAA have no problem using P2P themselves if they can control it so that it does not get used to pirate movies and music. If a proprietary P2P network that allows them to charge for distribution of works turns out to be the best way to rent movies, the MPAA would be happy to cut Blockbuster out of the picture and keep those profits to itself.
I hate it when people try to sugar coat this as if its an "ok" thing. As I understand the wording of the INDUCE act it would give copyright holders the legal hammer to directly attack technologies used for completely legitimate purposes. This act is all about power and control. It gives the MPAA/RIAA the ability to threaten (and yes threatening is a more useful tool than actually prosecuting) companies that may try to bring to market technologies which may be used for copyright infringement. Its all about holding that legal hammer over a corporations head to dissuade them from pursuing such things.
I maintain a digital photo archive for my personal uses. I should be able to use any P2P or other technology I want (or even invent some myself) to maintain my archive, AND I should be allowed to share such things with others without any such legal hammer being held over my head. Its NOT right and it IS eroding my rights as a developer and as a consumer.
The "intent" of the MPAA/RIAA to decide whether to prosecute me regarding such things is worth as much as a fart in the wind. They should NOT have the legal power in the first place regardless of what their "intent" is today or tomorrow. Because as is the case, such "intent" always changes for the worse down the road...
That is why Adobe could care less if you use a pirated copy of Photoshop to make your first web page, but will absolutely send in the BSA ninjas if you run a 200 man web design firm that doesn't own a single license to the product. Short of a totalitarian state, piracy could never be stamped out. It's reality of life, just like stolen merchandise is in the retail business (no, I am not saying that copying copyrighted works is equivalent to stealing physical products). The RIAA and MPAA understand this. They're not worried about the guys who videotape movies and sell a dozen copies on the street corner. That's nothing to them.
Don't kid yourself, Adobe would just love to squeeze dollars out of every individual who has a bootleg copy of photoshop, but its just not economically viable. The cost of investigating and prosecuting someone for something like that just doesn't equal the return they would get. However as in your example for a 200 person company, some disillusioned fool would rat them out to the BSA and they can sue the company, for a guaranteed return.
The problem with uncontrolled P2P networks is that, if unchecked, there is absolutely nothing stopping everyone from pirating music and movies.
Frankly I don't care about maintaining the MPAA/RIAA's bottom line. They should have jumped on the digital path years ago. Face it, CD sales will eventually crater and be superceded by digital downloading. Its going to happen whether they want it to or not (and I don't see why they bitch about it anyway, it cuts their production costs to near zero). Overall if they can't make a buck off it, well too bad for them. Apple's store is legit and they seem to be doing quite well (and yes I know that its merely a tool for boosting iPod sales).
1) do NOT for any reason leave anything valuable in your car - unattended - at any time, anywhere, no matter how safe you think it is. I had my car, which at the time was an old POS, broken into twice. Once from what I thought was a very safe lot, and the other time when I happened to pull a late night in a lab. I parked in a crowded lot, only to come out in the middle of the morning and find my lone car with the window smashed out. Thief never got much, a couple speakers from the car, and the two bucks in pennies that I had in the ash tray, but it was a hassle to get the window fixed (I might add there is a special place in hell for the lowlife tards that steal this kind of worthless crap).
2) Avoid things that look visibly valuable and easy to take, no matter how secure the room. If you get a PC tower for your room, put it in the ugliest beige case you can find and hide it in the corner. In fact spray paint some stripes on it so there is no question who it belongs to. If you get the trick case with the cold cathode lights and all that, you might as well hang a sign on the door advertising it. I worked as a TA for a while - shared a room with some other TAs. Room was always locked - I made the mistake of leaving a CD player on my desk. Found it missing one day, but it wasn't the other TAs who took it. Turns out it was a teenage friend of the prof's kid (prof gave his kid a key to the room). If I would have kept it out of sight it never would have happened...
Narrower gates are less good at being the perfect insulators they should be. The thinner dielectric allows more leakage current, and can even break completely if the voltage is too high
I think your describing the wrong mechanism - deep submicron device leakage is dominated by drain-source subthreshold currents (hot-electron effects and whatnot), not by gate-source currents.
The problem is that nobody has seen it. It's certainly a masterpiece (it's among my favorites), but you go walk down the street and find me someone who has even heard of it.
Well, it was originally going to fill the hole at #5, but they switched to metric and it fell right thru...
I'll agree that the Matrix sequels were rather disappointing, but not nearly to the extent that the Star Wars prequels were. I went ahead and saw Matrix: Revolutions, although I wish now that I had waited for the dollar theater, but I have no intention of bothering to see SW3 at all.
Man, you people bitch way too much. With the exception of Jar Jar, I thought SW1 was pretty good. The pod racers were just cool. Not like anyone here is going to write a better script to explain the beginnings of Darth Vader anyway...
SW2 was all about special effects. The idea of an army of clones is interesting. Explains why all stormtroopers wear masks (so you don't have to see the same face everyplace).
Rarely have I seen a sci-fi movie as utterly awful as Attack of the Clones.
You have apparently never seen any Trek movie then...
What is the point of paying this much for such an mundane object like a universal remote. Has society become so lazy that even several specific remotes is too much a hassle? Control that fan, control that ac, control that tv, control that toilet. Remotely controlling anything is a good thing? Just one more thing so we can sit on our big fat nerd ass. Now that is insane.
I can't see the cost for this particular one justified, but in general I can think of two good reasons for them. One is that for most consumer electronics these days (say TV, receiver, DVD, etc) many features are ONLY available from the remote. Your TV might have buttons on it to change the channel or adjust volume, but it might not have ones for picture-in-picture display, video in/out selection, etc.
The other big one is batteries. Having six remotes means having six pairs of AA or AAA batteries that you need to maintain. Screw that, I'd rather have one remote with one set of batteries. Moreover remotes break, its good to have a replacement choice (from what I've seen stock remotes aren't all that cheap either).
There are a lot of companies who will do small runs of PC boards for you, but you have to give them finished layouts (gerber files). This gut provides the tools to do the layout as well as doing the boards, so it saves you a huge investment in software and learning a layout system.
There are a few places that provide free software and easy online ordering for PCB manufacture. One place I've used before with good results is expresspcb. Cost can be as low as $50ish for bare boards up to say $200-$300 for a small run of boards with solder masks and silkscreen. Even with solder masks and silkscreen they can make a board and ship it to your door inside of a week. Very cool stuff.
Maybe their lack of problems comes from the fact that they don't employ sumbarine patents, price fixing, coercion or collusion to keep their position in the market.
Ah, but ARM DOES use coercion to maintain their market. As noted in this article about OpenCores:
According to the OpenCores organization, ARM Ltd. (Cambridge, England), the leading licensor of processor cores, has already warned the group not to build clones of any of its cores.
Frankly I don't know how they get away with this. Its like Intel telling AMD not to build anything that is x86 compatible. I for one would like to see someone build a free ARM core and knock ARM Ltd off their pedestal. They have been milking the industry forever now...
Re:yay for legalized bribery!
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P2P Bits
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Not a law yet, just a bill. And given Sen. Hatch's track record, I wouldn't worry too much about it becoming law.
Still, given the number of people in Utah who own iPods and CD burners, it makes one wonder why they keep re-electing that clown. Apparently they haven't connected the dots between their diminishing rights and their senator...
90 days is a joke... It should be years like 3-4 years...
Even 3-4 years is a joke. Fair-use does not have a time limit. It should be for the life of the product. And if the company complains that providing backups for the life of the product is too much of a financial burden on them, then they should have no complaint about our ability to copy it ourselves. Otherwise fair-use is merely a theoretical rather than a practical concept.
I really don't understand how the courts can segregate digital works from the rest. Copying images or text from books has been allowed for a long time now (otherwise photocopiers wouldn't exist). CD/DVD copiers are nothing more than the digital equivalent of a photocopier. I can take a digital PDF file, print it, photocopy it, and scan it back into another digital PDF file - does the sum total of all that constitute a DMCA violation?
Seems whats missing from the DMCA is an "intent" clause. In other words you have to be copying with the intent of doing something illegal for there to be a violation. Judges decide things based on intent all the time, is that not a reasonable thing to have in there?
And the way our laws are set up right now, "reasonable expectation of privacy" is a binary thing -- either you've got it or you don't.
Totally wrong. It is not a "binary thing". If you take a dump in a public bathroom you don't lose your privacy rights just because its a public place. If two cops decide to stand in the same stall with you as you do your business, without any probable cause, they are violating your rights. Its harassment, and I can't think of a judge who would disagree.
This system effectively puts cops with notepads looking over everybody's shoulder. What next, speakers on the cameras so the cops can bark orders at you when you do something wrong? This system is as Orwellian as it gets.
How often anyone use the M$-added "windows" or "menu" buttons?
I never use them. All they do is get in the way when I'm reaching for ALT or CTRL. I wish I could make the CTRL key double wide and lose those stupid things...
However, with better ergonomics and specs of the 10D, you're less likely to miss shots with it than with the 300D
Unless your trying to focus ON your subject (instead of behind it) in which case your more likely to miss the shot with the 10D...
Heh, ok that was a cheap shot. Seriously though, the major lackings in the 300D are the unpredictable AIfocus and the lack of mirror lockup, which the so-called "hacked" firmware is supposed to fix. Haven't ever heard of anyone complaining they couldn't use the 300D because the viewfinder was too dim, or the magnification was off (that sounds more like lame excuses).
...but being too obvious about it would probably bring antitrust claims.
Actually isn't this type of price fixing exactly the thing that should get a close look by the FTC's antitrust investigators? The recording industry should not have this type of leverage over Apple...
Microsoft are allowed to file patents on their technology just like anyone else.
Sure they can, they can file 10 patents a day - However if the USPTO was doing its job it would be rejecting those same 10 patents a day. I can't think of a *single* novel idea that has come out of Microsoft for as far back as I can remember. Microsoft's business model is copying other people's new and novel ideas.The concept that 10 truly novel and new ideas that nobody has ever thought of before since the beginning of time coming out of Microsoft *per day* is simply ludicrous. They are simply abusing the broken and stupid patent system as it exists today. Frankly I don't know which is the bigger broken retarded waste of tax payers dollars - the USPTO or the INS.
Just because you have a huge open source cabal doesn't mean you can decide that "patents are a bad thing, we're not going to play that game". The world doesn't work like that: you can't boycott the patents system by Not Filing A Patent.
Sure you can, its called publishing a paper. If Microsoft was the technological innovator that it always claims it is, then it would be publishing papers instead of patenting. The ONLY reason for patenting ideas is to extract money from someone else at some later point in time (either "selling" IP - a dumb concept in itself - or licensing).
Patents inspire competition and are one of the primary reasons that America is where it is today.
Patents don't inspire crap. I work as a EE and of the hundreds of people I know in my field, none of them use the USPTO as a source of ideas (they know that almost all patents are just the same old crap thats been thought up before, rehashed, and then wrapped in lawyerspeak - aka completely useless drivel). To get ideas you look at tech journals and university research.
Want to do something about it? Try using your vote. Bush and Kerry have established their position on outsourcing (Bush is for, Kerry is against). Being unemployed does not mean you lose your right to vote, so make it count.
And now that major vendors are offering Linux versions of their design tools, we are no longer tied to Solaris.
I can second this. I work as a chip designer, and we used to be locked to either Sun or HP boxes, because thats all that Cadence and Mentor used to support. Now that they have ported their apps to Linux we are not locked to hardware any more (thankfully). We used to have Ultra60s on everyone's desk, but those are dogs compared to current AMD and Intel machines (for chip design at least). The writing has been on the wall for a couple years now - you don't need expensive proprietary Unix boxes for these types of apps anymore.
I work in a huge company full of EE's, and I've never met anyone here that actually cared about tinking with anything electrical
This is similar to almost any field, whereby you generally don't have hobbies that are TOO much like work, because it comes across as the same as working. However that said, I know quite a few EEs who are the 'build your own hardware from scratch' kind of people like myself. My day job is analog/wireless IC design. The mag that I referenced was primarily embedded design (discrete stuff that you can get your hands on). These jobs are worlds apart from each other even though they are both EE jobs. I find toying with embedded stuff is "fun" for me because its new and interesting to me. Its also tangible and practical in the sense that I can show resulting projects to other people (unlike IC design where you would need a high powered microscope to show them anything).
I agree there are plenty of middle management types who could care less about what they do as long as they aren't asked to do anything significant. You know these types right off when you interview them, they don't know how to actually DO anything, since they don't work in the "trenches" and they don't make the big coporate decisions either.
...basically being good little consumers like the rest of America.
Ah yes, speaking of stereotypes, the stereotypical slam on Americans. Hate to burst your stereotype, but not all of America is full of middle management idiots. If you can't find intelligent people in a place as diverse as America then your not looking. Its too bad if your stuck in a job that has you surrounded by people who are complacent to do the bare minimum on their job and nothing else, but it hardly represents the industry as a whole. I've worked with dozens of very sharp people, and its been my experience in industry that over time the smartest ones group together and go off to form their own companies. Try looking outside of the huge coporate sweatshops and you might see something different.
Re:Good for beginners
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Hardware Hacking
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· Score: 4, Informative
Actually for relatively small scale projects, and working with embedded controllers (from "basic stamps" to 8/16/32-bit controllers, ie. 8051 and such) I've found that Circuit Cellar is a pretty good magazine. They've had articles on wireless apps, robotics, and other stuff with a focus on hardware and practical details. A pretty fun read if your into tinkering with hardware (disclaimer - I'm speaking as a EE, so your definition of "fun" may differ).
Slashdot Mirror
Well I guess that about says it. Either you're against polution or against jobs. Take your pick.
Yeah Bush has problems thinking ahead. Better to burn more coal and oil now, and keep the costs down, so our economy doesn't suffer. It would be just terrible if we lost jobs on our way to making the planet uninhabitable...
Its the same idiotic way that he thinks about the economy. Better to have large deficits now, and deplete social security now, so things look good NOW. In 20 or 30 years when the economy is shot and social security is gone, things will royally suck, but hey thats not Bush's problem as long as things look good NOW. He's such a freaking moron...
How about being told that no matter what your people do, at least 10% MUST be classed as substandard performers.
Saw this same dumbass policy at Motorola (aka Freescale) a couple years back. I've since left, and all the good technically skilled people I know have left also. Best not to be the last one on that sinking ship...
Ironic thing is that it has the opposite of intended effect - most of the hardworking people who spend their time working instead of camped in meetings or sucking up to the VPs end up getting shafted as the lowest 10%. End result after years of that is a huge heirarchy of incompetent managers, and no one left to do the work. My recently freed coworker who left Freescale to join us mentioned that our old group which used to have 30 odd skilled designers now only has 1 left - they've since filled the open ranks with new grads. Laugh, yeah good luck with that...
Patents are public domain documents. They're open and accessible to just about every one. The only useful thing they do is grant the patentee the exclusive right to manufacture/use/license/etc. the patented method/process/item/etc for 20 years. After the patent expires, anyone can use it.
They don't do any *useful* thing at all. Tech journals are open and accessible to just about every one, and they have way more innovative ideas and way less legalese than patents (have you ever actually tried reading through a stack of patent applications? what a pile of obtuse crap).
For most patents I know, the inventor sits on his/her/corporate ass for years and hopes that someone else unknowingly infringes on it so they can collect a bunch of other peoples hard-earned money. Otherwise before the patent expires, you effectively kill the idea for 20 years. Great way to slow innovation and force people to redesign something that doesn't need to be redesigned.
So, in the 100MPG automobile scenario, if the auto companies bought the patent and just sat on it, then after 20 years, it would essentially be worthless as anyone could then go make the 100MPG car and the big auto companies would be out of business.
Not really, the auto companies will continue to generate derivatives of the design and repatent those ad-nauseum. And given how current patent examinations fail to uncover or simply ignore prior art (and they clearly don't understand the concepts of obviousness or innovation), they effectively dump the burden of proof onto the court system and world at large.
What I find amusing about this whole mess is that the big corporate players are getting reamed by the patent rules they created. Patents are not good at all for innovation (if you want innovation try reading a technical journal sometime), they are only good for corporate greed (and only sometimes at that).
Lexar Jump drives are rumored to be poorly made, but I have no personal knowledge.
I've gone from a Lexar Jump drive to a Sandisk Micro (not mini). The Lexar was pretty poorly made, the case was plastic and the loop for clipping it on things was also plastic. After a few months of use the loop was starting to crack and I found it had corrupted data one day, so I upgraded to the micro. (once the flash starts to get corrupted I figured its time to get something else..)
The Sandisk Micro is nearly the ideal case and form factor. Its entirely enclosed in a metal can, with a large metal loop at the end for clipping to keychain. Surrounding that is a clear rubber plastic layer for absorbing impact. Bright (very bright) blue LED light on the end when its plugged in and transferring data. Very small (smaller than any other one I've seen) such that I keep it clipped on the keychain all the time. Cheap too - $36 for 256mb from newegg ...
According to my understanding, even if you have permission to share the file, you still have to provide an address.
Which is important - because everybody knows email addresses are a great authoritative identity source...
Should be about as effective as having spammers sign their email address.
their support staff said to "check that my video driver was current", and I eventually gave up and got a refund.
Speaking of drivers, its too bad this thing is from ATI because it means the drivers will blow. I've already been burned a couple times by ATI cards with their POS drivers. One card I got had a TV tuner, but for that card ATI -never- managed to release a fully functional driver on Windows, much less anything else. When I called in to tech support for help, their proposed solution was to reformat the drive, reinstall windows, and try the crappy drivers again... yeah, thanks for nothing... only a year or so later did I manage to pull it out of the bottom of a box and get it semi-functional under linux using the xawtv stuff (which frankly says something about ATI's incompetence in that the only drivers that ever worked were written by a 3rd party on an OS they don't support). For specialty stuff like this drivers are everything, and I have no faith in ATI when it comes to that (esp under linux).
The INDUCE Act does not outlaw, and the RIAA/MPAA, are not opposed to P2P technology itself. Professor Susan Crawford, positively quoted in a previous Slashdot story about the INDUCE Act, says, "The Act (to be proposed tomorrow by songwriter Sen. Hatch and others) amends the copyright law to say that anyone who 'induces' copyright infringement is himself/itself an infringer."
The act is about is preventing copyright infringement via P2P, not about P2P. Believe me, Orrin Hatch, the RIAA, and the MPAA have absolutely no problem if some P2P network replaces Google as the search engine of choice.
More to the point, the RIAA/MPAA have no problem using P2P themselves if they can control it so that it does not get used to pirate movies and music. If a proprietary P2P network that allows them to charge for distribution of works turns out to be the best way to rent movies, the MPAA would be happy to cut Blockbuster out of the picture and keep those profits to itself.
I hate it when people try to sugar coat this as if its an "ok" thing. As I understand the wording of the INDUCE act it would give copyright holders the legal hammer to directly attack technologies used for completely legitimate purposes. This act is all about power and control. It gives the MPAA/RIAA the ability to threaten (and yes threatening is a more useful tool than actually prosecuting) companies that may try to bring to market technologies which may be used for copyright infringement. Its all about holding that legal hammer over a corporations head to dissuade them from pursuing such things.
I maintain a digital photo archive for my personal uses. I should be able to use any P2P or other technology I want (or even invent some myself) to maintain my archive, AND I should be allowed to share such things with others without any such legal hammer being held over my head. Its NOT right and it IS eroding my rights as a developer and as a consumer.
The "intent" of the MPAA/RIAA to decide whether to prosecute me regarding such things is worth as much as a fart in the wind. They should NOT have the legal power in the first place regardless of what their "intent" is today or tomorrow. Because as is the case, such "intent" always changes for the worse down the road...
That is why Adobe could care less if you use a pirated copy of Photoshop to make your first web page, but will absolutely send in the BSA ninjas if you run a 200 man web design firm that doesn't own a single license to the product. Short of a totalitarian state, piracy could never be stamped out. It's reality of life, just like stolen merchandise is in the retail business (no, I am not saying that copying copyrighted works is equivalent to stealing physical products). The RIAA and MPAA understand this. They're not worried about the guys who videotape movies and sell a dozen copies on the street corner. That's nothing to them.
Don't kid yourself, Adobe would just love to squeeze dollars out of every individual who has a bootleg copy of photoshop, but its just not economically viable. The cost of investigating and prosecuting someone for something like that just doesn't equal the return they would get. However as in your example for a 200 person company, some disillusioned fool would rat them out to the BSA and they can sue the company, for a guaranteed return.
The problem with uncontrolled P2P networks is that, if unchecked, there is absolutely nothing stopping everyone from pirating music and movies.
Frankly I don't care about maintaining the MPAA/RIAA's bottom line. They should have jumped on the digital path years ago. Face it, CD sales will eventually crater and be superceded by digital downloading. Its going to happen whether they want it to or not (and I don't see why they bitch about it anyway, it cuts their production costs to near zero). Overall if they can't make a buck off it, well too bad for them. Apple's store is legit and they seem to be doing quite well (and yes I know that its merely a tool for boosting iPod sales).
I would also add two things:
1) do NOT for any reason leave anything valuable in your car - unattended - at any time, anywhere, no matter how safe you think it is. I had my car, which at the time was an old POS, broken into twice. Once from what I thought was a very safe lot, and the other time when I happened to pull a late night in a lab. I parked in a crowded lot, only to come out in the middle of the morning and find my lone car with the window smashed out. Thief never got much, a couple speakers from the car, and the two bucks in pennies that I had in the ash tray, but it was a hassle to get the window fixed (I might add there is a special place in hell for the lowlife tards that steal this kind of worthless crap).
2) Avoid things that look visibly valuable and easy to take, no matter how secure the room. If you get a PC tower for your room, put it in the ugliest beige case you can find and hide it in the corner. In fact spray paint some stripes on it so there is no question who it belongs to. If you get the trick case with the cold cathode lights and all that, you might as well hang a sign on the door advertising it. I worked as a TA for a while - shared a room with some other TAs. Room was always locked - I made the mistake of leaving a CD player on my desk. Found it missing one day, but it wasn't the other TAs who took it. Turns out it was a teenage friend of the prof's kid (prof gave his kid a key to the room). If I would have kept it out of sight it never would have happened...
Narrower gates are less good at being the perfect insulators they should be. The thinner dielectric allows more leakage current, and can even break completely if the voltage is too high
I think your describing the wrong mechanism - deep submicron device leakage is dominated by drain-source subthreshold currents (hot-electron effects and whatnot), not by gate-source currents.
The problem is that nobody has seen it. It's certainly a masterpiece (it's among my favorites), but you go walk down the street and find me someone who has even heard of it.
Well, it was originally going to fill the hole at #5, but they switched to metric and it fell right thru...
I'll agree that the Matrix sequels were rather disappointing, but not nearly to the extent that the Star Wars prequels were. I went ahead and saw Matrix: Revolutions, although I wish now that I had waited for the dollar theater, but I have no intention of bothering to see SW3 at all.
Man, you people bitch way too much. With the exception of Jar Jar, I thought SW1 was pretty good. The pod racers were just cool. Not like anyone here is going to write a better script to explain the beginnings of Darth Vader anyway...
SW2 was all about special effects. The idea of an army of clones is interesting. Explains why all stormtroopers wear masks (so you don't have to see the same face everyplace).
Rarely have I seen a sci-fi movie as utterly awful as Attack of the Clones.
You have apparently never seen any Trek movie then...
What is the point of paying this much for such an mundane object like a universal remote. Has society become so lazy that even several specific remotes is too much a hassle? Control that fan, control that ac, control that tv, control that toilet. Remotely controlling anything is a good thing? Just one more thing so we can sit on our big fat nerd ass. Now that is insane.
I can't see the cost for this particular one justified, but in general I can think of two good reasons for them. One is that for most consumer electronics these days (say TV, receiver, DVD, etc) many features are ONLY available from the remote. Your TV might have buttons on it to change the channel or adjust volume, but it might not have ones for picture-in-picture display, video in/out selection, etc.
The other big one is batteries. Having six remotes means having six pairs of AA or AAA batteries that you need to maintain. Screw that, I'd rather have one remote with one set of batteries. Moreover remotes break, its good to have a replacement choice (from what I've seen stock remotes aren't all that cheap either).
There are a lot of companies who will do small runs of PC boards for you, but you have to give them finished layouts (gerber files). This gut provides the tools to do the layout as well as doing the boards, so it saves you a huge investment in software and learning a layout system.
There are a few places that provide free software and easy online ordering for PCB manufacture. One place I've used before with good results is expresspcb. Cost can be as low as $50ish for bare boards up to say $200-$300 for a small run of boards with solder masks and silkscreen. Even with solder masks and silkscreen they can make a board and ship it to your door inside of a week. Very cool stuff.
Maybe their lack of problems comes from the fact that they don't employ sumbarine patents, price fixing, coercion or collusion to keep their position in the market.
Ah, but ARM DOES use coercion to maintain their market. As noted in this article about OpenCores:
According to the OpenCores organization, ARM Ltd. (Cambridge, England), the leading licensor of processor cores, has already warned the group not to build clones of any of its cores.Frankly I don't know how they get away with this. Its like Intel telling AMD not to build anything that is x86 compatible. I for one would like to see someone build a free ARM core and knock ARM Ltd off their pedestal. They have been milking the industry forever now...
Not a law yet, just a bill. And given Sen. Hatch's track record, I wouldn't worry too much about it becoming law.
Still, given the number of people in Utah who own iPods and CD burners, it makes one wonder why they keep re-electing that clown. Apparently they haven't connected the dots between their diminishing rights and their senator...
90 days is a joke... It should be years like 3-4 years...
Even 3-4 years is a joke. Fair-use does not have a time limit. It should be for the life of the product. And if the company complains that providing backups for the life of the product is too much of a financial burden on them, then they should have no complaint about our ability to copy it ourselves. Otherwise fair-use is merely a theoretical rather than a practical concept.
I really don't understand how the courts can segregate digital works from the rest. Copying images or text from books has been allowed for a long time now (otherwise photocopiers wouldn't exist). CD/DVD copiers are nothing more than the digital equivalent of a photocopier. I can take a digital PDF file, print it, photocopy it, and scan it back into another digital PDF file - does the sum total of all that constitute a DMCA violation?
Seems whats missing from the DMCA is an "intent" clause. In other words you have to be copying with the intent of doing something illegal for there to be a violation. Judges decide things based on intent all the time, is that not a reasonable thing to have in there?
And the way our laws are set up right now, "reasonable expectation of privacy" is a binary thing -- either you've got it or you don't.
Totally wrong. It is not a "binary thing". If you take a dump in a public bathroom you don't lose your privacy rights just because its a public place. If two cops decide to stand in the same stall with you as you do your business, without any probable cause, they are violating your rights. Its harassment, and I can't think of a judge who would disagree.
This system effectively puts cops with notepads looking over everybody's shoulder. What next, speakers on the cameras so the cops can bark orders at you when you do something wrong? This system is as Orwellian as it gets.
How often anyone use the M$-added "windows" or "menu" buttons?
I never use them. All they do is get in the way when I'm reaching for ALT or CTRL. I wish I could make the CTRL key double wide and lose those stupid things...
However, with better ergonomics and specs of the 10D, you're less likely to miss shots with it than with the 300D
Unless your trying to focus ON your subject (instead of behind it) in which case your more likely to miss the shot with the 10D...
Heh, ok that was a cheap shot. Seriously though, the major lackings in the 300D are the unpredictable AIfocus and the lack of mirror lockup, which the so-called "hacked" firmware is supposed to fix. Haven't ever heard of anyone complaining they couldn't use the 300D because the viewfinder was too dim, or the magnification was off (that sounds more like lame excuses).
Actually isn't this type of price fixing exactly the thing that should get a close look by the FTC's antitrust investigators? The recording industry should not have this type of leverage over Apple...
Microsoft are allowed to file patents on their technology just like anyone else.
Sure they can, they can file 10 patents a day - However if the USPTO was doing its job it would be rejecting those same 10 patents a day. I can't think of a *single* novel idea that has come out of Microsoft for as far back as I can remember. Microsoft's business model is copying other people's new and novel ideas.The concept that 10 truly novel and new ideas that nobody has ever thought of before since the beginning of time coming out of Microsoft *per day* is simply ludicrous. They are simply abusing the broken and stupid patent system as it exists today. Frankly I don't know which is the bigger broken retarded waste of tax payers dollars - the USPTO or the INS.
Just because you have a huge open source cabal doesn't mean you can decide that "patents are a bad thing, we're not going to play that game". The world doesn't work like that: you can't boycott the patents system by Not Filing A Patent.
Sure you can, its called publishing a paper. If Microsoft was the technological innovator that it always claims it is, then it would be publishing papers instead of patenting. The ONLY reason for patenting ideas is to extract money from someone else at some later point in time (either "selling" IP - a dumb concept in itself - or licensing).
Patents inspire competition and are one of the primary reasons that America is where it is today.
Patents don't inspire crap. I work as a EE and of the hundreds of people I know in my field, none of them use the USPTO as a source of ideas (they know that almost all patents are just the same old crap thats been thought up before, rehashed, and then wrapped in lawyerspeak - aka completely useless drivel). To get ideas you look at tech journals and university research.
For those who haven't bought into the "outsourcing is great for America" BS, check out this discussion about IEEE-USA's stance against outsourcing. The IEEE has also released a position paper on the topic.
Looking at the economic side of the argument, there is also a short article about a finance professor arguing against placing blind faith in outsourcing and the "externality" that companies are exploiting given the current labor and tax laws.
Want to do something about it? Try using your vote. Bush and Kerry have established their position on outsourcing (Bush is for, Kerry is against). Being unemployed does not mean you lose your right to vote, so make it count.
And now that major vendors are offering Linux versions of their design tools, we are no longer tied to Solaris.
I can second this. I work as a chip designer, and we used to be locked to either Sun or HP boxes, because thats all that Cadence and Mentor used to support. Now that they have ported their apps to Linux we are not locked to hardware any more (thankfully). We used to have Ultra60s on everyone's desk, but those are dogs compared to current AMD and Intel machines (for chip design at least). The writing has been on the wall for a couple years now - you don't need expensive proprietary Unix boxes for these types of apps anymore.
I work in a huge company full of EE's, and I've never met anyone here that actually cared about tinking with anything electrical
This is similar to almost any field, whereby you generally don't have hobbies that are TOO much like work, because it comes across as the same as working. However that said, I know quite a few EEs who are the 'build your own hardware from scratch' kind of people like myself. My day job is analog/wireless IC design. The mag that I referenced was primarily embedded design (discrete stuff that you can get your hands on). These jobs are worlds apart from each other even though they are both EE jobs. I find toying with embedded stuff is "fun" for me because its new and interesting to me. Its also tangible and practical in the sense that I can show resulting projects to other people (unlike IC design where you would need a high powered microscope to show them anything).
I agree there are plenty of middle management types who could care less about what they do as long as they aren't asked to do anything significant. You know these types right off when you interview them, they don't know how to actually DO anything, since they don't work in the "trenches" and they don't make the big coporate decisions either.
Ah yes, speaking of stereotypes, the stereotypical slam on Americans. Hate to burst your stereotype, but not all of America is full of middle management idiots. If you can't find intelligent people in a place as diverse as America then your not looking. Its too bad if your stuck in a job that has you surrounded by people who are complacent to do the bare minimum on their job and nothing else, but it hardly represents the industry as a whole. I've worked with dozens of very sharp people, and its been my experience in industry that over time the smartest ones group together and go off to form their own companies. Try looking outside of the huge coporate sweatshops and you might see something different.
Actually for relatively small scale projects, and working with embedded controllers (from "basic stamps" to 8/16/32-bit controllers, ie. 8051 and such) I've found that Circuit Cellar is a pretty good magazine. They've had articles on wireless apps, robotics, and other stuff with a focus on hardware and practical details. A pretty fun read if your into tinkering with hardware (disclaimer - I'm speaking as a EE, so your definition of "fun" may differ).