Why doesn't a company overseas develop a high-performance non-drm cpu?
My guess is because it takes a huge amount of R&D (we're talking ~50 years to catch up w/ the US here). I recall an article a few years ago about the Chinese governemt/industry cloning the old MIPS (or was it Sparc) CPUs, rather than invent their own technology. It's not like there isn't the manpower, capital, or skill in China these days. It just takes an obscene amount of effort to reach that goal.
Nevermind that anything that isn't backward compatible with 20 years of Wintel platforms won't ever be accepted by the mass market.
I run FreeBSD/amd64. It seems that Wine is not in the cards for this platform. No, I won't use either Linux or 32-bit computability modes. Does Wine compile/run as a 64-bit app under Linux these days? VMWare has never been an official option for FreeBSD. Win4BSD is 32-bit only right now. Bummer.
The good thing is that QEmu is finally at sufficient quality and speed to replace VMWare, so I have a good alternative now. Still... I'm disappointed about the lack of Wine. Sometimes its nice to run something w/o the overhead of a full VM.
If I purchase an internet connection (in any form), and I decide that I want to let people use it, should I not be allowed to dictate HOW it is used, or more closely related to this topic, what is viewed on it?
You are indeed entitled to do whatever you wish on your site. The point is that the internet's default function is to facilitate the flow of information. Trying to implement a policy that is contrary to that function is a waste of effort, at best. The whole *point* of an internet connection is to allow the clients to access "the web" (mostly -- certainly for the purposes of this discussion).
Trust your users to do the right thing. If they abuse it, toss the users out or unplug the internet connection. I don't think wrestling with the in-between options is worth the hassle, if possible at all. Clearly, nobody else has any obligation to make those other options easier.
Bennett defends and promotes his ideals as viciously as Richard Stallman, for which I think we should all take a moment to recognize and appreciate, even if we don't necessarily agree with either one's point of view. We need people at this extreme of the ideological scale sometimes, as it keeps the debate alive and in the public eye.
I exchanged a few emails in the late 90's with Mr. Haselton, back when his big thing was reverse engineering the block lists of proprietary software. As an admin who had been, in the past, grudgingly installed and enforced filtering software, I asked him if, given no option, we should ("we" being the general anti-filter types) be pushing transparent software, such as using the squid/squidGuard combo? After all, at least we can customize our sites to match the requirements, and not have these stupid politically/religiously motivated lists of sites to block when they do not violate the advertised policy/category of the commercial software.
His response (in a nutshell) was that the restricting the flow of any information was bad. Always. And that those who truly believe that stance should not compromise by using a lesser or two evils.
I agree with his point on principle. If we're setting up proxies across the 'net so political dissidents in China can access Western news sources, can we simultaneously feel good about ourselves by restricting our own youth (or adults, for that matter) in our own country from accessing certain sites? In fact, if filtering were pretty much rendered pointless by his (and other's) efforts, I would breath a sigh of relief and not have to worry about even trying any more when an employer would ask.
I won't even get into the public-funded sites vs private companies side of the issue. I think responsibility should be granted for all end users, regardless of the site. If it truly becomes too much of an issue, suspend/fire the offending students/workers or cut off all web access if you feel that strongly about it.
Yeah, but people are not forced by the State into compulsory plane trips until they turn 18. Slight difference.
On a similar note, I've always wondered if it could be possible to avoid a court appearance due to the fact that you must check all firearms (er, weapons -- they took my Swiss Army Knife once) with the courthouse guards. Can the State compel you to surrender your arms if you have not been convicted of anything yet? A nice legal chicken/egg problem.
Watch it there, buddy. I bought my kids "Land of the Lost" on DVD. Campy, to be sure, but it was a decent show. Now, there was no excuse for H.R. Puff-n-Stuff (or Dr. Shrinker, or the Bugaloos, or....).
But common! Saturday mornings (remember those?) never got better than dinosaurs, Sleestack, and glowing crystals! If only Grumpy had eaten Holly and/or Dopey....
My daily fix is usually this (not necessarily in order): slashdot.org -- for the tech stuff plastic.com -- for more intelligent discourse of current events kuro5hin.org -- for when I'm too tired to think freshmeat.net -- to keep up w/ new releases
I hit the occasional online comic once in a while (too lazy to add URLs): Sinfest, Order of the Stick, & Penny Arcade.
Google is the launching point for 95% of my other online time, helping me find pages on stuff I'm researching.
You might have some interesting discourse on your site, but the layout, colors, and presentation are so wild they make my eyes bleed. If you fancy your message worthy of an audience, I implore you to revamp your site with a style that's a touch less harsh on the eyes and use a good indexing/tagging scheme.
Just my opinion. I really would read more of your site, but I just cannot tolerate the visual presentation. Even telling my browser to display with no style barely helps. If you present actual facts regarding your high-efficiency, clean technologies, I was unable to find them.
This is not meant as a disparagement, but constructive criticism. I enjoy what you have to say, but the visual layout prevents me from reading more than a screenful at a time.
I'm in the market for some dirt-cheap FreeBSD jail virtual hosts. I want to get each of my kids their own domains for their birthdays this year, with the intent of keeping them for at least until they either leave the nest or decide to get their own domains later on. I found this teaser article mentioning the possibility of $3/yr, but I haven't come across anything that I want yet.
I found a place a few years ago that was like $20 for a year, but I lost the info I had on them. It was a minimal account-based hosting setup, but it did the job.
I wish domains were cheaper, as it seems like on the really low end of hosting, the domain name seems to be most expensive part.
Personally, I'd rather spend ~$20k and get an unmodified DMC-12. They crop up on eBay from time to time. Plus, you can order a Flux Capacitor (enter item code 18851985).
If this doesn't revolutionize the searching of online porn galleries, I don't know what will.:)
Snarkiness aside, this is pretty cool stuff. I hope to see usable OSS code in a few years. Imagine how cool it would be to query "show me all pics with my daughter and her rabbits" and have it week through the 1000's of digital family photos.
Advertising is a way to make a product cheaper and the people want things to be cheep.
Umm.... advertising is a way to influence people buy stuff. See the generic/store brands at your favorite grocer. Cheaper *and* no advertising needed.
In the absence of ads, people are generally smart enough to know what they need, when they need it. The world as we know it wouldn't grind to a financial halt if advertisers were to die off in some mass extinction, in spite of what sales people would like you to think.
Should you get The Letter, which has no legal value whatsoever, put a bullet through the drive...
Speaking from personal experience, the lead ball that comes from a.54 caliber muzzle-loader rifle makes easy work of destroying a HD. Sorry, wasn't my gun, and I didn't take pics. All I have these days are a.22LR, a.17HMR, and a 12-guage. Not sure which one would do the best for a HD. More research is clearly needed.:)
I'm currently streaming SomaFM's "Groove Salad" via 48k AACPlus stream (yay mplayer!), and it's pretty damn good. Sure, *sometimes* it's a little flat and there's an occasional swish or swoosh in the sounds. 128k would be (for me) indistinguisable from a raw CD rip. 256k AAC seems a bit of a waste. Seems if they were going *that* high, they just may as well go with lossless and be done with it. Maybe the beancounters decided that paying AAC licensing was cheaper than bandwidth?
Last spring I fried my MB, so I grabbed the Asus A8V w/ an Athlon 64 3200+ (2GHz, though I have it clocked to 2.2GHz). I was thinking about putting in a 2nd GB of memory and topping out the processor this spring (tax return time!), which for the A8V is (I think) the X2 3800. Sheesh. Looks like I can't get out of "low end" now w/o upgrading the MB, too.
What happened to the days of 3-year-old hardware being "low end"?:)
Heaven forbid they make money, heaven forbid they not build out for one customer, at huge expense to themselves, so they can earn 69.95/month for basic cable and inet service off of one, maybe two customers.
Isn't that what all those federal funds tacked onto each phone bill supposed to support? Getting telcom infrastructure out to those of us in the sticks? If the telecom market were totally "free", I'd agree with you. However, there are so many subsidies and weird spaghetti bowl of forces at work by the governments and the companies themselves, I don't feel that any governmental nudge to force these giant companies to serve outlying areas is out of line.
Oddly enough, there's a small regional telco out here in Utah that services the areas Qwest (formerly US West) has decided to ignore. I have a decent DSL connection on the outskirts of a town of about 200 residents, located ~35 miles from the nearest "real" city. I can't complain. The extra $25/month on my phone bill was a steal when compared to the satellite options was expecting I'd need to utilize when I moved out here.
How many of Bush's underlings have been cut off at the knees during his time in office? Indeed, this is politics as usual. However, labeling this as a Democrat thing is disingenuous at best.
Ratings do NOT create censorship -- they just inform the consumer. It is sort of like complaining that food labels "censor" high-calorie fatty foods and create an underground market for twinkies.
It's the first step to censorship, though. First, the government not-so-gently pushes for "voluntary" ratings and labeling (see MPAA ratings and the PMRC-induced content warnings for music). Next step is to enforce penalties for selling/showing content of certain ratings, like when Utah tried to introduce legislation that would hold movie theaters accountable for letting minors into an R-rated movie w/o a parent. That smells of censorship, not mere informational utility.
I won't even get into the de facto censorship when huge, ubiquitous retailers refuse to carry content due to said labellings.
Yadda-yadda-yadda... sure, true "censorship" is when I have a threat of government rebuking for saying something like "Bush sucks" in my local newspaper. However, when huge corporations can skew the marketplace and effectively stomp out distribution of something (like Wal Mart can, for example), it effectively is a form of censorship.
Yup. I stopped donating that same year. As much as I love public broadcasting, I can't back them up any more until they do a 180 on the low power radio thing. Their stance on LPFM seemed so counter to their over-all mission, I have to wonder what their real rationale was.
Slashdot Mirror
My guess is because it takes a huge amount of R&D (we're talking ~50 years to catch up w/ the US here). I recall an article a few years ago about the Chinese governemt/industry cloning the old MIPS (or was it Sparc) CPUs, rather than invent their own technology. It's not like there isn't the manpower, capital, or skill in China these days. It just takes an obscene amount of effort to reach that goal.
Nevermind that anything that isn't backward compatible with 20 years of Wintel platforms won't ever be accepted by the mass market.
At least they didn't submit the survey about eating beans and George Wendt.
The good thing is that QEmu is finally at sufficient quality and speed to replace VMWare, so I have a good alternative now. Still... I'm disappointed about the lack of Wine. Sometimes its nice to run something w/o the overhead of a full VM.
You are indeed entitled to do whatever you wish on your site. The point is that the internet's default function is to facilitate the flow of information. Trying to implement a policy that is contrary to that function is a waste of effort, at best. The whole *point* of an internet connection is to allow the clients to access "the web" (mostly -- certainly for the purposes of this discussion).
Trust your users to do the right thing. If they abuse it, toss the users out or unplug the internet connection. I don't think wrestling with the in-between options is worth the hassle, if possible at all. Clearly, nobody else has any obligation to make those other options easier.
I exchanged a few emails in the late 90's with Mr. Haselton, back when his big thing was reverse engineering the block lists of proprietary software. As an admin who had been, in the past, grudgingly installed and enforced filtering software, I asked him if, given no option, we should ("we" being the general anti-filter types) be pushing transparent software, such as using the squid/squidGuard combo? After all, at least we can customize our sites to match the requirements, and not have these stupid politically/religiously motivated lists of sites to block when they do not violate the advertised policy/category of the commercial software.
His response (in a nutshell) was that the restricting the flow of any information was bad. Always. And that those who truly believe that stance should not compromise by using a lesser or two evils.
I agree with his point on principle. If we're setting up proxies across the 'net so political dissidents in China can access Western news sources, can we simultaneously feel good about ourselves by restricting our own youth (or adults, for that matter) in our own country from accessing certain sites? In fact, if filtering were pretty much rendered pointless by his (and other's) efforts, I would breath a sigh of relief and not have to worry about even trying any more when an employer would ask.
I won't even get into the public-funded sites vs private companies side of the issue. I think responsibility should be granted for all end users, regardless of the site. If it truly becomes too much of an issue, suspend/fire the offending students/workers or cut off all web access if you feel that strongly about it.
On a similar note, I've always wondered if it could be possible to avoid a court appearance due to the fact that you must check all firearms (er, weapons -- they took my Swiss Army Knife once) with the courthouse guards. Can the State compel you to surrender your arms if you have not been convicted of anything yet? A nice legal chicken/egg problem.
But common! Saturday mornings (remember those?) never got better than dinosaurs, Sleestack, and glowing crystals! If only Grumpy had eaten Holly and/or Dopey....
slashdot.org -- for the tech stuff
plastic.com -- for more intelligent discourse of current events
kuro5hin.org -- for when I'm too tired to think
freshmeat.net -- to keep up w/ new releases
I hit the occasional online comic once in a while (too lazy to add URLs): Sinfest, Order of the Stick, & Penny Arcade.
Google is the launching point for 95% of my other online time, helping me find pages on stuff I'm researching.
You might have some interesting discourse on your site, but the layout, colors, and presentation are so wild they make my eyes bleed. If you fancy your message worthy of an audience, I implore you to revamp your site with a style that's a touch less harsh on the eyes and use a good indexing/tagging scheme.
Just my opinion. I really would read more of your site, but I just cannot tolerate the visual presentation. Even telling my browser to display with no style barely helps. If you present actual facts regarding your high-efficiency, clean technologies, I was unable to find them.
This is not meant as a disparagement, but constructive criticism. I enjoy what you have to say, but the visual layout prevents me from reading more than a screenful at a time.
That's gotta be one of the coolest sites I've ever run across. Thanks a lot for the pointer!
I found a place a few years ago that was like $20 for a year, but I lost the info I had on them. It was a minimal account-based hosting setup, but it did the job.
I wish domains were cheaper, as it seems like on the really low end of hosting, the domain name seems to be most expensive part.
Personally, I'd rather spend ~$20k and get an unmodified DMC-12. They crop up on eBay from time to time. Plus, you can order a Flux Capacitor (enter item code 18851985).
Snarkiness aside, this is pretty cool stuff. I hope to see usable OSS code in a few years. Imagine how cool it would be to query "show me all pics with my daughter and her rabbits" and have it week through the 1000's of digital family photos.
Umm.... advertising is a way to influence people buy stuff. See the generic/store brands at your favorite grocer. Cheaper *and* no advertising needed.
In the absence of ads, people are generally smart enough to know what they need, when they need it. The world as we know it wouldn't grind to a financial halt if advertisers were to die off in some mass extinction, in spite of what sales people would like you to think.
Speaking from personal experience, the lead ball that comes from a .54 caliber muzzle-loader rifle makes easy work of destroying a HD. Sorry, wasn't my gun, and I didn't take pics. All I have these days are a .22LR, a .17HMR, and a 12-guage. Not sure which one would do the best for a HD. More research is clearly needed. :)
I'm currently streaming SomaFM's "Groove Salad" via 48k AACPlus stream (yay mplayer!), and it's pretty damn good. Sure, *sometimes* it's a little flat and there's an occasional swish or swoosh in the sounds. 128k would be (for me) indistinguisable from a raw CD rip. 256k AAC seems a bit of a waste. Seems if they were going *that* high, they just may as well go with lossless and be done with it. Maybe the beancounters decided that paying AAC licensing was cheaper than bandwidth?
Last spring I fried my MB, so I grabbed the Asus A8V w/ an Athlon 64 3200+ (2GHz, though I have it clocked to 2.2GHz). I was thinking about putting in a 2nd GB of memory and topping out the processor this spring (tax return time!), which for the A8V is (I think) the X2 3800. Sheesh. Looks like I can't get out of "low end" now w/o upgrading the MB, too.
What happened to the days of 3-year-old hardware being "low end"? :)
Indeed.
Chopper, sic balls!
Isn't that what all those federal funds tacked onto each phone bill supposed to support? Getting telcom infrastructure out to those of us in the sticks? If the telecom market were totally "free", I'd agree with you. However, there are so many subsidies and weird spaghetti bowl of forces at work by the governments and the companies themselves, I don't feel that any governmental nudge to force these giant companies to serve outlying areas is out of line.
Oddly enough, there's a small regional telco out here in Utah that services the areas Qwest (formerly US West) has decided to ignore. I have a decent DSL connection on the outskirts of a town of about 200 residents, located ~35 miles from the nearest "real" city. I can't complain. The extra $25/month on my phone bill was a steal when compared to the satellite options was expecting I'd need to utilize when I moved out here.
How many of Bush's underlings have been cut off at the knees during his time in office? Indeed, this is politics as usual. However, labeling this as a Democrat thing is disingenuous at best.
It's the first step to censorship, though. First, the government not-so-gently pushes for "voluntary" ratings and labeling (see MPAA ratings and the PMRC-induced content warnings for music). Next step is to enforce penalties for selling/showing content of certain ratings, like when Utah tried to introduce legislation that would hold movie theaters accountable for letting minors into an R-rated movie w/o a parent. That smells of censorship, not mere informational utility.
I won't even get into the de facto censorship when huge, ubiquitous retailers refuse to carry content due to said labellings.
Yadda-yadda-yadda... sure, true "censorship" is when I have a threat of government rebuking for saying something like "Bush sucks" in my local newspaper. However, when huge corporations can skew the marketplace and effectively stomp out distribution of something (like Wal Mart can, for example), it effectively is a form of censorship.
-- Tom Waits
Wasn't that Frank Zappa?
Yup. I stopped donating that same year. As much as I love public broadcasting, I can't back them up any more until they do a 180 on the low power radio thing. Their stance on LPFM seemed so counter to their over-all mission, I have to wonder what their real rationale was.
"This is not a wine for drinking -- it is a wine for laying down, and avoiding."