There's good reasons why most of your examples were favorable to America. Outstanding, one in a million reasons, reasons so good you HAVE to subscribe now for the low, low price of $14.99, half off the retail value!!! (yes, I'm an american)
But more seriously, NASA gets headlines and the ESF doesn't because NASA was there first with the things that impress the general public. It might be more scientifically sound to be conservative and focus on what benefits research, but you get credit for sticking some guy on the moon for a photo op. However, American talent for hype only goes so far:
Most technological innovation over the last century was not just absorbed by America, it was adopted and developed there. The moon landing drew on rocketry work done by Nazis who wanted to blow up London. Nobody in Europe wants to take credit for Nazi experiments, and America and Russia were the only countries able to adopt and continue German science. Europe disqualified itself. The same thing happened with Einstein and many others like him. Born in Europe, but if they stayed there they would've been executed as Jews. They only achieved greatness because they fled to a land where they were allowed to develop their ideas.
Europe deserves criticism not only for its lack of hype but for its apparent determination to destroy itself. Europe started both world wars, and left itself far too debilitated to play in the same league as the USA and USSR. England, the only candidate for third superpower after the fall of suicidal Nazi Germany, lost its empire due to it's short term imperialist policies. With the homeland ravaged by war, Britain was never the same. The continent is still only beginning to make up for its past mistakes. Maybe they'll catch up to us next century if they can stop killing themselves.
Sir, you should submit your case to the Darwin Awards. As the nature of the injury precludes the replication of your genes, you are very likely to win a Darwin award. See, your situation isn't all bad!
didn't you know? they use this:http://bbspot.com/toys/slashtitle/index.html.
By the way, I'm trying out the Opera browser for the first time, and the text I'm typing in this comment box is damn small. Any way to fix this or is Opera just gay? Criminy! iCab doesnt render/. right, netscape 4.08 sucks, newer netscapes suck more, ie is evil, Opera makes text look gay...maybe I'll try Mozilla next. or maybe lynx. fuck, i'll just use raw telnet to port 80.
Re:Who is buying this?
on
More on MPEG4
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· Score: 5, Insightful
One would wonder what the MPEG-4 people are thinking. This plan will obviously fail; how could high powered executives be so foolish? Have they been blinded by greed? Are they really that arrogant?
The answer is no. They are foolish like foxen: (a la boxen, if you people can use boxen as the plural of box then more than one fox is foxen, more than one sex is sexen, and a boxed set of lexx episodes is lexxen. Also, multiples of the often symbolic letter x are xen, which is pronounced like zen. Triple x-that is xxx-is therefore zen. Intriguing.) by coming out with outrageous terms now they hope to shock the market and take a highball negotiating position. MPEG-4 has enough support and technology to be the default choice. If they choose to compromise-sacrificing the time fees in exchange for acceptance of more legitimate fees, they win the negotiation now and prepare the playing field for future outrages. This ploy will be likely to work every time if it works once. Furthermore, smaller, more premium services will have greater freedom to choose per use and per hour fees if the big players take them seriously. The executives on MPEG-4 are not impartial: they serve other corporate masters. They are acting in the interests of their respective companies. They know MPEG-4 will become dominant after a negotiating process, so they feel secure in manipulating the situation to allow their own companies to bring up similar licensing terms and be taken seriously.
Do not underestimate the corporate elite. They gained their positions through long careers of stiff competition, rampant deception and hidden agendae, and ubiquitous backstabbing. These are masters of bs, people far more comfortable telling carefully crafted lies than the truth. They want to be underestimated. They want to provoke you. They are trolling to destabilize the market and create an opportunity to shift norms in their favor. And as long as the majority continues to use their products in the end, they will be successful.
The true effect of this law won't be seen in your spam. It will be felt by the large data wholesalers. There exists an entire industry that buys and resells personal information in bulk. These corporations are a nightmare for anyone who hates junk mail because they are the ones who spread your address from one advertizer to the rest of the industry. They have no way of collecting opt-ins, obviously-they buy information from others, and even if you opted in to the original seller there are no resale rights.
At first it may seem hard to believe companies could sue a state for passing a law protecting individual rights to control personal information, especially when federal law specifically endows states with the power to set their own regulations above and beyond the federal standards. However, this is typical behavior from data resellers. They are not concerned with propriety, they are suing as harrassment. They hope to cause Vermont enough trouble to dissuade other states from passing similar laws. We've seen corporations' willingness to use harrassment suits in countless other situations, it should come as no surprise that something like this could happen.
Vermont's legislators are hoping to throw the large scale data resellers out of their state. They have no interest in the questionable business practices of that industry. It would be nice if other states follow suit-but that may depend on how much of a pain in the ass trade groups can make themselves for Vermont.
They're still using a script to mod everything down, I saw the parent drop from 5 to nothing in one refresh...even after 490 mods and drawing this much attention. Since I don't have mod points, I'll put my +2 on the line.
I troll, and many of the comments you'll see in my history are full of lies-yet many also make points valuable enough to justify +5 ratings. While trolls and offtopics may not fit the editors' desires they are the way to generate interesting discussion and get people to start thinking. That's why I post misinformation and flawed logic, to make you think about why it's flawed, and by debunking it clarify the truth.
This is a goatsex link. Now let's pour some hot grits down our pants to celebrate this thread!
I have a copy of that issue, and read the article. Clearly it is the authors and researchers who are too narrowly focused on their specific technical interest to recognize cues to a broader phenomenon.
Geeks. Some of these are misdiagnosed as autistic by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional technical abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own circle; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Artists. Some of these are misdiagnosed with various psychological conditions by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional creative abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Jocks. Some of these are misdiagnosed as hyperactive by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional athletic abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Bimbos. Some of these are misdiagnosed as intellectually special by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional fashion trend watching abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Politicians. Some of these are misdiagnosed as sociopathic by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional charsisma and oratory abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Lawyers. Some of these are misdiagnosed by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional legal abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
The poor. Some of these are misdiagnosed as incapable of productivity by a society that throws labels at everything it sees, and some have bad luck. Despite having exceptional low-budget living abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Men. Some of these are misdiagnosed as sex-crazed by women that throw labels at everything they see, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having various exceptional abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are often unable to relate well to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
If you look from the right perspective you can find something wrong with any group. Geeks are simply visible. Artists are the same as geeks, and once we've started down this slippery slope everyone else falls into their own conveniently labeled box. If geeks are the ones who fail to "play well with others", why don't we see violent geeks in prison? Why don't we see geeks behind every scandal? There are innumerably many antisocial activities. It's ridiculous to pick just one as the scourge of humanity, especially one that doesn't result in non-"sufferers" of the "disorder" getting hurt.
The correct response to this article is a similar article detailing the horrors of genetics run amok among jocks. Look around you, athletic parents get together and have athletic kids. It's an undeniable pattern. Sure, they have athletic abilities. But do they dominate in academia? No. Jocks get worse grades than everyone else, and get in more fights. They harrass other students more often, and what skills do they have to deal with the real world? In an office, no one wins a promotion for running quickly. Once deprived of the limited success they experience in high school and sometimes college athletics they are unable to deal with the outside world. Frighteningly often, they fall through the cracks and turn to drugs and crime. Look through the violent criminals in our prisons, and count the number of former high school football players. Count the number of former Math League members. Which group is more numerous? Jocks are a danger to themselves and the community at large. We must take some sort of action to change the trend-if all we can do is raise awareness about the dangers of two athletic people reproducing, then we must do so. For the good of our children, if you are an athlete marry a geek. The future of humanity's evolution depends on it.
One may believe that raising awareness will be enough. It will not be. There are powerful incentives driving people with characteristics that can result in disabled offspring together. These people fit into a particular group, and all humans are only comfortable with partners they have much in common with. Left to its own devices, the population will continue down the path of specialization and selection for dangerous traits until there are enough disabled children to threaten society's stability. The effects of inbreeding within families are well known; but now we will see the effects of inbreeding among larger populations. Autism is only one of several disorders that will run rampant among future generations. To survive humanity must adapt to this new reality. A stark and unforgiving reality to be sure, but one that must be faced: To maintain genetic balance, the gatekeeper of mental health and social stability, we must one day resort to planned genetic manipulation of the general population. Eugenics has acquired a bad reputation, but it is a process we have been applying since before the dawn of history to our food and our pets. Should humanity fail to apply eugenics to itself the underpinnings of society will rust away until the species bears greater resemblance to ants than the race we know now.
Exactly, if Sony doesn't want us to play with the PS2 hardware, they should license it instead of selling it, thereby making any hardware modifications, or even opening the case, a felony.
Furthermore, if they were smart, they'd put in a cd key system where keys are assigned at the store based on your PS2's serial number. The store would ask Sony for the dynamically generated keys. Too bad it's not common to hook PS2's up to the internet; if it was the PS2 could warn Sony about invalid keys or suspicious changes in the hardware, and they could forward you to the police.
They could also put in physical barriers, such as a self destruct mechanism that is triggered whenever the case is opened.
We might be tired of hearing about this stuff...but book and magazine publishers won't be. They can't wait to set up a digital rights management sytem that will allow them to force restrictive licenses on users.
History shows that digital rights management only applies to the right to profit-it has nothing to do with consumers rights. Losing the ability to do whatever you want, short of commercial republication, with your purchases will nullify many of the benefits oof digital paper. When I buy a book or newspaper, I like to know that I've actually bought it rather than licensed it for some term, and that I will always have the ability to read it whenever I desire. Anyone who believes that when electronic paper is available publishers will play by the same rules they have no choice but to follow now is naive.
Keep in mind that copy protection won't be too hard to enforce for books and magazines that choose to keep up physical distribution lines. How many people did you see pirating N64 games? Hardly anyone has the ability to write to a cartridge, so if these papers took their input from a cartridge piracy would not be easy. Companies wouldn't need to reduce our rights-but rest assured, they will anyway, I'm just pointing out why any moves on their part will necessarily be due to impure motives.
On the other hand, there are tradeoffs for the rest of the world. Even with all the recycling of paper (and most of it still gets thrown out), trees still need to get cut, and paper has a limit to how many times it can be recycled (eventually the fibres break down). Not to mention the fact that rather nasty chemicals are used in its production, have you ever smelled the air around a paper plant?. Digital paper will last far longer and one sheet can display a variety of content; this will dramatically reduce the usage of wood based paper. Expect to see environmentalists and civil rights advocates at each others' throats over this issue.
Actually, Microsoft's actions in regards to support of old software herald a fundamental shift in the way computers evolve. In the past hardware has been the sole determinant of what is possible-primitive graphics limited interfaces and creativity, limited processors precluded advanced and complex applications, and the immature state of the internet put computers in a cage. Every new generation of hardware immediately brought about a new generation of software with greatly improved capability due to the fact that such software could be written, but the hardware could not run it.
In the old days, when hardware was the sole bottleneck, some hacker in his garage could write something that shocked the world. Look at Doom-a shareware program by a few hackers. Look at Wolfenstein-a slick but fiensishly complex work produced by experienced corporations. The complexity of software is now orders of magnitude greater than it was ten or fifteen years ago.
Suprisingly, this exponential increase in software complexity has begun to outstrip Moore's Law: only the newest 3d games require the latest hardware. Almost everything else runs well on a 2 or 3 year old system. Furthermore, graphics cards are the key to top performance, and chip speed, while relevant, isn't as critical as it used to be. This trend will continue as ambitious projects run into barriers set by graphics cards and network connections.
What does this mean? While certain hardware components will remain critical, the new bottleneck for most applications will be software. The latest applications with all the bells and whistles will be fiendishly difficult to develop and debug. Security will become more important with the advent of always-on broadband connections. Since software development is holding things back, software companies must give users compelling reasons to upgrade; they can no longer rely on rising cpu speeds to drive sales.
Microsoft is the monopoly on the desktop, and therefore the most threatened by these changes. Some people still use windows 95, and still prefer it over new versions, in 2001. That's six years! The product line has already begun to enter stasis and fragment. 95, 98, NT, ME, XP, 2K vs. Linux, MacOS, BSD, BeOS, Solaris...there are as many competing strains of windows as there are competing OSes! If Microsoft allows itself to stagnate its power will erode, and third parties will find reliable ways around the barriers to competition MS has set up. The MS leadership has many faults, but stupidity is not among them. Something is going to give.
Planned obsolescence is Microsoft's new model. If the old system does everything it needs to, nobody will upgrade. Therefore, believes MS, the old system must not be allowed to do the necessities. Since the necessities will soon be effectively free from hardware constraints software must be the new control mechanism. Hence, product activation,.NET and passport, and the end of support for old OSes. Product activation codes will create an artificial link between new hardware and new software, while.NET, passport, and digital rights management place control of the most critical applications and data almost irrevocably in Microsoft's hands. Online, with everything dependent on MS servers, they can easily block out third parties (just as AOL's AIM fought with MSN messenger) and discontinue support for old software. They can sell subscriptions and monitor users. If MS has its way the existing hardware driven revenue engine will be replaced by one of purely artificial control. By leveraging its monopoly and turning proprietary crippleware into a standard Microsoft hopes to be a far more formidable presence in five years than it is now.
Think about it-by various methods you can currently communicate with windows users, even if you use another OS. However, in Microsoft's vision this is impossible. With the ability to constantly change its closed standards MS will block out any attempts at compatibility with its proprietary formats; you will only be able to exchange word documents if you have an up to date and registered version of office on a supported OS. Even linux users will *need* access to an updated windows box to interact with the rest of the world. MS considers linux it's number one threat right now, and this sinister plan is the only way it could possibly eliminate that threat.
Microsoft's existing monopoly will allow it to quietly build this trap. Businesses will fear the costs of changing to something new and different, a herd mentality will prevail, and MS will not be foolish enough to drive companies away prematurely with licensing extortion. Once a business is locked into.NET it will be almost impossible to convince it to reimplement its entire set of mission critical information services with something completely new; a gradual transfer will not be possible. Users will naturally want a platform compatible with the one they use at work as computing becomes more tightly integrated into the fabric of everyday life. In fact, use of an incompatible platform may severely inhibit the ability to perform many jobs, as well as precluding telecommuting. This is how Microsoft plans to rule the world in the future, and this scenario is not at all farfetched. The only thing standing between them and absolute power in the world of personal and business computing is the acceptance of their new control mechanisms by the mainstream of users. So far the mainstream has been frighteningly compliant. There was a time when predictions such as these would have been dismissed as paranoia or trolling, but today there exists irrefutable evidence that Microsoft has already put these plans into motion. After all, these plans are the logical course for a capitalist to follow.
Actually, 95 is still rather useful. Aside from avoiding the cost of buying 98 (unless of course you steal it, gasp!) 95 contains fewer of the unnecessary extras that can get in the way. Believe it or not, some games actually run slightly faster under 95 than 98 on my couple years old PIII. You might argue that the difference is minor, but if they're so close why discontinue support for 95 now? They want to sell more 98's, and they know people don't want the upgrade if they have any choice.
In addition, quite a few of the older systems out there are a little quirky-they're happy with the factory default 95, but they don't work well if you try to install 98. Those systems might not need DirectX8.1, but unsupported means unsupported. Eventually MS's forced upgrades will render such systems useless as new versions of critical apps, such as explorer, are designed specifically not to work on older versions of windows. Why should a terminal used only for checking email and browsing the web require the latest hardware?
That's not all, MS has also announced they plan to drop support for 98 in 2003. That's only a year and a half away. ME was released in fall 2000-less than 3 years before it becomes the only supported non-XP non-2k version of windows. That's right, in a year and a half MS will all but kill legacy windows boxes. With a new generation of hardware out and the move towards XP and 2k, expect the latest games to give up on nonXP/2k windows shortly after 98 dies.
I have a friend who works for Consumer Reports, and they tested a version of this model recently, actually. The report should be shortly after the final release. In general, it's clunky and overloaded. The battery life was a major issue-but interestingly it varies considerably between units. They decided to get cheap, and buy batteries without rigorous quality assurance, and the result is the stuff you see described in some of the other posts. One unit gets 5 or 6 hours, another gets 4, and one gets 8, even though they're performing the same tasks. Of course, using the more energy intensive features will cut the battery life down to as little as 2 hours. Buying a top quality replacement battery can help a lot, if you don't mind the work and extra expense. Overall, we found individual single purpose gadgets to be more efficient and effective in every respect; you'll be better off getting the jukebox's functionality from multiple devices-plus the multiple devices can work in parallel, whereas the jukebox can use only one module at a time. They haven't announced the price yet, but rest assured it will be quite high. With modules, it's price will likely rival that of a PC.
If you look at the article closely, it says it uses CIF format video, which can be used interchangeably with VHS in their implementation. This allows you to use the device as a VCR, but not as a DiVX player. However, since CIF is not a corporate proprietary format, most professional video editing software packages will allow conversion of standard MPEG video to CIF.
We've seen a lot of portable mp3 player announcements on slashdot, some of these totally undeserving of front page status. However, don't dismiss this article as another one: this is a different situation. The new Jukebox isn't an mp3 player, it's a replacement for a variety of gadgets and a major breakthrough in consumer technology. With MPEG4, MP3, WMA, a built in color screen, digital photos, TV input, and fast firewire the Jukebox 6000 is the all in one media solution-a camera, camcorder, TiVo, mp3 player, and portable storage device in one. No other device has ever attempted such an ambitious set of functionality, and this thing appears to pull it off. I can't wait to get my hands on one, this is clearly a revolution, and the wave of the future. Very definately "stuff that matters."
You can find a lot of information on ecomstation here. They have information on product contents, options, and availability, as well as support, previews, and links to reviews, distributors and resellers.
For those who don't feel like reading through that entire posting log linked to above, here's a few of the most interesting posts: 123.
Before getting too excited about this possible Next Big Thing, think about how incredibly difficult it is to create a smoothly functioning online RPG. (No I will not use the ridiculous acronym MMOORMMORGPG!) The kinds of concerns you see in the posts listed and the pieces linked to in the article are pervasive in online gaming. I've played a lot of Diablo 2, and it provides an excellent example. In fact, Blizzard's lackluster attempts to fix these issues have been much better than most companies'.
Players sell characters and equipment online for real money. Although this is illegal, game companies generally ignore even the worst offenders. Fraud is rampant, and watch out whenever a patch drastically changes the game or a new cheat becomes known. All hell breaks loose, as you would expect when there is a major monetary incentive to abuse the game and naive buyers. As games grow in popularity this problem will worsen exponentially, and the stakes will become higher. We all know what happens when money, corruption, and lack of law enforcement coincide.
The more important concern is how players relate to one another. In Korea, we see violence in the streets-this is not poor reporting by Salon, there's a history of this sort of thing stemming from a variety of games. This isn't going to happen with the US version of the game, but we will see problems. Look at Diablo 2: Although there are separate realms for US and Asian players you find huge numbers of Koreans on the US servers. At first you might think, "Cultural exchange always benefits everyone", but you would be mistaken. There exists extereme animosity between US and Korean Diablo 2 players, and racism is nearly universal on both sides. My friends and I have found ourselves convinced that the Korean players are inferior to US players in every way, including as human beings-despite the fact that we're open minded enough to have Korean immigrant friends in real life. The Korean players, by culture, are more aggressive, selfish, and eager to use unfair advantages (those gaming cafes are competitive, and often help players cheat in exchange for customer loyalty), while at the same time being fairly dumb in regard to strategy, annoying and obnoxious, and much more likely to steal and kill other players. They don't speak english either, and that definitely hurts relations. In short, the majority of Korean players act like the typical 12 year old American player. (that includes the language skills;) ) How much do you associate with typical 12 year olds, and what do you expect from them in real life? Exactly. Although there are plenty of problematic American players, these are the minority-but among the Koreans, the friendly and honest players are the exceptions. They even have a word for changing their playing style to one that doesn't involve behaving like sociopaths at every opportunity, it translates into "manner game." It tells you a lot that the American players need no equivalent term. It also tells you a lot that the Koreans have had extensive experience with these games in the past few years, while the genre is still developing in the US. Perhaps as time goes by more American players will act like the Koreans?
After seeing all of this in the game world, I can assure you these problems are not easily solved by game designers. Don't expect to see the perfect online RPG any time soon-unless you expect tourism in space to become mainstream soon. Social engineering is not easy. However, psychiatrists have a reason to celebrate: you can expect to see everything wrong with modern society distilled and prominently displayed within these fantasy worlds.
Consider for a moment that the chimpanzee shares more than 99% of its DNA with humans. Your first reaction may be, "Phew, I suppose adding human DNA to animal embryos won't have such a drastic effect overall." However, that would be missing the point: miniscule changes in DNA are capable of creating drastic and unpredictable mutations in the resulting organism. Having interned in a biotech lab, I can tell you scientists are well aware of this. Current bioengineered organisms are created using the most conservative methods available. For example, the GE corn is modified only with a single well known and fully documented gene at a time. That's why we don't have true designer foods yet-scientists know that they can only control simple processes they've observed occurring naturally. Anything more would be completely unpredictable-a drastically mutated corn could even be poisonous, due to extensions of the same biological processes they prize as natural pesticides now.
We can only hope the scientists in Japan are as cautious. Adding carefully selected human genes to replace closely related animal counterparts could result in a source of transplantable organs, and a huge supply of failed test subjects. However, reckless experimentation could create monsters. We wouldn't see catgirls, we'd see the sort of deformed, unrecognizable things I'm sure a few of the trolls are going to link to. (Don't worry, I'm going to spare you the sources for all of these) A pig with one and a half heads, a calf with organs on the outside of its body, and retarded mice with skulls too thin to protect their brains from being damaged by wind have all been documented in nature, but they are extrememely rare and immediately culled by natural selection. A laboratory environment makes these disasters very likely, and allows for propagation of their genetic lines.
Even if we put aside the moral implications of creating and sustaining these creatures, there are practical dangers. Such organisms would likely possess immune systems too weak to defend against the sort of pathogens normal organisms never notice. Look at what happens to late stage AIDS patients-they often contract rare diseases doctors have never seen before. They fall prey to bacteria assumed to be harmless, or fungal infections that have never been observed growing in living things before. These diseases could use a large supply of debilitated mutants as incubators to develop until natural selection produces strains capable of surviving in healthy organisms. We could see the emergence of a virus as unexpected and deadly as ebola. This is only one of the dangers posed by genetic experimentation. However, the potential benefits are too good to resist. There is no choice but to experiment, and we can only hope the experiments are done responsibly.
This is exactly the purpose of uServ-if you read through the documents written by uServ's designers, you'll see that this is intended to be web publishing for the masses. While many slashdot readers would host a site themselves, the average user can't do that. Hosts such as Geocities are corporate behemoths who have shown themselves ready to trample individual users whenever they find it convenient. IBM's visionaries hope to use the new resources available to home users-namely cable and dsl connections capable of moving around enough data to distribute sites-to implement an unregulated, power to the people version of Geocities.
Isn't this the entire purpose of the internet: a distributed, uncontrollable network allowing anyone to share information with anyone else? Don't be fooled by the scant description offered on the front page or any preconcieved notions about what distributed filesharing systems do. This isn't a client/server program like gnutella; it relies on basic internet protocols to use the dormant resources of clients as servers. Coordinating servers will be set up not only by IBM, but individual power users like the typical slashdotter-someone with a spare computer to use as a dedicated server, and enough knowledge to run it well. The dream of uServ's creators is nothing less than freeing the server side of the internet from the chains of money, nothing less than making web serving as cheap and easy as web browsing. Nothing less than the liberation of content from the hands of the powerful.
See for yourself in the document by the researchers Bayardo, Somani, Gruhl, and Agrawal. Their ultimate vision is a system taken for granted by the end user in the same way DNS is now. A complex solution to a serious problem, but one so easy to use, effective, reliable, and hidden in the background that anything else is unimaginable to the end user. Think of what will be possible when we have a large, community driven, self-sufficient, unregulated section of the internet. Censorship will be impossible, even for restrictive nations such as China. Using its revolutionary peer-to-peer proxying technology uServ will be able to dynamically create tunnels and anonymous proxies as easily as it can create webpages. Today Napster can be shut down, but one million users in a hundred countries with most of their traffic completely legitimate cannot be stopped. Today political dissidents can be tracked by oppressive governments, but a distributed network with built-in anonymity and trail obfuscation created by dozens of cooperating users in different countries can guarantee anonymity. Today the internet can to a large extent be controlled by those with money and power-but a mature uServ would bring us close to realization of the internet's original vision, where everyone is equal.
He's not the only one who can do this hack. Proof: Hey John, your credit card number is 3251 1938 8183 7338.
(By the way, will you editors please stop ip banning my subnet? It makes it harder to put links in my slashdot comments that open people's hotmail accounts and automatically forward their credit card numbers to me)
They have been having a hard sell. A friend of mine is an IT manager at a medium sized company that uses MS software and is opposed to a subscription model. They complained to MS and told them they wouldn't upgrade if the new version was subscription. MS, being helpful as always, just informed them of potential incompatibilites. (ie, the polite way of saying "suck it") The company was worried about being forced to upgrade and retrain employees (believe it or not, they already have a $150k budget for teaching people how to use windows and office), as well as the high cost of maintaining the subscription over time. With a pay up front model, at least you know exactly how much you stand to lose if things go badly, and you know exactly what you're buying. Subscriptions require trusting MS, and even businesses aren't very eager to do that. Especially the businesses who've been audited for pirated software; MS has pissed off quite a few people that way.
p.s. before you ask, yes, he did try to get them to switch their servers to linux or bsd, and no, they didn't listen.
I agree with that-it's impossbile to stop sharing of music files. Consider the worst case scenario for pirates: All services such as Napster and Aimster are shut down. You'll still be able to get music from the internet, in the same ways you can get software: go on irc, look for those illegal sites that appear and disappear all the time, or get it from a friend. Not only are companies unable to prevent people from downloading photoshop and ms office, but free software continues to grow. The music industry will turn out the same way if the RIAA has its way, with the record companies' songs available free to anyone who has time to look, and numerous independent artists rejecting commercialization in favor of fan support. Remember how metallica got their start, by encouraging sharing of their tapes?
only? *smack* you're saying you want to remove functionality so it can look pretty? fool, if you make a language like that anyone who wants to use an exotic base (which can be useful to efficiently and clearly express a variety of problems) will use another language. Tip for those of you who want to make new languages: we don't need niche languages. We need something that does everything, and usually does it well. A standard language we can master, rather than trying to be proficient in C,C++,Java,perl, etc.
For example, in the number base problem you could use d,o,h, and b for defaults, but if you include a line like "define #c base 37" now you can use 1000c to represent 1000 base 37. Or, you could say "include numberbases.lib" and get a whole bunch of definitions and functions right away. Or, if you were insane, you could say "language assembly {...assembly code implementing base 37...}"
Which brings me to another point: there's a lot of legacy code in other languages, so it would be very nice to be able to copy and paste it into a hybrid program. While that may encourage bad programming practice, we want people to use the language, not run away when they realize theyll have 2 years of rewriting the same old stuff before they can do anything interesting. It also gives you a quick and easy way to smack down anyone who claims your language isn't as efficient as some other one for whatever specific problem.
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There's good reasons why most of your examples were favorable to America. Outstanding, one in a million reasons, reasons so good you HAVE to subscribe now for the low, low price of $14.99, half off the retail value!!! (yes, I'm an american)
But more seriously, NASA gets headlines and the ESF doesn't because NASA was there first with the things that impress the general public. It might be more scientifically sound to be conservative and focus on what benefits research, but you get credit for sticking some guy on the moon for a photo op. However, American talent for hype only goes so far:
Most technological innovation over the last century was not just absorbed by America, it was adopted and developed there. The moon landing drew on rocketry work done by Nazis who wanted to blow up London. Nobody in Europe wants to take credit for Nazi experiments, and America and Russia were the only countries able to adopt and continue German science. Europe disqualified itself. The same thing happened with Einstein and many others like him. Born in Europe, but if they stayed there they would've been executed as Jews. They only achieved greatness because they fled to a land where they were allowed to develop their ideas.
Europe deserves criticism not only for its lack of hype but for its apparent determination to destroy itself. Europe started both world wars, and left itself far too debilitated to play in the same league as the USA and USSR. England, the only candidate for third superpower after the fall of suicidal Nazi Germany, lost its empire due to it's short term imperialist policies. With the homeland ravaged by war, Britain was never the same. The continent is still only beginning to make up for its past mistakes. Maybe they'll catch up to us next century if they can stop killing themselves.
Sir, you should submit your case to the Darwin Awards. As the nature of the injury precludes the replication of your genes, you are very likely to win a Darwin award. See, your situation isn't all bad!
they use this:http://bbspot.com/toys/slashtitle/index.html
By the way, I'm trying out the Opera browser for the first time, and the text I'm typing in this comment box is damn small. Any way to fix this or is Opera just gay? Criminy! iCab doesnt render /. right, netscape 4.08 sucks, newer netscapes suck more, ie is evil, Opera makes text look gay...maybe I'll try Mozilla next. or maybe lynx. fuck, i'll just use raw telnet to port 80.
The answer is no. They are foolish like foxen: (a la boxen, if you people can use boxen as the plural of box then more than one fox is foxen, more than one sex is sexen, and a boxed set of lexx episodes is lexxen. Also, multiples of the often symbolic letter x are xen, which is pronounced like zen. Triple x-that is xxx-is therefore zen. Intriguing.) by coming out with outrageous terms now they hope to shock the market and take a highball negotiating position. MPEG-4 has enough support and technology to be the default choice. If they choose to compromise-sacrificing the time fees in exchange for acceptance of more legitimate fees, they win the negotiation now and prepare the playing field for future outrages. This ploy will be likely to work every time if it works once. Furthermore, smaller, more premium services will have greater freedom to choose per use and per hour fees if the big players take them seriously. The executives on MPEG-4 are not impartial: they serve other corporate masters. They are acting in the interests of their respective companies. They know MPEG-4 will become dominant after a negotiating process, so they feel secure in manipulating the situation to allow their own companies to bring up similar licensing terms and be taken seriously.
Do not underestimate the corporate elite. They gained their positions through long careers of stiff competition, rampant deception and hidden agendae, and ubiquitous backstabbing. These are masters of bs, people far more comfortable telling carefully crafted lies than the truth. They want to be underestimated. They want to provoke you. They are trolling to destabilize the market and create an opportunity to shift norms in their favor. And as long as the majority continues to use their products in the end, they will be successful.
At first it may seem hard to believe companies could sue a state for passing a law protecting individual rights to control personal information, especially when federal law specifically endows states with the power to set their own regulations above and beyond the federal standards. However, this is typical behavior from data resellers. They are not concerned with propriety, they are suing as harrassment. They hope to cause Vermont enough trouble to dissuade other states from passing similar laws. We've seen corporations' willingness to use harrassment suits in countless other situations, it should come as no surprise that something like this could happen.
Vermont's legislators are hoping to throw the large scale data resellers out of their state. They have no interest in the questionable business practices of that industry. It would be nice if other states follow suit-but that may depend on how much of a pain in the ass trade groups can make themselves for Vermont.
I troll, and many of the comments you'll see in my history are full of lies-yet many also make points valuable enough to justify +5 ratings. While trolls and offtopics may not fit the editors' desires they are the way to generate interesting discussion and get people to start thinking. That's why I post misinformation and flawed logic, to make you think about why it's flawed, and by debunking it clarify the truth.
This is a goatsex link. Now let's pour some hot grits down our pants to celebrate this thread!
Geeks. Some of these are misdiagnosed as autistic by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional technical abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own circle; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Artists. Some of these are misdiagnosed with various psychological conditions by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional creative abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Jocks. Some of these are misdiagnosed as hyperactive by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional athletic abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Bimbos. Some of these are misdiagnosed as intellectually special by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional fashion trend watching abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Politicians. Some of these are misdiagnosed as sociopathic by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional charsisma and oratory abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Lawyers. Some of these are misdiagnosed by a medical establishment that throws pills at everything it sees, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having exceptional legal abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
The poor. Some of these are misdiagnosed as incapable of productivity by a society that throws labels at everything it sees, and some have bad luck. Despite having exceptional low-budget living abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are unable to relate to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
Men. Some of these are misdiagnosed as sex-crazed by women that throw labels at everything they see, and some have genetic quirks. Despite having various exceptional abilities they exhibit strange behaviors and are often unable to relate well to society outside their own cirlce; this is a disability and a cause for concern.
If you look from the right perspective you can find something wrong with any group. Geeks are simply visible. Artists are the same as geeks, and once we've started down this slippery slope everyone else falls into their own conveniently labeled box. If geeks are the ones who fail to "play well with others", why don't we see violent geeks in prison? Why don't we see geeks behind every scandal? There are innumerably many antisocial activities. It's ridiculous to pick just one as the scourge of humanity, especially one that doesn't result in non-"sufferers" of the "disorder" getting hurt.
The correct response to this article is a similar article detailing the horrors of genetics run amok among jocks. Look around you, athletic parents get together and have athletic kids. It's an undeniable pattern. Sure, they have athletic abilities. But do they dominate in academia? No. Jocks get worse grades than everyone else, and get in more fights. They harrass other students more often, and what skills do they have to deal with the real world? In an office, no one wins a promotion for running quickly. Once deprived of the limited success they experience in high school and sometimes college athletics they are unable to deal with the outside world. Frighteningly often, they fall through the cracks and turn to drugs and crime. Look through the violent criminals in our prisons, and count the number of former high school football players. Count the number of former Math League members. Which group is more numerous? Jocks are a danger to themselves and the community at large. We must take some sort of action to change the trend-if all we can do is raise awareness about the dangers of two athletic people reproducing, then we must do so. For the good of our children, if you are an athlete marry a geek. The future of humanity's evolution depends on it.
One may believe that raising awareness will be enough. It will not be. There are powerful incentives driving people with characteristics that can result in disabled offspring together. These people fit into a particular group, and all humans are only comfortable with partners they have much in common with. Left to its own devices, the population will continue down the path of specialization and selection for dangerous traits until there are enough disabled children to threaten society's stability. The effects of inbreeding within families are well known; but now we will see the effects of inbreeding among larger populations. Autism is only one of several disorders that will run rampant among future generations. To survive humanity must adapt to this new reality. A stark and unforgiving reality to be sure, but one that must be faced: To maintain genetic balance, the gatekeeper of mental health and social stability, we must one day resort to planned genetic manipulation of the general population. Eugenics has acquired a bad reputation, but it is a process we have been applying since before the dawn of history to our food and our pets. Should humanity fail to apply eugenics to itself the underpinnings of society will rust away until the species bears greater resemblance to ants than the race we know now.
Furthermore, if they were smart, they'd put in a cd key system where keys are assigned at the store based on your PS2's serial number. The store would ask Sony for the dynamically generated keys. Too bad it's not common to hook PS2's up to the internet; if it was the PS2 could warn Sony about invalid keys or suspicious changes in the hardware, and they could forward you to the police.
They could also put in physical barriers, such as a self destruct mechanism that is triggered whenever the case is opened.
History shows that digital rights management only applies to the right to profit-it has nothing to do with consumers rights. Losing the ability to do whatever you want, short of commercial republication, with your purchases will nullify many of the benefits oof digital paper. When I buy a book or newspaper, I like to know that I've actually bought it rather than licensed it for some term, and that I will always have the ability to read it whenever I desire. Anyone who believes that when electronic paper is available publishers will play by the same rules they have no choice but to follow now is naive.
Keep in mind that copy protection won't be too hard to enforce for books and magazines that choose to keep up physical distribution lines. How many people did you see pirating N64 games? Hardly anyone has the ability to write to a cartridge, so if these papers took their input from a cartridge piracy would not be easy. Companies wouldn't need to reduce our rights-but rest assured, they will anyway, I'm just pointing out why any moves on their part will necessarily be due to impure motives.
On the other hand, there are tradeoffs for the rest of the world. Even with all the recycling of paper (and most of it still gets thrown out), trees still need to get cut, and paper has a limit to how many times it can be recycled (eventually the fibres break down). Not to mention the fact that rather nasty chemicals are used in its production, have you ever smelled the air around a paper plant?. Digital paper will last far longer and one sheet can display a variety of content; this will dramatically reduce the usage of wood based paper. Expect to see environmentalists and civil rights advocates at each others' throats over this issue.
In the old days, when hardware was the sole bottleneck, some hacker in his garage could write something that shocked the world. Look at Doom-a shareware program by a few hackers. Look at Wolfenstein-a slick but fiensishly complex work produced by experienced corporations. The complexity of software is now orders of magnitude greater than it was ten or fifteen years ago.
Suprisingly, this exponential increase in software complexity has begun to outstrip Moore's Law: only the newest 3d games require the latest hardware. Almost everything else runs well on a 2 or 3 year old system. Furthermore, graphics cards are the key to top performance, and chip speed, while relevant, isn't as critical as it used to be. This trend will continue as ambitious projects run into barriers set by graphics cards and network connections.
What does this mean? While certain hardware components will remain critical, the new bottleneck for most applications will be software. The latest applications with all the bells and whistles will be fiendishly difficult to develop and debug. Security will become more important with the advent of always-on broadband connections. Since software development is holding things back, software companies must give users compelling reasons to upgrade; they can no longer rely on rising cpu speeds to drive sales.
Microsoft is the monopoly on the desktop, and therefore the most threatened by these changes. Some people still use windows 95, and still prefer it over new versions, in 2001. That's six years! The product line has already begun to enter stasis and fragment. 95, 98, NT, ME, XP, 2K vs. Linux, MacOS, BSD, BeOS, Solaris...there are as many competing strains of windows as there are competing OSes! If Microsoft allows itself to stagnate its power will erode, and third parties will find reliable ways around the barriers to competition MS has set up. The MS leadership has many faults, but stupidity is not among them. Something is going to give.
Planned obsolescence is Microsoft's new model. If the old system does everything it needs to, nobody will upgrade. Therefore, believes MS, the old system must not be allowed to do the necessities. Since the necessities will soon be effectively free from hardware constraints software must be the new control mechanism. Hence, product activation, .NET and passport, and the end of support for old OSes. Product activation codes will create an artificial link between new hardware and new software, while .NET, passport, and digital rights management place control of the most critical applications and data almost irrevocably in Microsoft's hands. Online, with everything dependent on MS servers, they can easily block out third parties (just as AOL's AIM fought with MSN messenger) and discontinue support for old software. They can sell subscriptions and monitor users. If MS has its way the existing hardware driven revenue engine will be replaced by one of purely artificial control. By leveraging its monopoly and turning proprietary crippleware into a standard Microsoft hopes to be a far more formidable presence in five years than it is now.
Think about it-by various methods you can currently communicate with windows users, even if you use another OS. However, in Microsoft's vision this is impossible. With the ability to constantly change its closed standards MS will block out any attempts at compatibility with its proprietary formats; you will only be able to exchange word documents if you have an up to date and registered version of office on a supported OS. Even linux users will *need* access to an updated windows box to interact with the rest of the world. MS considers linux it's number one threat right now, and this sinister plan is the only way it could possibly eliminate that threat.
Microsoft's existing monopoly will allow it to quietly build this trap. Businesses will fear the costs of changing to something new and different, a herd mentality will prevail, and MS will not be foolish enough to drive companies away prematurely with licensing extortion. Once a business is locked into .NET it will be almost impossible to convince it to reimplement its entire set of mission critical information services with something completely new; a gradual transfer will not be possible. Users will naturally want a platform compatible with the one they use at work as computing becomes more tightly integrated into the fabric of everyday life. In fact, use of an incompatible platform may severely inhibit the ability to perform many jobs, as well as precluding telecommuting. This is how Microsoft plans to rule the world in the future, and this scenario is not at all farfetched. The only thing standing between them and absolute power in the world of personal and business computing is the acceptance of their new control mechanisms by the mainstream of users. So far the mainstream has been frighteningly compliant. There was a time when predictions such as these would have been dismissed as paranoia or trolling, but today there exists irrefutable evidence that Microsoft has already put these plans into motion. After all, these plans are the logical course for a capitalist to follow.
In addition, quite a few of the older systems out there are a little quirky-they're happy with the factory default 95, but they don't work well if you try to install 98. Those systems might not need DirectX8.1, but unsupported means unsupported. Eventually MS's forced upgrades will render such systems useless as new versions of critical apps, such as explorer, are designed specifically not to work on older versions of windows. Why should a terminal used only for checking email and browsing the web require the latest hardware?
That's not all, MS has also announced they plan to drop support for 98 in 2003. That's only a year and a half away. ME was released in fall 2000-less than 3 years before it becomes the only supported non-XP non-2k version of windows. That's right, in a year and a half MS will all but kill legacy windows boxes. With a new generation of hardware out and the move towards XP and 2k, expect the latest games to give up on nonXP/2k windows shortly after 98 dies.
Actually, we'd demand that it use embedded linux for real time voice synthesis. ;)
I have a friend who works for Consumer Reports, and they tested a version of this model recently, actually. The report should be shortly after the final release. In general, it's clunky and overloaded. The battery life was a major issue-but interestingly it varies considerably between units. They decided to get cheap, and buy batteries without rigorous quality assurance, and the result is the stuff you see described in some of the other posts. One unit gets 5 or 6 hours, another gets 4, and one gets 8, even though they're performing the same tasks. Of course, using the more energy intensive features will cut the battery life down to as little as 2 hours. Buying a top quality replacement battery can help a lot, if you don't mind the work and extra expense. Overall, we found individual single purpose gadgets to be more efficient and effective in every respect; you'll be better off getting the jukebox's functionality from multiple devices-plus the multiple devices can work in parallel, whereas the jukebox can use only one module at a time. They haven't announced the price yet, but rest assured it will be quite high. With modules, it's price will likely rival that of a PC.
If you look at the article closely, it says it uses CIF format video, which can be used interchangeably with VHS in their implementation. This allows you to use the device as a VCR, but not as a DiVX player. However, since CIF is not a corporate proprietary format, most professional video editing software packages will allow conversion of standard MPEG video to CIF.
We've seen a lot of portable mp3 player announcements on slashdot, some of these totally undeserving of front page status. However, don't dismiss this article as another one: this is a different situation. The new Jukebox isn't an mp3 player, it's a replacement for a variety of gadgets and a major breakthrough in consumer technology. With MPEG4, MP3, WMA, a built in color screen, digital photos, TV input, and fast firewire the Jukebox 6000 is the all in one media solution-a camera, camcorder, TiVo, mp3 player, and portable storage device in one. No other device has ever attempted such an ambitious set of functionality, and this thing appears to pull it off. I can't wait to get my hands on one, this is clearly a revolution, and the wave of the future. Very definately "stuff that matters."
You can find some more relevant articles from the BBC, academia, more academia, the parent report, evilminion.com, and self psychology bboard. Also see the journal of electronic gamblin issues.
You can find a lot of information on ecomstation here. They have information on product contents, options, and availability, as well as support, previews, and links to reviews, distributors and resellers.
Before getting too excited about this possible Next Big Thing, think about how incredibly difficult it is to create a smoothly functioning online RPG. (No I will not use the ridiculous acronym MMOORMMORGPG!) The kinds of concerns you see in the posts listed and the pieces linked to in the article are pervasive in online gaming. I've played a lot of Diablo 2, and it provides an excellent example. In fact, Blizzard's lackluster attempts to fix these issues have been much better than most companies'.
Players sell characters and equipment online for real money. Although this is illegal, game companies generally ignore even the worst offenders. Fraud is rampant, and watch out whenever a patch drastically changes the game or a new cheat becomes known. All hell breaks loose, as you would expect when there is a major monetary incentive to abuse the game and naive buyers. As games grow in popularity this problem will worsen exponentially, and the stakes will become higher. We all know what happens when money, corruption, and lack of law enforcement coincide.
The more important concern is how players relate to one another. In Korea, we see violence in the streets-this is not poor reporting by Salon, there's a history of this sort of thing stemming from a variety of games. This isn't going to happen with the US version of the game, but we will see problems. Look at Diablo 2: Although there are separate realms for US and Asian players you find huge numbers of Koreans on the US servers. At first you might think, "Cultural exchange always benefits everyone", but you would be mistaken. There exists extereme animosity between US and Korean Diablo 2 players, and racism is nearly universal on both sides. My friends and I have found ourselves convinced that the Korean players are inferior to US players in every way, including as human beings-despite the fact that we're open minded enough to have Korean immigrant friends in real life. The Korean players, by culture, are more aggressive, selfish, and eager to use unfair advantages (those gaming cafes are competitive, and often help players cheat in exchange for customer loyalty), while at the same time being fairly dumb in regard to strategy, annoying and obnoxious, and much more likely to steal and kill other players. They don't speak english either, and that definitely hurts relations. In short, the majority of Korean players act like the typical 12 year old American player. (that includes the language skills ;) ) How much do you associate with typical 12 year olds, and what do you expect from them in real life? Exactly. Although there are plenty of problematic American players, these are the minority-but among the Koreans, the friendly and honest players are the exceptions. They even have a word for changing their playing style to one that doesn't involve behaving like sociopaths at every opportunity, it translates into "manner game." It tells you a lot that the American players need no equivalent term. It also tells you a lot that the Koreans have had extensive experience with these games in the past few years, while the genre is still developing in the US. Perhaps as time goes by more American players will act like the Koreans?
After seeing all of this in the game world, I can assure you these problems are not easily solved by game designers. Don't expect to see the perfect online RPG any time soon-unless you expect tourism in space to become mainstream soon. Social engineering is not easy. However, psychiatrists have a reason to celebrate: you can expect to see everything wrong with modern society distilled and prominently displayed within these fantasy worlds.
You might find this story interesting as well.
We can only hope the scientists in Japan are as cautious. Adding carefully selected human genes to replace closely related animal counterparts could result in a source of transplantable organs, and a huge supply of failed test subjects. However, reckless experimentation could create monsters. We wouldn't see catgirls, we'd see the sort of deformed, unrecognizable things I'm sure a few of the trolls are going to link to. (Don't worry, I'm going to spare you the sources for all of these) A pig with one and a half heads, a calf with organs on the outside of its body, and retarded mice with skulls too thin to protect their brains from being damaged by wind have all been documented in nature, but they are extrememely rare and immediately culled by natural selection. A laboratory environment makes these disasters very likely, and allows for propagation of their genetic lines.
Even if we put aside the moral implications of creating and sustaining these creatures, there are practical dangers. Such organisms would likely possess immune systems too weak to defend against the sort of pathogens normal organisms never notice. Look at what happens to late stage AIDS patients-they often contract rare diseases doctors have never seen before. They fall prey to bacteria assumed to be harmless, or fungal infections that have never been observed growing in living things before. These diseases could use a large supply of debilitated mutants as incubators to develop until natural selection produces strains capable of surviving in healthy organisms. We could see the emergence of a virus as unexpected and deadly as ebola. This is only one of the dangers posed by genetic experimentation. However, the potential benefits are too good to resist. There is no choice but to experiment, and we can only hope the experiments are done responsibly.
Isn't this the entire purpose of the internet: a distributed, uncontrollable network allowing anyone to share information with anyone else? Don't be fooled by the scant description offered on the front page or any preconcieved notions about what distributed filesharing systems do. This isn't a client/server program like gnutella; it relies on basic internet protocols to use the dormant resources of clients as servers. Coordinating servers will be set up not only by IBM, but individual power users like the typical slashdotter-someone with a spare computer to use as a dedicated server, and enough knowledge to run it well. The dream of uServ's creators is nothing less than freeing the server side of the internet from the chains of money, nothing less than making web serving as cheap and easy as web browsing. Nothing less than the liberation of content from the hands of the powerful.
See for yourself in the document by the researchers Bayardo, Somani, Gruhl, and Agrawal. Their ultimate vision is a system taken for granted by the end user in the same way DNS is now. A complex solution to a serious problem, but one so easy to use, effective, reliable, and hidden in the background that anything else is unimaginable to the end user. Think of what will be possible when we have a large, community driven, self-sufficient, unregulated section of the internet. Censorship will be impossible, even for restrictive nations such as China. Using its revolutionary peer-to-peer proxying technology uServ will be able to dynamically create tunnels and anonymous proxies as easily as it can create webpages. Today Napster can be shut down, but one million users in a hundred countries with most of their traffic completely legitimate cannot be stopped. Today political dissidents can be tracked by oppressive governments, but a distributed network with built-in anonymity and trail obfuscation created by dozens of cooperating users in different countries can guarantee anonymity. Today the internet can to a large extent be controlled by those with money and power-but a mature uServ would bring us close to realization of the internet's original vision, where everyone is equal.
(By the way, will you editors please stop ip banning my subnet? It makes it harder to put links in my slashdot comments that open people's hotmail accounts and automatically forward their credit card numbers to me)
p.s. before you ask, yes, he did try to get them to switch their servers to linux or bsd, and no, they didn't listen.
I agree with that-it's impossbile to stop sharing of music files. Consider the worst case scenario for pirates: All services such as Napster and Aimster are shut down. You'll still be able to get music from the internet, in the same ways you can get software: go on irc, look for those illegal sites that appear and disappear all the time, or get it from a friend. Not only are companies unable to prevent people from downloading photoshop and ms office, but free software continues to grow. The music industry will turn out the same way if the RIAA has its way, with the record companies' songs available free to anyone who has time to look, and numerous independent artists rejecting commercialization in favor of fan support. Remember how metallica got their start, by encouraging sharing of their tapes?
For example, in the number base problem you could use d,o,h, and b for defaults, but if you include a line like "define #c base 37" now you can use 1000c to represent 1000 base 37. Or, you could say "include numberbases.lib" and get a whole bunch of definitions and functions right away. Or, if you were insane, you could say "language assembly { ...assembly code implementing base 37...}"
Which brings me to another point: there's a lot of legacy code in other languages, so it would be very nice to be able to copy and paste it into a hybrid program. While that may encourage bad programming practice, we want people to use the language, not run away when they realize theyll have 2 years of rewriting the same old stuff before they can do anything interesting. It also gives you a quick and easy way to smack down anyone who claims your language isn't as efficient as some other one for whatever specific problem.