In this case, the gym is part of my building and it is one of the things I am paying for included in my rent. It was a factor in my decision to move there and I don't have the option of not paying for it.
The elections are tomorrow for us in the USA. We can at least vote for representatives that are "on our side" in these issues (Privacy, censorship, pick your favorite issue)
Does anybody have any suggestions, I am looking for NYC/NY State. Any good pages that will give stances and voting histories?
GO OUT AND VOTE TOMORROW!!! But please, do a little research first. 10 mins online will probably put you in the top half of informed voters.
Hey all, Unfortunately, I had to come up w/ a document before this story got posted, I am still very interested in any comments but here is what I submitted to them: This agreement between (Owner) and (Tenant) was agreed to on ________________________.
The purpose of this document is to provide a fair use definition for the use of biometric information gathered by the Owner The original intent of this biometric information, in the form of a hand scan, is to validate the Tenant as being allowed to access the XXXXXXXX during the tenancy. This hand-scanner is a biometric device collecting biometric information and is subject to the following conditions:
1. Definition. Biometric is an adjective describing the ability to authenticate a user based on biological features. Therefore, Biometric information will be information based on biological features. A biometric device will be a device that collects biological features.
2. Scope Limitation. Biometric deployments will not be expanded to perform broader verification or identification-related functions than originally intended. Any expansion or retraction of scope will be accompanied by full and public disclosure allowing individuals to opt-out of system usage.
3. Limited Storage of Biometric Information. Biometric information will only be stored for the specific purpose of usage in a biometric system, and will not be stored any longer than necessary. Biometric information will be destroyed, deleted, or otherwise rendered useless when the system is no longer operational; the Tenant's user information will be destroyed, deleted, or otherwise rendered useless when the Tenant is no longer expected to interact with the system or upon termination of the lease, whichever occurs first. The Tenant will be provided with documentation describing how the data was destroyed, deleted or otherwise rendered useless.
4. Collection or Storage of Extraneous Information. The non-biometric information collected for use in a biometric verification or identification system will be limited to the minimum necessary to make identification or verification possible.
5. Protection of Biometric Information. Biometric information will be protected at all stages of its lifecycle, including storage, transmission, and matching. The Owner agrees to take all reasonable precautions against compromise with the biometric information.
6. Limited System Access. Access to biometric system functions and data will be limited to certain personnel under certain conditions, with explicit controls on usage and export set in the system.
7. Segregation of Biometric Information. Biometric data will be stored separately from personal information such as name, address, and medical or financial data.
8. Ability to "Unenroll". Owner has the right to control usage of their biometric information, and the ability to have it deleted, destroyed, or otherwise rendered unusable upon request. This includes all copies of the information on the "live" system and any backup systems.
9. System Purpose Disclosure. The purposes for which a biometric system is being deployed will be fully disclosed.
10. Use of Biometric Information Disclosure. Owner will disclose the uses to which biometric data are to be put, both inside and outside a given biometric system. Biometric information will only be used for the purpose for which it was collected and within the system for which it was collected unless the Tenant explicitly agrees to broader usage. There will be no sanctions applied to the Tenant should they decide not to agree to broader usage of his or her biometric information.
11. Disclosure of Individuals and Entities Responsible for System Operation and Oversight. As a precondition of biometric system operation, it will be clearly stated who is responsible for system operation, to whom questions or requests for information are addressed, and what recourse individuals have to resolve grievances.
12. Disclosure of Biometric Information Protection and System Protection. Tenant will be informed of the protections used to secure biometric information, including encryption, private networks, secure facilities, administrative controls, and data segregation.
Agreed to and signed:
Most of this came from hacking up the "Best Practices" Document at www.bioprivacy.org
uhhh... there are alot more games than 9 ball, dude. of the "real" competition worthy ones the one that is probably most prevelant is "straight pool". all balls are colorless, 1 pt/ ball sunk, when 1 ball is left on teh table you rerack the other 14. (the idea being that you shoot the last ball and break up the rack at the same time so you have another shot)
Truly good players can easily run (shoot in sequence w/o a miss) 100 balls. 250 will win you some but not all competitions.
OK except that everybody is bitching that they don't want to pay money for everyupgrade. And for god's sake, it is one service pack to get up to (that level) of patched. you don't install packs 1 and 2, they are all rolled into 3.
also, you can go buy redhat, mandrake, etc.. but those version numbers mean very little, every time I turn around there is a new version release. More often than not these versions have nothing to do w/ the base OS. the linux kernel is still 2.4.x no matter if redhat wants to be version 8 or 9 or 50. the kernel doesn't get a new version number much more than every 3 years.
I agree with the parent poster. I have said this many times. I actually think that some companies count on this idea. There were a bunch of games from a certain company (was it id?) that were always leaked a month or two before "launch". they would have trivial cracks and everybody would get a copy. Then a little while after launch they would come up w/ a service pack that would close the holes and force everybody that is already addicted to the game to go buy it. same method your local heroin dealer might use.
MS also does this. Every major release of their software will have either a 30/90 day "trial" release or an RC that is fully functional. The trial software is generally cracked trivally and the rc may not expire. if it does, it can be cracked.
Why do they do this? Because they want individuals to steal this programs. Notice I say individuals. There is no way I am going to go out and pay however many hundred(thousand?) dollars they want for the BizTalk Server, or Visual studio, or win2k server or whatever. But if I can easily get a copy to play with, I will get good at it and I can convince my company that we need it. now my company is going to buy the license. Had I not used the latest greatest edition, we may not have ever bought it. This is just marketing in my opinion. They can't just give it away b/c then the companies would get it too. The companies can't just steal it b/c they are too high profile and have too much to lose. But a bunch of techs hacking away.... just makes them money.
i would also watch that show. One problem, though, is that people tend to die on these things. Most people (probably me included) are ill equiped to survive in the wild. I am of a mind that if they sign up and know the risks it is fine if they die. I don't think the media is of such a mind.
I would like to extend this a bit. Why is it considered rude to talk on a cell phone on a train? it isn't rude to talk to your neighbor on a train? Same goes for walking down the street.
Why do people get annoyed, is it that they can't hear the other half of the conversation? Is it b/c I won't be talking to them?
When I am walking to the bus I can be multitasking and using that time to also phone my family or somebody i care about. That is the reason cell phones are a good thing.
I agree that the stereotype is there but I don't think it is just b/c of inconsiderate users. I personally think it has to do w/ jealousy. I have somebody I would rather be talking to. Cell phones have been a fact of life for me since I started working and being "oncall", but I am unapologetic about their use. It is a VERY useful tool. But I still remember cursing all the people in my high school that were getting beepers. "What idiots, they think they are drug dealers". There was an undercurrent, however, of "wow that's pretty neet!". I liken the current anti-cell sentiment to that.
I agree that there are inconsiderate cell users. I am not even religious but I would support the drawing and quartering of anybody who lets their phone ring in the middle of St. Peter's Basilica, as was mentioned in this thread. (New York is actually debating a law to ban cell phones in performances/shows)
Besides if you recognize something as a stereotype how can you not try to see past it when you think it?
i'll second this, driving is an enormously complex task. Getting the machine from point A to point B w/ no external factors is simple. The hard part is being able to respond to the little boy that darts in to the street, or the teen girl fiddling w/ her radio crossing the center line, or just grandma driving below the speed limit, or any number of tasks. I stopped driving when I moved to manhattan and now, when I rent a car, i am reminded of how much we take for granted.
First off, you are strapping (maybe) yourself into a small collection of parts w/ a large motor. this is a little like the roller coaster w/ no track, except it goes alot faster there are alot more variables, and it is alot less safe.
Secondly, especially in city driving but in high way driving too, there are many, many things that you must account for and react to: other cars, blown tire treads and other obstacles on the road, idiot drivers, construction detours.
Frankly, unless all the cars on the road are computer controlled, i don't see computers being able to drive any time soon.
well, probably b/c there was 80m dollars already spent on the project. the scientists can't just run it in their back yard and hope nobody notices. this test alone cost 7m. in a project that size you have a large number of people working on it and you can't keep it a secret.
i wasn't clear if they requested the media or not but they probably didn't have much choice in the matter. there are too many people involved to keep it quiet and the press likes things w/ fire.
I wouldn't tie the grades to the games obviously but I would like to see the numbers on GPA's of those who play vs those who don't. I would bet the kids there are getting at least decent grades. Of course the kids who tend to be into computers and are willing to do this thing probably tend to not go to as many parties and such. And some of them also may play too many games and bring their gpa down.
LEGO.com has a builder on their site. https://club.lego.com/build/brickbuilder.asp If that doesn't get you there go to LEGO.com and go to games and you should see the brick builder app.
this is a very interesting point. yes, this is somewhat of a "simple" investment issue. there are a few technical limitations that I will talk about first though. the newest fanciest cisco still has certain bandwidth limitation. it can only process so many packets in realtime. of course if you throw a bunch more cisco's (or bay or whatever) into the mix then the capacity goes up.
there are actual line speeds that are a limitation. ie, each pipe can only handle so much.
there is the inevitable obselesence of all things computer. a "fat pipe" a couple years ago is no longer sufficient for much of anything.
each of the above can be solved by "just" an infrastructure investment. but this investment is often in the millions and billions (gadzillions?) of dollars.
who is going to pay for it. I would love to see another Interstate highway type influx of money from the government, oh wait, everybody keeps bitching about lowering taxes AND balancing the budget so we can't do that.
business has been doing it and we get what we give. they are spending lots of money and the expect to make it back w/ a return on investment. this means we pay lots of money.
whether the costs required to set these things up are justified...... well, cisco et al do seem to charge a pretty high rate for their hardware, all us tech types think pretty highly of ourselves and charge alot of money, actual laying of cable and such gets into union involvement (read, lots of money and 10 times longer timeline than it should be)
were money not an issue we could all have (virtually) unlimited bandwidth. let me know when you return to my planet where money, sometimes unfortunatly, is a big issue.
i don't know who your cable provider is but 15k/sec sux. i can generally get between 40-60k upstream w/ time warner nyc and on a good day I can hit much, much higher.
The biggest thing that Real adds is the auto bitrate select. the media is encoded in a certain way and streamed out at a quality dependent on the PLAYERs bandwidth. (assuming sufficient bandwidth at the server of course) this is a very good thing.
as an example. when I used to be on DSL (god how I hate verizon) I could stream at about 250k. ifilm had WMP versions for 100k and 300k. the 300k wouldn't play. i could use the real stream and get 228k or something very close to my max. this gave me the max quality I could handle.
for the record. i think real sux too. I have it so I can listen to my old college radio station (and no I don't want anybody else listening so I am not posting it) but, and this was especially true before the glory days of my cable modem, real's bitrate selection is very, very handy when your bandwidth is insufficient for the highest quality.
you are absolutely right on the FUD comment, i was afraid this thread would all just be/.'ers whining about the evils of microsoft.
we are going to need something to authenticate people on line. passport tech may seem ok, but I would strongly vote against it. simply b/c it is not open. i assume the gov't would get the source as part of the deal but this is really just going to link anybodies passport id w/ their gov't info. i don't like this idea for many reasons. i don't want to give ms that much extra business just b/c it has a monopoly.
there are open source initiatives that are capable of handling this. Open source being built by and for the people and the gov't being by and for the people seems to be an easy match. by and for the people right?
ms does have a good product but i guess it just comes down to,
I don't trust them and I don't want to standardize on them.
i am a sysadmin at a small it co. i know other sysadmins.
putting up a central server for this stuff was always a good idea. (notice i say was) it saves me hours and hours. it keeps the media files out of my backups. it keeps the (l)users from filling up their drives and making their legitimate programs break. it keeps them from storing random shit all over the computer and hence I can be more restrictive about file system permissions w/o them bitching.
it is a form of corporate sponsored piracy. now we can't do this anymore for fear of litigation.
the problem is this isn't going to really help anything. the users will still be bringing in their music, they will still be saving it and probably sharing it all over the network. only now, instead of one place they will be sending it to each other's shared drives or, god forbid, emailing it around. short of monitoring everybody's drives every few days there isn't much I can do about it.
so we haven't gained anything by not putting up the server out of fear of liability but now I have these extra headaches to deal w/ (b/c I don't have anything else to be doing.)
gravitons (the particles we hypothesis are responsible for gravity but have not been able to observe) are generated in proportion to the mass of an object. the object they are working on doesn't (i believe) need to have mass
But gravity is such a weak force that the mutual attraction (ie both objects be attracted to each other) is often necessary for any significant effect.
That being said, light can be/is observably effected by large gravity producing bodies (stars, etc...) and would stand to reason that there is some effect by smaller gravitational pulls, even if that effect is, as yet, unobservable to us.
this may be nitpicky but when you say "we ourselves were basing our work on 10-15 years of other people's work" I think of two things. 1. DUH!!! 2. You are basing it on a lot more than 10-15 years of work. as the simplest example, did you come up w/ the mathematics that you were using. no? oh thanks newton, that calculus sure did help (to say nothing of the fancy things we have built on top of it). what about feynman and QED? not that I know about your work specifically but any scientific observation really owes itself to the last 4000 years (thanks euclid, aristotle, etc) of human scientific development.
the other poster to this is completely right. I will just add that we already do upgrade and replace. I just upgraded my eyesight w/ lasik. you can replace hearts, kidneys, lungs (some w/ very crude stationary tech, but still) people are replacing legs. not built by the manufacturer so they have some issues but they provide some of hte missing functionality.
Re:Starve record companies, not artists.
on
Chained Melodies
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· Score: 1
this is really one hell of a post. the paragraph that really caught my attention was:
One important obstacle - producing high-quality music with affordable equipment - has been solved with today's digital technology. Even with Free Software you can get some good results. Working on music via the Internet in the same way many people develop Free Software may even become superior to what the music industry is selling today.
how about that? i could be a drummer in seattle, hooking up w/ a bass player in NYC, and vocals in Japan. i think the original poster is absolutely correct. both in the obstacle being the entrance cost of the production equipment and the removal of that barrier w/ the newer techs and software being cheap/free.
I like the optomistic view that there is a light at the end of this tunnel of copyright and "titheing" to the media companies for my entertainment.
i can see the musicians (who are generally a free spirited bunch alread) embracing this do-it-yourself-no-selling-out form of self production. and by opening up the world as potential band mates you are going to get ALOT of great new ideas and sounds.
Once the charts are broken by a non-RIAA band i can see one of two things happening.
a) the radio will be open to pick up more "non traditional" artists and the face of music will start to change, or
b) the RIAA will immediately lean on the radiostation that had the nerve to play something non conformist and make an example of them to teach others not to make the same "mistake".
i imagine b) will happen many times before, hopefully, a) finally happens.
you aren't really taking the previous post in context. the thread has become "could china do it". not "will china do it". he was just pointing out the incredible logistical task of getting the troops here makes it impossible. The introduction of some sort of teleportation tech would solve that and let china take advantage of it's numbers.
i don't know much about superstrings and the prevelant theories on how we will be able to get from point A to point B w/ out traveling through each and every point in between. Your point is well taken that you could potentially solve all sorts of distribution problems. assuming the cost was low. assuming there was no patent issues. assuming that we didn't just use it as an assassination tool. assuming it wasn't just used to break into vaults. assuming we distributed across the world. assuming we didn't piss off some other race by dropping into a religious ceremony on another world and bring about a huge retaliation. assuming we were not humans but some other largely benevolent race.....
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In this case, the gym is part of my building and it is one of the things I am paying for included in my rent. It was a factor in my decision to move there and I don't have the option of not paying for it.
ej
The elections are tomorrow for us in the USA. We can at least vote for representatives that are "on our side" in these issues (Privacy, censorship, pick your favorite issue)
Does anybody have any suggestions, I am looking for NYC/NY State. Any good pages that will give stances and voting histories?
GO OUT AND VOTE TOMORROW!!! But please, do a little research first. 10 mins online will probably put you in the top half of informed voters.
ej
heheh, fair enough, I get annoyed about such things too.
But now that I know I won't make the mistake again.
but if we are nitpicking, the correct spelling would be two words not A word, wouldn't it? B)
Very well put, and exactly what I was thinking when I submitted the question.
thanx for the eloquent write up
Hey all,
Unfortunately, I had to come up w/ a document before this story got posted, I am still very interested in any comments but here is what I submitted to them:
This agreement between (Owner) and (Tenant) was agreed to on ________________________.
The purpose of this document is to provide a fair use definition for the use of biometric information gathered by the Owner The original intent of this biometric information, in the form of a hand scan, is to validate the Tenant as being allowed to access the XXXXXXXX during the tenancy. This hand-scanner is a biometric device collecting biometric information and is subject to the following conditions:
1. Definition. Biometric is an adjective describing the ability to authenticate a user based on biological features. Therefore, Biometric information will be information based on biological features. A biometric device will be a device that collects biological features.
2. Scope Limitation. Biometric deployments will not be expanded to perform broader verification or identification-related functions than originally intended. Any expansion or retraction of scope will be accompanied by full and public disclosure allowing individuals to opt-out of system usage.
3. Limited Storage of Biometric Information. Biometric information will only be stored for the specific purpose of usage in a biometric system, and will not be stored any longer than necessary. Biometric information will be destroyed, deleted, or otherwise rendered useless when the system is no longer operational; the Tenant's user information will be destroyed, deleted, or otherwise rendered useless when the Tenant is no longer expected to interact with the system or upon termination of the lease, whichever occurs first. The Tenant will be provided with documentation describing how the data was destroyed, deleted or otherwise rendered useless.
4. Collection or Storage of Extraneous Information. The non-biometric information collected for use in a biometric verification or identification system will be limited to the minimum necessary to make identification or verification possible.
5. Protection of Biometric Information. Biometric information will be protected at all stages of its lifecycle, including storage, transmission, and matching. The Owner agrees to take all reasonable precautions against compromise with the biometric information.
6. Limited System Access. Access to biometric system functions and data will be limited to certain personnel under certain conditions, with explicit controls on usage and export set in the system.
7. Segregation of Biometric Information. Biometric data will be stored separately from personal information such as name, address, and medical or financial data.
8. Ability to "Unenroll". Owner has the right to control usage of their biometric information, and the ability to have it deleted, destroyed, or otherwise rendered unusable upon request. This includes all copies of the information on the "live" system and any backup systems.
9. System Purpose Disclosure. The purposes for which a biometric system is being deployed will be fully disclosed.
10. Use of Biometric Information Disclosure. Owner will disclose the uses to which biometric data are to be put, both inside and outside a given biometric system. Biometric information will only be used for the purpose for which it was collected and within the system for which it was collected unless the Tenant explicitly agrees to broader usage. There will be no sanctions applied to the Tenant should they decide not to agree to broader usage of his or her biometric information.
11. Disclosure of Individuals and Entities Responsible for System Operation and Oversight. As a precondition of biometric system operation, it will be clearly stated who is responsible for system operation, to whom questions or requests for information are addressed, and what recourse individuals have to resolve grievances.
12. Disclosure of Biometric Information Protection and System Protection. Tenant will be informed of the protections used to secure biometric information, including encryption, private networks, secure facilities, administrative controls, and data segregation.
Agreed to and signed:
Most of this came from hacking up the "Best Practices" Document at www.bioprivacy.org
uhhh... there are alot more games than 9 ball, dude. of the "real" competition worthy ones the one that is probably most prevelant is "straight pool". all balls are colorless, 1 pt/ ball sunk, when 1 ball is left on teh table you rerack the other 14. (the idea being that you shoot the last ball and break up the rack at the same time so you have another shot)
Truly good players can easily run (shoot in sequence w/o a miss) 100 balls. 250 will win you some but not all competitions.
OK except that everybody is bitching that they don't want to pay money for everyupgrade. And for god's sake, it is one service pack to get up to (that level) of patched. you don't install packs 1 and 2, they are all rolled into 3.
also, you can go buy redhat, mandrake, etc.. but those version numbers mean very little, every time I turn around there is a new version release. More often than not these versions have nothing to do w/ the base OS. the linux kernel is still 2.4.x no matter if redhat wants to be version 8 or 9 or 50. the kernel doesn't get a new version number much more than every 3 years.
I agree with the parent poster. I have said this many times. I actually think that some companies count on this idea. There were a bunch of games from a certain company (was it id?) that were always leaked a month or two before "launch". they would have trivial cracks and everybody would get a copy. Then a little while after launch they would come up w/ a service pack that would close the holes and force everybody that is already addicted to the game to go buy it. same method your local heroin dealer might use.
MS also does this. Every major release of their software will have either a 30/90 day "trial" release or an RC that is fully functional. The trial software is generally cracked trivally and the rc may not expire. if it does, it can be cracked.
Why do they do this? Because they want individuals to steal this programs. Notice I say individuals. There is no way I am going to go out and pay however many hundred(thousand?) dollars they want for the BizTalk Server, or Visual studio, or win2k server or whatever. But if I can easily get a copy to play with, I will get good at it and I can convince my company that we need it. now my company is going to buy the license. Had I not used the latest greatest edition, we may not have ever bought it. This is just marketing in my opinion. They can't just give it away b/c then the companies would get it too. The companies can't just steal it b/c they are too high profile and have too much to lose. But a bunch of techs hacking away.... just makes them money.
ahh well, rant off.
ej
i would also watch that show. One problem, though, is that people tend to die on these things. Most people (probably me included) are ill equiped to survive in the wild. I am of a mind that if they sign up and know the risks it is fine if they die. I don't think the media is of such a mind.
I would like to extend this a bit. Why is it considered rude to talk on a cell phone on a train? it isn't rude to talk to your neighbor on a train? Same goes for walking down the street.
Why do people get annoyed, is it that they can't hear the other half of the conversation? Is it b/c I won't be talking to them?
When I am walking to the bus I can be multitasking and using that time to also phone my family or somebody i care about. That is the reason cell phones are a good thing.
I agree that the stereotype is there but I don't think it is just b/c of inconsiderate users. I personally think it has to do w/ jealousy. I have somebody I would rather be talking to. Cell phones have been a fact of life for me since I started working and being "oncall", but I am unapologetic about their use. It is a VERY useful tool. But I still remember cursing all the people in my high school that were getting beepers. "What idiots, they think they are drug dealers". There was an undercurrent, however, of "wow that's pretty neet!". I liken the current anti-cell sentiment to that.
I agree that there are inconsiderate cell users. I am not even religious but I would support the drawing and quartering of anybody who lets their phone ring in the middle of St. Peter's Basilica, as was mentioned in this thread. (New York is actually debating a law to ban cell phones in performances/shows)
Besides if you recognize something as a stereotype how can you not try to see past it when you think it?
ej
i'll second this, driving is an enormously complex task. Getting the machine from point A to point B w/ no external factors is simple. The hard part is being able to respond to the little boy that darts in to the street, or the teen girl fiddling w/ her radio crossing the center line, or just grandma driving below the speed limit, or any number of tasks. I stopped driving when I moved to manhattan and now, when I rent a car, i am reminded of how much we take for granted.
First off, you are strapping (maybe) yourself into a small collection of parts w/ a large motor. this is a little like the roller coaster w/ no track, except it goes alot faster there are alot more variables, and it is alot less safe.
Secondly, especially in city driving but in high way driving too, there are many, many things that you must account for and react to: other cars, blown tire treads and other obstacles on the road, idiot drivers, construction detours.
Frankly, unless all the cars on the road are computer controlled, i don't see computers being able to drive any time soon.
ej
well,
probably b/c there was 80m dollars already spent on the project. the scientists can't just run it in their back yard and hope nobody notices. this test alone cost 7m. in a project that size you have a large number of people working on it and you can't keep it a secret.
i wasn't clear if they requested the media or not but they probably didn't have much choice in the matter. there are too many people involved to keep it quiet and the press likes things w/ fire.
I wouldn't tie the grades to the games obviously but I would like to see the numbers on GPA's of those who play vs those who don't. I would bet the kids there are getting at least decent grades. Of course the kids who tend to be into computers and are willing to do this thing probably tend to not go to as many parties and such. And some of them also may play too many games and bring their gpa down.
LEGO.com has a builder on their site.f that doesn't get you there go to LEGO.com and go to games and you should see the brick builder app.
https://club.lego.com/build/brickbuilder.asp
I
this is a very interesting point. yes, this is somewhat of a "simple" investment issue. there are a few technical limitations that I will talk about first though.
the newest fanciest cisco still has certain bandwidth limitation. it can only process so many packets in realtime. of course if you throw a bunch more cisco's (or bay or whatever) into the mix then the capacity goes up.
there are actual line speeds that are a limitation. ie, each pipe can only handle so much.
there is the inevitable obselesence of all things computer. a "fat pipe" a couple years ago is no longer sufficient for much of anything.
each of the above can be solved by "just" an infrastructure investment. but this investment is often in the millions and billions (gadzillions?) of dollars.
who is going to pay for it. I would love to see another Interstate highway type influx of money from the government, oh wait, everybody keeps bitching about lowering taxes AND balancing the budget so we can't do that.
business has been doing it and we get what we give. they are spending lots of money and the expect to make it back w/ a return on investment. this means we pay lots of money.
whether the costs required to set these things up are justified...... well, cisco et al do seem to charge a pretty high rate for their hardware, all us tech types think pretty highly of ourselves and charge alot of money, actual laying of cable and such gets into union involvement (read, lots of money and 10 times longer timeline than it should be)
were money not an issue we could all have (virtually) unlimited bandwidth. let me know when you return to my planet where money, sometimes unfortunatly, is a big issue.
ej
i don't know who your cable provider is but 15k/sec sux. i can generally get between 40-60k upstream w/ time warner nyc and on a good day I can hit much, much higher.
my video conferencing works great.
ej
b/c it is a great quote and it fits the topic. i was happy to be reading it when i saw it.
lighten up.
The biggest thing that Real adds is the auto bitrate select. the media is encoded in a certain way and streamed out at a quality dependent on the PLAYERs bandwidth. (assuming sufficient bandwidth at the server of course) this is a very good thing.
as an example. when I used to be on DSL (god how I hate verizon) I could stream at about 250k. ifilm had WMP versions for 100k and 300k. the 300k wouldn't play. i could use the real stream and get 228k or something very close to my max. this gave me the max quality I could handle.
for the record. i think real sux too. I have it so I can listen to my old college radio station (and no I don't want anybody else listening so I am not posting it) but, and this was especially true before the glory days of my cable modem, real's bitrate selection is very, very handy when your bandwidth is insufficient for the highest quality.
you are absolutely right on the FUD comment, i was afraid this thread would all just be /.'ers whining about the evils of microsoft.
we are going to need something to authenticate people on line. passport tech may seem ok, but I would strongly vote against it. simply b/c it is not open. i assume the gov't would get the source as part of the deal but this is really just going to link anybodies passport id w/ their gov't info. i don't like this idea for many reasons. i don't want to give ms that much extra business just b/c it has a monopoly.
there are open source initiatives that are capable of handling this. Open source being built by and for the people and the gov't being by and for the people seems to be an easy match. by and for the people right?
ms does have a good product but i guess it just comes down to,
I don't trust them and I don't want to standardize on them.
i am a sysadmin at a small it co. i know other sysadmins.
putting up a central server for this stuff was always a good idea. (notice i say was) it saves me hours and hours.
it keeps the media files out of my backups.
it keeps the (l)users from filling up their drives and making their legitimate programs break.
it keeps them from storing random shit all over the computer and hence I can be more restrictive about file system permissions w/o them bitching.
it is a form of corporate sponsored piracy. now we can't do this anymore for fear of litigation.
the problem is this isn't going to really help anything. the users will still be bringing in their music, they will still be saving it and probably sharing it all over the network. only now, instead of one place they will be sending it to each other's shared drives or, god forbid, emailing it around. short of monitoring everybody's drives every few days there isn't much I can do about it.
so we haven't gained anything by not putting up the server out of fear of liability but now I have these extra headaches to deal w/ (b/c I don't have anything else to be doing.)
anyway you slice it i hate the RI/MPAA
gravitons (the particles we hypothesis are responsible for gravity but have not been able to observe) are generated in proportion to the mass of an object. the object they are working on doesn't (i believe) need to have mass
But gravity is such a weak force that the mutual attraction (ie both objects be attracted to each other) is often necessary for any significant effect.
That being said, light can be/is observably effected by large gravity producing bodies (stars, etc...) and would stand to reason that there is some effect by smaller gravitational pulls, even if that effect is, as yet, unobservable to us.
this may be nitpicky but when you say "we ourselves were basing our work on 10-15 years of other people's work" I think of two things.
1. DUH!!!
2. You are basing it on a lot more than 10-15 years of work. as the simplest example, did you come up w/ the mathematics that you were using. no? oh thanks newton, that calculus sure did help (to say nothing of the fancy things we have built on top of it). what about feynman and QED? not that I know about your work specifically but any scientific observation really owes itself to the last 4000 years (thanks euclid, aristotle, etc) of human scientific development.
the other poster to this is completely right. I will just add that we already do upgrade and replace. I just upgraded my eyesight w/ lasik. you can replace hearts, kidneys, lungs (some w/ very crude stationary tech, but still) people are replacing legs. not built by the manufacturer so they have some issues but they provide some of hte missing functionality.
how about that? i could be a drummer in seattle, hooking up w/ a bass player in NYC, and vocals in Japan. i think the original poster is absolutely correct. both in the obstacle being the entrance cost of the production equipment and the removal of that barrier w/ the newer techs and software being cheap/free.
I like the optomistic view that there is a light at the end of this tunnel of copyright and "titheing" to the media companies for my entertainment.
i can see the musicians (who are generally a free spirited bunch alread) embracing this do-it-yourself-no-selling-out form of self production. and by opening up the world as potential band mates you are going to get ALOT of great new ideas and sounds.
Once the charts are broken by a non-RIAA band i can see one of two things happening.
a) the radio will be open to pick up more "non traditional" artists and the face of music will start to change, or
b) the RIAA will immediately lean on the radiostation that had the nerve to play something non conformist and make an example of them to teach others not to make the same "mistake".
i imagine b) will happen many times before, hopefully, a) finally happens.
you aren't really taking the previous post in context. the thread has become "could china do it". not "will china do it". he was just pointing out the incredible logistical task of getting the troops here makes it impossible. The introduction of some sort of teleportation tech would solve that and let china take advantage of it's numbers.
i don't know much about superstrings and the prevelant theories on how we will be able to get from point A to point B w/ out traveling through each and every point in between. Your point is well taken that you could potentially solve all sorts of distribution problems. assuming the cost was low. assuming there was no patent issues. assuming that we didn't just use it as an assassination tool. assuming it wasn't just used to break into vaults. assuming we distributed across the world. assuming we didn't piss off some other race by dropping into a religious ceremony on another world and bring about a huge retaliation. assuming we were not humans but some other largely benevolent race.....