Since I was at work, I had no TV, and no radio -- everyone thought someone else would bring one (it's a small office). So, I was stuck with no way to get any real data. Slashdot was the only site working, and the only place to get my news updates. At the time, I didn't think much of it -- this WAS slashdot, after all. I even directed my friends to it, saying "Slashdot has news and they are up." I really took the hard work for granted, though I wondered how you stayed up when CNN, MSNBC, and all other major news sites were completely down.
CmdrTaco, thank you so much for the hard work that went into making slashdot the site it was Tuesday. I would have been lost without it.
Would replicators be expensive? Undoubtably, yes. Few people today actually own a photocopier, but almost everyone has access to one. The cost of the machine doesn't seem to get in the way of producing very cheap copies of pages. I suspect that the cost of a replicator would be the same. Perhaps in the future you can buy your raw materials at Wal-Mart, bring them to the front and tell the replicator what you'd like. Or, better yet, you tell it what you want, it builds it and gives you a bill for the power and elements it consumes, with a small markup to cover the cost and maintenence of the machine.
Now, the big question. Why should this be cheaper? It should be cheaper in much the same way that robotic factories are generally cheaper than ones staffed by workers. You're not paying for labor anymore. Most of the money in production goes to actually building the product, not the raw materials involved in building. But that's not the only reason. Let's look at yours:
Equipment: Yes, the replicator will be expensive. However, how expensive is a factory? You don't exactly see them being built everyday, but their cost is covered in the cost of every manufactured product you buy. You even pay for a processing plant, machines, and distribution on the produce you buy at the grocery store. No matter how expensive the replicator is, I have serious doubts that it would anywhere near as expensive as a moderate-sized factory (and should be more useful and for a longer period of time).
Energy: Good question, because this is a huge unknown. Who knows how much power a molecular replicator should consume? However, I would suspect it would be at least as effecient as the factories and human labor we have in place today. I would hope that it would be more productive cost-wise than humans.
Time: How quick do you really need your item? How quick can the machine build it? It might well be possible to build something with a replicator than it is through conventional processes. In theory, it should be faster, just because you don't have to machine and assemble complex items -- or wait for organic ones to grow. Even if it is slower, how much slower does it need to be before it impacts the cost of the items coming out of it?
Waste: Well, there shouldn't be any waste -- other than the waste discussed in energy above. You put raw elements in, and you get an item out. Whatever you need is used up, the rest stays in raw form, ready to be made into something else. Currently, production generates a lot of waste product that cannot be used at all. This should theoretically cut out waste altogether.
Raw materials: This shouldn't even factor in. You've got to have the raw materials to begin with in normal production. There's no reason this item should be any more or less expensive than it is in traditional manufacturing. Granted, some elements will be very expensive -- but you really don't see much platinum used in every day life, do you? For some, such as titanium, being able to work with the elements themselves and not have to machine it will dramatically cut production costs (titanium isn't expensive or rare, it's just fighteningly difficult to work with).
Now for your biggies: R&D and design costs, which are really the same thing. In our current copyright world, I think these two things will be prohibitively expensive. People will try to recoup the lost money by either a)charging an enourmously high price for the initial item -- once purchased it can be infinately copied or b) charging immense prices for templates, which cannot be copied, and produce uncopyable items, and possibly a royalty on each item produced. I think this is what kills a replicator in today's world.
However, I think in a future world, where copyright isn't paramount, maybe things like open source can be expanded to include all things. And, perhaps development will be easier because someone could say "it would be really cool if I could build this, but I'd need this, this, and this which I cannot currently build -- but now that I have a replicator, I can easily obtain these items."
Of course, this almost completely destroys the capitalist system, because there is no value in objects any more. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that.
Is that it does nothing about the DMCA, the RIAA, the MPAA, the SSCAA, or the corrupt politicians or the corrupt corporations.
We need to fight this battle, here and now, and hopefully, this copyright issue thing is just a pendulum, and it will slowly start to swing the other way. My opinion is that it has to. The media companies have pushed copyright about as far as it can go. I think the way the current legal climate is now, the VCR and the photocopier would never have been produced at all.
What we need is to quit passing laws that protect a business model. There is no inherent right to profit.
In our world of absolute copyright protection, that is. I see a day, not now, and not ten years from now, but certainly in a hundred, where a replicator is simply a molecular printer, or molecular copy machine. You'll simply put in the raw elemental materials in one end, and your product will come out the other.
This would be great for mankind, as the cost of production would be driven down dramatically, and you could literally have whatever you wanted for the cost of the raw materials to build it. I think in a world with laws as ours were even twenty years ago, this might be possible. A molecular Xerox machine certainly, a printer with downloadable "templates" might require a small fee for the templates for a limited time.
But, in our copyright driven world today, I see a future will these machines will not be allowed to exist at all -- or if they are, they will be tightly regulated and locked down. They will only be usable in production plants, by licensed professionals, and only for reproduction of the respective company's own products. Using GE's replicator to build a 1960's Ferrari GTO, though possible, will be quite illegal.
I'm afraid that we are seriously heading down this path, and rather than helping everyone, we'll be keeping prices artifically high and helping a few select companies who happen have more money than everyone else to begin with.
Consumers won't pay more for a product that's less useful and harder to use.
We really needed a study and a Slashdot article to figure that one out? I wish the RIAA would get their heads out of their asses and realize that the more they lock down their product and the more they restrict it, the less someone's going to buy it.
No wait, I hope they don't, and they run their little organization right into the ground.
They argue that the requirement to view DVDs on non-licensed devices is akin to requiring VHS tapes to be watched on Beta machines
The problem with their analogy is thus: we aren't saying that manufacturers make sure we can play our DVDs on whatever platform we want, but that it shouldn't be illegal to make it play on whatever device we want.
By using the logic of the DMCA, the analogy would be: Not allowing developers to make unlicensed playback machines for DVDs would be akin to making it illegal for Beta machine manufactures to incorporate the ability to play VHS tapes. You can immediately see how stupid that makes the DMCA look.
A really good point and a really good idea. I played with LEGO my entire life and I don't think I'd be the same person without them. I still buy advanced LEGO kits today.
I don't have children, and my future wife and I have chosen to be childless forever, so I'll never get to make this decision for my child. However, today when I get off work, I'm going to buy at least a very small kit for all my Nieces and Nephews -- even those who think they've outgrown them. If they are young, they'll get a big box of generic bricks and windows and wheels -- if they are older, they'll get a Technics kit (too bad none of these are truly open-ended, other than the $$$$ Mindstorms kit). It will probably cost me a few hundred dollars to do this, but I'm going to do it because I think it's money well spent -- certainly better spent than if I had purchased something for myself.
When I'm done with that, I'm going to work on giving them to neighborhood children and friend's children. No child should be without a good set of LEGOs.
Another piece of clueless legislation by a clueless congressman who basically says "well, we should be doing something."
I think it's time we just overhauled the whole copyright provision itself. The old model doesn't translate well to the digital age, where things can be copied at no cost, and it seems to serve only the copyright holders now, rather than the public at large it was supposed to protect. Let's just rip it out and start fresh.
Many people won't move to a new OS until it offers the applications they need, feel comfortable with, and know. Smaller companies won't port their applications over until either a)another, larger company does it and turns a sizable profit or b) the user base gets so large they can't ignore it.
If we could just get the standard Microsoft Office suite (and running under VM ware doesn't count) on Linux, I think that would be a big first step to getting average Joe Sixpack users and average companies to move over to Linux.
I'd love to see Microsoft broken up and let their good products (Office suite, excluding Office XP, games, game controllers, mice, MSDN) stop subsidizing their bad ones (Windows, XP).
Also, I don't think Microsoft has been ALL bad. It's very nice to know that if I send someone a word document, they will most likely be able to open it, unlike ten years ago when I had to worry if you had AppleWorks or Word or WordStar or WordPerfect or....
I thought that would be enough. I wasn't interested enough in the item to really do some fact checking on the manufacturer's website. Now that I've seen how it's done, I'll make one myself that doesn't take up a full sized bay, and doesn't cost me $16 USD.
In the article I read I found the following quotes:
After installing NickLock, you can access a key switch at the front of your PC, which lets you choose between the two drives or make both drives inaccessible to the system.
The key switch has three different positions: Left, right and middle. This picture shows the key at middle position, which causes neither of the drives to be accessible to the system, effectively creating a lock. If you switch the key to left position, it selects the drive on the left by having its cable close its master jumper.
Although it might have been useful to include a setting that lets you choose both drives, there is probably a good reason why NickLock only allows you to select between single drives or none.
Sure sounds to me like you can't have both drives operational at the same time.
I'm very disappointed that there's no way to access both drives. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that it would be fairly simply to wire this device up to switch pin configurations, particularly if you set jumpers on all pins. With some simple wiring, you could flip a switch to get the drives to align in any of the four possible IDE configurations. Perhaps this is a project for myself, as the overall idea is a good one.
For those that say Lilo isn't that hard to set up, it isn't, but sometimes it's nice to have OS's on their own hard drives, with their own MBR. That way, you can completely blow away the drive and know you're only loosing the OS (and shared data) on that drive.
...because Napster provides no good way of preventing piracy. Even though Napster has made an effort at preventing some piracy, effort is not and should not be enough to get it a passing grade in this case.
A VCR doesn't natively provide a good way of preventing piracy either... but VCRs are legal. Just because something can be used for infringing purposes does not mean that it can be outlawed. In this case, I definately think that there are significant non-infringing uses (for those that continue to use it, whoever they are).
Wow. While I've not been using EFNet in the recent past, it was my first exposure to the internet and all it's glory, way back in 1992. I remember it not being very big back then, few rooms had more than 20 people in them, and you often had to search for a while to find anybody who was actually up and awake. I watched it grown and expand until it finally took up so much of my time I had to leave it.
I also remember it being kind of the "outlaw frontier", where almost anything went, and hacking was somewhat encouraged. Moderators took a real hands-off approach unless you were being blatently over the top. Perhaps this rogue spirit is what is killing it today. If you encourage (or don't discourage) hackers and crackers and script kiddies, perhaps you reap what you sow. I just don't understand why, if someone gives you a really nice sandbox to play in and hack in, why you'd feel the need to take a big huge shit in it. Have fun raising hell in EFNet, but attacking the servers themselves is crossing the line.
Maybe they just want to be known as the people who took down EFNet. Likely, they'll be known as someone who spoiled a good thing.
Everyone has neglected to cover the cost anaylsis of producing electric cars.
GM claims to have poured 1 billion USD into making the EV1. The Wall Street Journal says it's probably closer to $1.5 billion USD. So far they have "sold" 1000 EV1s. I say sold, because the car is actually leased -- at $900 down and $550 a month (plus $50/month for the charger if you want (need, and yes, you do) that). At 1000 copies, that breaks down to either a million dollars a copy or 1.5 million, depending on whose estimate you believe. This is for a car that doesn't handle particularly well, accelerate any better than average, is hauling around a ton (literally) of batteries, is built more like a light plane than a car (read spartan interior, no sound deadening, no luxuries), has a greatly reduced range, and only carries two people and about as much luggage as a Miata. You could also lease a Chevrolet Corvette for the same amount -- and the EV1 is obviously heavily subsidised. Any surprise that the auto companies are balking at building these?
I took a short contract at big blue a bit over a year ago... and there is an extreme undercurrent of hatred for Microsoft over there.
IBM is a huge company, and has been around for a long time -- and an elephant never forgets. Trust me, they have never forgotten the burn that MS put on them five or six years ago. The hatred is more intense there than it's ever been here on Slashdot. It runs so deeply that only recently did they start using MS software in any real capacity, and certain applications are still generally banned. Believe me, they are waiting for the day they can push MS out of their buildings entirely. And, they know that day will come. Not today and not tomorrow, but one day.
IBM isn't the biggest company in the world, but they are still huge, they have more money than they know what to do with, they have been down this road before, and they are just waiting, biding their time until the iron is hot.
It might be Linux, if this is the right time, it might be something else if this isn't. When it happens, IBM will be prepared, and they will know what they are doing this time. The attack will fast, fierce, and devastating. I'm just waiting and watching. IBM is just waiting and biding time. They've got plenty of time, and plenty of money, and a burning hatred. Awakining a sleeping giant indeed.
Re: Never said fuel wasn't precious
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Rather than actually formulate an argument to my valid points, you pick one small sentace out and pick it apart on symantics.
Revised sentance: If I can buy my gasoline right at the refinery in Saudi, I'll bet it's pretty damn cheap.
That's the worst argument I've ever heard. By that rationale, we should allow old, dirty power plants to stay in business instead of building new, cleaner ones to replace them. Oh wait, I think they are doing that in California.
For the record, I drive a very small, very economical car (Mazda Miata), and I hate SUVs just as much as the next guy. I've been hit by them twice in as many weeks because the owners don't take the time to understand that SUVs are not cars and don't handle like them and have tremendous blind spots. When I drive, I'm surrounded by cars that are much bigger than I am and that act extremely agressive towards me. However, I still think there is a place for SUVs in the world, and I think if people want to buy these monstrosities, let them.
I find the whole "let's get people out of their cars" argument a very superficial one, one that doesn't do very much good at all. Maybe you feel better because you bike and ride the subway. Where I live, that's not very feasible. Plus, everyone wants to paint a big target on SUV's, because they are very visable and a lot of people hate them. But really, unless someone is trading in a car that is less than four years old, their new SUV pollutes no more than the old car did. Plus, their old car goes on the market, and maybe someone with a gross polluting car will be able to buy it, and will drive that instead of their dirty old clunker. Besides, when it's all said and done, cars -- especially new ones -- contribute very little to the overall pollution in the world. Getting everyone out of their cars certainly looks good, but doesn't accomplish much at all -- so why bother?
You are misreading my argument. What I am saying is, that when you drive a 1985 Citation (or other older car) and you critize someone for driving an SUV and polluting the enviroment, it's a bit hypocritical to say so when you pollute more than they do. Sometimes, environmentalists don't look in their own backyard.
My position is an unpopular one, because it requires you to use your head about things, and not your heart, and to do things that actually make a difference rather than appearing to make a difference.
The environmentalist that are so up-in-arms about the "gross polluting" Excursion never seem to look the other way and demand that the gross polluters, the old cars on the road, are the ones that should go. They would never imagine that their little econobox runabout is more of a polluter than the big SUV parked next to them.
Until you take care of your own backyard, I will not respect you telling other people what they need to do.
Re: Never said fuel wasn't precious
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I said it isn't that precious -- yet. And, it's not. Is it being used up faster than it can be produced? Surely. It's a non-renewable resource. But, right now, there's a whole lot of it.
Gas is expensive because of two factors. One, OPEC artificially limits the production of fuel. Two, the government lays heavy taxes on it. Here in the US, about half of the price of your gas is tax. Check the pump the next time you fill up, it should be posted on it. By your argument, if I can go to the dairy to get milk, if I can buy the gas right from the wellhead in Saudi, gas is pretty damn cheap.
most enviromentalists don't drive eco-friendly
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Most "enviromentalists" get all up in arms about the latest huge SUV. Yes, it is a waste of natural resources. Yes, there's more steel, plastic, and leather products in that SUV than in a Toyota Tercel. Yes, it does consume more precious fuel than that Toyota Tercel.
Guess what? Fuel isn't that precious of a resouce -- yet. It still costs less per gallon than Milk -- or coca-cola. All the supply and demand for it is artificial -- produced by OPEC. The day that it is precious, it'll cost a lot more than $1.50 a gallon (50% of which are taxes anyway) and it'll be used for something more productive than driving an SUV down the highway.
So, what about the emissions? Well, that big Excursion has to produce as few emissions as a car sold in California did in 1992 or sold in any of the other 49 states in 1996. And, it hasn't had all those years to deteriorate and produce more emissions. The cars that pollute the most are the 20 year old beaters you see on the highway. Fully 80% of the pollution can be attributed to the bottom 20% of vehicles. Don't let logic stand in your way, though, that 1985 Chevy Citation sure looks enviromentally friendly standing next to that 2001 Surburban -- but it's polluting more just standing still.
Also, don't let me tell you that cars are only the minutest fraction of the total pollution anyway. Riding the bus sure looks eco-friendly, but it's really just a very small drop in a very huge bucket.
I'm all for green, but stop doing things that look eco-friendly, and actually try to do something that has an effect.
Try thinking about a wedding reception, do you see them playing mp3's at the ball? I highly doubt it. Do you think radio stations across the world would adapt to mp3's?
Actually, I see it a lot. There's a club in town that plays MP3s off a laptop rather than keeping thousands of CDs behind the bar or hiring a real DJ. It makes sense. They can load up a playlist for the whole night in the down times, or they can just put Winamp on random play and be done with it. It seems to be fairly popular, and they have a greater selection of songs than they could have otherwise.
I DJ'd when I was in college, and I was thinking a few years ago how mp3 would have revolutionized my DJ'ing. I hated lugging a thousand CDs everywhere, fearing that the other thousand you left at home were going to be the ones people wanted to hear, or that someone was going to jack that out of print NIN Head Like A Hole single. I would have given my profits for a year, just to have the server that's sitting on my floor right now (40+ GB of mp3s). I would have given my profits for five to have access to Napster while I was DJ'ing an event.
If I was setting up a DJ service today, I'd get a huge tower server and cram it full of the biggest hard drives I could buy, the best sound card I could buy, a 56K modem, a 10/100 eth card and then fill that bad boy up. While I was DJ'ing, if someone asked for a song I didn't have, I'd immediately go download it off Napster. Within four or five songs, I could be playing their request, even though I didn't have it before they asked.
MP3s are not perfect, but for certain applications, they are a Godsend.
I used to buy a lot of music. My current CD collection that numbers over a thousand will attest to that fact.
But, about a year ago I stopped buying CDs completely. I've also stopped buying DVDs and going to the movies -- mostly. It's hard, and I don't enjoy it. But, what I hate more than the loss of my music and my movies is putting more money in the coffers of the greedy RIAA and MPAA.
I appreciate wanting to protect your property, and appreciate wanting to make money from your intellectual property. But, I can't condone what they are doing to our culture (holding works in perpetual copyright so that if they ever become public domain, there won't be a copy or a way to distribute any more) and their strongarm tactics in a court of law.
First off, I don't smoke "that much shit." I have smoked it in the past -- didn't care for it, haven't done any drugs in over three years, and haven't done pot in over seven.
What I can tell you is that the drug war isn't working. Maybe our culture isn't the same as Amsterdam's, and maybe it won't work here -- but we've been fighting the War on Drugs for eighty years! Normally, if a strategy doesn't appear to be working, we try something different. Drugs today are cheaper, easier to get, and more refined than ever. That doesn't exactly sound like prohibition is working very well. Yet we spend more on the War on Drugs than our school system, and continue to do so year after year.
We're really not that far descended from our ancestors who first learned to walk upright.
500 years ago (not that long in evolutionary terms) teenagers were off fighting wars. No one wondered how it would warp their minds, as they were considered full grown. They were probably fairly effective warriors too, just because of the raging hormones you have at that age. I know I was much more prone to violence (of the fisticuffs variety) when I was an adolescent than I am today. It was easier to piss me off, and I didn't always feel like myself.
Adolescense is a very strange time, and a very frustrating time. If I didn't have some outlets for my agression, like Karate, computer games, the shooting range, heavy metal music, D&D (and other role playing games, porn, and pretty much every other devil worshipping, violence inspiring thing out there, I might well have gone insane or killed someone.
For the record, I turned out just fine, and well-adjusted. I've never brought a weapon to class or work, and I've never threatened to kill anyone. Judging by popular opinion today, I should have gone postal before I even got a driver's license.
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CmdrTaco, thank you so much for the hard work that went into making slashdot the site it was Tuesday. I would have been lost without it.
IF he did, he can rest assured that Afghanistan is going to become real hot, real quick. I would not want to be Osama if he is indeed responsible.
Would replicators be expensive? Undoubtably, yes. Few people today actually own a photocopier, but almost everyone has access to one. The cost of the machine doesn't seem to get in the way of producing very cheap copies of pages. I suspect that the cost of a replicator would be the same. Perhaps in the future you can buy your raw materials at Wal-Mart, bring them to the front and tell the replicator what you'd like. Or, better yet, you tell it what you want, it builds it and gives you a bill for the power and elements it consumes, with a small markup to cover the cost and maintenence of the machine.
Now, the big question. Why should this be cheaper? It should be cheaper in much the same way that robotic factories are generally cheaper than ones staffed by workers. You're not paying for labor anymore. Most of the money in production goes to actually building the product, not the raw materials involved in building. But that's not the only reason. Let's look at yours:
Equipment: Yes, the replicator will be expensive. However, how expensive is a factory? You don't exactly see them being built everyday, but their cost is covered in the cost of every manufactured product you buy. You even pay for a processing plant, machines, and distribution on the produce you buy at the grocery store. No matter how expensive the replicator is, I have serious doubts that it would anywhere near as expensive as a moderate-sized factory (and should be more useful and for a longer period of time).
Energy: Good question, because this is a huge unknown. Who knows how much power a molecular replicator should consume? However, I would suspect it would be at least as effecient as the factories and human labor we have in place today. I would hope that it would be more productive cost-wise than humans.
Time: How quick do you really need your item? How quick can the machine build it? It might well be possible to build something with a replicator than it is through conventional processes. In theory, it should be faster, just because you don't have to machine and assemble complex items -- or wait for organic ones to grow. Even if it is slower, how much slower does it need to be before it impacts the cost of the items coming out of it?
Waste: Well, there shouldn't be any waste -- other than the waste discussed in energy above. You put raw elements in, and you get an item out. Whatever you need is used up, the rest stays in raw form, ready to be made into something else. Currently, production generates a lot of waste product that cannot be used at all. This should theoretically cut out waste altogether.
Raw materials: This shouldn't even factor in. You've got to have the raw materials to begin with in normal production. There's no reason this item should be any more or less expensive than it is in traditional manufacturing. Granted, some elements will be very expensive -- but you really don't see much platinum used in every day life, do you? For some, such as titanium, being able to work with the elements themselves and not have to machine it will dramatically cut production costs (titanium isn't expensive or rare, it's just fighteningly difficult to work with).
Now for your biggies: R&D and design costs, which are really the same thing. In our current copyright world, I think these two things will be prohibitively expensive. People will try to recoup the lost money by either a)charging an enourmously high price for the initial item -- once purchased it can be infinately copied or b) charging immense prices for templates, which cannot be copied, and produce uncopyable items, and possibly a royalty on each item produced. I think this is what kills a replicator in today's world.
However, I think in a future world, where copyright isn't paramount, maybe things like open source can be expanded to include all things. And, perhaps development will be easier because someone could say "it would be really cool if I could build this, but I'd need this, this, and this which I cannot currently build -- but now that I have a replicator, I can easily obtain these items."
Of course, this almost completely destroys the capitalist system, because there is no value in objects any more. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that.
We need to fight this battle, here and now, and hopefully, this copyright issue thing is just a pendulum, and it will slowly start to swing the other way. My opinion is that it has to. The media companies have pushed copyright about as far as it can go. I think the way the current legal climate is now, the VCR and the photocopier would never have been produced at all.
What we need is to quit passing laws that protect a business model. There is no inherent right to profit.
This would be great for mankind, as the cost of production would be driven down dramatically, and you could literally have whatever you wanted for the cost of the raw materials to build it. I think in a world with laws as ours were even twenty years ago, this might be possible. A molecular Xerox machine certainly, a printer with downloadable "templates" might require a small fee for the templates for a limited time.
But, in our copyright driven world today, I see a future will these machines will not be allowed to exist at all -- or if they are, they will be tightly regulated and locked down. They will only be usable in production plants, by licensed professionals, and only for reproduction of the respective company's own products. Using GE's replicator to build a 1960's Ferrari GTO, though possible, will be quite illegal.
I'm afraid that we are seriously heading down this path, and rather than helping everyone, we'll be keeping prices artifically high and helping a few select companies who happen have more money than everyone else to begin with.
Consumers won't pay more for a product that's less useful and harder to use.
We really needed a study and a Slashdot article to figure that one out? I wish the RIAA would get their heads out of their asses and realize that the more they lock down their product and the more they restrict it, the less someone's going to buy it.
No wait, I hope they don't, and they run their little organization right into the ground.
The problem with their analogy is thus: we aren't saying that manufacturers make sure we can play our DVDs on whatever platform we want, but that it shouldn't be illegal to make it play on whatever device we want.
By using the logic of the DMCA, the analogy would be: Not allowing developers to make unlicensed playback machines for DVDs would be akin to making it illegal for Beta machine manufactures to incorporate the ability to play VHS tapes. You can immediately see how stupid that makes the DMCA look.
I don't have children, and my future wife and I have chosen to be childless forever, so I'll never get to make this decision for my child. However, today when I get off work, I'm going to buy at least a very small kit for all my Nieces and Nephews -- even those who think they've outgrown them. If they are young, they'll get a big box of generic bricks and windows and wheels -- if they are older, they'll get a Technics kit (too bad none of these are truly open-ended, other than the $$$$ Mindstorms kit). It will probably cost me a few hundred dollars to do this, but I'm going to do it because I think it's money well spent -- certainly better spent than if I had purchased something for myself.
When I'm done with that, I'm going to work on giving them to neighborhood children and friend's children. No child should be without a good set of LEGOs.
I think it's time we just overhauled the whole copyright provision itself. The old model doesn't translate well to the digital age, where things can be copied at no cost, and it seems to serve only the copyright holders now, rather than the public at large it was supposed to protect. Let's just rip it out and start fresh.
If we could just get the standard Microsoft Office suite (and running under VM ware doesn't count) on Linux, I think that would be a big first step to getting average Joe Sixpack users and average companies to move over to Linux.
I'd love to see Microsoft broken up and let their good products (Office suite, excluding Office XP, games, game controllers, mice, MSDN) stop subsidizing their bad ones (Windows, XP).
Also, I don't think Microsoft has been ALL bad. It's very nice to know that if I send someone a word document, they will most likely be able to open it, unlike ten years ago when I had to worry if you had AppleWorks or Word or WordStar or WordPerfect or
In the article I read I found the following quotes:
Sure sounds to me like you can't have both drives operational at the same time.
For those that say Lilo isn't that hard to set up, it isn't, but sometimes it's nice to have OS's on their own hard drives, with their own MBR. That way, you can completely blow away the drive and know you're only loosing the OS (and shared data) on that drive.
A VCR doesn't natively provide a good way of preventing piracy either... but VCRs are legal. Just because something can be used for infringing purposes does not mean that it can be outlawed. In this case, I definately think that there are significant non-infringing uses (for those that continue to use it, whoever they are).
I also remember it being kind of the "outlaw frontier", where almost anything went, and hacking was somewhat encouraged. Moderators took a real hands-off approach unless you were being blatently over the top. Perhaps this rogue spirit is what is killing it today. If you encourage (or don't discourage) hackers and crackers and script kiddies, perhaps you reap what you sow. I just don't understand why, if someone gives you a really nice sandbox to play in and hack in, why you'd feel the need to take a big huge shit in it. Have fun raising hell in EFNet, but attacking the servers themselves is crossing the line.
Maybe they just want to be known as the people who took down EFNet. Likely, they'll be known as someone who spoiled a good thing.
Good bye, old friend, you'll be missed.
GM claims to have poured 1 billion USD into making the EV1. The Wall Street Journal says it's probably closer to $1.5 billion USD. So far they have "sold" 1000 EV1s. I say sold, because the car is actually leased -- at $900 down and $550 a month (plus $50/month for the charger if you want (need, and yes, you do) that). At 1000 copies, that breaks down to either a million dollars a copy or 1.5 million, depending on whose estimate you believe. This is for a car that doesn't handle particularly well, accelerate any better than average, is hauling around a ton (literally) of batteries, is built more like a light plane than a car (read spartan interior, no sound deadening, no luxuries), has a greatly reduced range, and only carries two people and about as much luggage as a Miata. You could also lease a Chevrolet Corvette for the same amount -- and the EV1 is obviously heavily subsidised. Any surprise that the auto companies are balking at building these?
IBM is a huge company, and has been around for a long time -- and an elephant never forgets. Trust me, they have never forgotten the burn that MS put on them five or six years ago. The hatred is more intense there than it's ever been here on Slashdot. It runs so deeply that only recently did they start using MS software in any real capacity, and certain applications are still generally banned. Believe me, they are waiting for the day they can push MS out of their buildings entirely. And, they know that day will come. Not today and not tomorrow, but one day.
IBM isn't the biggest company in the world, but they are still huge, they have more money than they know what to do with, they have been down this road before, and they are just waiting, biding their time until the iron is hot.
It might be Linux, if this is the right time, it might be something else if this isn't. When it happens, IBM will be prepared, and they will know what they are doing this time. The attack will fast, fierce, and devastating. I'm just waiting and watching. IBM is just waiting and biding time. They've got plenty of time, and plenty of money, and a burning hatred. Awakining a sleeping giant indeed.
Revised sentance: If I can buy my gasoline right at the refinery in Saudi, I'll bet it's pretty damn cheap.
For the record, I drive a very small, very economical car (Mazda Miata), and I hate SUVs just as much as the next guy. I've been hit by them twice in as many weeks because the owners don't take the time to understand that SUVs are not cars and don't handle like them and have tremendous blind spots. When I drive, I'm surrounded by cars that are much bigger than I am and that act extremely agressive towards me. However, I still think there is a place for SUVs in the world, and I think if people want to buy these monstrosities, let them.
I find the whole "let's get people out of their cars" argument a very superficial one, one that doesn't do very much good at all. Maybe you feel better because you bike and ride the subway. Where I live, that's not very feasible. Plus, everyone wants to paint a big target on SUV's, because they are very visable and a lot of people hate them. But really, unless someone is trading in a car that is less than four years old, their new SUV pollutes no more than the old car did. Plus, their old car goes on the market, and maybe someone with a gross polluting car will be able to buy it, and will drive that instead of their dirty old clunker. Besides, when it's all said and done, cars -- especially new ones -- contribute very little to the overall pollution in the world. Getting everyone out of their cars certainly looks good, but doesn't accomplish much at all -- so why bother?
My position is an unpopular one, because it requires you to use your head about things, and not your heart, and to do things that actually make a difference rather than appearing to make a difference.
The environmentalist that are so up-in-arms about the "gross polluting" Excursion never seem to look the other way and demand that the gross polluters, the old cars on the road, are the ones that should go. They would never imagine that their little econobox runabout is more of a polluter than the big SUV parked next to them.
Until you take care of your own backyard, I will not respect you telling other people what they need to do.
Gas is expensive because of two factors. One, OPEC artificially limits the production of fuel. Two, the government lays heavy taxes on it. Here in the US, about half of the price of your gas is tax. Check the pump the next time you fill up, it should be posted on it. By your argument, if I can go to the dairy to get milk, if I can buy the gas right from the wellhead in Saudi, gas is pretty damn cheap.
Guess what? Fuel isn't that precious of a resouce -- yet. It still costs less per gallon than Milk -- or coca-cola. All the supply and demand for it is artificial -- produced by OPEC. The day that it is precious, it'll cost a lot more than $1.50 a gallon (50% of which are taxes anyway) and it'll be used for something more productive than driving an SUV down the highway.
So, what about the emissions? Well, that big Excursion has to produce as few emissions as a car sold in California did in 1992 or sold in any of the other 49 states in 1996. And, it hasn't had all those years to deteriorate and produce more emissions. The cars that pollute the most are the 20 year old beaters you see on the highway. Fully 80% of the pollution can be attributed to the bottom 20% of vehicles. Don't let logic stand in your way, though, that 1985 Chevy Citation sure looks enviromentally friendly standing next to that 2001 Surburban -- but it's polluting more just standing still.
Also, don't let me tell you that cars are only the minutest fraction of the total pollution anyway. Riding the bus sure looks eco-friendly, but it's really just a very small drop in a very huge bucket.
I'm all for green, but stop doing things that look eco-friendly, and actually try to do something that has an effect.
Actually, I see it a lot. There's a club in town that plays MP3s off a laptop rather than keeping thousands of CDs behind the bar or hiring a real DJ. It makes sense. They can load up a playlist for the whole night in the down times, or they can just put Winamp on random play and be done with it. It seems to be fairly popular, and they have a greater selection of songs than they could have otherwise.
I DJ'd when I was in college, and I was thinking a few years ago how mp3 would have revolutionized my DJ'ing. I hated lugging a thousand CDs everywhere, fearing that the other thousand you left at home were going to be the ones people wanted to hear, or that someone was going to jack that out of print NIN Head Like A Hole single. I would have given my profits for a year, just to have the server that's sitting on my floor right now (40+ GB of mp3s). I would have given my profits for five to have access to Napster while I was DJ'ing an event.
If I was setting up a DJ service today, I'd get a huge tower server and cram it full of the biggest hard drives I could buy, the best sound card I could buy, a 56K modem, a 10/100 eth card and then fill that bad boy up. While I was DJ'ing, if someone asked for a song I didn't have, I'd immediately go download it off Napster. Within four or five songs, I could be playing their request, even though I didn't have it before they asked.
MP3s are not perfect, but for certain applications, they are a Godsend.
But, about a year ago I stopped buying CDs completely. I've also stopped buying DVDs and going to the movies -- mostly. It's hard, and I don't enjoy it. But, what I hate more than the loss of my music and my movies is putting more money in the coffers of the greedy RIAA and MPAA.
I appreciate wanting to protect your property, and appreciate wanting to make money from your intellectual property. But, I can't condone what they are doing to our culture (holding works in perpetual copyright so that if they ever become public domain, there won't be a copy or a way to distribute any more) and their strongarm tactics in a court of law.
What I can tell you is that the drug war isn't working. Maybe our culture isn't the same as Amsterdam's, and maybe it won't work here -- but we've been fighting the War on Drugs for eighty years! Normally, if a strategy doesn't appear to be working, we try something different. Drugs today are cheaper, easier to get, and more refined than ever. That doesn't exactly sound like prohibition is working very well. Yet we spend more on the War on Drugs than our school system, and continue to do so year after year.
500 years ago (not that long in evolutionary terms) teenagers were off fighting wars. No one wondered how it would warp their minds, as they were considered full grown. They were probably fairly effective warriors too, just because of the raging hormones you have at that age. I know I was much more prone to violence (of the fisticuffs variety) when I was an adolescent than I am today. It was easier to piss me off, and I didn't always feel like myself.
Adolescense is a very strange time, and a very frustrating time. If I didn't have some outlets for my agression, like Karate, computer games, the shooting range, heavy metal music, D&D (and other role playing games, porn, and pretty much every other devil worshipping, violence inspiring thing out there, I might well have gone insane or killed someone.
For the record, I turned out just fine, and well-adjusted. I've never brought a weapon to class or work, and I've never threatened to kill anyone. Judging by popular opinion today, I should have gone postal before I even got a driver's license.