A computer hacker working together with a machanic hacker in the privacy of a home garage would probably be able to diasable the system in short order.
A nuclear power plant in Japan had a radiation monitor fail shortly after midnight. CNN story here. No leaks or anything, just a failed monitor. They not certain if it was Y2K related or if the timing was just coincidence.
Has anyone heard any reports from places like Iraq which had allegedly done no Y2K preparation at all?
The premise of this story sounds similiar to that of the movie/tv series "Alien Nation". Although it sounds like the book goes into more psychological depth.
The series had some good stories, particularly it was able to do stuff about race relations through a metaphor of human/alien instead of the black/white thing that a lot of americans can be touchy about. Some of the TV movies they made after the series was cancelled sucked pretty bad though.
What if Henry Ford had patented the assembly line as his business model and prevented other manufacturers from adopting this process for making their goods? How would that have affected the history of the 20th century? Anyone care to speculate?
It seems to me that this is basically what is happening with the Dell and Amazon patents and all the "business model" patents if they are enforced. I can't help but think that it would ultimately be detrimental to the public good (and to the patent holders themselves). Sure some of these companies will maybe make even more money than they already do in the short run. But by not allowing dissemination and wide spread adoption of these business models it will only serve to retard the overall evolution of our economy.
Sharing knowledge multiplies its power and benefits everyone, including those who create it. Hoarding knowledge impoverishes us all.
When someone like Amazon(TM) patents something One-Click Shopping(TM) and uses it to beat up on a competitor, most other observers are relatively neutral (ie. they have nothing to directly gain or lose from any judgement on the case) and therefore the thing is just a big gladitatorial battle between competing lawyers.
When someone like Big Corporation(TM) patents an Obvious Idea(TM) and sues a bunch of Smaller Companies(TM) for infringement, then they are just bullies who are extorting money from those who don't have the resources to fight back.
In this case, Bruce Dickens, the owner of the Y2K Windowing Technique(TM) [no relation to Microsoft(R) Windows(TM)] is attempting to extort money from almost every other corporation in the US, big and small. Many of these companies depend on this technique for their very survival, and it now being so close to the magic date, Ceasing and Desisting(TM) is not an option. And nobody wants to pay money to some guy they never heard of for using a technique that is so obvious even student programmers know about it.
So picture this: Every big company calls their lobbyists in DC and every small company calls their industry association who calls their lobbyists in DC. All of these lobbyists visit the offices of every politician in DC and remind them that Y2K is an election year and if they have to give money to Bruce Dickens, well then there will be that much less money that they will have available for political contributions. The politicians check their records and see that Bruce Dickens has not really contributed anything to their campaigns in the past. The next thing you know, the head bureaucrats at the USPTO are receiving several hundred memos from their political masters suggesting that it would be in their own best interests to review this particular patent.
In a nutshell, Bruce Dickens pissed off a lot of people, and most importantly, a lot of powerful people.
You are correct in that prices for the technology will fall as it matures. However, as you point out about the $20K cost of the early LCD projectors, so too will the first generation of digital projectors be extremely expensive and it is that initial cost that is the barrier to adoption by theatres.
Plus there will be additional upgrade costs. Even if the next generation of digital projectors is cheaper than the first, it is still an additional expenditure that will hit theatres every few years. The current 70mm projection technology has not changed much in the 30 odd years since it was introduced (other than some peripheral stuff like automatic reel changers.) Thus theatre owners are able to amortize their projector costs over the better part of a decade (or more) whereas the purchase costs of digital projectors will have to be covered in a span of only 2-3 years,
The problem with the situation is that all the savings of digital filmmaking accrue to the producers while all of the costs of equipping digital theatres are borne by the exhibitors. And the initial costs are quite high. And a couple of years later, the first generation projectors will be as outdated as my old XT sitting in the corner of my living room (which my wife is currently using to write a screenplay BTW) and will need to be upgraded.
While the studios' and distributors' costs fall, the exhibutors' will cost rise dramatically and they will have to raise ticket prices to stay profitable. This will lead to a reduction in attendance and thus lower returns to the studios.
Also, since likely not all theatres willl change over simultaneously, patrons may have to choose between seeing the digital version of the movie for $20, or seeing the analog version for $8. This will further affect the short term profitability of the early adopting theatres.
I suppose they could strategize around this by releasing some movies as "digital only" and others as "analog only" during the transition phase or prereleasing the digital version a couple of weeks before the analog version. However the the other problem of digital theatres raising their prices to cover the equipment costs will likely be solved only if the studios subsidize the deployment.
Re:this may have already happened
on
Sex in Space
·
· Score: 1
Um, what kind of budget were you working on that you could afford a $200K a day plane, but airfare and hotel for a minimal crew breaks the budget? If MGM/UA thought it was worth the plane rental for the scene, I'm sure they would have found the money for hotel rooms. I don't know if bringing the plane over to the US would have been any cheaper (rental for transport time + fuel + flight crew's hotel, etc.) than sending a film crew to France. I think some producer types were just making excuses.
Still, it would have been pretty cool to do, though, whatever the scene was. Especially if you could have been one of the crew.:-)
The Slashdot "authors", on the other hand, aren't journalists. They're human
Heheh.
Don't think you meant it quite that way, but quite interesting how it came out. Of course there are those who do think that journalists are something other than human. Probably something more akin to whatever species lawyers belong to...
The kid who is accused of the school shootings in Taber, Alberta last spring was hospitalized last week for a heart problem. He underwent surgery on Saturday and suffered complications and is currently in a coma.
I too found this rather odd. If anything I would think that they would be charging royalties or licence fees for performacerights, not copying. After all why should care whether you transfer the music onto tape, hard drives or wax cylinders? It's the fact that you are playing the music in public for profit that matters. Also, as the AVLA acknowledges in the article, these DJ's are doing record companies a favour by made new music a heard when they can't get played on any of the "classic" rock or golden oldies station that dominate the commercial radio spectrum. So who are they to complain (or creating extra charges) if they won't distribute songs in a format or package that is easily usable by professional (mobile) DJ's. When I was involved in radio a couple of decades ago, record companies supplied records for free to most radio stations, just to be sure that the song would get airplay. (Although they did charge royalties for each play.) Nowdays it seems to be the other way around. Sure clubs and DJ's are making a profit by playing these records, but they are also helping to sell them.I think record companies need to lighten up a little.
As you point out, a drawback of this is that no website would post a negative rating on their pages. So in effect pages you view would seem to either be highly rated or unrated. Another thing is that often these logos/ratings end up in some far corner of a page where you don't end up scrolling to, or you jump into the website on a page where the logo isn't displayed.
Could perhaps a rating system be made to operate through a browser plug-in. The plug-in would match the URL with a (regualarly updated) database stored on your computer and display the rating on the title bar or status bar. It could also provide a link that you could click on that would bring up a pop up window giving details.
This way, not only would you have assurance that a site has good privacy practices (as opposed to policies) but you would also be warned if a company doesn't and not just assume that it is unrated.
Even if it eventually gets thrown out, they probably figure they make enough from "nusiance fees" in the meantime to cover their court costs and make a profit. I hope that judge makes them pay everybody back, with interest and tacks on a huge penalty (donation to the FSF?) for pulling such a cynical criminal stunt.
Patents are supposed to operate in order to encourage innovation for the benefit of all. This is just the total polar opposite.
This one is going to cause a huge uproar, there are _way_ too many companies getting screwed on this one. If they pool their legal resources, (maybe a pre-emptive class action lawsiut?), they could easily outgun M-D.
(McDonnell Douglas? Didn't they get bought out by Boeing last year?)
Mayber this will be the one finally does a BSOD on the USPTO.
This is the funniest reply letter to a lawyer threat that I have ever read. Very polite in its sarcasm and itself demonstronstrative of parody. I would have liked to see the lawyers' reply to this.
If I had moderator access, I would up the above post another point. (hint, hint to those that do) But I don't so this recommendation will have to suffice.
I agree. I fail to see the logic in giving a company my name and info just so they won't collect my name and info about me. I would prefer that they just don't even know that I exist.
On a tangent to this, I hated it when supermarkets brought in their customer cards and you could no longer buy anything at sale prices unless you gave all your personal info. My solution? I simply created a virtual identity. The store now thinks my name is Peter Rabbit, not Trickster Coyote, and that I live at a non-existent address around the corner.
In Netscape, look for the file 'cookies.txt' in the Netscape directory (or one of its subdirectories.) Open this file in your text editor and delete everything after where is says "Do not edit." Save the file, then change the file's properties to 'Read only'.
Now your browser will accept cookies but will not save them to disk. They will be able to track you only for the current session while the cookies are held in RAM. Once you have shut down your browser, they are all lost and the next time you visit a website with one of their banner ads, you are a whole new person to them!
You can do the same thing in IE by changing the properties of the 'Cookies' folder.
...take on a very scary new meaning in this kind of scenerio. If a company loses a lawsuit over some life forms they created, do all those lives have to be destroyed?
The next technological battlefront: open source vs. proprietary life?
At least they used the term "hackers" in its real meaning. Quite refreshing read this in a place like Yahoo, even if the article originated from elsewhere. (Salon seems to be a bit more clueful about these things than most media outlets.)
Slashdot Mirror
A computer hacker working together with a machanic hacker in the privacy of a home garage would probably be able to diasable the system in short order.
Yow. I just finished reading the dvd thread then this pops up. DeCSS aside, could this do for movie piracy what mp3's did for music?
OTOH, it could also be a boon for home or low budget movie makers.
P.S. I could claim "first post", but that would either be wrong or obvious.
I bet there's quite a few people down in bunkers in Montana and other places who are feeling a tad foolish right now.
Hey guys, you can come out now. No, we are are not radioactive zombies who want to eat your brains.
Honest.
(heh heh)
A nuclear power plant in Japan had a radiation monitor fail shortly after midnight. CNN story here. No leaks or anything, just a failed monitor. They not certain if it was Y2K related or if the timing was just coincidence.
Has anyone heard any reports from places like Iraq which had allegedly done no Y2K preparation at all?
The premise of this story sounds similiar to that of the movie/tv series "Alien Nation". Although it sounds like the book goes into more psychological depth.
The series had some good stories, particularly it was able to do stuff about race relations through a metaphor of human/alien instead of the black/white thing that a lot of americans can be touchy about. Some of the TV movies they made after the series was cancelled sucked pretty bad though.
The only New Year's resolution that I ever kept is the last one I ever made: I resolved never to make another New Year's resolution.
Works for me.
Happy Y2K everyone!
What if Henry Ford had patented the assembly line as his business model and prevented other manufacturers from adopting this process for making their goods? How would that have affected the history of the 20th century? Anyone care to speculate?
It seems to me that this is basically what is happening with the Dell and Amazon patents and all the "business model" patents if they are enforced. I can't help but think that it would ultimately be detrimental to the public good (and to the patent holders themselves). Sure some of these companies will maybe make even more money than they already do in the short run. But by not allowing dissemination and wide spread adoption of these business models it will only serve to retard the overall evolution of our economy.
Sharing knowledge multiplies its power and benefits everyone, including those who create it. Hoarding knowledge impoverishes us all.
What a stupid world we are living in.
**sigh**
Merry Christmas everyone.
When someone like Amazon(TM) patents something One-Click Shopping(TM) and uses it to beat up on a competitor, most other observers are relatively neutral (ie. they have nothing to directly gain or lose from any judgement on the case) and therefore the thing is just a big gladitatorial battle between competing lawyers.
When someone like Big Corporation(TM) patents an Obvious Idea(TM) and sues a bunch of Smaller Companies(TM) for infringement, then they are just bullies who are extorting money from those who don't have the resources to fight back.
In this case, Bruce Dickens, the owner of the Y2K Windowing Technique(TM) [no relation to Microsoft(R) Windows(TM)] is attempting to extort money from almost every other corporation in the US, big and small. Many of these companies depend on this technique for their very survival, and it now being so close to the magic date, Ceasing and Desisting(TM) is not an option. And nobody wants to pay money to some guy they never heard of for using a technique that is so obvious even student programmers know about it.
So picture this: Every big company calls their lobbyists in DC and every small company calls their industry association who calls their lobbyists in DC. All of these lobbyists visit the offices of every politician in DC and remind them that Y2K is an election year and if they have to give money to Bruce Dickens, well then there will be that much less money that they will have available for political contributions. The politicians check their records and see that Bruce Dickens has not really contributed anything to their campaigns in the past. The next thing you know, the head bureaucrats at the USPTO are receiving several hundred memos from their political masters suggesting that it would be in their own best interests to review this particular patent.
In a nutshell, Bruce Dickens pissed off a lot of people, and most importantly, a lot of powerful people.
The fool never really stood a chance.
Plus their set up FORCES you to register the software, and you have spend extra time coming up with a phony name and info,
You are correct in that prices for the technology will fall as it matures. However, as you point out about the $20K cost of the early LCD projectors, so too will the first generation of digital projectors be extremely expensive and it is that initial cost that is the barrier to adoption by theatres.
Plus there will be additional upgrade costs. Even if the next generation of digital projectors is cheaper than the first, it is still an additional expenditure that will hit theatres every few years. The current 70mm projection technology has not changed much in the 30 odd years since it was introduced (other than some peripheral stuff like automatic reel changers.) Thus theatre owners are able to amortize their projector costs over the better part of a decade (or more) whereas the purchase costs of digital projectors will have to be covered in a span of only 2-3 years,
NTSC does 60 fields per second
This is true, however, there are 2 fields per frame, thus only 30 frames per second, only slightly better that film projection.
The problem with the situation is that all the savings of digital filmmaking accrue to the producers while all of the costs of equipping digital theatres are borne by the exhibitors. And the initial costs are quite high. And a couple of years later, the first generation projectors will be as outdated as my old XT sitting in the corner of my living room (which my wife is currently using to write a screenplay BTW) and will need to be upgraded.
While the studios' and distributors' costs fall, the exhibutors' will cost rise dramatically and they will have to raise ticket prices to stay profitable. This will lead to a reduction in attendance and thus lower returns to the studios.
Also, since likely not all theatres willl change over simultaneously, patrons may have to choose between seeing the digital version of the movie for $20, or seeing the analog version for $8. This will further affect the short term profitability of the early adopting theatres.
I suppose they could strategize around this by releasing some movies as "digital only" and others as "analog only" during the transition phase or prereleasing the digital version a couple of weeks before the analog version. However the the other problem of digital theatres raising their prices to cover the equipment costs will likely be solved only if the studios subsidize the deployment.
Um, what kind of budget were you working on that you could afford a $200K a day plane, but airfare and hotel for a minimal crew breaks the budget? If MGM/UA thought it was worth the plane rental for the scene, I'm sure they would have found the money for hotel rooms. I don't know if bringing the plane over to the US would have been any cheaper (rental for transport time + fuel + flight crew's hotel, etc.) than sending a film crew to France. I think some producer types were just making excuses.
:-)
Still, it would have been pretty cool to do, though, whatever the scene was. Especially if you could have been one of the crew.
The Slashdot "authors", on the other hand, aren't journalists. They're human
Heheh.
Don't think you meant it quite that way, but quite interesting how it came out. Of course there are those who do think that journalists are something other than human. Probably something more akin to whatever species lawyers belong to...
The kid who is accused of the school shootings in Taber, Alberta last spring was hospitalized last week for a heart problem. He underwent surgery on Saturday and suffered complications and is currently in a coma.
Probably just a first year English major fresh from an Essay Writing 101 class. (Been there, done that ;-)) {This message posted using Mozilla M11}
I too found this rather odd. If anything I would think that they would be charging royalties or licence fees for performacerights, not copying. After all why should care whether you transfer the music onto tape, hard drives or wax cylinders? It's the fact that you are playing the music in public for profit that matters. Also, as the AVLA acknowledges in the article, these DJ's are doing record companies a favour by made new music a heard when they can't get played on any of the "classic" rock or golden oldies station that dominate the commercial radio spectrum. So who are they to complain (or creating extra charges) if they won't distribute songs in a format or package that is easily usable by professional (mobile) DJ's. When I was involved in radio a couple of decades ago, record companies supplied records for free to most radio stations, just to be sure that the song would get airplay. (Although they did charge royalties for each play.) Nowdays it seems to be the other way around. Sure clubs and DJ's are making a profit by playing these records, but they are also helping to sell them.I think record companies need to lighten up a little.
TC
(This comment posted using Mozilla M11)
As you point out, a drawback of this is that no website would post a negative rating on their pages. So in effect pages you view would seem to either be highly rated or unrated. Another thing is that often these logos/ratings end up in some far corner of a page where you don't end up scrolling to, or you jump into the website on a page where the logo isn't displayed.
Could perhaps a rating system be made to operate through a browser plug-in. The plug-in would match the URL with a (regualarly updated) database stored on your computer and display the rating on the title bar or status bar. It could also provide a link that you could click on that would bring up a pop up window giving details.
This way, not only would you have assurance that a site has good privacy practices (as opposed to policies) but you would also be warned if a company doesn't and not just assume that it is unrated.
"Sleazy, corrupt blackmailers."
:-)
I knew you could.
Even if it eventually gets thrown out, they probably figure they make enough from "nusiance fees" in the meantime to cover their court costs and make a profit. I hope that judge makes them pay everybody back, with interest and tacks on a huge penalty (donation to the FSF?) for pulling such a cynical criminal stunt.
Patents are supposed to operate in order to encourage innovation for the benefit of all. This is just the total polar opposite.
This one is going to cause a huge uproar, there are _way_ too many companies getting screwed on this one. If they pool their legal resources, (maybe a pre-emptive class action lawsiut?), they could easily outgun M-D.
(McDonnell Douglas? Didn't they get bought out by Boeing last year?)
Mayber this will be the one finally does a BSOD on the USPTO.
...for the folks who screwed up the Mars probe.
This is the funniest reply letter to a lawyer threat that I have ever read. Very polite in its sarcasm and itself demonstronstrative of parody. I would have liked to see the lawyers' reply to this.
If I had moderator access, I would up the above post another point. (hint, hint to those that do) But I don't so this recommendation will have to suffice.
I agree. I fail to see the logic in giving a company my name and info just so they won't collect my name and info about me. I would prefer that they just don't even know that I exist.
On a tangent to this, I hated it when supermarkets brought in their customer cards and you could no longer buy anything at sale prices unless you gave all your personal info. My solution? I simply created a virtual identity. The store now thinks my name is Peter Rabbit, not Trickster Coyote, and that I live at a non-existent address around the corner.
In Netscape, look for the file 'cookies.txt' in the Netscape directory (or one of its subdirectories.) Open this file in your text editor and delete everything after where is says "Do not edit." Save the file, then change the file's properties to 'Read only'.
Now your browser will accept cookies but will not save them to disk. They will be able to track you only for the current session while the cookies are held in RAM. Once you have shut down your browser, they are all lost and the next time you visit a website with one of their banner ads, you are a whole new person to them!
You can do the same thing in IE by changing the properties of the 'Cookies' folder.
...take on a very scary new meaning in this kind of scenerio. If a company loses a lawsuit over some life forms they created, do all those lives have to be destroyed?
The next technological battlefront: open source vs. proprietary life?
At least they used the term "hackers" in its real meaning. Quite refreshing read this in a place like Yahoo, even if the article originated from elsewhere. (Salon seems to be a bit more clueful about these things than most media outlets.)