I agree that it shouldn't count against you, but don't undervalue the experience. When I'm conducting job interviews, particularly for younger applicants, I'm very interested in the things that they've done before or straight after graduation. A person who is really interested in computers gets involved at any level. They've set up a web server for their local high school, they've built a web app for the store they were working in, they've refurbished computers for a non-profit.... you name it. I'd rather hire *that* person than the one who graduated with high marks and no work experience. This is the person who comes in late one morning because they kept themselves up late writing some piece of awesome code that makes everyone's lives easier. OK, that may not work if you want a job programming for a major financial corporation, but for a lot of software houses that's exactly the kind of person you want on the team.
After moving to the USA I got cable specifically to get SciFi (as it was at the time), but over time I've been wondering why. Most of the good sci-fi shows are on other channels, and the majority of SyFy today doesn't come close to science fiction. Reality TV is not fiction, even if the word "reality" is being used loosely. Monster movies really don't do it for me (though I guess they fall into the sci-fi/fantasy genre), but I just never understood why SyFy would take on wrestling. So what they're saying is that they don't care about their demographic at all?
I'd happily pay for access to a premium sci-fi channel, even to the extent that I would consider dropping most of my other current TV subscription. If the shows were good enough, I'd even be happy with a production company that produced content that went straight to the ITMS (which is a *much* more expensive way to get a show).
But alas, apparently sci-fi fans are doomed to never being able to hand over their money to producers whom they really want to give it to. Curse you Roddenberry, for the influence you had on my formative years!
I can't agree with this more. As an interviewer I wanted to know if the person I was talking to was interested in programming, or if they were just doing it to pay the bills. Programming in your own time says that you're the kind of person who is interested in computers in general, which usually means you're also interested in learning.
The other thing to point out is that job advertisements usually ask for the "ideal" candidate. It would be great if you had 2-5 years of experience, but I was always prepared to talk to people who had none. In those cases, their extra-curricula programming became even more important (ie. open source work, even if it was not significant)
I pay through the nose for a high speed connection, but I've have never used to download any music except the occasional song from the ITMS. Most of the time that I'm listening to anything, it's a podcast. So why would I want to spend more money every month for the right to download something I don't want? Oh, and if I don't want to pay it, then they're proposing the option of having watch advertising to make up for it.
While there are some nice toys out there, I didn't see SlingBoxes mentioned on most sites. I find it strange that we aren't being forced to get one of those this season.
I know that these devices are not officially released, but you can still get them, and the software will be updated as soon as it comes out. Given the open design process, I'm surprised no one here has mentioned them yet.
"...an extortion scheme whereby a powerful non-governmental organization coerces businesses to pay protection money which allegedly serves to purchase the organization's 'protection' services against various external threats"
Applying this definition to a Patent-Protection plan certainly seems appropriate. It sounds like a scheme that only lawyers could think up.
But now that I'm thinking of "extortion" in broader terms like this, it made me consider other situations. When I read the quote in the first place it made me immediately think of paying large network infrastructure companies extra money in order to not have latency intentionally imposed on my packets. So does the parallel hold here too? Is network neutrality a fight against extortion? Should we be petitioning for the appropriate application of the RICO act?
I've seen a number of sensible bills which seemed like a shoe-in, only to be held up, and eventually dropped. I'll believe it when I see it.
On the other hand, if it DOES make it through, then it will go some way to restoring my faith in the US political system. Not just because of the mechanism required by this bill, but the fact that the politicians actually passed it.
I always thought that The Matrix should have been using humans in this sort of way, rather than the "power supply" scenario that the Wachowski brothers settled on. Given the inherent inefficiencies (and the need to keep everyone happy), using people as an electricity supply just didn't make sense to me (even though I'd already suspended disbelief in order to watch some fun SciFi).
Now using humans to produce calculations or simulations that computers weren't so good at makes a lot more sense to me. However, I'm bemused to see this being suggested in real life before making it into fiction.
I have to agree that YouTube is popular because of the ability to share short clips. Obviously I don't have official numbers, but anecdotally my friends and family all use it for short clips. I'd been looking at video on it for a couple of years before I discovered that whole TV shows were being put up there (I still haven't watched any).
I'm on YouTube's side, but I believe Viacom are in the right under the law. I see this as a problem with the protectionism inherent in today's copyright law. The law as it stands is being used to maintain the status quo for large copyright holders, and stifle innovation in content production and distribution.
In an ideal world the law would be changed to better reflect the attitudes of the community (isn't that what laws are supposed to do?), but this won't happen while laws are managed by lobbyists, and lobbyists are paid by large corporations who don't want to see things changed. But you never know. Maybe there's something in the law or constitution about the interests of society which YouTube can leverage for real copyright reform. (I can dream, can't I?)
OK, this answer is pretty straightforward. How about spinning it a little differently:
I'm on an E3 visa. This is almost identical to an H1B, only my wife is entitled to work as well (she can work for anyone, and has a funky little holographic card to prove it). She wants to start her own business in a similar way to what's described here. Would that be allowed? We thought it would be.
Yes, we'll talk to a lawyer, but most haven't heard of the E3 yet, and I want to waste as little money as possible.
When I'm trying to be healthy I usually have cereal with fruits (often berries), but in cold weather my wife likes to make porridge/oatmeal/rolled oats (unless she's feeling lazy and gets me to make it for her).
The accompanying sultanas have to be soaked overnight in brandy, and I'm liberal with the brown sugar.:-)
I'm pleased to see alternative technologies to split water using sunlight, but the idea is not new.
There is a group at UNSW who have been working on ceramics which use sunlight to split water (via a process of electrolysis). It's still in research (mostly due to efficiency), but it's an interesting option if you're interested in this stuff.
Their website is pretty sparse, but there is a story on them here.
I have to add my voice to this chorus of indignation. All of the music on my iPod has come from CDs we own, or that I've purchased on the ITMS. Besides, I rarely listen to that music, instead spending all my time listening to podcasts.
I'm offended and angry to be accused of harboring stolen music on my device. I hope many of Universal's potential customers feel the same way.
I've heard complaints about Wikipedia from many people who are eminently unqualified to make such assertions.
Conversely, the experts in the area seem to like Wikipedia, much as the above story suggests. Along these lines, I was interested to hear a podcast from Australia's Science Show talking about this very issue
(the podcast is no longer up, but there is a transcript).
Many people complain about the lack of authority and accuracy in Wikipedia. But Wikipedia is a community project, that a community puts together. If Wikipedia is at fault it is because the community in general has allowed it to be that way.
People can only know about faults in Wikipedia if they saw them for themselves (otherwise it's hearsay, and the complaints are therefore without merit). By looking up Wikipedia, people are acting as a part of the community, most likely with the intent of deriving benefit. By finding problems and not addressing them, they tried to take from the community and not give anything back.
If the people complaining know of specific inaccuracies, then why have they not fixed them? Are they not a part of society or something?
I don't see the problem. If an application is presenting in full screen mode, I would find it useful for it to mark me as "Occupied" or something like that. As for the status message, there is already a link to iTunes to get the song that is currently playing.
It's a liability if others have access to my searches, it's an asset if I do.
The problem with me having access to my searches, is that it's possible for others to get access as well (cracking and court orders come to mind). Encrypted on my own hard drive is good, but still subject to court order (since it doesn't matter how "personal" your hard drive is, it isn't subject to the 5th ammendment - which only applies in the USA anyway). Encrypted in escrow is probably better, but really tough to get right.
Maybe I should only search for things I don't care about.
Proper lab-style power supplies that are lightly loaded aren't a problem, but it gets harder when you have multiple devices.
Likewise, if the wire length off the wall wart isn't known, you can't account for voltage drop-- what happens when someone tries to run 4V through a 25' extension cord?
Damn good questions. These are the reasons you can't just start building a DC power strip and expect it to work in all situations. You'd need proper electrical standards for this, much like USB has for power supply (interesting that so many people propose that as an option, though the current allowances are too low for most applications).
Decent standards could answer both questions. Then when someone tries to over-extend a power lead, they do so at their own risk. This is already considered a reasonable response in the USB standard. You can extend USB beyond specification (I've done it), and you can often get away with it. I just wouldn't trust data backups done that way.
That's true for transmission over longer distances, but what about those short distances in the data room? Or for that matter, in my home office?
Almost every device I own uses 4.7V or 12V. I look around at work here, and I can see power strips full of transformers, all of which are knocking back the AC power to one of a couple of DC voltage levels. Every one of those transformers has its own losses, most of which dissipates as heat. They're also large, making it difficult to fit them all into a strip, and their heavy, making it difficult to balance or hang the strip where it's most needed. At home I have DC transformers for the monitor, the switch, the firewall/router, the WiFi, the PDA recharger, the BT mouse recharging dock, the USB hub, the TV tuner box, etc, etc. It's got to be a safety hazard.
Then we have the PCs, which are also using 2 (OK, 4) predefined levels of DC voltage, and have their own transformers and rectifiers to do it. These get so hot they even need their own fans!
Why isn't this stuff standardized, and power strips can instead contain one single transformer/recitifer package, with DC sockets, or retractable DC wires coming out of them? Even if we ignored PCs and only did the external peripherals for now, we'd still get a big saving in power just by having fewer transformers.
I got a Mac Mini for my TV specifically because composite, S-video, and component all scaled badly on my LCD 32" HDTV. Component video had the fewest artifacts, but it was still grainy, particularly with motion in the image. Apple's core-video scales so well that I can even handle watching 320x240 images at full screen, and most of time I don't even notice that it's low resolution!
I've also moved all my children's videos onto the HDD, which makes life MUCH easier when entertaining our 2 year old on a wet day. All our kid's DVDs were getting scratched and unwatchable, but we no longer have that problem. We also have the home videos on the Mac, which the kids enjoy seeing too.
Finally, I got an EyeTV to go with it. Unfortunately, this initially suffered from lack of integration (I either used the EyeTV or FrontRow), and because there was no single product that did the analog, digital, AND HD digital channels. I still can't get a product that does all channels, but at least the EyeTV software integrates with FrontRow now.
So now I can watch TV, DVDs, saved movies, home movies, family photos, and also listen to iTunes, all with one box, and all using a single tiny remote that has only 6 buttons. I just had to plug it in and it *worked* (I loved this feature), though I needed to install software when I got the EyeTV. Ease and features makes it all worthwhile, and gets lots of comments from friends and family, but my REAL reason for setting it up was just so standard definition DVDs wouldn't look so grainy on a high definition screen.:-)
(I'm sure XP Media edition would offer similar benefits of flexibility and HD clarity, but I love the Mac Mini form factor, and the tiny remote)
When I first got online I was told that it was poor netiquette to pick up on others' spelling, typos, etc. I adhered to this, but I remember that not enforcing language standards like this horrified an older generation at the time.
In the short term that kind of flexibility was fine, but now it looks as if my grandparents had a point after all.
Ironically, today I see those on the bleeding edge of the internet rigidly adhering to computing standards. Even the broader community is aware of it. For instance, when Apple didn't follow RSS standards in iPhoto it made front page news on Slashdot!
The other technology that comes to mind while reading this is the Rapid Single Flux Quantum device (RSFQ). While not as fast as RSFQs, these new circuits are much more practical since they can run at room temperature.
I find it interesting that these new technologies for high speed replacements of transistors are both based on magnetic fields.
Notice how they're not talking about changing a single thing (most people weren't even aware of the illegality of their actions), and yet by making common behavior legal, they now need to "compensate" the artists? What would they be compensated for? The law isn't currently changing anyone's behavior, nor would the new law! Besides, what about the fact that Australians already pay more for music than Americans?
eg. On today's exchange rate, songs on iTunes cost about $1.23 USD. Also, the cost of living in Australia is lower (lower costs, lower wages, etc), meaning that this represents even more disposable income than it would for an American. Don't get me started on CDs.
Summarizing: Australians already pay much more for music than Americans do. This new law will allow for the same "fair use" provisions available in America. While the new law will not change any behaviour in Australia, extra charges may be levied against Australians to compensate the artists for something. (I'm not sure what that something is, but it must be a big deal!)
The other point to note is that this is exactly what an earlier comment was talking about when they said that any levy would be assuming that everyone is a criminal.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that it shouldn't count against you, but don't undervalue the experience. When I'm conducting job interviews, particularly for younger applicants, I'm very interested in the things that they've done before or straight after graduation. A person who is really interested in computers gets involved at any level. They've set up a web server for their local high school, they've built a web app for the store they were working in, they've refurbished computers for a non-profit.... you name it. I'd rather hire *that* person than the one who graduated with high marks and no work experience. This is the person who comes in late one morning because they kept themselves up late writing some piece of awesome code that makes everyone's lives easier. OK, that may not work if you want a job programming for a major financial corporation, but for a lot of software houses that's exactly the kind of person you want on the team.
I couldn't agree more with the original post.
After moving to the USA I got cable specifically to get SciFi (as it was at the time), but over time I've been wondering why. Most of the good sci-fi shows are on other channels, and the majority of SyFy today doesn't come close to science fiction. Reality TV is not fiction, even if the word "reality" is being used loosely. Monster movies really don't do it for me (though I guess they fall into the sci-fi/fantasy genre), but I just never understood why SyFy would take on wrestling. So what they're saying is that they don't care about their demographic at all?
I'd happily pay for access to a premium sci-fi channel, even to the extent that I would consider dropping most of my other current TV subscription. If the shows were good enough, I'd even be happy with a production company that produced content that went straight to the ITMS (which is a *much* more expensive way to get a show).
But alas, apparently sci-fi fans are doomed to never being able to hand over their money to producers whom they really want to give it to. Curse you Roddenberry, for the influence you had on my formative years!
I can't agree with this more. As an interviewer I wanted to know if the person I was talking to was interested in programming, or if they were just doing it to pay the bills. Programming in your own time says that you're the kind of person who is interested in computers in general, which usually means you're also interested in learning.
The other thing to point out is that job advertisements usually ask for the "ideal" candidate. It would be great if you had 2-5 years of experience, but I was always prepared to talk to people who had none. In those cases, their extra-curricula programming became even more important (ie. open source work, even if it was not significant)
If we're discussing ASCII art, then how come the Amazing Instant Asciicam didn't get mentioned?
Maybe Soulskill doesn't want to download music.
I pay through the nose for a high speed connection, but I've have never used to download any music except the occasional song from the ITMS. Most of the time that I'm listening to anything, it's a podcast. So why would I want to spend more money every month for the right to download something I don't want? Oh, and if I don't want to pay it, then they're proposing the option of having watch advertising to make up for it.
Am I unique here? Surely not?
While there are some nice toys out there, I didn't see SlingBoxes mentioned on most sites. I find it strange that we aren't being forced to get one of those this season.
But my most coveted toy of the season wasn't mentioned at all!
http://www.chumby.com/
I know that these devices are not officially released, but you can still get them, and the software will be updated as soon as it comes out. Given the open design process, I'm surprised no one here has mentioned them yet.
Going back to the original quote:
"...an extortion scheme whereby a powerful non-governmental organization coerces businesses to pay protection money which allegedly serves to purchase the organization's 'protection' services against various external threats"
Applying this definition to a Patent-Protection plan certainly seems appropriate. It sounds like a scheme that only lawyers could think up.
But now that I'm thinking of "extortion" in broader terms like this, it made me consider other situations. When I read the quote in the first place it made me immediately think of paying large network infrastructure companies extra money in order to not have latency intentionally imposed on my packets. So does the parallel hold here too? Is network neutrality a fight against extortion? Should we be petitioning for the appropriate application of the RICO act?
I've seen a number of sensible bills which seemed like a shoe-in, only to be held up, and eventually dropped. I'll believe it when I see it.
On the other hand, if it DOES make it through, then it will go some way to restoring my faith in the US political system. Not just because of the mechanism required by this bill, but the fact that the politicians actually passed it.
I always thought that The Matrix should have been using humans in this sort of way, rather than the "power supply" scenario that the Wachowski brothers settled on. Given the inherent inefficiencies (and the need to keep everyone happy), using people as an electricity supply just didn't make sense to me (even though I'd already suspended disbelief in order to watch some fun SciFi).
Now using humans to produce calculations or simulations that computers weren't so good at makes a lot more sense to me. However, I'm bemused to see this being suggested in real life before making it into fiction.
I have to agree that YouTube is popular because of the ability to share short clips. Obviously I don't have official numbers, but anecdotally my friends and family all use it for short clips. I'd been looking at video on it for a couple of years before I discovered that whole TV shows were being put up there (I still haven't watched any).
I'm on YouTube's side, but I believe Viacom are in the right under the law. I see this as a problem with the protectionism inherent in today's copyright law. The law as it stands is being used to maintain the status quo for large copyright holders, and stifle innovation in content production and distribution.
In an ideal world the law would be changed to better reflect the attitudes of the community (isn't that what laws are supposed to do?), but this won't happen while laws are managed by lobbyists, and lobbyists are paid by large corporations who don't want to see things changed. But you never know. Maybe there's something in the law or constitution about the interests of society which YouTube can leverage for real copyright reform. (I can dream, can't I?)
OK, this answer is pretty straightforward. How about spinning it a little differently:
I'm on an E3 visa. This is almost identical to an H1B, only my wife is entitled to work as well (she can work for anyone, and has a funky little holographic card to prove it). She wants to start her own business in a similar way to what's described here. Would that be allowed? We thought it would be.
Yes, we'll talk to a lawyer, but most haven't heard of the E3 yet, and I want to waste as little money as possible.
When I'm trying to be healthy I usually have cereal with fruits (often berries), but in cold weather my wife likes to make porridge/oatmeal/rolled oats (unless she's feeling lazy and gets me to make it for her).
:-)
The accompanying sultanas have to be soaked overnight in brandy, and I'm liberal with the brown sugar.
I'm pleased to see alternative technologies to split water using sunlight, but the idea is not new.
There is a group at UNSW who have been working on ceramics which use sunlight to split water (via a process of electrolysis). It's still in research (mostly due to efficiency), but it's an interesting option if you're interested in this stuff.
Their website is pretty sparse, but there is a story on them here.
I have to add my voice to this chorus of indignation. All of the music on my iPod has come from CDs we own, or that I've purchased on the ITMS. Besides, I rarely listen to that music, instead spending all my time listening to podcasts.
I'm offended and angry to be accused of harboring stolen music on my device. I hope many of Universal's potential customers feel the same way.
I've heard complaints about Wikipedia from many people who are eminently unqualified to make such assertions.
Conversely, the experts in the area seem to like Wikipedia, much as the above story suggests. Along these lines, I was interested to hear a podcast from Australia's Science Show talking about this very issue (the podcast is no longer up, but there is a transcript).
Many people complain about the lack of authority and accuracy in Wikipedia. But Wikipedia is a community project, that a community puts together. If Wikipedia is at fault it is because the community in general has allowed it to be that way.
People can only know about faults in Wikipedia if they saw them for themselves (otherwise it's hearsay, and the complaints are therefore without merit). By looking up Wikipedia, people are acting as a part of the community, most likely with the intent of deriving benefit. By finding problems and not addressing them, they tried to take from the community and not give anything back.
If the people complaining know of specific inaccuracies, then why have they not fixed them? Are they not a part of society or something?
I don't see the problem. If an application is presenting in full screen mode, I would find it useful for it to mark me as "Occupied" or something like that. As for the status message, there is already a link to iTunes to get the song that is currently playing.
It's a liability if others have access to my searches, it's an asset if I do.
The problem with me having access to my searches, is that it's possible for others to get access as well (cracking and court orders come to mind). Encrypted on my own hard drive is good, but still subject to court order (since it doesn't matter how "personal" your hard drive is, it isn't subject to the 5th ammendment - which only applies in the USA anyway). Encrypted in escrow is probably better, but really tough to get right.
Maybe I should only search for things I don't care about.
While less well known than club bouncers, I would think that the thalamus would be better likened to Maxwell's Demon.
This would explain why all your body heat escape from your head!
Proper lab-style power supplies that are lightly loaded aren't a problem, but it gets harder when you have multiple devices.
Likewise, if the wire length off the wall wart isn't known, you can't account for voltage drop-- what happens when someone tries to run 4V through a 25' extension cord?
Damn good questions. These are the reasons you can't just start building a DC power strip and expect it to work in all situations. You'd need proper electrical standards for this, much like USB has for power supply (interesting that so many people propose that as an option, though the current allowances are too low for most applications).
Decent standards could answer both questions. Then when someone tries to over-extend a power lead, they do so at their own risk. This is already considered a reasonable response in the USB standard. You can extend USB beyond specification (I've done it), and you can often get away with it. I just wouldn't trust data backups done that way.
That's true for transmission over longer distances, but what about those short distances in the data room? Or for that matter, in my home office?
Almost every device I own uses 4.7V or 12V. I look around at work here, and I can see power strips full of transformers, all of which are knocking back the AC power to one of a couple of DC voltage levels. Every one of those transformers has its own losses, most of which dissipates as heat. They're also large, making it difficult to fit them all into a strip, and their heavy, making it difficult to balance or hang the strip where it's most needed. At home I have DC transformers for the monitor, the switch, the firewall/router, the WiFi, the PDA recharger, the BT mouse recharging dock, the USB hub, the TV tuner box, etc, etc. It's got to be a safety hazard.
Then we have the PCs, which are also using 2 (OK, 4) predefined levels of DC voltage, and have their own transformers and rectifiers to do it. These get so hot they even need their own fans!
Why isn't this stuff standardized, and power strips can instead contain one single transformer/recitifer package, with DC sockets, or retractable DC wires coming out of them? Even if we ignored PCs and only did the external peripherals for now, we'd still get a big saving in power just by having fewer transformers.
I got a Mac Mini for my TV specifically because composite, S-video, and component all scaled badly on my LCD 32" HDTV. Component video had the fewest artifacts, but it was still grainy, particularly with motion in the image. Apple's core-video scales so well that I can even handle watching 320x240 images at full screen, and most of time I don't even notice that it's low resolution!
:-)
I've also moved all my children's videos onto the HDD, which makes life MUCH easier when entertaining our 2 year old on a wet day. All our kid's DVDs were getting scratched and unwatchable, but we no longer have that problem. We also have the home videos on the Mac, which the kids enjoy seeing too.
Finally, I got an EyeTV to go with it. Unfortunately, this initially suffered from lack of integration (I either used the EyeTV or FrontRow), and because there was no single product that did the analog, digital, AND HD digital channels. I still can't get a product that does all channels, but at least the EyeTV software integrates with FrontRow now.
So now I can watch TV, DVDs, saved movies, home movies, family photos, and also listen to iTunes, all with one box, and all using a single tiny remote that has only 6 buttons. I just had to plug it in and it *worked* (I loved this feature), though I needed to install software when I got the EyeTV. Ease and features makes it all worthwhile, and gets lots of comments from friends and family, but my REAL reason for setting it up was just so standard definition DVDs wouldn't look so grainy on a high definition screen.
(I'm sure XP Media edition would offer similar benefits of flexibility and HD clarity, but I love the Mac Mini form factor, and the tiny remote)
When I first got online I was told that it was poor netiquette to pick up on others' spelling, typos, etc. I adhered to this, but I remember that not enforcing language standards like this horrified an older generation at the time.
In the short term that kind of flexibility was fine, but now it looks as if my grandparents had a point after all.
Ironically, today I see those on the bleeding edge of the internet rigidly adhering to computing standards. Even the broader community is aware of it. For instance, when Apple didn't follow RSS standards in iPhoto it made front page news on Slashdot!
The other technology that comes to mind while reading this is the Rapid Single Flux Quantum device (RSFQ). While not as fast as RSFQs, these new circuits are much more practical since they can run at room temperature.
I find it interesting that these new technologies for high speed replacements of transistors are both based on magnetic fields.
No kidding.
Notice how they're not talking about changing a single thing (most people weren't even aware of the illegality of their actions), and yet by making common behavior legal, they now need to "compensate" the artists? What would they be compensated for? The law isn't currently changing anyone's behavior, nor would the new law! Besides, what about the fact that Australians already pay more for music than Americans?
eg. On today's exchange rate, songs on iTunes cost about $1.23 USD. Also, the cost of living in Australia is lower (lower costs, lower wages, etc), meaning that this represents even more disposable income than it would for an American. Don't get me started on CDs.
Summarizing: Australians already pay much more for music than Americans do. This new law will allow for the same "fair use" provisions available in America. While the new law will not change any behaviour in Australia, extra charges may be levied against Australians to compensate the artists for something. (I'm not sure what that something is, but it must be a big deal!)
The other point to note is that this is exactly what an earlier comment was talking about when they said that any levy would be assuming that everyone is a criminal.