This is no more stealing than copying an MP3 is. Show me what was taken in quantifiable terms, and I'll believe you.
No, this is the reverse engineering of a product - for profit. It was legal until recently, as such things are - now get this - conductive for business competition. However, what with the DMCA, such things are made illigal to protect big-business interests.
How quickly the collective mind forgets. Not long ago there'd be not one person on slashdot which would support Apple's tactics, and now mostly everyone is falling in, "Real is evil!" What nonsense. Sure, it's criminal what they did, thanks to the DMCA, but it's no different than making an after-market part for a vehicle (steering wheel, seat, stereo, etc.) without getting explicit permission from the vehicle manufacturer - which, last I checked, is fully legal.
Tactics and ethics of a hacker? My god, Orwell was right. "We are and always have been at war with East Asia."
How is this anything but the extension of Apple's product to make it more valuable? I guess I don't see how, or why, Apple would have a beef about this, particularly since Real media isn't the best quality.
Is it simply that because the laws now exist, they have to make the complaint, or they'll lose legitity? That's the most logical answer I can think of.
So much for Apple being a company which embraces the hacker mindset, eh geeks? (I'll mention that I, too, am a linux geek, so don't flame me.) This is really quite unfortunate.
I once spilled a mug half-full of case screws into an open, running case. The machine didn't even crash. I just shut it down, removed the screws, and went about my business.
The only other thing I've ever had that even approaches remotely 'dangerous' or abusive to my hardware was on an athlon 550. It was summer, and I didn't have a fan or AC for my place, so it was quite hot in my room - particularly since the outdoor temperature was probably 85F or so. I imagine it was roughly 100F ambient in the room for most of the day.
The machine had been running relatively well, but then suddenly became fairly unstable - locking up once a day or so, with the occasional crashed application. Roughly what you'd expect from Windows, I guess, but I was running Linux, so it was a bit of a problem.
At first I thought it might have been buggy software (experimental kernel patches), so it took me a couple days to finally get around to determining that the problem was hardware related. I ripped the case open and found out that, lo and behold, the heatsink had come off almost entirely. It might also be appropriate to note that I'd taken the CPU's backplate off (Slot A, if you recall, had a small PCB with L2 and the core on it, with a metal and plastic case), so I could get a closer connection to the core with the heatsink - I'd overclocked to 600MHz or so.
I put the heatsink back on, booted it up, and had no further problems (until the video card started to flake out months later, but that's another story...)
You evidently don't even understand what locate does, but that's besides the point.
If the file has no mention of the author even in a file attribute - guess what? WinFS won't be able to do a fucking thing, either. It's not a clarvoiant technology. It's a Microsoft product. Like every other MS product to date, it will be a lot of marketing bullshit, a lot of exageration, and a lot of "this is better than the second coming" nonsense. When the product finally ships, it will be a slow, bloated feature.
As I've seen it described, it's supposed to be not much more than the current disk indexing function (which doesn't exactly even work, ffs), plus the basic file meta information, in a databse. Big. Fucking Deal. There's nothing terribly impressive about it - even I could scramble a quick perl script together to query disk data, say, once a day (as a replacement to slocate, or what have you - you know what that is, right?) that would combine all the meta information into a database, and then write a quick little tool to query that db with simple syntax. Not terribly difficult.
I'll tell you what is impressive, though. That the MS engineers are actually integrating a MS SQL (or some retarded version of it)... with a filesystem. Anyone remotely familiar with the functionality of both will realize how retarded a concept it is. Sure, it's a neat idea, if you don't understand the technologies.
Aside from the speed and performance hit that will be taken on every single disk read or write (which I'm asuming will be the case, given the DB is supposedly integrated -with- the FS), it's going to result in a lot of extra, needless disk and operational memory being wasted.
And for the record: NTFS is not a 'good' filesystem. It is a featureful system with a lot of bugs, instabilities, and performance issues.
Mark my words: by the time it comes out, I want you to remember my post saying you're full of shit, and realize you've been told, and were being a fool. Maybe by 2007 (or whenever it's scheduled to come out) you'll have your high school diploma and a job at McD's, and you'll be able to afford a legit copy.
Does anyone else find the fact that someone is comparing WinFS to the likes of reiserfs (despite my dislike for it), XFS, and hell, even ext3?
Granted, the proposed featureset of WinFS is vastly 'superior' to that of the 3 main linux contenders, but it could be argued that WinFS is neither a filesystem itself, nor is it on par with any of the linux filesystems in terms of performance or stability (if NTFS5 is to be of any forboding).
I seem to recall reading about several projects that impliment WinFS-like features. I don't recall what they were, and I don't think they were kernel-space projects, but I recall thinking, "this looks nice".
Besides, let's be honest here. What practical functionality does WinFS provide that is above and beyond the combination of 'locate', and 'file' used in conjunction? WinFS seems to me to be merely a crude hack so as to make up for the fundamental shortcomings with MS's OS design.
Some might say this is a flame but... I hate reiser in it's current release. It's fairly unstable, and when it does go, you're pretty much fucked. I've used reiser twice, and of those two times, the filesystems died due to power outage or other similar effect within one or two events. That's not even approaching acceptable.
On the flip side, I've had multiple such snafus with XFS, but no filesystem failure. I've never even had to approach having to deal with trying to fix the system, as there's been no events which have resulted in fs corruption. Sure, power has gone out, but the machines have come back up again without a hitch.
Who wants to bet on whether or not this is industrial sabotage done by a competing company, conveniently timed to coincide with Google's IPO?
I can't imagine anyone having a bone to pick with Google. That is, unless they're a direct competitor. Even kiddies seem to think Google is the best thing since automated root kits.
Why not? Because the strength of MS in the future will not rely on the software itself, but the restrictions built within the software. Want to watch a DVD? Great, you've got to own a product with an MS-based operating system, as it's the only thing that has the proper DRM functionality. Etc.
In like respect, then the US gov shouldn't use closed-source software that was developed in any part overseas, nor should they use software that was developed in large part by blue card workers, as there's a higher risk involved there as well.
There seems to be a fundamental logic problem with this kind of debugger. It seems to be more of an 'interpretive debugger' in which it would need to know what you're trying to do in the first place. Thus, it would have to know what the code -should- look like in order to tell you what the problem is.
In essence, for there to be a "English debugger" (one that speaks more english than current debuggers, that is), it would essentially need to know how to program itself on top of being able to follow the flow of code and find where it breaks, so as to be able to tell you precisely what the problem is.
dear god man, 2nd to last nearly made me LOL. I laugh loudly, and I'm sitting in a class with 30 other people during the world's most boring lecture yet known to man.
As far as I know, it's not legally possible for someone to make a retroactive license.
Thus, if someone takes the standard and makes a GPLed application with it, the principles and code within that application are then made public domain. MS has patented it, yes - but it would also seem that they would be either not protecting their patent intentionally, or giving blanket rights to the patent to anyone that asks via the GPL.
I expect the problem to be that they are doing something like Doom 1 here. I have the feeling that a sequel of doom would not be a sequel at all if it didn't conform to the same gaming standards.
That, and I suspect that Id hasn't been into making games for a long time - roughly since Quake came out, I imagine. Why do I say this? Because they can make a LOT more money by licensing their game engine than they can by selling games. This is how they made so much money on Quake.
Does anyone else find this painfully ironic - that Ted Turner, of all people, is talking about the travesty that is large media congloberates?
This is the man that essentially owns Turner Broadcasting. Turner Broadcasting is responsible for, amongst other things, CNN. CNN defines the state of news in the US today, and maybe even the world.
Here's a snip from tedturner.com. It is not possible to say that Ted Turner has not been largely instrumental, if not mostly responsible for, the unification and conglomeration of media companies. It might appear, though, that he's had a change of heart - this would be nice, but I wouldn't hold my breath. In December 1991, Turner acquired the rights, library and production facilities of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. Cartoon Network, launched on October 1, 1992, showcases the company's vast library of cartoons and original productions. Cartoon Network in Latin America was launched on April 30, 1993, offering viewers in Latin America and the Caribbean 24 hours of cartoons in three languages. TNT & Cartoon Network were launched in Europe on September 17, 1993, offering classic films and animation programming in seven languages. TNT & Cartoon Network in Asia Pacific, launched October 6, 1994, provides programming in English, with some programs dubbed or subtitled in Mandarin and Thai.
In January 1994, Turner Broadcasting merged with New Line Cinema. Films from New Line and the combined Turner and Warner Bros. library of film greats provide programming for Turner Classic Movies (TCM), a 24-hour commercial-free network launched in April 1994.
Turner Broadcasting continued to expand its news division with the creation of CNNRadio and CNN Airport Network, which provides programming for airline travelers in 29 U.S. airports, and CNN Interactive, the division responsible for multimedia/on-line news production and distribution. CNN en Español, which was launched on March 17, 1997, offers 24-hour Spanish-language news to viewers throughout the Americas.
Mr. Turner became Vice Chairman of Time Warner in October 1996, with the merger of Time Warner Inc. and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. Mr. Turner oversaw Time Warner's Cable Networks division, which included the assets of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.), the CNN Newsgroup, as well as Home Box Office, Cinemax, and the company's interests in Comedy Central and Court TV. He also oversaw New Line Cinema and the company's professional sports teams-the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Thrashers. In January 2001, he became Vice Chairman of AOL Time Warner, a position from which he served until May 2003.
Laser surgery is a good option if you've got quite bad eyesight; however, there are risks involved, as with any surgery. The risk might be negligible, but it's still a risk - even 'simple' procedures like wart removal can end poorly.
I'd like to let you know, however, that there's an alternative to getting lasik surgery that works quite well - therapy. It is basically free once you figure out how to do it yourself. My story is this:
When I was younger (middle school age), I had an old optomitrist prescribe glasses for me which had prisms in them, as my frequent (constant) reading had resulted in my left eye's muscles constricting, and pulling my left eye inwards. This elderly doctor told us that it was because of a 'weak eye' and not due to the constriction of muscles. I have my suspicions that he was years behind contemporary practice, as we lived in the boondocks at the time. At least he was a nice man. Hopefully God will take that into account during his sentencing, that's all I can hope for him.
At any rate, this glasses perscription ended up agrevating the situation. In addition to the prisms, the perscription was what I would call excessive - it was perscribed to make my vision as good as possible, not to make my vision acceptable for me to function, which would have been a significantly lower. Some of you might be thinking: that's common practice. As far as I know, this much, at least, is common practice as well.
My understanding of why such practice is bad, is: it results in eyes that are overly stressed. You become used to it after a while, of course - just as you would any minor malody, over time - but it's still damaging your eyes by stressing your eye to conform to the new perscription - stressing your eyes, causing them to get worse, as such a 'perfect' resolution isn't necessary. I don't recall the technical aspects, but that's the general idea.
This pattern of "get new, thicker glasses with prisms with a larger angle" continued until I was a freshman in high school. At that point, I couldn't even read things right in front of my face without glasses, and my left eye was functionally useless, as I pretty much did everything with my right eye - the left eye had the prism over it, and tired me out too much, so my brain decided to not use that eye. (I know tihs know in retrospect and current observations of how my eyes work). I was quite stressed out, constantly got frustrated with my glasses and my visual situation, so my parents decided to see what they could do about it.
At the time (1997, I think), the only specialists in the country, as far as I can recall, that dealt with such things were in Philidelphia and LA. Yes, that's quite sparse, and I realize that many of you are thinking "that's because they're quacks", but my experience has proven to me otherwise: we went to the specialist in Phili, and he did various therapy techniques that drastically decreased my general feelings of stress and tension. A wonderful side effect of the decreased tension and stress was that I no longer could even wear the glasses I'd been perscribed without a significant amount of pain. My vision without the glasses had improved significantly in a matter of two days, simply by doing exercises which relaxed and stretched my eye muscles.
To this day, I wear the same glasses perscription I got after returning from that trip - just good enough so that I'd be able to legally drive. It's not strong enough to give me clarity at distances, but it's good enough for the time being. If I were to actually continue the therapy and exercises as I was supposed to, then I'd surely have much better vision, but I have a hard time motivating myself to do so. On the occasions when I find the motivation to do them (they're relatively tiring), I can notice a marginal increase in my visual accuity.
Another way to improve your vision is to wear reading glasses (+1 or +2, or a special perscription if your farsighted pescription isn't too strong) when you don't need clarity to function, as
I hardly think the companies that currently make such technology (MS, Sony, Panasonic, etc.) will simply roll over and let the media industry take this away. They'll likely pay their congress critters, and the congress critters will play both sides until they make a decision which can later be appealed at futher great cost, etc.
I have a friend that, when Quake came out, didn't hesitate to run it on his system - a 486 SX (I think, might have been a DX) 33MHz, with 8Mb of ram. And it worked - at the lowest screen size. But damn it, it worked, and was playable, if you sat realllly close to the screen.:P
The slashdot quote says "120 knots" is the maximum speed that these things can be. However, the linked to faa.gov site says a "stall speed of 45 knots". Not being familiar with aviation, this sounds like there's a bit of discrepency. Anyone able to clarify this?
Also, how many mph is 120 knots? or 45?
Two things seem fairly evident to me: I'd still not be able to fly a Curtis P-51 (as it travels at 440MPH, and I doubt a knott is roughly eq to 10mph), and this license wouldn't allow for effective self-transportation, as I suspect the speed of the plane to be closer to that of an automobile. Doesn't seem to be much of a mile/cost benefit there.
The problem with something like this is that it would likely either be an everyone-or-nobody change to the new system, or we'd have a scenario like the Windows API, where old code and functionality is left intact for legacy purposes (which, in effect, makes the new changes irrelevant, as the old exploitation methods are still viable).
Not saying I disagree, just playing devil's advocate.
It's always possible to monitor and find out what people are doing, and certainly also to prevent them from doing something unsavory or illegal...but look at what it does for civil liberties and privacy. Sure, everyone can agree that assault rifles are bad and are rightly illegal, but is it a step toward deeming other more innocuous activities illegal?
It's the same question - now why aren't the same people asking it?
Slashdot Mirror
This is no more stealing than copying an MP3 is. Show me what was taken in quantifiable terms, and I'll believe you.
No, this is the reverse engineering of a product - for profit. It was legal until recently, as such things are - now get this - conductive for business competition. However, what with the DMCA, such things are made illigal to protect big-business interests.
How quickly the collective mind forgets. Not long ago there'd be not one person on slashdot which would support Apple's tactics, and now mostly everyone is falling in, "Real is evil!" What nonsense. Sure, it's criminal what they did, thanks to the DMCA, but it's no different than making an after-market part for a vehicle (steering wheel, seat, stereo, etc.) without getting explicit permission from the vehicle manufacturer - which, last I checked, is fully legal.
Tactics and ethics of a hacker? My god, Orwell was right. "We are and always have been at war with East Asia."
How is this anything but the extension of Apple's product to make it more valuable? I guess I don't see how, or why, Apple would have a beef about this, particularly since Real media isn't the best quality.
Is it simply that because the laws now exist, they have to make the complaint, or they'll lose legitity? That's the most logical answer I can think of.
So much for Apple being a company which embraces the hacker mindset, eh geeks? (I'll mention that I, too, am a linux geek, so don't flame me.) This is really quite unfortunate.
I once spilled a mug half-full of case screws into an open, running case. The machine didn't even crash. I just shut it down, removed the screws, and went about my business.
The only other thing I've ever had that even approaches remotely 'dangerous' or abusive to my hardware was on an athlon 550. It was summer, and I didn't have a fan or AC for my place, so it was quite hot in my room - particularly since the outdoor temperature was probably 85F or so. I imagine it was roughly 100F ambient in the room for most of the day.
The machine had been running relatively well, but then suddenly became fairly unstable - locking up once a day or so, with the occasional crashed application. Roughly what you'd expect from Windows, I guess, but I was running Linux, so it was a bit of a problem.
At first I thought it might have been buggy software (experimental kernel patches), so it took me a couple days to finally get around to determining that the problem was hardware related. I ripped the case open and found out that, lo and behold, the heatsink had come off almost entirely. It might also be appropriate to note that I'd taken the CPU's backplate off (Slot A, if you recall, had a small PCB with L2 and the core on it, with a metal and plastic case), so I could get a closer connection to the core with the heatsink - I'd overclocked to 600MHz or so.
I put the heatsink back on, booted it up, and had no further problems (until the video card started to flake out months later, but that's another story...)
You evidently don't even understand what locate does, but that's besides the point.
If the file has no mention of the author even in a file attribute - guess what? WinFS won't be able to do a fucking thing, either. It's not a clarvoiant technology. It's a Microsoft product. Like every other MS product to date, it will be a lot of marketing bullshit, a lot of exageration, and a lot of "this is better than the second coming" nonsense. When the product finally ships, it will be a slow, bloated feature.
As I've seen it described, it's supposed to be not much more than the current disk indexing function (which doesn't exactly even work, ffs), plus the basic file meta information, in a databse. Big. Fucking Deal. There's nothing terribly impressive about it - even I could scramble a quick perl script together to query disk data, say, once a day (as a replacement to slocate, or what have you - you know what that is, right?) that would combine all the meta information into a database, and then write a quick little tool to query that db with simple syntax. Not terribly difficult.
I'll tell you what is impressive, though. That the MS engineers are actually integrating a MS SQL (or some retarded version of it)... with a filesystem. Anyone remotely familiar with the functionality of both will realize how retarded a concept it is. Sure, it's a neat idea, if you don't understand the technologies.
Aside from the speed and performance hit that will be taken on every single disk read or write (which I'm asuming will be the case, given the DB is supposedly integrated -with- the FS), it's going to result in a lot of extra, needless disk and operational memory being wasted.
And for the record: NTFS is not a 'good' filesystem. It is a featureful system with a lot of bugs, instabilities, and performance issues.
Mark my words: by the time it comes out, I want you to remember my post saying you're full of shit, and realize you've been told, and were being a fool. Maybe by 2007 (or whenever it's scheduled to come out) you'll have your high school diploma and a job at McD's, and you'll be able to afford a legit copy.
Does anyone else find the fact that someone is comparing WinFS to the likes of reiserfs (despite my dislike for it), XFS, and hell, even ext3?
Granted, the proposed featureset of WinFS is vastly 'superior' to that of the 3 main linux contenders, but it could be argued that WinFS is neither a filesystem itself, nor is it on par with any of the linux filesystems in terms of performance or stability (if NTFS5 is to be of any forboding).
I seem to recall reading about several projects that impliment WinFS-like features. I don't recall what they were, and I don't think they were kernel-space projects, but I recall thinking, "this looks nice".
Besides, let's be honest here. What practical functionality does WinFS provide that is above and beyond the combination of 'locate', and 'file' used in conjunction? WinFS seems to me to be merely a crude hack so as to make up for the fundamental shortcomings with MS's OS design.
Some might say this is a flame but... I hate reiser in it's current release. It's fairly unstable, and when it does go, you're pretty much fucked. I've used reiser twice, and of those two times, the filesystems died due to power outage or other similar effect within one or two events. That's not even approaching acceptable.
On the flip side, I've had multiple such snafus with XFS, but no filesystem failure. I've never even had to approach having to deal with trying to fix the system, as there's been no events which have resulted in fs corruption. Sure, power has gone out, but the machines have come back up again without a hitch.
Who wants to bet on whether or not this is industrial sabotage done by a competing company, conveniently timed to coincide with Google's IPO?
I can't imagine anyone having a bone to pick with Google. That is, unless they're a direct competitor. Even kiddies seem to think Google is the best thing since automated root kits.
Why not? Because the strength of MS in the future will not rely on the software itself, but the restrictions built within the software. Want to watch a DVD? Great, you've got to own a product with an MS-based operating system, as it's the only thing that has the proper DRM functionality. Etc.
In like respect, then the US gov shouldn't use closed-source software that was developed in any part overseas, nor should they use software that was developed in large part by blue card workers, as there's a higher risk involved there as well.
There seems to be a fundamental logic problem with this kind of debugger. It seems to be more of an 'interpretive debugger' in which it would need to know what you're trying to do in the first place. Thus, it would have to know what the code -should- look like in order to tell you what the problem is.
In essence, for there to be a "English debugger" (one that speaks more english than current debuggers, that is), it would essentially need to know how to program itself on top of being able to follow the flow of code and find where it breaks, so as to be able to tell you precisely what the problem is.
Sounds a bit fictional to me.
dear god man, 2nd to last nearly made me LOL. I laugh loudly, and I'm sitting in a class with 30 other people during the world's most boring lecture yet known to man.
As far as I know, it's not legally possible for someone to make a retroactive license.
Thus, if someone takes the standard and makes a GPLed application with it, the principles and code within that application are then made public domain. MS has patented it, yes - but it would also seem that they would be either not protecting their patent intentionally, or giving blanket rights to the patent to anyone that asks via the GPL.
Finally, now I know what to think about all this.
:P
I was beginning to wonder if I was supposed to think MS had done something right for once...
I wonder why debian sid doesn't yet have xorg available. Sid's been sitting on 4.3 for a long time.
I think it's interesting that FreeBSD's test has xorg before debian sid does. Kind of unfortunate.
I suspect that debian sid will have it just shortly after sarge goes stable.
I expect the problem to be that they are doing something like Doom 1 here. I have the feeling that a sequel of doom would not be a sequel at all if it didn't conform to the same gaming standards.
That, and I suspect that Id hasn't been into making games for a long time - roughly since Quake came out, I imagine. Why do I say this? Because they can make a LOT more money by licensing their game engine than they can by selling games. This is how they made so much money on Quake.
Does anyone else find this painfully ironic - that Ted Turner, of all people, is talking about the travesty that is large media congloberates?
This is the man that essentially owns Turner Broadcasting. Turner Broadcasting is responsible for, amongst other things, CNN. CNN defines the state of news in the US today, and maybe even the world.
Here's a snip from tedturner.com. It is not possible to say that Ted Turner has not been largely instrumental, if not mostly responsible for, the unification and conglomeration of media companies. It might appear, though, that he's had a change of heart - this would be nice, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
In December 1991, Turner acquired the rights, library and production facilities of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. Cartoon Network, launched on October 1, 1992, showcases the company's vast library of cartoons and original productions. Cartoon Network in Latin America was launched on April 30, 1993, offering viewers in Latin America and the Caribbean 24 hours of cartoons in three languages. TNT & Cartoon Network were launched in Europe on September 17, 1993, offering classic films and animation programming in seven languages. TNT & Cartoon Network in Asia Pacific, launched October 6, 1994, provides programming in English, with some programs dubbed or subtitled in Mandarin and Thai.
In January 1994, Turner Broadcasting merged with New Line Cinema. Films from New Line and the combined Turner and Warner Bros. library of film greats provide programming for Turner Classic Movies (TCM), a 24-hour commercial-free network launched in April 1994.
Turner Broadcasting continued to expand its news division with the creation of CNNRadio and CNN Airport Network, which provides programming for airline travelers in 29 U.S. airports, and CNN Interactive, the division responsible for multimedia/on-line news production and distribution. CNN en Español, which was launched on March 17, 1997, offers 24-hour Spanish-language news to viewers throughout the Americas.
Mr. Turner became Vice Chairman of Time Warner in October 1996, with the merger of Time Warner Inc. and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. Mr. Turner oversaw Time Warner's Cable Networks division, which included the assets of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.), the CNN Newsgroup, as well as Home Box Office, Cinemax, and the company's interests in Comedy Central and Court TV. He also oversaw New Line Cinema and the company's professional sports teams-the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Thrashers. In January 2001, he became Vice Chairman of AOL Time Warner, a position from which he served until May 2003.
Laser surgery is a good option if you've got quite bad eyesight; however, there are risks involved, as with any surgery. The risk might be negligible, but it's still a risk - even 'simple' procedures like wart removal can end poorly.
I'd like to let you know, however, that there's an alternative to getting lasik surgery that works quite well - therapy. It is basically free once you figure out how to do it yourself. My story is this:
When I was younger (middle school age), I had an old optomitrist prescribe glasses for me which had prisms in them, as my frequent (constant) reading had resulted in my left eye's muscles constricting, and pulling my left eye inwards. This elderly doctor told us that it was because of a 'weak eye' and not due to the constriction of muscles. I have my suspicions that he was years behind contemporary practice, as we lived in the boondocks at the time. At least he was a nice man. Hopefully God will take that into account during his sentencing, that's all I can hope for him.
At any rate, this glasses perscription ended up agrevating the situation. In addition to the prisms, the perscription was what I would call excessive - it was perscribed to make my vision as good as possible, not to make my vision acceptable for me to function, which would have been a significantly lower. Some of you might be thinking: that's common practice. As far as I know, this much, at least, is common practice as well.
My understanding of why such practice is bad, is: it results in eyes that are overly stressed. You become used to it after a while, of course - just as you would any minor malody, over time - but it's still damaging your eyes by stressing your eye to conform to the new perscription - stressing your eyes, causing them to get worse, as such a 'perfect' resolution isn't necessary. I don't recall the technical aspects, but that's the general idea.
This pattern of "get new, thicker glasses with prisms with a larger angle" continued until I was a freshman in high school. At that point, I couldn't even read things right in front of my face without glasses, and my left eye was functionally useless, as I pretty much did everything with my right eye - the left eye had the prism over it, and tired me out too much, so my brain decided to not use that eye. (I know tihs know in retrospect and current observations of how my eyes work). I was quite stressed out, constantly got frustrated with my glasses and my visual situation, so my parents decided to see what they could do about it.
At the time (1997, I think), the only specialists in the country, as far as I can recall, that dealt with such things were in Philidelphia and LA. Yes, that's quite sparse, and I realize that many of you are thinking "that's because they're quacks", but my experience has proven to me otherwise: we went to the specialist in Phili, and he did various therapy techniques that drastically decreased my general feelings of stress and tension. A wonderful side effect of the decreased tension and stress was that I no longer could even wear the glasses I'd been perscribed without a significant amount of pain. My vision without the glasses had improved significantly in a matter of two days, simply by doing exercises which relaxed and stretched my eye muscles.
To this day, I wear the same glasses perscription I got after returning from that trip - just good enough so that I'd be able to legally drive. It's not strong enough to give me clarity at distances, but it's good enough for the time being. If I were to actually continue the therapy and exercises as I was supposed to, then I'd surely have much better vision, but I have a hard time motivating myself to do so. On the occasions when I find the motivation to do them (they're relatively tiring), I can notice a marginal increase in my visual accuity.
Another way to improve your vision is to wear reading glasses (+1 or +2, or a special perscription if your farsighted pescription isn't too strong) when you don't need clarity to function, as
Wow. That sounds utterly rediculous, as you paint it. You reminded me of some of the cheesy anime films that get put on cartoon network (IMO).
But then, you kind of just described Star Wars, too. So it's all a matter of perspective. Not having seen the show, I can't comment directly.
I'm all for a good scifi film, though. Good scifi is too few and far between.
I hardly think the companies that currently make such technology (MS, Sony, Panasonic, etc.) will simply roll over and let the media industry take this away. They'll likely pay their congress critters, and the congress critters will play both sides until they make a decision which can later be appealed at futher great cost, etc.
Wasn't there an option on some 486 boards to have a secondary processor act as the FPU calculator? Or possibly just for a standalone FPU?
I have a friend that, when Quake came out, didn't hesitate to run it on his system - a 486 SX (I think, might have been a DX) 33MHz, with 8Mb of ram. And it worked - at the lowest screen size. But damn it, it worked, and was playable, if you sat realllly close to the screen. :P
Cinematography is displayed in theatres at 24 fps. I strongly suspect you'd get that, even with 'crappy' old hardware.
The slashdot quote says "120 knots" is the maximum speed that these things can be. However, the linked to faa.gov site says a "stall speed of 45 knots". Not being familiar with aviation, this sounds like there's a bit of discrepency. Anyone able to clarify this?
Also, how many mph is 120 knots? or 45?
Two things seem fairly evident to me: I'd still not be able to fly a Curtis P-51 (as it travels at 440MPH, and I doubt a knott is roughly eq to 10mph), and this license wouldn't allow for effective self-transportation, as I suspect the speed of the plane to be closer to that of an automobile. Doesn't seem to be much of a mile/cost benefit there.
The problem with something like this is that it would likely either be an everyone-or-nobody change to the new system, or we'd have a scenario like the Windows API, where old code and functionality is left intact for legacy purposes (which, in effect, makes the new changes irrelevant, as the old exploitation methods are still viable).
Not saying I disagree, just playing devil's advocate.
It's always possible to monitor and find out what people are doing, and certainly also to prevent them from doing something unsavory or illegal...but look at what it does for civil liberties and privacy. Sure, everyone can agree that assault rifles are bad and are rightly illegal, but is it a step toward deeming other more innocuous activities illegal?
It's the same question - now why aren't the same people asking it?