I'm not sure taking beer out of a perfectly good bottle counts as useful. If this keeps up, people are going to start thinking robots are for pansies. What we need is a robot that pours beer from a glass back into the bottle, and then only gives you the beer back after you beat it at arm wrestling, or maybe a game of 8 ball.
I think a better analogy would be cops raiding a house because the guy was distributing directions on where to find law abiding people. You know, since making personal copies is not illegal in Sweden. So it's really like telling you "Hey, I know a guy who has that -- and he'd probably let you have a copy," except it's one better: By acting as the intermediary (tracker), I'm also ensuring that he's really not charging you for it, and thus abiding by the law. Otherwise he could actually be selling copies, which is a crime, and I'd be complicit if I knew, or should have known.
Personally, I think five years is plenty. If the creator (artist/author/whatever) didn't succeed in convincing people that his creation was valuable within five years, I see no reason to support his failure. If I can't currently convince my boss I deserve to stay on, then that's my shortcoming. It may be that the company will fall apart without me, and society will be worse for it, but I don't think there should be legal protection to prevent my boss from making the mistake of firing me. Mistakes are just as important as successes; they're just not as enjoyable. Copyright is a form of welfare: Society as a whole makes a small sacrifice to prevent people from being significantly disenfranchised. It should be very limited, and should provide significant incentive for people to do better in the future.
This argument drives me nuts..."Well, I wouldn't buy that shit anyway, and I just made a copy, I didn't physically deprive them of anything."
Well, 1) How pathetic must you be to waste your time downloading shit you don't value? Either that or you're lying, and enjoy getting something for free.
"Value" is not a boolean. There's plenty of stuff I don't value enough to buy, but I'll still borrow it from a friend or listen to it on the radio. I may even record it when it's on TV. I borrow books from the library as well. They're not completely free, since my taxes help pay for the library, but the artist definately isn't getting compensated for every person who borrows a book or CD. Conversely, some of the items at the library -- such as reference materials -- are invaluable to me, I would definately buy them if they weren't available for near-free at the library. So by that logic, the publishers have lost a sale.
Essentially people are, and always have been, paying for things when they need to, not when the selling party wants them to. The selling parties would like to change that, obviously, but I'm not convinced that such a change is either necessary or desirable for the public good. As long as there's a mechanism in place for content producers to be compensated by those who choose to compensate, I believe that's sufficient.
2) If you delete a bunch of vital information on a company's server, would you use the defense that "I didn't physically destroy anything, I just realigned some bits on a hard drive"?
There's a clear difference between reproducing something and destroying it -- namely one is commonly acceptable and the other is not. If I buy some corn, and then plant that corn instead of eating it, I can have the very same corn in my backyard that the farmer would have sold me next year had I not planted it. If I give away an ear, someone else can do the same thing. Is that fair? Of course, because I've done work to reproduce that corn. If I reproduce a CD, I've arguably done more work than the publisher. Perhaps the original content producer hasn't been compensated, but a) he was likely compensated a flat fee to begin with (royalties ARE rare), and b) it goes back to the point I made in response to the previous question: People pay when they must, not when the seller wants them to. But, you say, that's not the same thing! An artist has produced something new, not a piece of corn! True, but if I create a new vegetable, and then sell it to a farmer for exclusive distribution, whose fault is it when other people figure out they can just plant it themselves? I probably should have thought of that in the first place, and provided sufficient incentive for people to obtain it directly from me. There is merit to the idea that society should likewise provide some inventives for people to create new things (and copyright is one of those incentives), but an incentive is just that, and if it's not good enough, then perhaps we should explore alternative solutions. I would submit that copyright is "good enough" as it stands, or stood. That is; preventing other people, for a limited time, from reproducing/distributing a work for profit without permission from the creator should be a criminal offense. People who desire to compensate the creator have a means, and those who have no such desire will find other ways. Anything more is just creating more of a burden on society, and the benefits are questionable, at best. Making ALL copying a criminal act was, I believe, a mistake, in that it costs society more to make criminals out of people than to simply accept that such activity is impossible to control.
Just forgot to mention: If anyone's thinking of emulating my RAIF solution, make sure to enclose the storage area in sound dampening material. Nothing's quite as startling as 178 thousand floppy drives making disk-seeking sounds in unison.
That's why my "hard drive" is a RAIF 0. Just 177,777 floppy drives give me 250GB of rock solid storage, and in the unlikely event that one disk fails I can just replace it for a few cents. With a transfer rate of a typical floppy at around 500Kb/s, the theoretical peak transfer rate is around 10.6GB/s. PCI bottlenecks prevent me from testing actual peak throughput.
Naturally I'd like to get set up with RAIF 0+1, but I'm waiting for the kids to move out so I have somewhere to store the second drive bank. I had previously considered building an extension onto the house, but my research indicates that that is not a cost effective solution.
Or 1 Director's Special International Extended LOTR Trilogy in SuperDeluxeHD with discreet 7.1-channel Surround Sound, featuring soundtracks in each of: all currently spoken languages, 3 dead ones, orcish, elvish, and -- controversially -- Klingon.
These inventions pale in comparison to the likes of a bicycle with a seat on the handlebars and extra pedals, and a wig which wicks perspiration, as seen on American Inventor. Pretty much anyone could create a dog nail clipper, but it takes true genius to develop a toilet lid with a filter which prevents contaminates from getting sprayed all over the rest of the toilet using good old fashioned magic.
Strict by what measure? In VA, a friend of mine got 30 days for driving on suspended. Weekends only, but 30 days nonetheless.
One of the guys I worked with was there on work release, doing 1 year for his 3rd DUI in some years (5 or 10, not sure). That was in WI which, from what I've seen, is pretty leniant overall; at least until recently.
Anyway, even a small sentence can be devastating, especially at a young age. Most people will lose their jobs because of it, default on bills, possibly lose everything they own when the landlord evicts in absentia, etc. I don't think most judges (or the public) fully appreciate the damage done by a jail sentence. Not saying they're not justified in many cases, but 45 days can be a lot worse than it sounds when you factor in all the ramifications.. it can utterly ruin someone if they don't have very good friends, or family nearby. And if it's over a moving violation, they've probably lost their license for at least a year, which means they're relying on someone else for transportation, or risking more jail time by driving anyway. Nobody considers all of that stuff when they jump in the car after having 1 too many, so the deterrant effects are minimal, and the correctional effects for the person prosecuted are debatable.. Maybe they'll reform themselves and bounce back, or maybe they'll crumble or become embittered and end up being an even larger burden on society.
It is a tough balance and every company has to decide what is right for them,' said Estberg. However, Estberg said that for the moment, the company will continue to leave the responsibility of installing software with its employees.
It's telling that they presume you have to be an administrator to install software. There's no reason why that should be the case. Personally I think it's a great idea to force employees to use user accounts... Maybe then the "user" account will aquire some degree of functionality beyond the ability to login.
I'd say the lack of complaints on behalf of people removed from life support speaks highly to their satisfaction with the decision.
That's a joke, in poor taste, but I honestly believe the people who suffer most in these situations are not the people laying in the hospital beds, but the loved ones who must struggle with deciding their fate.
The reason I would never want extraordinary measures used to save my life has nothing to do with my survival instinct or lack thereof, but rather because as it stands now, when I can look at the hypothetical situation objectively, I can say that I would not want to risk being an enormous burden on my loved ones. The small chance that I might have a full recovery is not worth putting them through the stress of waiting to find out, or the years of taking care of what-used-to-be-me. Furthermore, I wouldn't trust anyone to objectively make such a decision in regards to my life, because they would make their decision the same way I have -- based not on their own best interest, but rather what they would think best for me. But it's my life, and I'd rather take responsibility for what happens to me; if for no other reason than to alleviate any potential guilt. Of course I'd never tell my family that, because that would defeat the purpose. As far as they know, it's just what I want.
And really, even if I changed my mind in the actual situation but couldn't communicate it, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't care once I was gone.
That's just my position, and I respect anyone else's position or decision as well. I think people should be free to make whatever arrangements they desire, and government should keep well out of it.
I'm saying that most people do have the money, they just don't know how to prioritize their purchases.
Out of context, this is one of the truest things ever said on Slashdot. In context, it is one of the silliest.
Maybe their priorities just don't include these items. I have no desire for an HDTV. I'd eventually like to replace my little 13" with something like a 30" (maybe even one with more than just coax input), but even that is low on my list of priorities. Sure, I *could* save up for an HDTV and PS3 in a few months, but right now that money is going into savings for travel, a house, pet care, a new laptop, among other things that are higher on my priority list than these.
It's still true in context, because the context is a response to people who DO want a console, complaining that console/HDTV prices are too high. If you're not one of those people, then you're obviously prioritizing just fine.
My thoughts exactly. A "correction" in hardware prices would imply that they're overpriced (or underpriced, I suppose), but expensive != overpriced, and prices are a function of what the market will bear. As long as millions of parents will fork out the cash for little Johnny, we can expect to see high prices for consoles. In fact, the success of the 360 indicates that, if anything, prices could probably stand to go a little higher.
On the other hand, HD displays are expensive because of research into new technologies, the relatively low scale production, and the costs of producing new components. As time passes, as technology matures, and as economies of scale increase, displays will naturally come down in price. Plasma screens, for example, have gone from upwards of $10,000 for all models to around $1,500 for many models. That's a pretty healthy drop.
I'm no economist (obviously), but there's no getting around supply and demand, and I don't see demand dwindling in the near future. According to the Consumer Expendature Index, spending for entertainment rivaled that of healthcare in 2004, the last year for which statistics are currently available. Granted, external pressures such as rising energy costs and natural disasters may well limit spending on entertainment, but the gaming market appears otherwise healthy, at least from my perspective.
Well I'm not too concerned with the DRM. DRM is more the icing on the bad idea cake and I don't see how it can be very robust if all copies are identical. The meat and potatoes of the problem is charging people to use their own bandwidth to distribute someone else's product, and charging the same price as a tangible copy which has higher distribution costs and perhaps more features -- a nice cover at least, and usable as a coaster once you've ripped the movie to your HTPC. I see the stick for discouraging illegal filesharing, in the form of lawsuits, but where's the carrot for using this new legitimate system? Also I'm very hungry, as you probably gathered from all the food metaphors.
I suspect that this super mouse is simply being more human with regards to cancer and that the end result is that we'll rediscover something our bodies already do.
Right, the researchers never proposed that the immune system wasn't already fighting cancer; rather they said it likely was. If I understand the study correctly, what they found is a gene which, when activated, causes a higher degree of vigilance in the immune response to the point that even well-developed cancers are eliminated while leaving healthy cells intact. That the immune system can be fine-tuned is not out of the realm of possibility, rather it is the basis of vaccination, although the method is completely different. They speculate that such a gene may very well exist in humans, and may be the reason for the otherwise unexplained spontaneous regression of cancers in some people. But they also recognize that there's a huge leap between finding such a gene in mice and locating an identical counterpart in humans, and that even if such a gene were identified, the method of treatment would require years to develop. Nonetheless, it is encouraging that the experiments were successful, and it would have been equally educational if they were not. It may turn out to be a dead end in the long run, but c'est la vie.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/DirectX/productin fo/sysreqs/default.mspx
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win9x_81.98.html
Apparently.
That would be June 6th, but that would just raise too much suspicion, especially once people find out the cubes look like this .
I'm not sure taking beer out of a perfectly good bottle counts as useful. If this keeps up, people are going to start thinking robots are for pansies. What we need is a robot that pours beer from a glass back into the bottle, and then only gives you the beer back after you beat it at arm wrestling, or maybe a game of 8 ball.
I think a better analogy would be cops raiding a house because the guy was distributing directions on where to find law abiding people. You know, since making personal copies is not illegal in Sweden. So it's really like telling you "Hey, I know a guy who has that -- and he'd probably let you have a copy," except it's one better: By acting as the intermediary (tracker), I'm also ensuring that he's really not charging you for it, and thus abiding by the law. Otherwise he could actually be selling copies, which is a crime, and I'd be complicit if I knew, or should have known.
Personally, I think five years is plenty. If the creator (artist/author/whatever) didn't succeed in convincing people that his creation was valuable within five years, I see no reason to support his failure. If I can't currently convince my boss I deserve to stay on, then that's my shortcoming. It may be that the company will fall apart without me, and society will be worse for it, but I don't think there should be legal protection to prevent my boss from making the mistake of firing me. Mistakes are just as important as successes; they're just not as enjoyable. Copyright is a form of welfare: Society as a whole makes a small sacrifice to prevent people from being significantly disenfranchised. It should be very limited, and should provide significant incentive for people to do better in the future.
This argument drives me nuts..."Well, I wouldn't buy that shit anyway, and I just made a copy, I didn't physically deprive them of anything."
Well, 1) How pathetic must you be to waste your time downloading shit you don't value? Either that or you're lying, and enjoy getting something for free.
"Value" is not a boolean. There's plenty of stuff I don't value enough to buy, but I'll still borrow it from a friend or listen to it on the radio. I may even record it when it's on TV. I borrow books from the library as well. They're not completely free, since my taxes help pay for the library, but the artist definately isn't getting compensated for every person who borrows a book or CD. Conversely, some of the items at the library -- such as reference materials -- are invaluable to me, I would definately buy them if they weren't available for near-free at the library. So by that logic, the publishers have lost a sale.
Essentially people are, and always have been, paying for things when they need to, not when the selling party wants them to. The selling parties would like to change that, obviously, but I'm not convinced that such a change is either necessary or desirable for the public good. As long as there's a mechanism in place for content producers to be compensated by those who choose to compensate, I believe that's sufficient.
2) If you delete a bunch of vital information on a company's server, would you use the defense that "I didn't physically destroy anything, I just realigned some bits on a hard drive"?
There's a clear difference between reproducing something and destroying it -- namely one is commonly acceptable and the other is not. If I buy some corn, and then plant that corn instead of eating it, I can have the very same corn in my backyard that the farmer would have sold me next year had I not planted it. If I give away an ear, someone else can do the same thing. Is that fair? Of course, because I've done work to reproduce that corn. If I reproduce a CD, I've arguably done more work than the publisher. Perhaps the original content producer hasn't been compensated, but a) he was likely compensated a flat fee to begin with (royalties ARE rare), and b) it goes back to the point I made in response to the previous question: People pay when they must, not when the seller wants them to. But, you say, that's not the same thing! An artist has produced something new, not a piece of corn! True, but if I create a new vegetable, and then sell it to a farmer for exclusive distribution, whose fault is it when other people figure out they can just plant it themselves? I probably should have thought of that in the first place, and provided sufficient incentive for people to obtain it directly from me. There is merit to the idea that society should likewise provide some inventives for people to create new things (and copyright is one of those incentives), but an incentive is just that, and if it's not good enough, then perhaps we should explore alternative solutions. I would submit that copyright is "good enough" as it stands, or stood. That is; preventing other people, for a limited time, from reproducing/distributing a work for profit without permission from the creator should be a criminal offense. People who desire to compensate the creator have a means, and those who have no such desire will find other ways. Anything more is just creating more of a burden on society, and the benefits are questionable, at best. Making ALL copying a criminal act was, I believe, a mistake, in that it costs society more to make criminals out of people than to simply accept that such activity is impossible to control.
Just forgot to mention: If anyone's thinking of emulating my RAIF solution, make sure to enclose the storage area in sound dampening material. Nothing's quite as startling as 178 thousand floppy drives making disk-seeking sounds in unison.
That's why my "hard drive" is a RAIF 0. Just 177,777 floppy drives give me 250GB of rock solid storage, and in the unlikely event that one disk fails I can just replace it for a few cents. With a transfer rate of a typical floppy at around 500Kb/s, the theoretical peak transfer rate is around 10.6GB/s. PCI bottlenecks prevent me from testing actual peak throughput.
Naturally I'd like to get set up with RAIF 0+1, but I'm waiting for the kids to move out so I have somewhere to store the second drive bank. I had previously considered building an extension onto the house, but my research indicates that that is not a cost effective solution.
Or 1 Director's Special International Extended LOTR Trilogy in SuperDeluxeHD with discreet 7.1-channel Surround Sound, featuring soundtracks in each of: all currently spoken languages, 3 dead ones, orcish, elvish, and -- controversially -- Klingon.
And the best part: In a bind, you can eat your house. Bring 1 qt. water to boil, add 4ci of house, and season with a pinch of Mrs. Dash.
Obviously these could never be sold in here in the US, because everyone would eat themselves out of house and home.. literally.
These inventions pale in comparison to the likes of a bicycle with a seat on the handlebars and extra pedals, and a wig which wicks perspiration, as seen on American Inventor. Pretty much anyone could create a dog nail clipper, but it takes true genius to develop a toilet lid with a filter which prevents contaminates from getting sprayed all over the rest of the toilet using good old fashioned magic.
Strict by what measure? In VA, a friend of mine got 30 days for driving on suspended. Weekends only, but 30 days nonetheless.
One of the guys I worked with was there on work release, doing 1 year for his 3rd DUI in some years (5 or 10, not sure). That was in WI which, from what I've seen, is pretty leniant overall; at least until recently.
Anyway, even a small sentence can be devastating, especially at a young age. Most people will lose their jobs because of it, default on bills, possibly lose everything they own when the landlord evicts in absentia, etc. I don't think most judges (or the public) fully appreciate the damage done by a jail sentence. Not saying they're not justified in many cases, but 45 days can be a lot worse than it sounds when you factor in all the ramifications.. it can utterly ruin someone if they don't have very good friends, or family nearby. And if it's over a moving violation, they've probably lost their license for at least a year, which means they're relying on someone else for transportation, or risking more jail time by driving anyway. Nobody considers all of that stuff when they jump in the car after having 1 too many, so the deterrant effects are minimal, and the correctional effects for the person prosecuted are debatable.. Maybe they'll reform themselves and bounce back, or maybe they'll crumble or become embittered and end up being an even larger burden on society.
Even better.. It can override votes and it can run the Army.
-D. Cheney
It is a tough balance and every company has to decide what is right for them,' said Estberg. However, Estberg said that for the moment, the company will continue to leave the responsibility of installing software with its employees.
It's telling that they presume you have to be an administrator to install software. There's no reason why that should be the case. Personally I think it's a great idea to force employees to use user accounts... Maybe then the "user" account will aquire some degree of functionality beyond the ability to login.
I'd say the lack of complaints on behalf of people removed from life support speaks highly to their satisfaction with the decision.
That's a joke, in poor taste, but I honestly believe the people who suffer most in these situations are not the people laying in the hospital beds, but the loved ones who must struggle with deciding their fate.
The reason I would never want extraordinary measures used to save my life has nothing to do with my survival instinct or lack thereof, but rather because as it stands now, when I can look at the hypothetical situation objectively, I can say that I would not want to risk being an enormous burden on my loved ones. The small chance that I might have a full recovery is not worth putting them through the stress of waiting to find out, or the years of taking care of what-used-to-be-me. Furthermore, I wouldn't trust anyone to objectively make such a decision in regards to my life, because they would make their decision the same way I have -- based not on their own best interest, but rather what they would think best for me. But it's my life, and I'd rather take responsibility for what happens to me; if for no other reason than to alleviate any potential guilt. Of course I'd never tell my family that, because that would defeat the purpose. As far as they know, it's just what I want.
And really, even if I changed my mind in the actual situation but couldn't communicate it, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't care once I was gone.
That's just my position, and I respect anyone else's position or decision as well. I think people should be free to make whatever arrangements they desire, and government should keep well out of it.
No wonder it's only $100.. it's a Speak & Spell with a flip up screen.
"Now shpell: Gerahh"
"X - X - X - X - X - X - X..."
Heh heh.. those were the days.
Can't the actual human employees at the head of the line make this determination and alert whomever has the authority to open another lane?
That's not in the job description.
Oops, I closed the italics early.. only the last paragraph is mine.
I'm saying that most people do have the money, they just don't know how to prioritize their purchases.
Out of context, this is one of the truest things ever said on Slashdot. In context, it is one of the silliest.
Maybe their priorities just don't include these items. I have no desire for an HDTV. I'd eventually like to replace my little 13" with something like a 30" (maybe even one with more than just coax input), but even that is low on my list of priorities. Sure, I *could* save up for an HDTV and PS3 in a few months, but right now that money is going into savings for travel, a house, pet care, a new laptop, among other things that are higher on my priority list than these.
It's still true in context, because the context is a response to people who DO want a console, complaining that console/HDTV prices are too high. If you're not one of those people, then you're obviously prioritizing just fine.
My thoughts exactly. A "correction" in hardware prices would imply that they're overpriced (or underpriced, I suppose), but expensive != overpriced, and prices are a function of what the market will bear. As long as millions of parents will fork out the cash for little Johnny, we can expect to see high prices for consoles. In fact, the success of the 360 indicates that, if anything, prices could probably stand to go a little higher.
On the other hand, HD displays are expensive because of research into new technologies, the relatively low scale production, and the costs of producing new components. As time passes, as technology matures, and as economies of scale increase, displays will naturally come down in price. Plasma screens, for example, have gone from upwards of $10,000 for all models to around $1,500 for many models. That's a pretty healthy drop.
I'm no economist (obviously), but there's no getting around supply and demand, and I don't see demand dwindling in the near future. According to the Consumer Expendature Index, spending for entertainment rivaled that of healthcare in 2004, the last year for which statistics are currently available. Granted, external pressures such as rising energy costs and natural disasters may well limit spending on entertainment, but the gaming market appears otherwise healthy, at least from my perspective.
Its more accurate than the clocks at our local public DART train station. They are always four seconds slow.
Well at least they're precise!
Well I'm not too concerned with the DRM. DRM is more the icing on the bad idea cake and I don't see how it can be very robust if all copies are identical. The meat and potatoes of the problem is charging people to use their own bandwidth to distribute someone else's product, and charging the same price as a tangible copy which has higher distribution costs and perhaps more features -- a nice cover at least, and usable as a coaster once you've ripped the movie to your HTPC. I see the stick for discouraging illegal filesharing, in the form of lawsuits, but where's the carrot for using this new legitimate system? Also I'm very hungry, as you probably gathered from all the food metaphors.
Yeah, just don't lock your knees..
You've obviously never seen this guy work his magic.
I suspect that this super mouse is simply being more human with regards to cancer and that the end result is that we'll rediscover something our bodies already do.
Right, the researchers never proposed that the immune system wasn't already fighting cancer; rather they said it likely was. If I understand the study correctly, what they found is a gene which, when activated, causes a higher degree of vigilance in the immune response to the point that even well-developed cancers are eliminated while leaving healthy cells intact. That the immune system can be fine-tuned is not out of the realm of possibility, rather it is the basis of vaccination, although the method is completely different. They speculate that such a gene may very well exist in humans, and may be the reason for the otherwise unexplained spontaneous regression of cancers in some people. But they also recognize that there's a huge leap between finding such a gene in mice and locating an identical counterpart in humans, and that even if such a gene were identified, the method of treatment would require years to develop. Nonetheless, it is encouraging that the experiments were successful, and it would have been equally educational if they were not. It may turn out to be a dead end in the long run, but c'est la vie.