My company (nameless for now). We are a MS "partner". A few weeks ago, they suddenly decided to tell us that they were developing the exact same software as our product, and they thanked us for all the help we had given them. If we want, they will let us continue to be a "partner" and give them our great ideas for as long as we still have funding (which runs out in December).
Romans had been using a system of compression that it still unrivaled today (in terms of compression ratio, unfortuntly not in terms of speed). Very simply, you have two men on each side of the valley, one with a flag and one with a bowl and a jug of water. On the sides of the bowls are little notches.
The sender raises his flag, and both sides start pouring water into thier bowls at the same rate. When the sending side's bowl is filled high enough, he stops pouring and his flag man raises the flag again to signal the other side to stop pouring as well.
So what wa sthe point of this? Well, now both sides of the valley now have the same number of notches filled in thier bowels. Each notches, of course, was a particular battle plan that was to be carried out. But for out purposes, it could be an ascii byte of information.
This kind of "compression" is essentially one with an infinite compression ratio, i.e. any amount of data can be "sent" using only two bits of information (the start and stop bit). The only real problem with using this kind of system is one of time. Clocks are just not accurate enough to make this kind of system any faster than just sending data in the normal way.
Anyway, I'll leave it up to the rest of you to figure a way to make this into the "next big thing", but I just wanted to note that, while 99.99999% of these claims are fradulent, there is a basis for such a scheme to exist.
Without strong copyright protections, the incentive to
innovate would be diminished. In fact, this issue was so important
to the Founding Fathers that the ability of Congress to protect
copyrights is actually written into our Constitution itself.
I can't figure out if this woman is really ignorant, or just does a good job at playing that way as long as the cash keeps rolling in... Someone should point out the other things "actually written into our Constitution", like say the first amendment rights of free speech (Which the DMCA does away with if you are using those pesky rights to talk about encryption).
Spend some time watching "The FBI Files" or another of those true crime shows. In every single case, the killer is caught either through
a) dumb luck (the cop, after five years of searching, bumps into the guy at disneyland or something)
b) dumb criminal (going back to the scene of the crime, going to the cops with some "new evidence" long after you were cleared, running directly to your mother's, girlfriend's, or best friend's house to "hide out")
I have no doubt that the spy game works the same way.
See this? It's the smallest violin in the world, playing for the loss of the once ubiquitous "Hamster Dance" faction of the Internet.
The one real draw of the internet, the low cost of entry, still is true. You are still free to go and make your own sites, just go ahead and do it. Just don't blame people for not visiting it if it isn't interesting...
(On a slightly different note, did anyone notice that the "top 4" companies were all portals? Maybe people's web browsers have set those sites as thier home page, and they get a "free" hit every time the browser loads up.)
...are two fold. First of all, there is the Great Dumbening of American children that has to be playing a part. I know the entire LEGO enterprise isn't based on selling to children in America, but there must be a large chunk of cashflow slowly being strangled to death as we teach out children that using your imagination and thinking too hard is a terrible thing to do. Lego, being a toy based nearly 100% on imagination is naturally a victim of this.
Of course, Lego has tried to keep up by creating more simplistic designs and using large, special use "blocks" to create less imagination-taxing objects, but it isn't nearly enough to combat our efforts.
The second problem comes from Lego's pricing. I have seen the recent prices on the more interesting sets, and they can't compete. The really huge sets, the ones that look like a full day of fun to build, and they sell for over $100 at Toys'r'us. That is more than most playstation games. And when you make a kid these days chose between the instant, never ending gratification of Quake III Arena for the PS2 and a rinky dinky Lego pirate ship, he is going to pick the former every time. Kids these days are a lost cause for Lego.
If Lego wants to stay competitive they will have to learn how to cut prices down to $20 for the large sets, which shouldn't be impossible (how much does Lego plastic cost to make?), and hope that all of us 20/30-something slashdotters will start buying them.
One would think in a civilized society, somone on the prosecution would stop for a second and actually think about what they are doing. They original plaintifs have since changed thier minds, the public (at least those who know about it) is against it, the man is not even a U.S. citizen! The case in completely unwinnable, and unworthy. At best it will get thrown out right away, at worst it will go all the way to the Supreme Court before getting struck down. Why can't the prosecution see that they are in a perfect lose-lose situation. They don't even have the moral imperative on thier side to keep going, becuase locking up somone for what amounts to thought crime is morally wrong.
I realize this is ranting, but please, where is the glimmer of intelligence in these people that tells them to give up now?
Yes, I know you can live off of 12,000 a year in Russia, but that isn't the point. The point is that there is a moral imperative to pay a reasonable sum to anyone who is working for you; Offering just how much you can get away with and no more is wrong. Just because the Russian programmers don't know or do know and are willing to be exploited doesn't mean that it is right to do so.
I know it has been said before, but $12,000 a year for a programmer position makes me feel icky. Where are all the people chanting in front of the world trade center complaining about the "russians taking our jobs?":)
Seriously though, how can the company feel even the least bit of pride in knowing that they are exploiting the naivety of the foriegn job market by the order of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars? It's not like they really need to pay them an exhorbant amount of money (hell they could even pay them half as much as an American programmer and still save money) but they should at least be fair. Is "Business
Ethics 101" still taught in universities?
If this network DID become as ubiquitous as the writer thinks it will be, then the need for actual internet access will be nill. The wireless network will BE the internet for all practical purposes.
I suppose a con is that anyone could just T-splice into your powerlines and listen in to your packets. But on the plus side, anyone foolish enough to splice into a 10,000 volt powerline probably won't be listening for very long...
Hey, maybe this kind of technology will see the advent of Black ICE like we all used to read about in Gibson's books...:)
Well, or you could use this kind of behavior to your advantage. I persoanlly charge a $500 bag viewing fee to anyone who wishes to look inside my bag. Just stop me and ask. I'll present the form for you to sign, and after you hand me the money you get to look in my bag! Just like you can't force the doctors who walk into your store to perform surgery, you can't force me to open my bag. Of course, I am not allowed to shop too many places nowadays...:)
Didn't they already make this game?
on
Pirates!
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
Well, considering that everything a person writes, unless explicity stated as being public domain, is protected with a default copyright, she basically can't use the interent...
This, my friends, is the hammer I have been waiting for to start bashing the proverbial heads of all the usenet users who annoy me. From now on, you won't be getting flames from me, instead your ISP will be getting an email from me becuase you quoted my last copywritten post in your reply... Watch out America, here I come!:)
For decades the dominant media-marketriod elite
have been carefully cultivating the western mind. We have been taught that shiny, colorful, noisy things are good. We have slowly developed a powerful, salivating passion for these things. It is more important for us to buy the latest CDs, the trediest clothes, the fastest cars, at an easy 1000%-10000% markup over thier cost to produce than it is to pay the rent, or buy groceries. It is a far graver misfortune to our minds to miss one "very special" episode of Friends than it is to miss out on a national election.
Considering all the coaxing, training, and brainwashing that they have given us, it is any wonder that we feel perfectly justified in getting out hands on that sweet, sweet intellectual property by any means?
You can't expect people to forsake their livelihood in favor of an unrealistic utopian ideal.
No, you misunderstand... Right now there is really no viable way to make a living as a musician or and artists. There are the lucky few, of course, but for the vast majority, you can't raise a family on an artists salary. Why do you think that is? It's becuase no one is willing to buy YOUR work (except you most die-hard fans and friends), instead they are busy handing over that money that you should be making to the corperations. Do you actually believe for a second that the DMCA protects you, the small-time artists? You are sadly mistaken. It protects only the big players.
If music, videos, games are pirated all the time, at some time there will be no more music, videos or games.
Do you really think that? Are you saying that there are no artists who enjoy playing music just for fun? Are there no writers who write stories becuase they love making worlds come to life? No game designers who just want to create some fun and/or bragging right for thier friends?
Honestly, I think the absolute best possble thing for the creative fields would be if the corporate element just vanished. Sure you wouldn't see nationally-known artists making millions in front of 50,000 seat auditoriums, but is that how you want to appreciate music?
I would seriously prefer local groups, making realistic money (money like a school teacher would make), playing good, interesting, original music to the current sludge that comes out of the entertainment machine.
Fame and money is not a right. It is a strange abboration that somehow grew out of the machine-like corperate quest for money. Just look around at the real world. You don't see world-renound lecturers shouting out scathing political commentaries to hords of screaming fans who paid $139 for a seat. You don't see scientists mobbed by teenagers when they step out of thier stretched limos.
It would not be a terrible thing is the score was evened out a little.
I am not very knowledgeable about this kind of thing, so maybe I am just blowing smoke here, but don't you kind of fall into an infinite loop of metadata after a while? I mean, don't need to have to know things like, say, the size of metadata. Then you have to know the size of the meta-metadata? Then you have to know the size of the metameta-metadata? How do you get around that? (I'm sure there is a simple answer, but I am scratching my head.)
I remember a few weeks ago there was a study (I can't find it now, slashdot search is down) showing that video games increased intelligence. So which is it, hmmmm? Could it be both? Does this mean in 50 years we will have a society of nothing but brilliantly insane Lex Luthor clones running the show? I always wondered where those comic book super-villians came from, now I know, they are our children! Now I'll bet everyone thinks twice before "saving the children".:)
Wow, how desperate do you have to be to actually warn against a competitor by name and tell your customers not to chose them. What ever happened to advertising your products strengths as opposed to your opponents weaknesses?
Now, I am not going to say anything about Intel's products, but it is REALLY grasping a straws when the only ammunition you have is whining to your clients that your cheaper, quicker, and more savvy competition may not have it's licensing in order...
only one original supplier, the game's NPCs, none of the goods decay or wear out with the exception of food (which can be freely summoned), and there are no taxes or such.
Funny thing, but all of these points are wrong. First off, there are three suppliers. The NPCs, like you said, but also there is a strong questing infrastructure and also trade skills that are very valuable. And that is only for physical things, many people also are willing to pay for spells cast in thier favor (Ressurection, speed boosts, long-distance teleports, etc.)
As for things degrading, there are both things that degrade over time (Potions, limited charge items, items that vanish on log-out), and also things that are obsoleted (either through new and better versions coming out, or through environmental changes that affect the items making them less potent). The world of Norrath is constantly changing, not just new zones and such, but even the rules of how the world works, and every time a change is made, players have to adapt and change tactics. These adaptions the players make change the types of weapons and items they will need to succeed. You also have, on rare occasions, Verant changing individual items themselves to make the less powerful (thus less desirable).
As for direct taxes, yes there are none, but there are MANY money-sinks in the world. Not only do you have to sink in a lot of items becuase of the high failure rate, you also have uneven buyback rates skewed highly in favor of the NPC merchants.
Yes over time everyone eventually makes some money, but they also lose it. I have some friends who are just now reaching level 60 (the highest in EQ) who are not finding themselves strapped for cash after buying hard to find items and spells.
It is actually a very reasonable go at building a model economy, I'm very interested to see the paper when it's done.
Oh, very true. For example, if I were to do a poll here at MY office, I could tell you that 100% of the developers here use Java! 100%! Wow, there are no more programming languages being used anymore! They are also 100% male, which means that the end of the human race is getting close...:)
I was under the impression that the blue dye in LCD's only had a shorter lifespan on Windows machines, due to thier, ahem, constant use... *cough* BSOD *cough*:)
Slashdot Mirror
My company (nameless for now). We are a MS "partner". A few weeks ago, they suddenly decided to tell us that they were developing the exact same software as our product, and they thanked us for all the help we had given them. If we want, they will let us continue to be a "partner" and give them our great ideas for as long as we still have funding (which runs out in December).
Romans had been using a system of compression that it still unrivaled today (in terms of compression ratio, unfortuntly not in terms of speed). Very simply, you have two men on each side of the valley, one with a flag and one with a bowl and a jug of water. On the sides of the bowls are little notches.
The sender raises his flag, and both sides start pouring water into thier bowls at the same rate. When the sending side's bowl is filled high enough, he stops pouring and his flag man raises the flag again to signal the other side to stop pouring as well.
So what wa sthe point of this? Well, now both sides of the valley now have the same number of notches filled in thier bowels. Each notches, of course, was a particular battle plan that was to be carried out. But for out purposes, it could be an ascii byte of information.
This kind of "compression" is essentially one with an infinite compression ratio, i.e. any amount of data can be "sent" using only two bits of information (the start and stop bit). The only real problem with using this kind of system is one of time. Clocks are just not accurate enough to make this kind of system any faster than just sending data in the normal way.
Anyway, I'll leave it up to the rest of you to figure a way to make this into the "next big thing", but I just wanted to note that, while 99.99999% of these claims are fradulent, there is a basis for such a scheme to exist.
...All I see are trees!
Without strong copyright protections, the incentive to
innovate would be diminished. In fact, this issue was so important
to the Founding Fathers that the ability of Congress to protect
copyrights is actually written into our Constitution itself.
I can't figure out if this woman is really ignorant, or just does a good job at playing that way as long as the cash keeps rolling in... Someone should point out the other things "actually written into our Constitution", like say the first amendment rights of free speech (Which the DMCA does away with if you are using those pesky rights to talk about encryption).
Spend some time watching "The FBI Files" or another of those true crime shows. In every single case, the killer is caught either through
a) dumb luck (the cop, after five years of searching, bumps into the guy at disneyland or something)
b) dumb criminal (going back to the scene of the crime, going to the cops with some "new evidence" long after you were cleared, running directly to your mother's, girlfriend's, or best friend's house to "hide out")
I have no doubt that the spy game works the same way.
See this? It's the smallest violin in the world, playing for the loss of the once ubiquitous "Hamster Dance" faction of the Internet.
The one real draw of the internet, the low cost of entry, still is true. You are still free to go and make your own sites, just go ahead and do it. Just don't blame people for not visiting it if it isn't interesting...
(On a slightly different note, did anyone notice that the "top 4" companies were all portals? Maybe people's web browsers have set those sites as thier home page, and they get a "free" hit every time the browser loads up.)
...are two fold. First of all, there is the Great Dumbening of American children that has to be playing a part. I know the entire LEGO enterprise isn't based on selling to children in America, but there must be a large chunk of cashflow slowly being strangled to death as we teach out children that using your imagination and thinking too hard is a terrible thing to do. Lego, being a toy based nearly 100% on imagination is naturally a victim of this.
Of course, Lego has tried to keep up by creating more simplistic designs and using large, special use "blocks" to create less imagination-taxing objects, but it isn't nearly enough to combat our efforts.
The second problem comes from Lego's pricing. I have seen the recent prices on the more interesting sets, and they can't compete. The really huge sets, the ones that look like a full day of fun to build, and they sell for over $100 at Toys'r'us. That is more than most playstation games. And when you make a kid these days chose between the instant, never ending gratification of Quake III Arena for the PS2 and a rinky dinky Lego pirate ship, he is going to pick the former every time. Kids these days are a lost cause for Lego.
If Lego wants to stay competitive they will have to learn how to cut prices down to $20 for the large sets, which shouldn't be impossible (how much does Lego plastic cost to make?), and hope that all of us 20/30-something slashdotters will start buying them.
One would think in a civilized society, somone on the prosecution would stop for a second and actually think about what they are doing. They original plaintifs have since changed thier minds, the public (at least those who know about it) is against it, the man is not even a U.S. citizen! The case in completely unwinnable, and unworthy. At best it will get thrown out right away, at worst it will go all the way to the Supreme Court before getting struck down. Why can't the prosecution see that they are in a perfect lose-lose situation. They don't even have the moral imperative on thier side to keep going, becuase locking up somone for what amounts to thought crime is morally wrong.
I realize this is ranting, but please, where is the glimmer of intelligence in these people that tells them to give up now?
Yes, I know you can live off of 12,000 a year in Russia, but that isn't the point. The point is that there is a moral imperative to pay a reasonable sum to anyone who is working for you; Offering just how much you can get away with and no more is wrong. Just because the Russian programmers don't know or do know and are willing to be exploited doesn't mean that it is right to do so.
I know it has been said before, but $12,000 a year for a programmer position makes me feel icky. Where are all the people chanting in front of the world trade center complaining about the "russians taking our jobs?" :)
Seriously though, how can the company feel even the least bit of pride in knowing that they are exploiting the naivety of the foriegn job market by the order of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars? It's not like they really need to pay them an exhorbant amount of money (hell they could even pay them half as much as an American programmer and still save money) but they should at least be fair. Is "Business
Ethics 101" still taught in universities?
If this network DID become as ubiquitous as the writer thinks it will be, then the need for actual internet access will be nill. The wireless network will BE the internet for all practical purposes.
I suppose a con is that anyone could just T-splice into your powerlines and listen in to your packets. But on the plus side, anyone foolish enough to splice into a 10,000 volt powerline probably won't be listening for very long...
:)
Hey, maybe this kind of technology will see the advent of Black ICE like we all used to read about in Gibson's books...
Well, or you could use this kind of behavior to your advantage. I persoanlly charge a $500 bag viewing fee to anyone who wishes to look inside my bag. Just stop me and ask. I'll present the form for you to sign, and after you hand me the money you get to look in my bag! Just like you can't force the doctors who walk into your store to perform surgery, you can't force me to open my bag. Of course, I am not allowed to shop too many places nowadays... :)
I thought it's original name was "Napster"... :)
Well, considering that everything a person writes, unless explicity stated as being public domain, is protected with a default copyright, she basically can't use the interent...
This, my friends, is the hammer I have been waiting for to start bashing the proverbial heads of all the usenet users who annoy me. From now on, you won't be getting flames from me, instead your ISP will be getting an email from me becuase you quoted my last copywritten post in your reply... Watch out America, here I come! :)
For decades the dominant media-marketriod elite
have been carefully cultivating the western mind. We have been taught that shiny, colorful, noisy things are good. We have slowly developed a powerful, salivating passion for these things. It is more important for us to buy the latest CDs, the trediest clothes, the fastest cars, at an easy 1000%-10000% markup over thier cost to produce than it is to pay the rent, or buy groceries. It is a far graver misfortune to our minds to miss one "very special" episode of Friends than it is to miss out on a national election.
Considering all the coaxing, training, and brainwashing that they have given us, it is any wonder that we feel perfectly justified in getting out hands on that sweet, sweet intellectual property by any means?
You can't expect people to forsake their livelihood in favor of an unrealistic utopian ideal.
No, you misunderstand... Right now there is really no viable way to make a living as a musician or and artists. There are the lucky few, of course, but for the vast majority, you can't raise a family on an artists salary. Why do you think that is? It's becuase no one is willing to buy YOUR work (except you most die-hard fans and friends), instead they are busy handing over that money that you should be making to the corperations. Do you actually believe for a second that the DMCA protects you, the small-time artists? You are sadly mistaken. It protects only the big players.
If music, videos, games are pirated all the time, at some time there will be no more music, videos or games.
Do you really think that? Are you saying that there are no artists who enjoy playing music just for fun? Are there no writers who write stories becuase they love making worlds come to life? No game designers who just want to create some fun and/or bragging right for thier friends?
Honestly, I think the absolute best possble thing for the creative fields would be if the corporate element just vanished. Sure you wouldn't see nationally-known artists making millions in front of 50,000 seat auditoriums, but is that how you want to appreciate music?
I would seriously prefer local groups, making realistic money (money like a school teacher would make), playing good, interesting, original music to the current sludge that comes out of the entertainment machine.
Fame and money is not a right. It is a strange abboration that somehow grew out of the machine-like corperate quest for money. Just look around at the real world. You don't see world-renound lecturers shouting out scathing political commentaries to hords of screaming fans who paid $139 for a seat. You don't see scientists mobbed by teenagers when they step out of thier stretched limos.
It would not be a terrible thing is the score was evened out a little.
I am not very knowledgeable about this kind of thing, so maybe I am just blowing smoke here, but don't you kind of fall into an infinite loop of metadata after a while? I mean, don't need to have to know things like, say, the size of metadata. Then you have to know the size of the meta-metadata? Then you have to know the size of the metameta-metadata? How do you get around that? (I'm sure there is a simple answer, but I am scratching my head.)
I remember a few weeks ago there was a study (I can't find it now, slashdot search is down) showing that video games increased intelligence. So which is it, hmmmm? Could it be both? Does this mean in 50 years we will have a society of nothing but brilliantly insane Lex Luthor clones running the show? I always wondered where those comic book super-villians came from, now I know, they are our children! Now I'll bet everyone thinks twice before "saving the children". :)
I wish caldera would get thier naming right, how am I supposed to know which one is Linux XP and which one is Linux ME? :)
Wow, how desperate do you have to be to actually warn against a competitor by name and tell your customers not to chose them. What ever happened to advertising your products strengths as opposed to your opponents weaknesses?
Now, I am not going to say anything about Intel's products, but it is REALLY grasping a straws when the only ammunition you have is whining to your clients that your cheaper, quicker, and more savvy competition may not have it's licensing in order...
only one original supplier, the game's NPCs, none of the goods decay or wear out with the exception of food (which can be freely summoned), and there are no taxes or such.
Funny thing, but all of these points are wrong. First off, there are three suppliers. The NPCs, like you said, but also there is a strong questing infrastructure and also trade skills that are very valuable. And that is only for physical things, many people also are willing to pay for spells cast in thier favor (Ressurection, speed boosts, long-distance teleports, etc.)
As for things degrading, there are both things that degrade over time (Potions, limited charge items, items that vanish on log-out), and also things that are obsoleted (either through new and better versions coming out, or through environmental changes that affect the items making them less potent). The world of Norrath is constantly changing, not just new zones and such, but even the rules of how the world works, and every time a change is made, players have to adapt and change tactics. These adaptions the players make change the types of weapons and items they will need to succeed. You also have, on rare occasions, Verant changing individual items themselves to make the less powerful (thus less desirable).
As for direct taxes, yes there are none, but there are MANY money-sinks in the world. Not only do you have to sink in a lot of items becuase of the high failure rate, you also have uneven buyback rates skewed highly in favor of the NPC merchants.
Yes over time everyone eventually makes some money, but they also lose it. I have some friends who are just now reaching level 60 (the highest in EQ) who are not finding themselves strapped for cash after buying hard to find items and spells.
It is actually a very reasonable go at building a model economy, I'm very interested to see the paper when it's done.
Oh, very true. For example, if I were to do a poll here at MY office, I could tell you that 100% of the developers here use Java! 100%! Wow, there are no more programming languages being used anymore! They are also 100% male, which means that the end of the human race is getting close... :)
I was under the impression that the blue dye in LCD's only had a shorter lifespan on Windows machines, due to thier, ahem, constant use... *cough* BSOD *cough* :)