>Is it significant because it's Another excuse to bash bill?
not sure about anyone else in this thread, I am here because it makes me feel good when one of the richest most powerful people in the industry gets some mud thrown in his face by those who know something about his history.
>The vendor continues making improvements to your code, but again, the majority of them are useless without the right keys. Eventually the vendor is making $2-4B dollars a year using software that is 98% your work yet you don't get to enjoy any of the benefits of modifications to the code you wrote.
I see no complaints/difference GPL 2-3 in your post, the last step I would dislike greatly: when he locks the software so tight into hardware, that no one can verify GPL compliance. so that he can add spyware hooks/whatever into your code, and claim that this product is better than a competitor because it is open source quality (whatever that means).
then with DMCA, if you do hack through his protections, and find the offending assembly bits, you cant expose them, without tripping over the DMCA.
technicalities, that don't really change your point:
> He can even have you convicted of a felony,
a) Not unless the manufacturer happens to be a District Attorney, or similar. He can only ask that you be investigated, and provide information on what he thinks you did wrong. b) not if you own the machine, did the work yourself, and didn't tell anyone how you did it, and don't try to make a profit fron that circumvention in any way. (DMCA anyway allows individuals to hack away all they want, for research, etc.)
> it's amazing how many slashdotters think that playing dumb and ignorant of the contextual or common meaning of a word
Also amazing when the story says computer, and clearly means a P.C. that a few will get all anal about a couple jokes making fun of that typo, and completly miss the obvious irony.
> You want to give someone a file, send them a link to your ftp server. get with the times, should be a tracking link to your torrent. ftp works for the 2% of people who have their own non nat, static ip address with a ftp server that hasn't been blasted off the face of the internet. I am even in the small percent that do have a static ip, but the people I send files to don't have VPN access to any of my servers, and having ftp openly accesable to the net would just be stupid (and which windows users have sftp client installed? ok I do have port 80 access to a webserver that could serve the file, but thats probably not average or easier than attach either.)
> Let's get the hearings started immediately so those who keep wrongly saying this was illegal can start preparing their crow.
Any hearings are not likely to be about whether the wiretaps were illegal, they will focus on if the presidental order was illegal. This is where both sides are correct. IMO the order was probably not illegal, in a time of war... as the president claims. However (again IMO) using any information from the wiretaps are illegal, and their is good precident that they are/were.
Now, I am not sure why this is a time of war authorized by congress as the Pres claims. Congress did declare the IRAQ war, the president declared a war on terrorism, and declared (IMO) a end to IRAQ as a war. President claims congress gave him the power, but as far as I know he declared a war on terror (within his power) not congress.
> I find his answer to question 8 (Windows updates to unregistered machines?) frustrating I found his response frustrating for a differnet reason (also your post.) unregistered != illegal. The poster never said it wasn't a legal install, they may (unlikely?) just not want to register it. why? because I originaly made the assumption with XP that if I register this copy, I may not be able to move the XP os to another PC as freely, after all this PC was to be my linux media server when I had time, and XP could go to my Grandparents, when I got around to building them a PC.
My assumption turned out to be false, but my reasoning makes some since, without an explanation of what "registering" does to my rights. after all if I want to do my due diligence, before registering I should read, and understand the entire EULA that they make you agree to.
This is a understandable conclusion in the software industry currently, where hesitance to register curently equals hiding some illegal activity.
> They are saying that putting *copyrighted* materials in a shared folder is illegal.
they said "copyright violation" your the one who equated that with "illegal", it is not a criminal offense to allow the files to be shared, it may be a "copyright violation" but RIAA never said "illegal."
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/CFAleghis t.htm The requirement of a mens rea for criminal copyright infringement serves the important purpose of drawing a sharp distinction with civil copyright infringement. Under civil copyright infringement, an intent to infringe is not required, since copyright is a strict liability tort. [FN13] For an infringement to be deemed a criminal violation, however, a specific mens rea must be proved. Even if civil liability has been established, without the requisite mens rea it does not matter how many unauthorized copies or phonorecords have been made or distributed: No criminal violation has occurred.
> not a matter of communism vs capitalism but a matter of now vs twenty years ago.
good point, although many posts in this story assume things must have been better in the past, because their is little written record of those abuses, with a few exceptions like mining. That makes it impossible to say when/how the US/world went overboard (I would consider the "if your red your better off dead" years the most oppresive years in the US)
no sound card required. U can still have voice menus,etc without. you would need the kernel module zapdummy to provide some sort of a timining interupt expected from the digium hardware by default, if you were running a pure VOIP box. That module now comes auto-setup with all the current asterisk auto installers.
>Does anyone know if asterisk supports faxes? yes, I have sent, and recieved faxs through asterisk, but it depends highly on what your voice provider/hardware is, especially in-terms of throughput. my asterisk setup is using digium hardware to analog lines, and with asteriskathome (availble on sourceforge) it automatically wraps up faxs into a pdf, and emails them to you. for sending fax's, I used a linux fax driver on a seperate card, seperate install, installed as a samba printer.
>people under 18 aren't supposed to be looking at any kind of porn. They aren't legally allowed to drink, smoke, or vote,
no laws in the US against smoking (tobacco) at age 17, only about selling, not even illegal (except under some interpertation of endagerment) to give tobacco to a minor. Actually I think it is legal in Colorado to smoke more than tobacco, again no purchase...
Also drinking under the age of 21 is not a national law, actually 19 states have no specific laws against consuming alcohol (only about possesion in public, and purchasing/sale/providing) to under the age of 21.
closest thing to a law against even providing porn to minors I could find was the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) which was ruled unconstituional. Some state laws, against providing porn to under 18. Lots of laws against minors in porn, of course.
> However, cars are parallel hybrids. This means that the gasoline engine handles a lot of the movement of the car directly.
hunh? you mean this article is about a patent to a slightly different application, ok. but in general same issue, both scenarious the engine is the only member providing energy (ok I mentioned trolly, that is a unusual application, a side benefit if you will.) I know this car uses a planet gear, and a electric motor in a different arrangement, but the physics are the same, the electric motors produce a effective gear ratio for the engine, without actuall shifting, and regardless of the dynamics of braking can provide a efficency increase during accell.
fulldisclosure, I personally think the current hybrids, are a negative for the environment, and do not applaud those who buy them claiming some superiority over those who don't. At the same time I applaud the auto companys for offering a product that through development may soon be a positive environmental impact.
> converting gasoline to heat to motion to electricity to motion (= more energy, not less). The ONLY thing that a hybrid can do to improve economy is regenerative breaking.
guess you better tell all those locomotives to stop running, and all those commercials by GE about their modern trains being better must be bunk. (if you havent figured it out yet, Locomotives are hybrid -batteries.) actually I work for a company that does this for Haul trucks, hybrid -batteries can save.
Hybrid allows a Constantly variable transmission, without lots of messy belts and pullys, so the engine can always run at either peek efficiency, or peek power (regardless of brake power.) But removing regen braking does not mean removing batteries. If you have batteries, you can charge them directly from the engine, keep the engine running at peek efficiency during slack times, and still have the battery boost on launch without the bigger engine.
now the mining industry also uses trollys, to use the more efficient heavy generators off the vehicles (your cars engine is efficient for it's size, but you can easily build more efficient engines at the cost of weight) and during the high power locations, they connect temporily to a overhead power source.
>It is EXCELLENT on snow and ICE. My '93 Blazer gets going good, but it wouldn't stop with the best driver from 35 on ice w/o ABS or a Tree.
funney, do a search on goole for your own link, even the over-the top pro ABS sites admit fluffy snow and gravel extend stopping distance with ABS. They don't mention railroad tracks, and potholes, that can completly confuse, and ruin stopping distance on a ABS car.
now I believe that you can't stop your blazer without ABS, but isn't that the point of this article.
In a vehicle not in 4x4 mode, a driver cant compensate for a difference in side to side traction, that is where ABS rules, so if you hit ICE with one or two tires, what you say is true. (if your in locked 4x4 mode, the differentials would make it impossible for just one tire to lock up, and a pro driver would average things out, then again the 4x4 would force you to stop in a straight line, no steering at neer lockup.)
I know Car and Driver had a shootout with a Suburu STI, and Mitsu Lancer with Rod Millen, a championship off-road racer. If you watch that, you would know how much a true champion driver is hurt by ABS, and traction controll (and completly frustrated by it.) at least as done by those manufactures.
>ABS that you forgot to mention as you point out, when coupled with... ABS can't help with those issues, actually their is 0 heat added to brake pads, so no fade when you lock up your tires (destroys the tires, but you will stop the car, you don't have that choice with ABS, except by applying the Emergcey Brake.) but you are correct ABS originally came as a upgrade option on many cars coupled with these necesitys.
I am not anti-ABS brakes, I think they are a great thing, and look forward to them getting even better, but that doesn't mean their perfect now.
> In a cash economy your purchases can't be tracked without intrusion. In a credit card economy your purchases are tracked by definition.
>>I solved this one. I don't use my credit card for anything that couldn't be tracked anyway (phone bill, cable bill, etc). I'll be damned if my credit union and VISA are going to know what I'm eating this week, or what brand of toilet paper I use, how often I buy gas or where I drink and party.
Their is little difference in the abilty to be tracked with cash (bills not coins) than credit card, but the simplicity is what your avoiding. cash has unique Serial#, if you get it from a ATM, or bank tied to you (my work won't pay me in cash, then againg still be trackable.) The same with a CC, you can give it to someone else to use. CC is not exactly proof that you ever owened/ate/visited, but gives them a person to start asking. Granted, I don't think cash is cuurently being tracked that well, but it could be. I also don't think your CC trail is being tracked... heck since your physically trading a hard item with cash, their is more hard evidence left behind (finger print, skin cells, your dna.) where as you can copy a credit card much easier, and have several identical versions of them, that would leave no trace which one you used. (you can copy cash, but thats highly illegal, for personal use I don't think copying your CC magnetic strip is illegal.)
now if we could go back to trading raw gold nuggets...
now coins/casino money/gift cards might be better suited toward anonymous purchase.
> "Ownership" means that the store cannot SELL that info or provide it to any 3rd party (non-law enforcement).
kinda useless, if they cant provide it to their bank to get paid. I know your comeback is well except as resonably expected by the customer... well, I think it is reasonable to give it to thier bank, but they need to use a reputible bank for me to be happy. But that business may use a credit institution that I wouldn't think much of, maybe oversees. Possibly a local bank, that outsources the transaction to a prison (w/o knowledge of the store), how do you know...
try to tell that prisoner, who memorizes account numbers they see, that they don't own that information... I am not worried about the ethical people getting my info...
> best predictor would be that unsuccessful people are those that get AIDS. I guess your definition of successfull has little to do with finding what pleases them, and has everything yo do with $$$
I would rather be happy than rich, but I would like to try being both.
>I really love how a simple hardware/economics problem has been turned into "DRM is evil" CLUE: DRM is a simple economics problem/CLUE in this case most people with this problem would not be renting the games, and their would be no simple gurantee that it will be replaced by anyone once destroyed, this is exactly what backups are about. The DRM rants here, are about a particular implimentation by MSFT that allows no backups of any kind to things you purchased, without a policy to allow you to recover what you purchased if lost. This is particuarly harsh even in the DRM world.
> Java is semi-compiled while Ruby is purely interpreted when I started working with java, it was all interpreted (well, I would consider the byte code format to be interperted.) Their is nothing stopping Ruby from following the same path as java. IE. could be used to write stand-alone applications, that may or may not be called from a web browser (again the same path as java.) to get = to > performance at a simular footprint, and to be a language used to build compiled librarys to be called from self.
> Sooner or later a lack of performance really does become a problem my limited history of languages says, a lack of performance is taken care of by compiler/VM writers when a market for such comes about.
C was unacceptable, and is now the standard for speed. C++ was way too slow now their are 100's of optimizers to turn off all the features that cause it to be slower than C. Java started out with horrible performance, but this story talks many times about how fast it is, it has compilers now, and a hundred different optimized VM venders to speed it up. I see no reason why Ruby would be slower as a language, except the lack of optimizers, perhaps due to the lack of time in the spotlight, and thus the lack of a market requesting it.
>drinking under 21 Also drinking under the age of 21 is not a national law, actually 19 states have no specific laws against consuming alcohol (only about possesion in public, and purchasing/sale) under the age of 21.
> you know the type, lawyers, plastic surgeons, et al. These people can easily make more than $100 per hour. who are you Bill Gates? might as well incourage thiefs, assasins, and kidnappers to do good for the society and keep up their behavious and give cash later. Ok thats harsh even for me, but doing less "social" activities, and doing more isolated activities IMHO markes the poor as "them" and the wealthier as "us" (well not me on either) where as working with them should be best for the society in whole.
(but since I am in a anti society mood currently, back to Grand theft auto on the big screen HDTV, I owe, I owe, off to the credit card loan I go.)
> They most likely use compact flash because you can get 4 gb hard drives for them. having experience in this issue, several 256Mb cards is sufficient, if not preferable. The key is speed, I havent had luck finding high speed memory sticks (or even a rating on them, I looked all over for that a month ago.)where as you can get plenty of 40-80x CF cards (guessing thats based off a cd read rate)
The profesional photographer I deal with has a cf card reading hardrive to dump to as a backup quickly, but tends to keep his CF cards labeled... until he has what he wants on his PC, and burned to CD/DVD for us, the customer.
Slashdot Mirror
>Is it significant because it's
Another excuse to bash bill?
not sure about anyone else in this thread, I am here because it makes me feel good when one of the richest most powerful people in the industry gets some mud thrown in his face by those who know something about his history.
>The vendor continues making improvements to your code, but again, the majority of them are useless without the right keys. Eventually the vendor is making $2-4B dollars a year using software that is 98% your work yet you don't get to enjoy any of the benefits of modifications to the code you wrote.
I see no complaints/difference GPL 2-3 in your post, the last step I would dislike greatly:
when he locks the software so tight into hardware, that no one can verify GPL compliance. so that he can add spyware hooks/whatever into your code, and claim that this product is better than a competitor because it is open source quality (whatever that means).
then with DMCA, if you do hack through his protections, and find the offending assembly bits, you cant expose them, without tripping over the DMCA.
technicalities, that don't really change your point:
> He can even have you convicted of a felony,
a) Not unless the manufacturer happens to be a District Attorney, or similar. He can only ask that you be investigated, and provide information on what he thinks you did wrong.
b) not if you own the machine, did the work yourself, and didn't tell anyone how you did it, and don't try to make a profit fron that circumvention in any way.
(DMCA anyway allows individuals to hack away all they want, for research, etc.)
> it's amazing how many slashdotters think that playing dumb and ignorant of the contextual or common meaning of a word
Also amazing when the story says computer, and clearly means a P.C. that a few will get all anal about a couple jokes making fun of that typo, and completly miss the obvious irony.
> You want to give someone a file, send them a link to your ftp server.
get with the times, should be a tracking link to your torrent.
ftp works for the 2% of people who have their own non nat, static ip address with a ftp server that hasn't been blasted off the face of the internet. I am even in the small percent that do have a static ip, but the people I send files to don't have VPN access to any of my servers, and having ftp openly accesable to the net would just be stupid (and which windows users have sftp client installed? ok I do have port 80 access to a webserver that could serve the file, but thats probably not average or easier than attach either.)
> Let's get the hearings started immediately so those who keep wrongly saying this was illegal can start preparing their crow.
Any hearings are not likely to be about whether the wiretaps were illegal, they will focus on if the presidental order was illegal. This is where both sides are correct. IMO the order was probably not illegal, in a time of war... as the president claims. However (again IMO) using any information from the wiretaps are illegal, and their is good precident that they are/were.
Now, I am not sure why this is a time of war authorized by congress as the Pres claims. Congress did declare the IRAQ war, the president declared a war on terrorism, and declared (IMO) a end to IRAQ as a war. President claims congress gave him the power, but as far as I know he declared a war on terror (within his power) not congress.
> I find his answer to question 8 (Windows updates to unregistered machines?) frustrating
I found his response frustrating for a differnet reason (also your post.)
unregistered != illegal. The poster never said it wasn't a legal install, they may (unlikely?) just not want to register it. why? because I originaly made the assumption with XP that if I register this copy, I may not be able to move the XP os to another PC as freely, after all this PC was to be my linux media server when I had time, and XP could go to my Grandparents, when I got around to building them a PC.
My assumption turned out to be false, but my reasoning makes some since, without an explanation of what "registering" does to my rights. after all if I want to do my due diligence, before registering I should read, and understand the entire EULA that they make you agree to.
This is a understandable conclusion in the software industry currently, where hesitance to register curently equals hiding some illegal activity.
> They are saying that putting *copyrighted* materials in a shared folder is illegal.
s t.htm
they said "copyright violation" your the one who equated that with "illegal", it is not a criminal offense to allow the files to be shared, it may be a "copyright violation" but RIAA never said "illegal."
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/CFAleghi
The requirement of a mens rea for criminal copyright infringement serves the important purpose of drawing a sharp distinction with civil copyright infringement. Under civil copyright infringement, an intent to infringe is not required, since copyright is a strict liability tort. [FN13] For an infringement to be deemed a criminal violation, however, a specific mens rea must be proved. Even if civil liability has been established, without the requisite mens rea it does not matter how many unauthorized copies or phonorecords have been made or distributed: No criminal violation has occurred.
> not a matter of communism vs capitalism but a matter of now vs twenty years ago.
good point, although many posts in this story assume things must have been better in the past, because their is little written record of those abuses, with a few exceptions like mining. That makes it impossible to say when/how the US/world went overboard (I would consider the "if your red your better off dead" years the most oppresive years in the US)
no sound card required. U can still have voice menus,etc without.
you would need the kernel module zapdummy to provide some sort of a timining interupt expected from the digium hardware by default, if you were running a pure VOIP box. That module now comes auto-setup with all the current asterisk auto installers.
>Does anyone know if asterisk supports faxes?
yes, I have sent, and recieved faxs through asterisk, but it depends highly on what your voice provider/hardware is, especially in-terms of throughput. my asterisk setup is using digium hardware to analog lines, and with asteriskathome (availble on sourceforge) it automatically wraps up faxs into a pdf, and emails them to you. for sending fax's, I used a linux fax driver on a seperate card, seperate install, installed as a samba printer.
>people under 18 aren't supposed to be looking at any kind of porn. They aren't legally allowed to drink, smoke, or vote,
no laws in the US against smoking (tobacco) at age 17, only about selling, not even illegal (except under some interpertation of endagerment) to give tobacco to a minor. Actually I think it is legal in Colorado to smoke more than tobacco, again no purchase...
Also drinking under the age of 21 is not a national law, actually 19 states have no specific laws against consuming alcohol (only about possesion in public, and purchasing/sale/providing) to under the age of 21.
closest thing to a law against even providing porn to minors I could find was the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) which was ruled unconstituional. Some state laws, against providing porn to under 18. Lots of laws against minors in porn, of course.
> However, cars are parallel hybrids. This means that the gasoline engine handles a lot of the movement of the car directly.
hunh? you mean this article is about a patent to a slightly different application, ok. but in general same issue, both scenarious the engine is the only member providing energy (ok I mentioned trolly, that is a unusual application, a side benefit if you will.)
I know this car uses a planet gear, and a electric motor in a different arrangement, but the physics are the same, the electric motors produce a effective gear ratio for the engine, without actuall shifting, and regardless of the dynamics of braking can provide a efficency increase during accell.
fulldisclosure, I personally think the current hybrids, are a negative for the environment, and do not applaud those who buy them claiming some superiority over those who don't. At the same time I applaud the auto companys for offering a product that through development may soon be a positive environmental impact.
> converting gasoline to heat to motion to electricity to motion (= more energy, not less). The ONLY thing that a hybrid can do to improve economy is regenerative breaking.
guess you better tell all those locomotives to stop running, and all those commercials by GE about their modern trains being better must be bunk.
(if you havent figured it out yet, Locomotives are hybrid -batteries.)
actually I work for a company that does this for Haul trucks, hybrid -batteries can save.
Hybrid allows a Constantly variable transmission, without lots of messy belts and pullys, so the engine can always run at either peek efficiency, or peek power (regardless of brake power.)
But removing regen braking does not mean removing batteries.
If you have batteries, you can charge them directly from the engine, keep the engine running at peek efficiency during slack times, and still have the battery boost on launch without the bigger engine.
now the mining industry also uses trollys, to use the more efficient heavy generators off the vehicles (your cars engine is efficient for it's size, but you can easily build more efficient engines at the cost of weight) and during the high power locations, they connect temporily to a overhead power source.
> I would like to see a link to that.
(if you read the whole link, it is very pro-ABS on motorcycles, and I agree)
http://www.ibmwr.org/prodreview/abstests.html
Figure 2. Comparative Braking Distances by Motorcycle
(Average of Five Passes on Dry Pavement)
Expert rider, all distances from 60 mph
BMW (non-ABS model) 153 ft
Full ABS Control 162 ft
ABS disabled
155 ft
Honda (non-ABS model) 149 ft
Full ABS Control 156 ft
ABS disabled
150 ft
Yamaha (non-ABS model) 148 ft
Full ABS Control 152 ft
ABS disabled 148 ft
>It is EXCELLENT on snow and ICE. My '93 Blazer gets going good, but it wouldn't stop with the best driver from 35 on ice w/o ABS or a Tree.
funney, do a search on goole for your own link, even the over-the top pro ABS sites admit fluffy snow and gravel extend stopping distance with ABS. They don't mention railroad tracks, and potholes, that can completly confuse, and ruin stopping distance on a ABS car.
now I believe that you can't stop your blazer without ABS, but isn't that the point of this article.
In a vehicle not in 4x4 mode, a driver cant compensate for a difference in side to side traction, that is where ABS rules, so if you hit ICE with one or two tires, what you say is true. (if your in locked 4x4 mode, the differentials would make it impossible for just one tire to lock up, and a pro driver would average things out, then again the 4x4 would force you to stop in a straight line, no steering at neer lockup.)
I know Car and Driver had a shootout with a Suburu STI, and Mitsu Lancer with Rod Millen, a championship off-road racer. If you watch that, you would know how much a true champion driver is hurt by ABS, and traction controll (and completly frustrated by it.) at least as done by those manufactures.
>ABS that you forgot to mention
as you point out, when coupled with... ABS can't help with those issues, actually their is 0 heat added to brake pads, so no fade when you lock up your tires (destroys the tires, but you will stop the car, you don't have that choice with ABS, except by applying the Emergcey Brake.) but you are correct ABS originally came as a upgrade option on many cars coupled with these necesitys.
I am not anti-ABS brakes, I think they are a great thing, and look forward to them getting even better, but that doesn't mean their perfect now.
> In a cash economy your purchases can't be tracked without intrusion. In a credit card economy your purchases are tracked by definition.
>>I solved this one. I don't use my credit card for anything that couldn't be tracked anyway (phone bill, cable bill, etc). I'll be damned if my credit union and VISA are going to know what I'm eating this week, or what brand of toilet paper I use, how often I buy gas or where I drink and party.
Their is little difference in the abilty to be tracked with cash (bills not coins) than credit card, but the simplicity is what your avoiding.
cash has unique Serial#, if you get it from a ATM, or bank tied to you (my work won't pay me in cash, then againg still be trackable.) The same with a CC, you can give it to someone else to use. CC is not exactly proof that you ever owened/ate/visited, but gives them a person to start asking.
Granted, I don't think cash is cuurently being tracked that well, but it could be. I also don't think your CC trail is being tracked...
heck since your physically trading a hard item with cash, their is more hard evidence left behind (finger print, skin cells, your dna.) where as you can copy a credit card much easier, and have several identical versions of them, that would leave no trace which one you used. (you can copy cash, but thats highly illegal, for personal use I don't think copying your CC magnetic strip is illegal.)
now if we could go back to trading raw gold nuggets...
now coins/casino money/gift cards might be better suited toward anonymous purchase.
> "Ownership" means that the store cannot SELL that info or provide it to any 3rd party (non-law enforcement).
kinda useless, if they cant provide it to their bank to get paid. I know your comeback is well except as resonably expected by the customer...
well, I think it is reasonable to give it to thier bank, but they need to use a reputible bank for me to be happy. But that business may use a credit institution that I wouldn't think much of, maybe oversees. Possibly a local bank, that outsources the transaction to a prison (w/o knowledge of the store), how do you know...
try to tell that prisoner, who memorizes account numbers they see, that they don't own that information... I am not worried about the ethical people getting my info...
> best predictor would be that unsuccessful people are those that get AIDS.
I guess your definition of successfull has little to do with finding what pleases them, and has everything yo do with $$$
I would rather be happy than rich, but I would like to try being both.
>I really love how a simple hardware/economics problem has been turned into "DRM is evil" /CLUE
CLUE: DRM is a simple economics problem
in this case most people with this problem would not be renting the games, and their would be no simple gurantee that it will be replaced by anyone once destroyed, this is exactly what backups are about.
The DRM rants here, are about a particular implimentation by MSFT that allows no backups of any kind to things you purchased, without a policy to allow you to recover what you purchased if lost. This is particuarly harsh even in the DRM world.
> Java is semi-compiled while Ruby is purely interpreted
when I started working with java, it was all interpreted (well, I would consider the byte code format to be interperted.) Their is nothing stopping Ruby from following the same path as java. IE. could be used to write stand-alone applications, that may or may not be called from a web browser (again the same path as java.) to get = to > performance at a simular footprint, and to be a language used to build compiled librarys to be called from self.
> Sooner or later a lack of performance really does become a problem
my limited history of languages says, a lack of performance is taken care of by compiler/VM writers when a market for such comes about.
C was unacceptable, and is now the standard for speed. C++ was way too slow now their are 100's of optimizers to turn off all the features that cause it to be slower than C.
Java started out with horrible performance, but this story talks many times about how fast it is, it has compilers now, and a hundred different optimized VM venders to speed it up.
I see no reason why Ruby would be slower as a language, except the lack of optimizers, perhaps due to the lack of time in the spotlight, and thus the lack of a market requesting it.
>drinking under 21
Also drinking under the age of 21 is not a national law, actually 19 states have no specific laws against consuming alcohol (only about possesion in public, and purchasing/sale) under the age of 21.
> you know the type, lawyers, plastic surgeons, et al. These people can easily make more than $100 per hour.
who are you Bill Gates? might as well incourage thiefs, assasins, and kidnappers to do good for the society and keep up their behavious and give cash later.
Ok thats harsh even for me, but doing less "social" activities, and doing more isolated activities IMHO markes the poor as "them" and the wealthier as "us" (well not me on either) where as working with them should be best for the society in whole.
(but since I am in a anti society mood currently, back to Grand theft auto on the big screen HDTV, I owe, I owe, off to the credit card loan I go.)
> They most likely use compact flash because you can get 4 gb hard drives for them.
having experience in this issue, several 256Mb cards is sufficient, if not preferable. The key is speed, I havent had luck finding high speed memory sticks (or even a rating on them, I looked all over for that a month ago.)where as you can get plenty of 40-80x CF cards (guessing thats based off a cd read rate)
The profesional photographer I deal with has a cf card reading hardrive to dump to as a backup quickly, but tends to keep his CF cards labeled... until he has what he wants on his PC, and burned to CD/DVD for us, the customer.