Scale (monopoly, in this case), says that a different rule should apply.
Are you asserting that Amazon has a monopoly in used books?
You are aware that Amazon doesn't actually sell used books, they simply provide (for a fee) a listing service for third parties? And a good number of those third parties are - surprise! - small used book stores. Their competition in other words.
Eventually, Amazon and Half.com are going to really hurt the publishing industry too.
Then so is the small mom&pop used book store on the corner. In fact it seems more than a few used books I've bought from Amazon or Half have come from those same type of little stores.
You could make the argument that eBay is killing every industry, because anything bought there is one more thing that wasn't bought new.
From this viewpoint what's the difference between Half and a library book sale? Or eBay and a big flea market? Should we go after the garage sales and hamfests next?
I did get taken in once by John Dvorak's april fools column about vaccum tubes coming back..
Coming back? When did they leave? I'm staring into a great big vacuum tube right this second.
Re:Implications for Solar Power
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Stopping Light
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· Score: 1
From what I read in the article you need (at least) as much power to "release" the light as you "stored" in the first place. The interesting thing is that all the information about the incoming light was stored, not that you could "save" some light and "let it out" later.
Re:They did NOT stop light!
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Stopping Light
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They stored the information AND the energy associated with light, didn't they?
No, I don't think so (although I could be very mistaken, I know little about quantum physics. Or any other for that matter). From the story:
"Freeing such a stored pulse is easy: another laser beam directed through the chamber can release it."
Which makes me believe they've discovered a way to "record" light, rather than "stop" it. If they had a gadget they should shine a laser into, shut the laser off and put it in a closet, then next week press a button on the gadget (sans any laser) and ZINGO! out comes a coherent beam: that would be "stopping light".
If I'm misunderstanding this I'd appreciate any illumination (snort) that could be spared.
...if it's sending GPS location data over common FRS frequencies the non-Rino FRS users will be treated to wonderful bursts of data-farts over their analog freqs.
Re:This is a trojan horse, plain and simple.
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Spy v. Spy
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· Score: 1
Without warning the user, WinWhatWhere disables another piece of software for which that person has paid good money.
Are you sure there was no warning to the user? I'd bet dollars to navy beans that somewhere in the click-through "license agreement" there's a little blurb long the lines of "by accepting this agreement you authorize us to generally fsck any software we care too".
In reallity it's phonetic sounds like "da" and "ma" and "th" which babies start to recognise and duplicate first (at least in English). This is simply because these phonetic sounds are the most frequent.
But isn't this amplified by the fact that adults tend to speak "baby talk" around infants? IIRC, that's cross-cultural, so maybe baby talk is something we're hard-wired with.
I sometimes find myself talking baby talk to my cats. *sigh*
The myth of the well-armed populace has no basis in reality, since most people, even if they had a gun, wouldn't shoot back. They would make a mad dash away from the danger, as 500,000 years of DNA development have programmed them to do. It'd be nice to think that we're all heroes waiting for our chance to stop mayhem, but most people (especially the cowards who hide behind firearms) are far more interested in self-preservation than heroism.
Perhaps you hadn't heard about that plane that crashed in PA on 11-Sep-2001. People on that plane fought off armed hijackers and killed themselves in the process in order to save the lives of strangers. I would say that incident in and of itself is sufficient evidence to reveal your assertation as the steaming pile of horseshit that it is.
*I* was the one shooing her away, but Ruffles was able to reason that Cricket was the indirect cause of this. Yowza!
It's called jelousy. And I wouldn't be surprised if Ruffles beat the stuffing out of Cricket later on when you weren't around, just on general principles.
If Ruffles needs more attention, you might want to give it to him/her, otherwise Cricket may pay the price:(
Debatable. I say that being able to come and go as we please, regardless of what kind of dead animal we may or may not have in our mouth, pretty much out-cools landing on your feet and retractable claws.
...but when you torture a cat or dog keeping it locked up in a house, and over feed it, then modify its behavior with gadgets like this, i just feel its wrong.
It's not much different than sending kids to public school...
IIRC the primary application for the flywheel "battery" was site-power backup... IOW, portability wasn't an issue. In fact I think they were burying the things.
That's precisely my point. You can get a different computer that doesn't have those features.
Agreed. But I'm assuming the copy protection will be incorporated most successfully in some new media format (say, a drive that plays holographic movies, just as a flight of fancy) - and this new technology will only work with compliant PCs. You can buy/build as many non-compliant PCs as you want, but you won't be able to use the cool new hardware on them.
Too many people are obsessing on today's technology, and how they can't protect it, and I agree, the genie is out of those bottles. But I think this proposal by the MPAA is them thinking ahead to tomorrow's technology.
I wonder how they plan to protect against those of us that buy and assemble our own hardware and run Linux on that.
Before DeCSS came out, how did you watch DVD movies on your Linux box?
Whenever a new copy protected media device comes out you'll have to wait for somebody to hack the protection (which is now illegal, don't forget) before you'll be able to use it. And I sure wouldn't want to be the poor SOB who posted the hack, you might as well start practicing your goatse.cx techniques.
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I think he meant to say "officially announced", not "released." You'd think that a geek would know the product lifecycle...
/. editors are honorable men, all.
If I were a cynic I might think it was a ploy to generate hits on the product web page.
But no, what am I thinking -- the
Scale (monopoly, in this case), says that a different rule should apply.
Are you asserting that Amazon has a monopoly in used books?
You are aware that Amazon doesn't actually sell used books, they simply provide (for a fee) a listing service for third parties? And a good number of those third parties are - surprise! - small used book stores. Their competition in other words.
What if used book sellers charged an extra 25 or 50 cents per used book sale that went directly to the author?
Shakespear's estate is going to be very, very happy.
Eventually, Amazon and Half.com are going to really hurt the publishing industry too.
Then so is the small mom&pop used book store on the corner. In fact it seems more than a few used books I've bought from Amazon or Half have come from those same type of little stores.
You could make the argument that eBay is killing every industry, because anything bought there is one more thing that wasn't bought new.
From this viewpoint what's the difference between Half and a library book sale? Or eBay and a big flea market? Should we go after the garage sales and hamfests next?
...so much for downloading distros to your uber-leet cellphone.
At least Taco and Co. are trying to do interesting stuff.
Had they actually managed to accomplish this goal there might be less flaming. Personally the 4/1 stuff didn't get so much as a wan smile from me.
I did get taken in once by John Dvorak's april fools column about vaccum tubes coming back..
Coming back? When did they leave? I'm staring into a great big vacuum tube right this second.
From what I read in the article you need (at least) as much power to "release" the light as you "stored" in the first place. The interesting thing is that all the information about the incoming light was stored, not that you could "save" some light and "let it out" later.
They stored the information AND the energy associated with light, didn't they?
No, I don't think so (although I could be very mistaken, I know little about quantum physics. Or any other for that matter). From the story:
"Freeing such a stored pulse is easy: another laser beam directed through the chamber can release it."
Which makes me believe they've discovered a way to "record" light, rather than "stop" it. If they had a gadget they should shine a laser into, shut the laser off and put it in a closet, then next week press a button on the gadget (sans any laser) and ZINGO! out comes a coherent beam: that would be "stopping light".
If I'm misunderstanding this I'd appreciate any illumination (snort) that could be spared.
...if it's sending GPS location data over common FRS frequencies the non-Rino FRS users will be treated to wonderful bursts of data-farts over their analog freqs.
Without warning the user, WinWhatWhere disables another piece of software for which that person has paid good money.
Are you sure there was no warning to the user? I'd bet dollars to navy beans that somewhere in the click-through "license agreement" there's a little blurb long the lines of "by accepting this agreement you authorize us to generally fsck any software we care too".
In reallity it's phonetic sounds like "da" and "ma" and "th" which babies start to recognise and duplicate first (at least in English). This is simply because these phonetic sounds are the most frequent.
But isn't this amplified by the fact that adults tend to speak "baby talk" around infants? IIRC, that's cross-cultural, so maybe baby talk is something we're hard-wired with.
I sometimes find myself talking baby talk to my cats. *sigh*
Hasn't helped their language skill a whit, alas.
The myth of the well-armed populace has no basis in reality, since most people, even if they had a gun, wouldn't shoot back. They would make a mad dash away from the danger, as 500,000 years of DNA development have programmed them to do. It'd be nice to think that we're all heroes waiting for our chance to stop mayhem, but most people (especially the cowards who hide behind firearms) are far more interested in self-preservation than heroism.
Perhaps you hadn't heard about that plane that crashed in PA on 11-Sep-2001. People on that plane fought off armed hijackers and killed themselves in the process in order to save the lives of strangers. I would say that incident in and of itself is sufficient evidence to reveal your assertation as the steaming pile of horseshit that it is.
*I* was the one shooing her away, but Ruffles was able to reason that Cricket was the indirect cause of this. Yowza!
:(
It's called jelousy. And I wouldn't be surprised if Ruffles beat the stuffing out of Cricket later on when you weren't around, just on general principles.
If Ruffles needs more attention, you might want to give it to him/her, otherwise Cricket may pay the price
We aren't as cool as they are.
Debatable. I say that being able to come and go as we please, regardless of what kind of dead animal we may or may not have in our mouth, pretty much out-cools landing on your feet and retractable claws.
Since when do cats live in nests?
Since they started having kittens and needed a place to keep them safe. Look up the definition of "nest".
...but when you torture a cat or dog keeping it locked up in a house, and over feed it, then modify its behavior with gadgets like this, i just feel its wrong.
It's not much different than sending kids to public school...
Yeah, until you try to make that power portable.
IIRC the primary application for the flywheel "battery" was site-power backup... IOW, portability wasn't an issue. In fact I think they were burying the things.
I can just imagine making my way to the euphamism on a dark night and CRUNCH - there's eighty bucks down the drain.
Did you ever win? :)
:(
Well hell yes! I walked out of the store with a cassette full of games in my pocke...
Oh. You meant....
Actually, I don't remember
Do you know how many people switch to Linux when XP came out, just because of the XP Home Edition license stink?
Dozens? Perhaps hundreds?
Compared to the number of computers that have already shipped with XP pre-installed, I doubt anyone in Redmond is sweating it.
CompUSA here in Dallas has little or no employees..
Let's assume the latter possibility. How does the store sell things? You insert your credit card, choose from a menu, and a box pops out a slot?
Not that this would be a bad idea, it just seems a little ahead of it's time.
I didn't have the money to buy them, so I wrote a program to copy them onto a 5.25 inch floppy.
Luxury. I had to bring along a blank cassette to steal Haunted House and Pyramid Adventure from Radio Shack back in the day.
Oh we used to dream of floppy disks...
That's precisely my point. You can get a different computer that doesn't have those features.
Agreed. But I'm assuming the copy protection will be incorporated most successfully in some new media format (say, a drive that plays holographic movies, just as a flight of fancy) - and this new technology will only work with compliant PCs. You can buy/build as many non-compliant PCs as you want, but you won't be able to use the cool new hardware on them.
Too many people are obsessing on today's technology, and how they can't protect it, and I agree, the genie is out of those bottles. But I think this proposal by the MPAA is them thinking ahead to tomorrow's technology.
I wonder how they plan to protect against those of us that buy and assemble our own hardware and run Linux on that.
Before DeCSS came out, how did you watch DVD movies on your Linux box?
Whenever a new copy protected media device comes out you'll have to wait for somebody to hack the protection (which is now illegal, don't forget) before you'll be able to use it. And I sure wouldn't want to be the poor SOB who posted the hack, you might as well start practicing your goatse.cx techniques.