Of course If you leave them in a car they can melt... but we've been likening software and media to cars for as long as I've read/. (for liability, warranties, etc.) and if your car should somehow melt or be snapped in half, you don't get a free replacement. Part of owning something is taking care of it.
No, but if you get a scratch on your car, you can get it fixed without buying a whole new car.
Of course, the analogy is ridiculously flawed -- you can't easily compare 1s and 0s to large, resource and labor intensive objects like cars.
However, pretend the auto industry made money by designing cars and then licensing the right to build a single car based on that design (selling, of course, to people who have complete assembly lines in their sheds). People would use their own equipment to create the car based on the data provided.
If I wreck my car, shouldn't I be able to go build another? I bought a license for one Ford Focus, so as long as I'm not cranking out Foci for my whole family, I'm not taking any money out of the hands of Ford or it's designers. All I'm doing is reusing the data to create another instance of the product I've already licensed for my personal use.
Has there ever been an industry which has survived solely on the basis of legislation?
The recording and software industries suddenly find themselves without the natural protections of severely limited bandwidth or formats which discourage copying. As such, their business models (which have only really existed for the last few decades) seem dangerously out of date, especially on the music side. Video games and movies are still somewhat protected by large size, but with the proliferation of available bandwidth this seems only like a matter-of-time issue (although non-console video games and other computer software have some other outlets, the effectiveness of those recourses is also open to question).
So, it appears that their only tool to perpetuate their current business model will be legislation like the DMCA. Can anyone think of an industry where this survival-by-lawyers tactic has worked for more than a few years? Or are they destined to slide out of business as they know it?
Of course, we live in a historically litagous time where the law and lawyers have more power than ever, so maybe part prescindent isn't relevant. It seems entirely possible to me that they could stave off any sort of mass-advancement just be completely crushing those who oppose them (am I going to risk any real threat of a massive fine just to copy a few CD tracks?).
If the RIAA had owned the buggy industry in 1900, I think we'd all still be whipping our horses to get to work in the morning.
Of course, you were probably more easily amused as a kid. I seem to remember that a lot of games were always fooled by perfecting a single trick or strategy, then repeating it over and over.
To me, Crash Bandicoot is every bit as fun as Super Mario (not to mention that it has great attitude), Morrowind kicks Phantasy Star's ass and Grand Theft Auto III... well, there's nothing that really compares.
So, basically, I completely disagree with the idea that games aren't as good as they used to be. *Some* games are worthless tech showcases (I call these "Jurrasic Park games"), but then those were always around, weren't they?
There's probably more potential for really targeted hits.
Consider -- you park your giant airship built of low-observability materials on the edge of space above Baghdad. You have a crew watching certain areas through spy-plane style cameras. When and if they see the target, they shine a laser on the target and drop a smart bomb.
Then you linger some more. You're way the hell above the reach of any sort of air defense. You wait for the smoke to clear and do a solid damage assessment. If you see a convoy of cars fleeing at high speed, you target them and drop a couple of cluster bombs.
Then you linger some more. Panic AA fire starts up, by it's way, *way* to low. You have a good laugh and hit the john. As an added feature, when you flush it just dumps out the bottom. You wait for the smoke to clear, and you see a guy in a beret with a mustache legging it the hell out of there. You power up Cowboy Neal's big honkin' CO2 laser and turn him into a pile of organic dust.
It's like having some really impressive space-based weapons, except that they have unlimited linger time, are very easy to retask, you don't have to mess with reentry heat, you have a crew sitting up there to handle things real time and you can just scoot back for refueling, remanning and rearming when you're all done. Plus, while you're waiting, you could have played AWAC to support your buddies in the fixed-wings.
I had a friend in college who put together a CD that would automagically install Linux on a lab computer (they were all the same). He burned a few dozen copies and played Johnny Appleseed one Saturday morning right after the labs opened.
He called it "Black Hat Linux". Them were crazy times; it was a wonder girls wouldn't talk to us.
You point isn't without merit, but it seems worth pointing out that any Martian lifeforms should have a tremendous advantage in their native environment.
The real problem with contamination would probably be that we'd risk a false-positive on the who alien life thing.
No, selling support packages to independant, DYI geeks doesn't seem to work. Same goes for selling them box copies.
What we're seeing is an effort to shift away from just selling to the hard-core expert-level user. Let me back up: we use several software packages at work where the majority of the cost is from support and consulting. They can get away with this because it's a useful but somewhat arcane system and, at the end of the day, it's worthwhile for us to pay for both the licenses and the support (rather than have someone learn it, which would be overkill).
I suspect that the target audience for this has other things on their mind. If you can keep the whole process simple, easy and attractive to the end users (from a bottom-line perspective as well as a usefulness perspective), they will buy your product.
But where is all the off-topic spam? Where are the trolls? Where is the porn? The flamers?
This is clearly some sort of clever mock-up of Usenet and not the real thing. Frankly, given the omissions I've stated above, it's not even a very well-done imitation; I'm shocked the/. boys would be fooled by it.
I've been to UIUC a couple of times, but don't recall seeing the Cray 2. I'm sure if you inquired around you could find it -- it's a hard thing to misplace.
As well, a friend of mine modded his computer so the water for the cooling would do a little waterfall in a waterproof tank that you could see(Through a piece of acrylic on the side of the case),
Idea borrowed, no doubt, from the Cray waterfalls, available on several machines and cooling towers, including the Cray 2.
According to office lore while I was interning at Cray in Chippewa Falls, Seymour Cray used to tell people he was a plumber. If you look at any of the liquid-cooled Cray machines, you could see why he said that -- the most obviously complicated aspect of them was their plumbing.
Looks like we're coming full-circle here.
Another piece of office lore, incidently, said that if the florinert used to cool the machines ever boiled (so, if there was an electrical fault that flash-boiled the coolant), it would have the same effect on you as mustard gas. Not sure how true that is, but it made working in a computer room sound a lot more sexy.
I'd imagine you'd have to come up with really clever ways to get out of heavily firewalled/proxied business networks
Maybe in 1995 this would have been a problem, but in 2002 this is pretty easy -- just add an 802.11 card to your rig, configure Linux properly and you're open for bid'ness (assuming you're close enough to an exterior wall). If I were to do this today, I'd be able to sit on a bench outside the school and connect in.
The way we did it in 1995 was to just email the data to a anon email account (which I got through a local BBS, of all things) once a day. You could also just telnet in if you were on the network.
I've been at three pretty big companies now (two large and one huge), and all three were really sloppy as far as this went. When I built my new Linux box, I just brought it into work and ran a cat5 over to the empty next to me.
Of course, small companies aren't necessarily better. In any event, anyplace with DHCP is just begging for this sort of intrusion. It's a good reason to always assume that someone is listening.
Yeah, but the dreamcasts are pretty noisy. The 386 I used for this in high school only had one fan (power supply) and was built from parts that were obsolete in '95.
Why use a laptop? You can run a convincing Linux implementation using much cheaper hardware.
Back when I was in high school (1994 or '95), we put together a small 386 -- no case, no nothin' -- with a NIC and stashed it above the library computer lab. This was pretty much just to see if we could, which as I think about it seems like the reasoning behind most of what I did in high school. Well, at least the things I did in high school that didn't involve girls.
We used it to run a dump of all the packets on the network and get pretty much all the passwords used by anyone. We printed out a copy and sent it to the bozo they had in charge of IT, and he called in a mess of expensive consultants to reload everything on the network.
Of course, they didn't fix the basic problem or find our little friend. For all I know it's still running up above the 'ol drop ceiling -- we were to chicken to try and retrieve it. Of course, this was a private school, so the real joke was on us (the clue -- consultants were being paid for by our own stupid selves).
You missed the part where the groom's embaressing friend (in my experience, me) finishes his ninth vodka lemonade and decides to start chasing the things, knocking over tables, the cake, bridesmaids, etc.
I found that a four-part solution works best for ants:
First, clean your kitchen and bathroom with a bleach-based cleaner (Soft Scrub) -- this will erase scent trails. Put all food in plastic bags or the fridge and be sure there isn't any water left in the sink.
Next, follow them to estalish their points of entry and spackle them up if possible.
Now, remove all pets/young children from the house and use the RAID ant killer. Spray it into any crevices you couldn't spackle. Kill 'em all.
Finally, douse your home with liberal amounts of gasoline and light the place on fire. If you have connections with Air Guard personnel, convince them to check out an A6 and perform a follow-up napalm strike.
Of course, this will only stop the ants for a while, but should still be a much-welcome reprieve from the things.
Q: What's the difference between a porcupine and a BMW?
A: A porcupine has its pricks on the outside.
Disclaimer: I live in the Silicon Valley and am therefore, by law, entitled to make fun of the assholes driving their beemers around in the far-left lane at 5 miles below the speed limit, changing lanes without signaling and generally acting as if they purchased soverign right to the roads along with their overpriced German-made Civics.
When I read (on/.) that Adams had died, I pulled my leather-bound copy of Hitchhiker down off the shelf, flipped to a random page and started reading.
I happened to open to the bit where they go to see God's final message to his creation. I'm not normally a very emotional person, but when I was reading that I cried like a little kid. For a geek like me, Adams was my John Lennon -- hearing that there just wasn't going to be anymore stories made the world seem gray.
I wonder if the book made up from his notes is worthwhile, or if it'll just seem.. I dunno... wrong.
Like I said in another post, this guy is missing the point (and so, I dare say, are you).
The key issue here isn't really the X GUI options' emulation of the Windows environment, but rather the larger fact that all open source projects are structurally based on existing products. The innovation is always on a smaller scale -- OSS doesn't seem to able to effect ground-up changes the way a small group of motivated, creative people are (Be, etc).
Overall, however, I think he also misses the boat in gauging what users of Windows are looking for. In the long run, I believe that the standard-complience, ease of customization and reliability of OSS products will give it an edge over their closed-source counterparts.
In other words, this article seems both off-track and behind the times.
Blah blah blah, blah blah blah
on
GUIs for Everyone
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
This guy says the exact same stuff that I've heard people talking about since 1995 when I started using X on top of Linux.
I don't want to be one of those "why is this news" trolls, but I can't really see what the usefulness of this article is. Did I miss something?
That said, let me address his points: The mistake I see this guy making in his logic is assuming that OSS makes large-scale innovations. In reality, I've noticed that OSS projects tend to borrow a basic framework and when innovate in smaller steps. Linux looks like Unix, KDE and Gnome look like Windows, etc. The difference, of course, is the small changes and nifty add-ons that make any given system more configurable, useful or whatever.
The real strength of OSS is the rate of evolution, not in the ground-up creation. I'm convinced that it takes a small group of well-led, motivated people with an original idea and good planning to make truly structural leap -- think Be. I haven't seen an open source project do this *yet* (not saying it's impossible, however).
So, instead of just doing is shallow-understanding critique of open source development, he should have been discussing a way to allow open source development to make these sorts of large-scale fundemental leaps. That would have been useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Hm, no, there's a big difference between regulating structures to allow business to function and using regulation to prop up outmoded paradigms.
No, but if you get a scratch on your car, you can get it fixed without buying a whole new car.
Of course, the analogy is ridiculously flawed -- you can't easily compare 1s and 0s to large, resource and labor intensive objects like cars.
However, pretend the auto industry made money by designing cars and then licensing the right to build a single car based on that design (selling, of course, to people who have complete assembly lines in their sheds). People would use their own equipment to create the car based on the data provided.
If I wreck my car, shouldn't I be able to go build another? I bought a license for one Ford Focus, so as long as I'm not cranking out Foci for my whole family, I'm not taking any money out of the hands of Ford or it's designers. All I'm doing is reusing the data to create another instance of the product I've already licensed for my personal use.
Has there ever been an industry which has survived solely on the basis of legislation?
The recording and software industries suddenly find themselves without the natural protections of severely limited bandwidth or formats which discourage copying. As such, their business models (which have only really existed for the last few decades) seem dangerously out of date, especially on the music side. Video games and movies are still somewhat protected by large size, but with the proliferation of available bandwidth this seems only like a matter-of-time issue (although non-console video games and other computer software have some other outlets, the effectiveness of those recourses is also open to question).
So, it appears that their only tool to perpetuate their current business model will be legislation like the DMCA. Can anyone think of an industry where this survival-by-lawyers tactic has worked for more than a few years? Or are they destined to slide out of business as they know it?
Of course, we live in a historically litagous time where the law and lawyers have more power than ever, so maybe part prescindent isn't relevant. It seems entirely possible to me that they could stave off any sort of mass-advancement just be completely crushing those who oppose them (am I going to risk any real threat of a massive fine just to copy a few CD tracks?).
If the RIAA had owned the buggy industry in 1900, I think we'd all still be whipping our horses to get to work in the morning.
To me, Crash Bandicoot is every bit as fun as Super Mario (not to mention that it has great attitude), Morrowind kicks Phantasy Star's ass and Grand Theft Auto III... well, there's nothing that really compares.
So, basically, I completely disagree with the idea that games aren't as good as they used to be. *Some* games are worthless tech showcases (I call these "Jurrasic Park games"), but then those were always around, weren't they?
Consider -- you park your giant airship built of low-observability materials on the edge of space above Baghdad. You have a crew watching certain areas through spy-plane style cameras. When and if they see the target, they shine a laser on the target and drop a smart bomb.
Then you linger some more. You're way the hell above the reach of any sort of air defense. You wait for the smoke to clear and do a solid damage assessment. If you see a convoy of cars fleeing at high speed, you target them and drop a couple of cluster bombs.
Then you linger some more. Panic AA fire starts up, by it's way, *way* to low. You have a good laugh and hit the john. As an added feature, when you flush it just dumps out the bottom. You wait for the smoke to clear, and you see a guy in a beret with a mustache legging it the hell out of there. You power up Cowboy Neal's big honkin' CO2 laser and turn him into a pile of organic dust.
It's like having some really impressive space-based weapons, except that they have unlimited linger time, are very easy to retask, you don't have to mess with reentry heat, you have a crew sitting up there to handle things real time and you can just scoot back for refueling, remanning and rearming when you're all done. Plus, while you're waiting, you could have played AWAC to support your buddies in the fixed-wings.
He called it "Black Hat Linux". Them were crazy times; it was a wonder girls wouldn't talk to us.
The real problem with contamination would probably be that we'd risk a false-positive on the who alien life thing.
No, selling support packages to independant, DYI geeks doesn't seem to work. Same goes for selling them box copies.
What we're seeing is an effort to shift away from just selling to the hard-core expert-level user. Let me back up: we use several software packages at work where the majority of the cost is from support and consulting. They can get away with this because it's a useful but somewhat arcane system and, at the end of the day, it's worthwhile for us to pay for both the licenses and the support (rather than have someone learn it, which would be overkill).
I suspect that the target audience for this has other things on their mind. If you can keep the whole process simple, easy and attractive to the end users (from a bottom-line perspective as well as a usefulness perspective), they will buy your product.
But where is all the off-topic spam? Where are the trolls? Where is the porn? The flamers?
This is clearly some sort of clever mock-up of Usenet and not the real thing. Frankly, given the omissions I've stated above, it's not even a very well-done imitation; I'm shocked the /. boys would be fooled by it.
I've been to UIUC a couple of times, but don't recall seeing the Cray 2. I'm sure if you inquired around you could find it -- it's a hard thing to misplace.
Idea borrowed, no doubt, from the Cray waterfalls, available on several machines and cooling towers, including the Cray 2.
Looks like we're coming full-circle here.
Another piece of office lore, incidently, said that if the florinert used to cool the machines ever boiled (so, if there was an electrical fault that flash-boiled the coolant), it would have the same effect on you as mustard gas. Not sure how true that is, but it made working in a computer room sound a lot more sexy.
Duh.
Maybe in 1995 this would have been a problem, but in 2002 this is pretty easy -- just add an 802.11 card to your rig, configure Linux properly and you're open for bid'ness (assuming you're close enough to an exterior wall). If I were to do this today, I'd be able to sit on a bench outside the school and connect in.
The way we did it in 1995 was to just email the data to a anon email account (which I got through a local BBS, of all things) once a day. You could also just telnet in if you were on the network.
Of course, small companies aren't necessarily better. In any event, anyplace with DHCP is just begging for this sort of intrusion. It's a good reason to always assume that someone is listening.
Why use a laptop? You can run a convincing Linux implementation using much cheaper hardware.
We used it to run a dump of all the packets on the network and get pretty much all the passwords used by anyone. We printed out a copy and sent it to the bozo they had in charge of IT, and he called in a mess of expensive consultants to reload everything on the network.
Of course, they didn't fix the basic problem or find our little friend. For all I know it's still running up above the 'ol drop ceiling -- we were to chicken to try and retrieve it. Of course, this was a private school, so the real joke was on us (the clue -- consultants were being paid for by our own stupid selves).
God, I love (other people's) weddings.
First, clean your kitchen and bathroom with a bleach-based cleaner (Soft Scrub) -- this will erase scent trails. Put all food in plastic bags or the fridge and be sure there isn't any water left in the sink.
Next, follow them to estalish their points of entry and spackle them up if possible.
Now, remove all pets/young children from the house and use the RAID ant killer. Spray it into any crevices you couldn't spackle. Kill 'em all.
Finally, douse your home with liberal amounts of gasoline and light the place on fire. If you have connections with Air Guard personnel, convince them to check out an A6 and perform a follow-up napalm strike.
Of course, this will only stop the ants for a while, but should still be a much-welcome reprieve from the things.
A: A porcupine has its pricks on the outside.
Disclaimer: I live in the Silicon Valley and am therefore, by law, entitled to make fun of the assholes driving their beemers around in the far-left lane at 5 miles below the speed limit, changing lanes without signaling and generally acting as if they purchased soverign right to the roads along with their overpriced German-made Civics.
I happened to open to the bit where they go to see God's final message to his creation. I'm not normally a very emotional person, but when I was reading that I cried like a little kid. For a geek like me, Adams was my John Lennon -- hearing that there just wasn't going to be anymore stories made the world seem gray.
I wonder if the book made up from his notes is worthwhile, or if it'll just seem.. I dunno... wrong.
The key issue here isn't really the X GUI options' emulation of the Windows environment, but rather the larger fact that all open source projects are structurally based on existing products. The innovation is always on a smaller scale -- OSS doesn't seem to able to effect ground-up changes the way a small group of motivated, creative people are (Be, etc).
Overall, however, I think he also misses the boat in gauging what users of Windows are looking for. In the long run, I believe that the standard-complience, ease of customization and reliability of OSS products will give it an edge over their closed-source counterparts.
In other words, this article seems both off-track and behind the times.
That said, let me address his points: The mistake I see this guy making in his logic is assuming that OSS makes large-scale innovations. In reality, I've noticed that OSS projects tend to borrow a basic framework and when innovate in smaller steps. Linux looks like Unix, KDE and Gnome look like Windows, etc. The difference, of course, is the small changes and nifty add-ons that make any given system more configurable, useful or whatever.
The real strength of OSS is the rate of evolution, not in the ground-up creation. I'm convinced that it takes a small group of well-led, motivated people with an original idea and good planning to make truly structural leap -- think Be. I haven't seen an open source project do this *yet* (not saying it's impossible, however).
So, instead of just doing is shallow-understanding critique of open source development, he should have been discussing a way to allow open source development to make these sorts of large-scale fundemental leaps. That would have been useful.
Robots with social skills? Dear God, they've surpassed 80% of the population of /.!
Now I'll actually have to go do some work.