Until the governments of all nations of the world collude (ha!) to pull the plug on every single ISP, this is the way it will stay. These DMCA (or Congress, or whoever) dudes don't somehow get that if the code exists, be it encrypted, copyrighted or whatever, it is possible to access it without authorisation.
Unless, of course, there is no decrypting key at all. Which would be the final triumph of technology over common sense, I feel.
Now, I wouldn't say I know a great deal about Linux, or the Open Source community; but it seems to me somewhat pointless to go to all this trouble evading Windows and the Microsoft evilness if you are just going to emulate them and their file formats.
Isn't the whole idea of Linux to invent your own stuff; while it might be convenient to emulate and/or convert MS stuff, it's even more convenient (from that point of view) to actually use MS.
I'm not intending to promote MS here. I hate them too, I'm just not knowledgeable enough to use Linux (and frankly, it isn't worth my time to learn). Plus, I wish to evade the modstick.
It seems to me (your average Joe Bloggs) that the way to go is to invent your own (free (and presumably superior)) file formats, and prove them superior through their use! Force goddamn MS to emulate you! And you know it can be done, look at Quicktime... (Or PDF, or MP3, I think...)
I can already see the benefits of IPv6. With every household appliance connected to the 'net, finally we can live out some of those classic (er, or not so classic) B-movies. You know, with a hacker or something making all the drawers fly open and shut and the fridge try to eat people.
Okay, so maybe then it was a poltergeist, but in tomorrow's B-movies it will be hackers.
But anyway. Is IPv6 truly somehow the end of the road? Is it formatted so that it can be extended indefinitely? Or are our descendants doomed to upgrade their computers to accept an extra 4 numbers in their IPs every few decades?
And also, the point that someone made about everyone and his agony aunt not having a clue how to upgrade to IPv6... is this a bad thing? Would we miss our precious AOLers? (And remember, future generations will be far more tech-wise than current middle-aged slackers.)
If what many people say about most platforms and routers being compatible with IPv6 (commendations for the people with enough foresight to set that one up), and the problem is emerging into a middle-distance instead of a long-distance problem, I say go for it! Chances are there will be hitches along the way and everyone can always do with more time...
As an aside, are there yet any reports of accidental IP banning? As in, Joe Bloggs signs on to some chat room and gets his IP permanently banned, and a few weeks later Fred Bliggs signs on to the same chat room to find he has been already banned? This happened to anyone?
The change won't happen yet. Because, as the article states, it doesn't need too. Most of you guys on Slashdot who have Linux, BeOS or whatever get mad about this sutff and demand that all people become aware of these other OSes; but the average Joe doesn't need to know.
For most people (i.e. dumbass AOLers), Windows is all they need. Computers and the Internet are just a 10-minute break, and they lack the knowhow to know about, want or even care about alternatives. And since Slashdot-type people do not provide a large percent of Microsoft's income (as seen by the proliferation of non-Windows stuff), accommodating your needs isn't profitable for them.
But, of course, soon most people who buy a computers will have grown up in the Internet Age, and will not be buying one just to 'check out the Interweb'. They will care about dual-boot systems (among other things), and it's just possible that wholesale conversion to Linux will make it more profitable for MS to alter this invisible License of theirs to allow dual-booting.
Assuming, of course, that OS-specific hardware doesn't emerge before then... (eek)
Nostalgia, nice and all, but IMHO it would have been far better if he had stuck with the original system specs. What nostalgia will it be loading Counterstrike up on that machine, when instead he could have been playing good old Space Invaders or Pacman?
Methinks the case will seem somewhat less quaint with a sparkling new 17" monitor (I highly doubt he will keep that current one) showing a trademark MS BSOD. A Quantum 20GB hard-drive? I weep.
Supposing that the court makes the only possible sensible decision and deems the evidence inadmisable, this would make things difficult for the Feds.
If their (the Feds) argument is that revealing how the keylogger works would render it useless in future, one must wonder how it will be useful if the evidence gleaned from it is forever thrown out of court because they won't show how their gadget works...
I think only the processor is 'clockless', the motherboard and miscellaneous others just mosey along as usual. They don't care about clocks, they just send out their guff and wait for new guff to come back. How the processor deals with it ain't their problem.
Ah, but take a look from the point of view of the developers. They get to crank out the code to sell faster, and their users get only slightly more miffed.
Not great PR, but it's all about the money. Customer care is a thing of the past. The worst part is that everyone will just get used to it.
(At least it's not actual quality of code being sacrificed...)
Why is the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences giving out their award to a computer company, besides the stupidity of the reasoning behind it? Did I miss that episode of Esther?
Maybe we should all just be grateful the it's not Microsoft getting the award for 'helping to integrate the modern computing world', or some crud like that.
It surely won't hurt any for Apple to get some extra money and publicity for a while; perhaps Microsoft will sit up, take notice, and clean out one more bug in Win XP just to be on the safe side. Gaach.
Read 'Brief History of Time', but then read 'The Elegant Universe' as well. THAT will make your head spin.
I never heard very much about Hoyle, but he sounds like the kind of scientist we could do with more of. Nothing is gained by 'following the leader' all the time.
I never bought into the evolution malarkey anyway. IMHO, there are WAY too many attributes in species that just could not have evolved by chance and natural selection. But, you don't want me to bore you.
I would say the technology is clearly available, but that is isn't worth the extra money (LOTS of money) to do computer effects which won't look any different from the models...
Come on, we don't need remastered Planet Vulcan. We need remastered uniforms; am I the only one who gets distracted watching the first movie because all of the crew are clearly wearing pyjamas!?
Have they 'remastered' transporter effects and that sort of thing too? Gaach.
Can someone find a link to some market research into 'remastered' movies? Do any exist? Do 'remastered' versions sell better? In all holiness, what gives? One would have thought that Lara Croft and the other CGI babes would have given those bored animators more than enough to occupy their time without wasting millions on useless editing...
Hmm, an interesting concept; a peer-to-peer network devoted entirely to scandalous and possibly paedophiliac pronography. Could be lucrative.
(Joke, joke, thank you Mr. Modstick)
I wonder how far into the ground they will bash Napster before giving up; perhaps they just don't want to have to admit that there are hundreds of other P2P networks out there, and that they cannot stop them all...
Well, it's even more unlikely still. I don't know whereabouts in the Galaxy this star is (by that I mean is it on the edge like us, or in the middle?), but I do know that an old article in New Scientist detailed how the vast majority of stars being scanned by SETI could not possibly harbour life.
Only stars in the spiral arms of the Galaxy (like us) will continue for a long enough period of time without being smashed by comets and other space stuff to develop life, and this is apart from the fact that the majority of star systems are binaries. (Around which a stable-temperature orbit is impossible, as we all know;).)
Other unique aspects of our Sun include its containing 50% more heavy elements than other stars of its age and type, and a third in the variation of brightness.
Put briefly, the article explains how over 95% of the stars in the Galaxy could not harbour life simply due to their position in it, and that the rest must comply with very specific conditions if life is to form.
Things might look promising for this star so far, but personally I wouldn't get my hopes up.
This is utterly utterly wrong. People of America, do you really want to make it easier for people to vote? I think not...
You see, the more people there are (presuming they can all vote), the less value your vote has. And let's face it, most of the people here on Slashdot have more intelligence and are better suited to pick the next President than some redneck hick sitting in a cabin (or to be less extreme; next time you take a bus, look at the people around you. Now, how many of them would you want to have an influence on your future)?
So instead, the voting system should not only remain as it is, but in fact increase in complexity. The (cynical) way I see it, if you can gear the voting card so that anyone with less than a minimal amount of intelligence ends up voiding his vote (or perhaps voting for a 'red herring'), the more influence people with some intelligence can have.
You may argue that this view is exceedingly cynical. I would agree. But backtrack for a second, and remember that the vast majority of Americans (and people of all nations) are, to put it politely, morons. The greater up the intelligence scale you go, the fewer people you will find, and it's easy to see that a system which follows the collective will of dolts will not fuction well. (The main flaw with democracy, in my opinion.)
So if a computerised voting system is to be put in place, some sort of low-grade intelligence test would be really quite handy. I'm not saying that only geniuses should vote, but I'm sure you can all name people who you do not want deciding the future of the free world.
Of course, the tax burden to keep such a system in operation (along with all the spotty IT admins) is another matter entirely. But hey, I live in England, what do I care. (And presumably, with a two-party system you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.)
The only Outland I ever read was in the very last book; I already loved it by the time I got to the end (which were also the last strips, of course). Sensational stuff, of which I shall dig up more one day.
Also, as I have aged (but not by much;)) it's been nice to notice how I can relate more and more to Calvin and Hobbes; it was funny when I was younger, and now it's funny on a whole new level. I tells ya, that boy's got it sussed.
(And kudos to Bill anyway, for never succumbing to the demands of the the syndicate to license C&H.)
No no, this is just the beginning. Because if you've invented a computer to generate patentable things for you, you are going to want to make money out of them; as much as is humanly possible.
So, what we end up with is another generation of computers; not to scan patents but to compare marketing strategies and come up with new ones which will do the best job of selling the crappy new stuff.
No doubt someone will eventually complain that their patent was actually infringed, and at that time we can look forward to lawyer-computers which will generate new legal strategies by comparing the best ones from the past...
Being a Brit as I am, it's interesting to me that Northern Ireland is the only piece of that country showing lots of light (apart from Dublin)... unless I am to make some tasteless joke about bombs, I can only assume this is a result of intensive British building, as opposed to the wonderful (and wisely) undeveloped countryside of Ireland.
If Return of the Jedi was 'going to be' Revenge of the Jedi before it came out, perhaps Episode II will be called 'Attack of the Drones'. Or 'bones', perhaps? 'Defense of the Clones'? Ergh.
Did Lucas ever mess with the names of the other films? 'Jedi' was a long time ago, and (personally) I wouldn't think he's likely to revive the idea now (especially since everyone knows about it) unless he also did it with Epsiode I.
Anyone know the motive for the 'Jedi' name-switch; perhaps it was for a different reason than commonly thought?
About that Star Wars title: I may be utterly wrong, but it was my knowledge that the entire series of Star Wars films was based on books which could not be fit into a single film. (You knew this, yeah?)
So surely the title has already been decided by the title of the book? (Does anyone own the fabled tomes, who could confirm this?)
Slashdot Mirror
Until the governments of all nations of the world collude (ha!) to pull the plug on every single ISP, this is the way it will stay. These DMCA (or Congress, or whoever) dudes don't somehow get that if the code exists, be it encrypted, copyrighted or whatever, it is possible to access it without authorisation.
Unless, of course, there is no decrypting key at all. Which would be the final triumph of technology over common sense, I feel.
Isn't the whole idea of Linux to invent your own stuff; while it might be convenient to emulate and/or convert MS stuff, it's even more convenient (from that point of view) to actually use MS.
I'm not intending to promote MS here. I hate them too, I'm just not knowledgeable enough to use Linux (and frankly, it isn't worth my time to learn). Plus, I wish to evade the modstick.
It seems to me (your average Joe Bloggs) that the way to go is to invent your own (free (and presumably superior)) file formats, and prove them superior through their use! Force goddamn MS to emulate you! And you know it can be done, look at Quicktime... (Or PDF, or MP3, I think...)
Okay, so maybe then it was a poltergeist, but in tomorrow's B-movies it will be hackers.
But anyway. Is IPv6 truly somehow the end of the road? Is it formatted so that it can be extended indefinitely? Or are our descendants doomed to upgrade their computers to accept an extra 4 numbers in their IPs every few decades?
And also, the point that someone made about everyone and his agony aunt not having a clue how to upgrade to IPv6... is this a bad thing? Would we miss our precious AOLers? (And remember, future generations will be far more tech-wise than current middle-aged slackers.)
If what many people say about most platforms and routers being compatible with IPv6 (commendations for the people with enough foresight to set that one up), and the problem is emerging into a middle-distance instead of a long-distance problem, I say go for it! Chances are there will be hitches along the way and everyone can always do with more time...
As an aside, are there yet any reports of accidental IP banning? As in, Joe Bloggs signs on to some chat room and gets his IP permanently banned, and a few weeks later Fred Bliggs signs on to the same chat room to find he has been already banned? This happened to anyone?
For most people (i.e. dumbass AOLers), Windows is all they need. Computers and the Internet are just a 10-minute break, and they lack the knowhow to know about, want or even care about alternatives. And since Slashdot-type people do not provide a large percent of Microsoft's income (as seen by the proliferation of non-Windows stuff), accommodating your needs isn't profitable for them.
But, of course, soon most people who buy a computers will have grown up in the Internet Age, and will not be buying one just to 'check out the Interweb'. They will care about dual-boot systems (among other things), and it's just possible that wholesale conversion to Linux will make it more profitable for MS to alter this invisible License of theirs to allow dual-booting.
Assuming, of course, that OS-specific hardware doesn't emerge before then... (eek)
Methinks the case will seem somewhat less quaint with a sparkling new 17" monitor (I highly doubt he will keep that current one) showing a trademark MS BSOD. A Quantum 20GB hard-drive? I weep.
If their (the Feds) argument is that revealing how the keylogger works would render it useless in future, one must wonder how it will be useful if the evidence gleaned from it is forever thrown out of court because they won't show how their gadget works...
Once again, stupidity prevails over science.
I think only the processor is 'clockless', the motherboard and miscellaneous others just mosey along as usual. They don't care about clocks, they just send out their guff and wait for new guff to come back. How the processor deals with it ain't their problem.
Not great PR, but it's all about the money. Customer care is a thing of the past. The worst part is that everyone will just get used to it.
(At least it's not actual quality of code being sacrificed...)
Maybe we should all just be grateful the it's not Microsoft getting the award for 'helping to integrate the modern computing world', or some crud like that.
It surely won't hurt any for Apple to get some extra money and publicity for a while; perhaps Microsoft will sit up, take notice, and clean out one more bug in Win XP just to be on the safe side. Gaach.
I never heard very much about Hoyle, but he sounds like the kind of scientist we could do with more of. Nothing is gained by 'following the leader' all the time.
I never bought into the evolution malarkey anyway. IMHO, there are WAY too many attributes in species that just could not have evolved by chance and natural selection. But, you don't want me to bore you.
I would say the technology is clearly available, but that is isn't worth the extra money (LOTS of money) to do computer effects which won't look any different from the models...
Um, I thought that the Star Trek scenery was all cardboard cut-outs. As well as all of the gadgets being wooden, of course... :)
Have they 'remastered' transporter effects and that sort of thing too? Gaach.
Can someone find a link to some market research into 'remastered' movies? Do any exist? Do 'remastered' versions sell better? In all holiness, what gives? One would have thought that Lara Croft and the other CGI babes would have given those bored animators more than enough to occupy their time without wasting millions on useless editing...
(Joke, joke, thank you Mr. Modstick)
I wonder how far into the ground they will bash Napster before giving up; perhaps they just don't want to have to admit that there are hundreds of other P2P networks out there, and that they cannot stop them all...
Only stars in the spiral arms of the Galaxy (like us) will continue for a long enough period of time without being smashed by comets and other space stuff to develop life, and this is apart from the fact that the majority of star systems are binaries. (Around which a stable-temperature orbit is impossible, as we all know;).)
Other unique aspects of our Sun include its containing 50% more heavy elements than other stars of its age and type, and a third in the variation of brightness.
Put briefly, the article explains how over 95% of the stars in the Galaxy could not harbour life simply due to their position in it, and that the rest must comply with very specific conditions if life is to form.
Things might look promising for this star so far, but personally I wouldn't get my hopes up.
You see, the more people there are (presuming they can all vote), the less value your vote has. And let's face it, most of the people here on Slashdot have more intelligence and are better suited to pick the next President than some redneck hick sitting in a cabin (or to be less extreme; next time you take a bus, look at the people around you. Now, how many of them would you want to have an influence on your future)?
So instead, the voting system should not only remain as it is, but in fact increase in complexity. The (cynical) way I see it, if you can gear the voting card so that anyone with less than a minimal amount of intelligence ends up voiding his vote (or perhaps voting for a 'red herring'), the more influence people with some intelligence can have.
You may argue that this view is exceedingly cynical. I would agree. But backtrack for a second, and remember that the vast majority of Americans (and people of all nations) are, to put it politely, morons. The greater up the intelligence scale you go, the fewer people you will find, and it's easy to see that a system which follows the collective will of dolts will not fuction well. (The main flaw with democracy, in my opinion.)
So if a computerised voting system is to be put in place, some sort of low-grade intelligence test would be really quite handy. I'm not saying that only geniuses should vote, but I'm sure you can all name people who you do not want deciding the future of the free world.
Of course, the tax burden to keep such a system in operation (along with all the spotty IT admins) is another matter entirely. But hey, I live in England, what do I care. (And presumably, with a two-party system you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.)
Also, as I have aged (but not by much ;)) it's been nice to notice how I can relate more and more to Calvin and Hobbes; it was funny when I was younger, and now it's funny on a whole new level. I tells ya, that boy's got it sussed.
(And kudos to Bill anyway, for never succumbing to the demands of the the syndicate to license C&H.)
So, what we end up with is another generation of computers; not to scan patents but to compare marketing strategies and come up with new ones which will do the best job of selling the crappy new stuff.
No doubt someone will eventually complain that their patent was actually infringed, and at that time we can look forward to lawyer-computers which will generate new legal strategies by comparing the best ones from the past...
Well, that's my conspiracy theory anyway.
*Sigh*
If Return of the Jedi was 'going to be' Revenge of the Jedi before it came out, perhaps Episode II will be called 'Attack of the Drones'. Or 'bones', perhaps? 'Defense of the Clones'? Ergh. Did Lucas ever mess with the names of the other films? 'Jedi' was a long time ago, and (personally) I wouldn't think he's likely to revive the idea now (especially since everyone knows about it) unless he also did it with Epsiode I. Anyone know the motive for the 'Jedi' name-switch; perhaps it was for a different reason than commonly thought?
About that Star Wars title: I may be utterly wrong, but it was my knowledge that the entire series of Star Wars films was based on books which could not be fit into a single film. (You knew this, yeah?) So surely the title has already been decided by the title of the book? (Does anyone own the fabled tomes, who could confirm this?)