Humans really do not have an adequet grasp of timespans when it comes to geology or similiar such things. This happened over 150million years, didnt cause the end of the world, and life went on around it, whereas today we cant run powerstations without people declaring that they will bring about the end of hte human race, anything that comes within a hundred miles will die of radiation poisoning. This shows that the world can cope with nuclear waste, and it can cope pretty damn well. But then the world has always had to deal with bigger issues than anything humanity can throw at it anytime soon.
We have been around for 50,000 years, give or take. The earth has been around for 4billion years. Give nature some credit.
Thats 60% of the Shuttles LAUNCH cost, the $300million USD stated for a Titan IV launch includes the disposable vehicle. Oh, and unmanned "dumb" boosters havent had much problems putting payloads into very precise orbits since the 1950s. Sure one goes wrong every now and then,k but just looking at the Delta rockets launch history, out of 307 launches, there has been 15 failures and 1 incorrect orbit. Over a 44 year period, and 4 generations of rocket, 95% is a pretty impressive success rate.
If you look harder you can find specific data on launches between 1988 and 2002 on all launch vehicles. For those who wont click through, let me bring the data to you:
Nasa Launches 1988 - 2002
Launches - 56
Success - 55
Rate - 98.21%
DOD Launches 1988 - 2002
Launches - 111
Success - 100
Rate - 90.09%
Commercial Launches 1988 - 2002
Launches - 112
Success - 103
Rate - 91.96%
Total number of successful launches between 1988 and 2002? 258 out of 279 launched. Total number of Shuttle missions at $500million a pop? 113 since 1981.
Some more maths coming up, still keeping up there?
THe space shuttle Endeavor cost $1.7billion USD in 1990, for a total of $8.5billion USD for the fleet of 5 assuming each cost the same as Endeavor. Each shuttle launch costs $500million. Each Titan launch costs $300million including the cost of the vehicle.
Total Launch costs of 113 Shuttle missions since 1981: $65billion USD.
Total Launch costs of 279 non shuttle missions since 1988: $83.7billion USD.
Price to have shuttle match non shuttle launches: $139.5billion USD.
Theres no doubt which is cooler, but now tell me which is the better deal? Granted, this is assuming that all boosters cost the same as the Titan, which is about the most expensive option behind the shuttle. Plus this doesnt take into account the cost of caring for the shuttle between launches.
If the ATM providor feels that running an off the shelf MS OS fulfils the requirements, what makes you think they are going to spend the time and effort to build a customised version of Linux for the job, turning off unneeded services and hardening the system? Even if they did switch to linux, expect to see a version of Redhat7 or equivilent on there, which isnt exactly secure itself. These people cant just "apt-get update", so expect to see outdated software with masses of vulnerabilities included, whatever OS or platform is chosen.
Russian underground books - Not sure, havent heard of them.
Americas Army - Uhm, sure it might be free money wise, but its backed by the freaking US Military as a recruitment tool. Hardly what Id call amateur, which is what I was trying to put across.
Blair Witch - Had a backer that pumped between $20,000 and $50,000 into it. It might have been a cheap independant film, but the money was still there and needed.
Shakespeare produced plays, which were shown at the Globe theatre in London. Very few of his works were produced in book form until after his death. Bach performed his work at various venues, again very few of his works were released to the public in any other form until after his death. Both of these people had a healthy and protected stream of income from their works. Homer - well, going back a bit now arent we?
SO which companies are going to give musicians the resources without an implied return? The arguement works either way, someone has to put the capital in, and that isnt going to happen without some sort of return, love of it just isnt enough. And I think you will find that most first time authors or poets write their books in spare time, for the love of it. Very few start out with the impression its going to make them millions and be their primary income, and those that do are invariably the ones that fail. Creativity isnt a career that you choose, it chooses you. Again, its the love of it that starts these people out. I wasnt saying that the work and effort on the part of these people is negligable, i was merely saying that the work and effort required is on a whole different level than that of film making etc.
The problem is that the world has moved on since the VCR arguement was made. People today can make 1:1 PERFECT copies of items, quickly, with minimal effort and time involved. In essence, people can do what publishers can do, produce perfect replicas with minimal input. That is what is different to the VCR arguement. It takes me 10 minutes to duplicate a DVD, whereas it took me the entire length of the film to duplicate a VHS. And the VHS copy was degraded somewhat.
Sure, plenty of stuff was produced before copyright was created, but look at why it was. A book was a work of art, lovingly crafted and time was spent hand copying each page. A musical score was a composers genius, performed only by him. The advent of the printing press destroyed the individuality that these things thrived on. Anyone could produce a million copies of the book, cheaply, so people stopped producing new works. That is why copyright was introduced.
Take a look at the demographic you yourself mention. Authors, poets, artists and musicians. All areas which dont take an inordinant amount of resources or personal time to produce something. And all areas which have had mixed success in breaking into the mainstream, but very few have had the same amount of success as professionals have. I did say that you would still find the people doing it for the love, but seriously, how many people have the thousands of dollars available per day for a multicamera, broadcast quality video and audio recording system? How many have the money to take it to locations? How many people have the money to carry out huge stunts? How many people have the money for CGI? The answer really is very very very few, and the number of people willing to make that sort of investment based on a love of the thing? Minimal. People dont want to stump up $10,000 or more for love, with little to no return. You said it yourself, people would do this in their spare time, but the sheer number of people producing would dive dramatically. Musicians dont have the time to put out 2 professional albums a year when theres no return.
Because it's a perfectly good and valid argument: if someone looks at my house, considers buying it, but then decides to build a copy instead, I have no right to demand they pay me money.
No, it isnt a perfectly good and valid arguement, and that analogy is just plain laughable.
The simple fact is that 'intellectual property' is an attempt to artificially create scarcity in an environment where there is none: at best it's a moronic abuse of government power, at worst it will prevent a truly information-based economy from arising. It's nothing more than the modern equivalent of buggy-whip manufacturers conspiring with the government to keep those new-fangled automobiles off the road.
If there wasnt an artificial scarcity on hard to produce, easy to copy items then really how many films would we be enjoying now? How many authors would be producing best sellers? How many musicians would be producing works? How many computer/console games would be being released? I will tell you now, not many at all. When it comes down to it, the majority of items produced for this 'artificial scarcity' are produced for money, not love, and without the artificial scarcity we would have rather less entertainment.
Like it or not, Hollywood is a huge industry which employs a massive amount of people. Those people arent doing it for love, they are doing it to eat. Would they be there if their wages were on a charity basis? Hell no. They are there for the same reason you are at work, money. There may be a very few at the top end that are doing it for love.
If we had to rely on amateur works to fill the void this industry would leave behind, then the world would be a dull place. Sure, youd get some gems (like Linux) but then you would get tonnes and tonnes of drivel (majority of sourceforge). Tell me when the last popular free book written in modern times came. Tell me when the last popular free 3d FPS was released. Tell me when the last amateur film made it big, got shown in cinemas world wide. You cant. For the most part, a lot of people dont have the resources to produce Doom3 or Titanic in their spare time (for that is what they will be doing, they have to earn money to eat as well).
Next time you claim the artificial scarcity is an abuse of power, just think of the diversity and entertainment value that that scarcity has produced. Unless theres money involved, chances are it wouldnt happen otherwise as people dont have the resources. Software is an exception, because resources required are small for entry into this field.
How about renting it, copying it and then returning it. You are keeping a permanent copy for a rental price, if you want a permanent copy why not purchase a permenent copy in the first place? Oh thats right, because the arguement 'I wouldnt have bought it anyway, so it isnt hurting anyone' comes into play as it normally does on slashdot. If you werent going to buy it anyway, what entitles you to a free copy? I think $19.99 is a very good price for what I get on a DVD.
Yes, its a political campaign site, and yes the people outside the US wont have a chance to affect the elections, but since the policies of the US have such a massive impact on the world, why shouldnt we be allowed to see the campaign pledges etc on this site? Whoever gains office next week doesnt just affect the US, it affects the world, but only the US gets to say who gains office.
Read his comment again, he KNOWS that they are generally battery free, but he WAS wondering about HOW they managed to receive power from a remote source. So was I. And personally, the privacy concerns are overblown imho, the same as how environmental concerns are often overblown.
Theres a NASA program going on at the moment with 12 crew, except this time they are relying on a lot less natural, and going more for mechanical, with a large hydroponics area for food and some oxygen. I think this approach is better for the journey rather than something like Biosphere 2:)
Biosphere 2 was a technical failure. THey had to pump extra oxygen into the system after it was discovered that the extinction rate within the dome was a lot higher than expected. Something like 70% of all species put into the system to begin with died out within the life of the experiment.
Constitution was the name given to the class of the craft Kirks Enterprise (NCC-1701 and A) belonged to, due to the USS Constitution (NCC-1700) being the first craft of that type. Only the NX-01 from the new Enterprise series placed the Enterprise as first in its class. So, yes, I see why it would make a more fitting tribute:) Tho technically none of the shuttles are referred to as "Enterprise Class", tho they have good uptimes.
Ive never understood the immediate upcry about stuff like this, sure its going to broadcast data, but who says that data is in the clear? Couldnt the data be encrypted at the time the tag is written to? Has anyone on slashdot considered that?
Everything brought up by this tool is data that you are not cleaning up yourself after use. You ask if its time for the media to start putting up opposition to services that compromise privacy, I ask if its time for the media to start putting up opposition to those people who think its everyone elses job to protect their privacy. You are putting that data on the disks - into the public domain essentially, you are responsable for cleaning it up afterward, noone else. You expect noone to go through the wallet you left on the bus? You expect noone to read the shopping list you dropped in the mall? You expect noone to read the mail you opened and discarded in the street? Stop blaming other people and start to protect your own privacy, I dont want to clean up after you.
So long as you dont remove the GPL or copyright notices from the code, I dont think this is the case. Otherwise, if you had to give attributes to the origional authors, what was the fuss over the new X11 license? You dont have to give attribution for copyright to stand. Plus, they have to release binaries before people can start requesting the sourcecode (and even then, its only those who have received binaries - not the general public). Thus, currently, only those who have received demo versions can request code, and then they have to prove without a doubt that its GPL code.
He doesnt even have to acknowledge it, he can just rebrand it wholesale and so long as the code is made available, he hasnt done anything wrong. This was too good to be true really:(
Simple, they dont. The respective intelligence agencies of each country are forbidden from spying on their own citizens without aformentioned warrants. Solution? Get a friendly country involved, no warrants necessary. Echelon is in all probability laid out in such a fasion that the US doesnt get information on its citizens without it passing through even a token foreign intelligence link, and thus US intelligence agencies being able to legitimately claim that the info was passed to them by a friendly nation.
Slashdot Mirror
Humans really do not have an adequet grasp of timespans when it comes to geology or similiar such things. This happened over 150million years, didnt cause the end of the world, and life went on around it, whereas today we cant run powerstations without people declaring that they will bring about the end of hte human race, anything that comes within a hundred miles will die of radiation poisoning. This shows that the world can cope with nuclear waste, and it can cope pretty damn well. But then the world has always had to deal with bigger issues than anything humanity can throw at it anytime soon.
We have been around for 50,000 years, give or take. The earth has been around for 4billion years. Give nature some credit.
If you look harder you can find specific data on launches between 1988 and 2002 on all launch vehicles. For those who wont click through, let me bring the data to you:
- Nasa Launches 1988 - 2002
- Launches - 56
- Success - 55
- Rate - 98.21%
- DOD Launches 1988 - 2002
- Launches - 111
- Success - 100
- Rate - 90.09%
- Commercial Launches 1988 - 2002
- Launches - 112
- Success - 103
- Rate - 91.96%
Total number of successful launches between 1988 and 2002? 258 out of 279 launched. Total number of Shuttle missions at $500million a pop? 113 since 1981.Some more maths coming up, still keeping up there?
THe space shuttle Endeavor cost $1.7billion USD in 1990, for a total of $8.5billion USD for the fleet of 5 assuming each cost the same as Endeavor. Each shuttle launch costs $500million. Each Titan launch costs $300million including the cost of the vehicle.
Total Launch costs of 113 Shuttle missions since 1981: $65billion USD.
Total Launch costs of 279 non shuttle missions since 1988: $83.7billion USD.
Price to have shuttle match non shuttle launches: $139.5billion USD.
Theres no doubt which is cooler, but now tell me which is the better deal? Granted, this is assuming that all boosters cost the same as the Titan, which is about the most expensive option behind the shuttle. Plus this doesnt take into account the cost of caring for the shuttle between launches.
If the ATM providor feels that running an off the shelf MS OS fulfils the requirements, what makes you think they are going to spend the time and effort to build a customised version of Linux for the job, turning off unneeded services and hardening the system? Even if they did switch to linux, expect to see a version of Redhat7 or equivilent on there, which isnt exactly secure itself. These people cant just "apt-get update", so expect to see outdated software with masses of vulnerabilities included, whatever OS or platform is chosen.
Russian underground books - Not sure, havent heard of them.
Americas Army - Uhm, sure it might be free money wise, but its backed by the freaking US Military as a recruitment tool. Hardly what Id call amateur, which is what I was trying to put across.
Blair Witch - Had a backer that pumped between $20,000 and $50,000 into it. It might have been a cheap independant film, but the money was still there and needed.
Shakespeare produced plays, which were shown at the Globe theatre in London. Very few of his works were produced in book form until after his death. Bach performed his work at various venues, again very few of his works were released to the public in any other form until after his death. Both of these people had a healthy and protected stream of income from their works. Homer - well, going back a bit now arent we?
SO which companies are going to give musicians the resources without an implied return? The arguement works either way, someone has to put the capital in, and that isnt going to happen without some sort of return, love of it just isnt enough. And I think you will find that most first time authors or poets write their books in spare time, for the love of it. Very few start out with the impression its going to make them millions and be their primary income, and those that do are invariably the ones that fail. Creativity isnt a career that you choose, it chooses you. Again, its the love of it that starts these people out. I wasnt saying that the work and effort on the part of these people is negligable, i was merely saying that the work and effort required is on a whole different level than that of film making etc.
The problem is that the world has moved on since the VCR arguement was made. People today can make 1:1 PERFECT copies of items, quickly, with minimal effort and time involved. In essence, people can do what publishers can do, produce perfect replicas with minimal input. That is what is different to the VCR arguement. It takes me 10 minutes to duplicate a DVD, whereas it took me the entire length of the film to duplicate a VHS. And the VHS copy was degraded somewhat.
Sure, plenty of stuff was produced before copyright was created, but look at why it was. A book was a work of art, lovingly crafted and time was spent hand copying each page. A musical score was a composers genius, performed only by him. The advent of the printing press destroyed the individuality that these things thrived on. Anyone could produce a million copies of the book, cheaply, so people stopped producing new works. That is why copyright was introduced.
Take a look at the demographic you yourself mention. Authors, poets, artists and musicians. All areas which dont take an inordinant amount of resources or personal time to produce something. And all areas which have had mixed success in breaking into the mainstream, but very few have had the same amount of success as professionals have. I did say that you would still find the people doing it for the love, but seriously, how many people have the thousands of dollars available per day for a multicamera, broadcast quality video and audio recording system? How many have the money to take it to locations? How many people have the money to carry out huge stunts? How many people have the money for CGI? The answer really is very very very few, and the number of people willing to make that sort of investment based on a love of the thing? Minimal. People dont want to stump up $10,000 or more for love, with little to no return. You said it yourself, people would do this in their spare time, but the sheer number of people producing would dive dramatically. Musicians dont have the time to put out 2 professional albums a year when theres no return.
Because it's a perfectly good and valid argument: if someone looks at my house, considers buying it, but then decides to build a copy instead, I have no right to demand they pay me money.
No, it isnt a perfectly good and valid arguement, and that analogy is just plain laughable.
The simple fact is that 'intellectual property' is an attempt to artificially create scarcity in an environment where there is none: at best it's a moronic abuse of government power, at worst it will prevent a truly information-based economy from arising. It's nothing more than the modern equivalent of buggy-whip manufacturers conspiring with the government to keep those new-fangled automobiles off the road.
If there wasnt an artificial scarcity on hard to produce, easy to copy items then really how many films would we be enjoying now? How many authors would be producing best sellers? How many musicians would be producing works? How many computer/console games would be being released? I will tell you now, not many at all. When it comes down to it, the majority of items produced for this 'artificial scarcity' are produced for money, not love, and without the artificial scarcity we would have rather less entertainment.
Like it or not, Hollywood is a huge industry which employs a massive amount of people. Those people arent doing it for love, they are doing it to eat. Would they be there if their wages were on a charity basis? Hell no. They are there for the same reason you are at work, money. There may be a very few at the top end that are doing it for love.
If we had to rely on amateur works to fill the void this industry would leave behind, then the world would be a dull place. Sure, youd get some gems (like Linux) but then you would get tonnes and tonnes of drivel (majority of sourceforge). Tell me when the last popular free book written in modern times came. Tell me when the last popular free 3d FPS was released. Tell me when the last amateur film made it big, got shown in cinemas world wide. You cant. For the most part, a lot of people dont have the resources to produce Doom3 or Titanic in their spare time (for that is what they will be doing, they have to earn money to eat as well).
Next time you claim the artificial scarcity is an abuse of power, just think of the diversity and entertainment value that that scarcity has produced. Unless theres money involved, chances are it wouldnt happen otherwise as people dont have the resources. Software is an exception, because resources required are small for entry into this field.
How about renting it, copying it and then returning it. You are keeping a permanent copy for a rental price, if you want a permanent copy why not purchase a permenent copy in the first place? Oh thats right, because the arguement 'I wouldnt have bought it anyway, so it isnt hurting anyone' comes into play as it normally does on slashdot. If you werent going to buy it anyway, what entitles you to a free copy? I think $19.99 is a very good price for what I get on a DVD.
Yes, its a political campaign site, and yes the people outside the US wont have a chance to affect the elections, but since the policies of the US have such a massive impact on the world, why shouldnt we be allowed to see the campaign pledges etc on this site? Whoever gains office next week doesnt just affect the US, it affects the world, but only the US gets to say who gains office.
How does the current usage of non standards financially or strategically help MS? It doesnt.
Read his comment again, he KNOWS that they are generally battery free, but he WAS wondering about HOW they managed to receive power from a remote source. So was I. And personally, the privacy concerns are overblown imho, the same as how environmental concerns are often overblown.
Simple answer. Radio waves do not evolve.
Theres a NASA program going on at the moment with 12 crew, except this time they are relying on a lot less natural, and going more for mechanical, with a large hydroponics area for food and some oxygen. I think this approach is better for the journey rather than something like Biosphere 2 :)
Biosphere 2 was a technical failure. THey had to pump extra oxygen into the system after it was discovered that the extinction rate within the dome was a lot higher than expected. Something like 70% of all species put into the system to begin with died out within the life of the experiment.
Slashdotters go crazy, slow news day all around.
Constitution was the name given to the class of the craft Kirks Enterprise (NCC-1701 and A) belonged to, due to the USS Constitution (NCC-1700) being the first craft of that type. Only the NX-01 from the new Enterprise series placed the Enterprise as first in its class. So, yes, I see why it would make a more fitting tribute :) Tho technically none of the shuttles are referred to as "Enterprise Class", tho they have good uptimes.
- Virgin Mobile (cell phones)
- Virgin Atlantic (Airline)
- Virgin Megastores (highstreet sales)
- Virgin Trains (take a wild guess)
- Virgin Active (gyms and fitness centers)
- Virgin Money
- Virgin Holidays (probably in conjunction with Virgin Atlantic)
- Virgin Limobike (taxi service)
- Virgin Brides (bridal services, not mail order women)
THats just a small selection, go here for the full list of companies within the Virgin group.Best of all, Richard Branson knows how to have fun with the money hes amassed. He bought an Island specifically for staff holidays (source).
Maybe people should start looking at why americans are targetted, and start to solve that issue?
Ive never understood the immediate upcry about stuff like this, sure its going to broadcast data, but who says that data is in the clear? Couldnt the data be encrypted at the time the tag is written to? Has anyone on slashdot considered that?
Everything brought up by this tool is data that you are not cleaning up yourself after use. You ask if its time for the media to start putting up opposition to services that compromise privacy, I ask if its time for the media to start putting up opposition to those people who think its everyone elses job to protect their privacy. You are putting that data on the disks - into the public domain essentially, you are responsable for cleaning it up afterward, noone else. You expect noone to go through the wallet you left on the bus? You expect noone to read the shopping list you dropped in the mall? You expect noone to read the mail you opened and discarded in the street? Stop blaming other people and start to protect your own privacy, I dont want to clean up after you.
So long as you dont remove the GPL or copyright notices from the code, I dont think this is the case. Otherwise, if you had to give attributes to the origional authors, what was the fuss over the new X11 license? You dont have to give attribution for copyright to stand. Plus, they have to release binaries before people can start requesting the sourcecode (and even then, its only those who have received binaries - not the general public). Thus, currently, only those who have received demo versions can request code, and then they have to prove without a doubt that its GPL code.
He doesnt even have to acknowledge it, he can just rebrand it wholesale and so long as the code is made available, he hasnt done anything wrong. This was too good to be true really :(
Simple, they dont. The respective intelligence agencies of each country are forbidden from spying on their own citizens without aformentioned warrants. Solution? Get a friendly country involved, no warrants necessary. Echelon is in all probability laid out in such a fasion that the US doesnt get information on its citizens without it passing through even a token foreign intelligence link, and thus US intelligence agencies being able to legitimately claim that the info was passed to them by a friendly nation.