Playing with genes is dangerous, it is our very genetic diversity that has made mankind a powerful species. Hopefully this bill will help it stay diverse
You mean there will finally be a law that will require women to sleep with me? Oh I love the government!
I'm beginning to wonder if the industry will be in a far different place than Microsoft envisions 3 years down the line.
No, I doubt that... Longhorn will be what Windows 95 was. 95 crushed OS/2 Warp, and Longhorn will crush whatever other OS crawls into its space while MS is developing it. Besides, with all the 'amazing new technology and breathtaking new UI' B.S., the media will have a field day with it for at least 3 months before launch... Mass hysteria will ensue, people will line up outside stores to get the first copy as it becomes available at midnight, Microsoft lines their pockets with a few more billions, and 2 weeks down the road, some major flaw in the OS will be exploited, bringing business and the internet to their knees... then the media will resume the Microsoft bashing, and Joe Q. Public will want to re-install whatever OS he had before, only to find out that the company has folded, and now he's stuck with this peice of shit... oh, but wait, now Microsoft is promising a new version that will have no flaws!
Only the laziest of people and those stupid Canucks can't be bothered to read the number...[snip] We need to make themn all the same size and all the same colour to remove this confusion
Umm... You obviously are not american, as you spelt color with a 'u'... which means you are either British and have no right to bash Canadians, or worse yet, you are a Canandian trying to fit in with the American crowd... Shame on you!
I hope microsoft doesn't learn anything from this... I can see it now...
$89 for Windows 2006... 2 week later Windows 2006 will no longer be able to connect to the internet for more than 30 minutes, if you want more internet access please buy the $59 upgrade...;)
There is no way they can re-write the game from scratch in 6 months, so why the hell are they delaying it? It has NOTHING to do with the code leak, they just needed an excuse, one where the gamers would feel sorry for them... Otherwise they'd suffer the Duke Nukem Forever fate...
That's why you can't trust google for anything critical. You are at their mercy, and if they choose to do biased, or screwed up searches, you either don't know, or can't do anything about it...
I propose an opensource web based search engine... No more weirdness, no more screwups, no more censorship!
The question is what can I do to increase MY wealth... That's how all the rich, successfull people in life think... and I wouldn't know, as I'm a poor sap sitting at work, trying to come up with a whitty comment so I can be a karma whore, only to realize that my boss is going to fire me for not working enough, and posting too much on slashdot... dammit.
I'd be much happier if companies were forced to release good, unhindered specs/APIs... I don't care if you didn't give out your specific implementation, fine... whatever... but give me the means to create my own implementation that can function the same as theirs. Is that soo much to ask?
Don't buy this!!! Paramount is trying to find a way to keep Enterprise alive... they'll be using revenues from the re-re-re-release of actually good Star Trek (yes even DS9 and Voyager are 'good' compared to the current Enterprise Crap) to keep their shows and UPN afloat... It's all a ploy... I say we have them by the nuts... Let the franchise die...
I'm a huge fan of Star Trek... but the last 3 years have made it so bad that even I can't watch the crap... Make it stop... don't support these bastards! (and as a side note, if I wanted to watch a porn actress, I'd watch a damn porn, when I'm watching Star Trek, I'd at least expect some level of acting ability, and maybe, just maybe, a decent script like there was 10 years ago... get rid of the porn bitch)
Slightly off topic, but why is it that a company can pass the charges on to the end user whenever they have to pay a fee/fine?
If this spills over to other service industries, we'll be paying a 'fat guy sued us' tax on our McDonalds BigMac Meals... This has got to stop... it's one thing if the overall price for a service/product goes up to cover their costs, it's totally messed when they spell it out for you on a bill...
Actually I was planning at some point to do research on audio compression with Iterated Function Systems. That's what "Fractal Image Compression" is. Maybe someone has already done this?
The key problem isn't how you send the data, but rather when someone sniffs your data, can they beyond a reasonable doubt prove that you are stealing music/movies, etc... if you use formulas (with variables that you don't transmit) there is no way for them to prove you stole anything... even if plunking in a certain value happens to result in a block of numbers similar to a chunk of copyrighted material, you can easily argue that throwing in another number results in a block of other numbers that represent stars in the sky, or sand on a beach (or some other hugely random thing)... I don't know how US courts work, but I'm positive a defense like this would work in a Canadian court (unless you are actually caught with the music/movie intact on your harddrive... but I'm talking about the actually data transmission part of it)...
mp3 isn't a copy of the file, it's just a copy of a representation of it.
Yes, but an mp3 has all the parts required to get the 'lossy' copy back on the other end... I propose not transmitting everything that is required, thus saving your ass if you get hauled to court, since they can't take what was transmitted to you and come up with incriminating evidence.
You simply got a bunch of formulas. You get the keys elsewhere... and I can hear the next argument, why not send encrypted data then? Well, simply because encrypted data can still be dechyphered and can then be used to prove you were stealing the song (or whatever), since there is no other use for the data sent, but formulas have an endless amount of use, and as long as you can prove that there was another use for the data, they can't PROVE that you used it to gain a copy of illegal data (even if it CAN be used for such, it has other legitimate uses)... Hell, someone prove to me that a crap load of formulas weren't simply a representation of stars in the sky... see my point?
Not the asking bit by bit, as the overhead would kill throughput, but what if we broke peices of the data into mathematical equations, and sent the equations instead? If I can send something like (bare with me here, I suck at math...;) ) "2x/log(3x)" to represent a chunk of a song, then we are not actually sending a copy of the data, we are sending a formula which has many other uses.
It's simply passing formulas, and if I happen to know what "x" is, then I might happen to create a block of data that is identical to the original song that was encoded, but it was never transmitted, thus all we got were a bunch of open ended formulas, and they cannot be taken as evidence of piracy, or infringement...
Umm.. yes, that is exactly what you want it to do. The cold in 'cold fusion' means colder than the sun.
So then why isn't it called "Colder fusion"? Yeah, I thought so...;)
And why is it called fusion anyway? Isn't it more re-arranging associations? A couple protons here, a few there, lets put them closer together... hell, it should be called a sub-atomic party! All the particles get nice and friendly! Yeah, yeah... that's it! Now to patent my idea!
Not the same
on
Google Turns 5
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
It may be 5 years old, but it's not the same as it was back in the day (say 2-3 years ago)... when it truely did 'google' the internet... Now it has all sorts of filters and junk.
Do you remember when you could do a search for a file and it would return hidden ftp sites? Now I do a search for something and all I get are the top sponsored sites. I can't find anything useful using google anymore... all the darned links point to mainstream sites. At the first sign of a potential lawsuit google removes references to potentially offensive material... what good is a search engine that doesn't do a good search?
At this time I can't find anything better than google, but I really hope something comes out that is, cuz I miss the good ol' days when I could actually find stuff on the net...
I still have my RIO300 mp3 player, with a whopping 32MB internal and 32MB external memory... It kicks ass! I paid $300 for it in 98, and it still works great!
It's light, relatively good sound quality, and outside the fact it doesn't have USB connectivity (that parallel port sucks!) it's one of the few portable electronics that I still use from the 90's.
Slashdot Mirror
Playing with genes is dangerous, it is our very genetic diversity that has made mankind a powerful species. Hopefully this bill will help it stay diverse
You mean there will finally be a law that will require women to sleep with me? Oh I love the government!
So now my employer will outsource their DNA testing and discriminating practices to some island in international waters?
I'm beginning to wonder if the industry will be in a far different place than Microsoft envisions 3 years down the line.
No, I doubt that... Longhorn will be what Windows 95 was. 95 crushed OS/2 Warp, and Longhorn will crush whatever other OS crawls into its space while MS is developing it. Besides, with all the 'amazing new technology and breathtaking new UI' B.S., the media will have a field day with it for at least 3 months before launch... Mass hysteria will ensue, people will line up outside stores to get the first copy as it becomes available at midnight, Microsoft lines their pockets with a few more billions, and 2 weeks down the road, some major flaw in the OS will be exploited, bringing business and the internet to their knees... then the media will resume the Microsoft bashing, and Joe Q. Public will want to re-install whatever OS he had before, only to find out that the company has folded, and now he's stuck with this peice of shit... oh, but wait, now Microsoft is promising a new version that will have no flaws!
Oh, I really hope someone can get a digital rip of that... better than DVD quality screener!
But does the phone have an airbag?
Only the laziest of people and those stupid Canucks can't be bothered to read the number...[snip] We need to make themn all the same size and all the same colour to remove this confusion
Umm... You obviously are not american, as you spelt color with a 'u'... which means you are either British and have no right to bash Canadians, or worse yet, you are a Canandian trying to fit in with the American crowd... Shame on you!
I hope microsoft doesn't learn anything from this... I can see it now...
;)
$89 for Windows 2006... 2 week later Windows 2006 will no longer be able to connect to the internet for more than 30 minutes, if you want more internet access please buy the $59 upgrade...
There is no way they can re-write the game from scratch in 6 months, so why the hell are they delaying it? It has NOTHING to do with the code leak, they just needed an excuse, one where the gamers would feel sorry for them... Otherwise they'd suffer the Duke Nukem Forever fate...
That's why you can't trust google for anything critical. You are at their mercy, and if they choose to do biased, or screwed up searches, you either don't know, or can't do anything about it...
I propose an opensource web based search engine... No more weirdness, no more screwups, no more censorship!
The question is what can I do to increase MY wealth... That's how all the rich, successfull people in life think... and I wouldn't know, as I'm a poor sap sitting at work, trying to come up with a whitty comment so I can be a karma whore, only to realize that my boss is going to fire me for not working enough, and posting too much on slashdot... dammit.
Programming is like sex... make one mistake, and support it the rest of your life.
/. readers like to talk about it, but if you're posting to slashdot, you're obviously not doing it!
Also,
And what would that be? Programming or making mistakes?
I'd be much happier if companies were forced to release good, unhindered specs/APIs... I don't care if you didn't give out your specific implementation, fine... whatever... but give me the means to create my own implementation that can function the same as theirs. Is that soo much to ask?
Don't buy this!!! Paramount is trying to find a way to keep Enterprise alive... they'll be using revenues from the re-re-re-release of actually good Star Trek (yes even DS9 and Voyager are 'good' compared to the current Enterprise Crap) to keep their shows and UPN afloat... It's all a ploy... I say we have them by the nuts... Let the franchise die...
I'm a huge fan of Star Trek... but the last 3 years have made it so bad that even I can't watch the crap... Make it stop... don't support these bastards! (and as a side note, if I wanted to watch a porn actress, I'd watch a damn porn, when I'm watching Star Trek, I'd at least expect some level of acting ability, and maybe, just maybe, a decent script like there was 10 years ago... get rid of the porn bitch)
Umm... you just violated the DMCA by making public a circumvention method.
If you are a US resident, then I'd get outta the country quick! I heard Canada's still pretty safe...
And when you think about it, it's all our backyard.
I wanna give it back, I can't afford my property taxes as it is...
Slightly off topic, but why is it that a company can pass the charges on to the end user whenever they have to pay a fee/fine?
If this spills over to other service industries, we'll be paying a 'fat guy sued us' tax on our McDonalds BigMac Meals... This has got to stop... it's one thing if the overall price for a service/product goes up to cover their costs, it's totally messed when they spell it out for you on a bill...
Actually I was planning at some point to do research on audio compression with Iterated Function Systems. That's what "Fractal Image Compression" is. Maybe someone has already done this?
The key problem isn't how you send the data, but rather when someone sniffs your data, can they beyond a reasonable doubt prove that you are stealing music/movies, etc... if you use formulas (with variables that you don't transmit) there is no way for them to prove you stole anything... even if plunking in a certain value happens to result in a block of numbers similar to a chunk of copyrighted material, you can easily argue that throwing in another number results in a block of other numbers that represent stars in the sky, or sand on a beach (or some other hugely random thing)... I don't know how US courts work, but I'm positive a defense like this would work in a Canadian court (unless you are actually caught with the music/movie intact on your harddrive... but I'm talking about the actually data transmission part of it)...
isn't this just what compression does?
mp3 isn't a copy of the file, it's just a copy of a representation of it.
Yes, but an mp3 has all the parts required to get the 'lossy' copy back on the other end... I propose not transmitting everything that is required, thus saving your ass if you get hauled to court, since they can't take what was transmitted to you and come up with incriminating evidence.
You simply got a bunch of formulas. You get the keys elsewhere... and I can hear the next argument, why not send encrypted data then? Well, simply because encrypted data can still be dechyphered and can then be used to prove you were stealing the song (or whatever), since there is no other use for the data sent, but formulas have an endless amount of use, and as long as you can prove that there was another use for the data, they can't PROVE that you used it to gain a copy of illegal data (even if it CAN be used for such, it has other legitimate uses)... Hell, someone prove to me that a crap load of formulas weren't simply a representation of stars in the sky... see my point?
I get the joke... but it's a great idea!
;) ) "2x/log(3x)" to represent a chunk of a song, then we are not actually sending a copy of the data, we are sending a formula which has many other uses.
Not the asking bit by bit, as the overhead would kill throughput, but what if we broke peices of the data into mathematical equations, and sent the equations instead? If I can send something like (bare with me here, I suck at math...
It's simply passing formulas, and if I happen to know what "x" is, then I might happen to create a block of data that is identical to the original song that was encoded, but it was never transmitted, thus all we got were a bunch of open ended formulas, and they cannot be taken as evidence of piracy, or infringement...
Except that it costs us $87 Billion up front for the cheap gas...
Not that I don't trust you... but please provide a link to the original post...
Umm.. yes, that is exactly what you want it to do. The cold in 'cold fusion' means colder than the sun.
;)
So then why isn't it called "Colder fusion"? Yeah, I thought so...
And why is it called fusion anyway? Isn't it more re-arranging associations? A couple protons here, a few there, lets put them closer together... hell, it should be called a sub-atomic party! All the particles get nice and friendly! Yeah, yeah... that's it! Now to patent my idea!
It may be 5 years old, but it's not the same as it was back in the day (say 2-3 years ago)... when it truely did 'google' the internet... Now it has all sorts of filters and junk.
Do you remember when you could do a search for a file and it would return hidden ftp sites? Now I do a search for something and all I get are the top sponsored sites. I can't find anything useful using google anymore... all the darned links point to mainstream sites. At the first sign of a potential lawsuit google removes references to potentially offensive material... what good is a search engine that doesn't do a good search?
At this time I can't find anything better than google, but I really hope something comes out that is, cuz I miss the good ol' days when I could actually find stuff on the net...
The title says it all... I'll watch firefly, if it is followed by futurama!
I still have my RIO300 mp3 player, with a whopping 32MB internal and 32MB external memory... It kicks ass! I paid $300 for it in 98, and it still works great!
It's light, relatively good sound quality, and outside the fact it doesn't have USB connectivity (that parallel port sucks!) it's one of the few portable electronics that I still use from the 90's.
I don't want features, I want reliability!