DRM will keep your shared programming to a max of 9 good friends.
So I wonder what will prevent people from auctioning off their "friendship" on eBay? Yes, you can be my friend for an opening bid of only one dollar... did I mention that I have the entire collection of the Simpsons episodes? (Feel free to substitute some other show in this example with one of greater rarity but narrower appeal).
And 23% of all virus activity comes to you courtesy of Margaret Tillman of Chebansee, Illinois who dutifully clicks on every email attachment and forwards every chain email that comes her way.
...yes, it's a shame that Apple makes a product with a feature set and at a price that sells well (80,000 pre-orders, apparently), but that you don't like. Maybe you should email Steve Jobs and see if he can create a different version and price it specially just for you.
Look, I said that it is a cool product (like most Apple products are). I was just expressing my opinion (I thought that was what the Slashdot Comments section was all about) on why I'm not going to buy one. You can agree or disagree with me as you please (or if you got mod points mod me as flamebait I guess).
I also assume (correctly or not) that I am not unique and that there are others out there that are just interesting in streaming audio to various areas of their house.
In any case, I'll be sure to make a little mental note... do make disparaging comments about Apple on Slashdot.
The Airport Express is cool. It's not priced too badly. But it's not really what I want.
I don't need a wireless access point -- already got one of those. I don't need to share a printer -- already doing that, thank you.
But I DO want to stream audio to my stereo! So why not just eliminate all the other crap and sell a simple box with ethernet in one side and audio out the other side? And since I'm just dreaming here... set the price at $49.95. Heck, I might even buy two!
Now add the ability to control iTunes remotely (say from a Palm or PocketPC) and we've got a product.
Sure OLED's are showing up on phones and cameras... but what I'm really waiting for is the big stuff. I'm talking 42", 50" and 60"!
Plasma just isn't dropping in price fast enough and I'm concerned about it's limited life. Now if I can get an OLED flat panel display for say a couple hundred bucks... I'd even be willing to replace it every five to ten years at that price.
Well it's still a bit pricy (eMachineShop) -- figure $50 to $100 for a simple one off part. But it certainly is an interesting idea.
They claim that their software and service is accessible for neophyte 3D designers. I certainly fit into that category. As soon as I get some spare time [flips through calandar...], well someday, I'll download the software and play around with it. It costs nothing to experiment and get a price quote.
Same with the circuit board design site. I've got a couple of designs that I've wanted to put together some boards for. If nothing else the thought of free schematic design software is appealing.
I can't help but think that this is the future of jump starting small businesses...
Don't be fooled. This announcement is not saying that the MPAA will agree that you are within your rights to backup and/or time/device shift your legally obtained media (you are). Instead, they are saying that they are going to implement (with the help of Microsoft) technologies that ensure that that is all you are able to do with the media.
So forget about taking a backup copy of your movie to a friend's house and trying to play it on their equipment (ain't gonna happen -- although you have the right to do so).
And forget about trying to play the movie on a non-Microsoft device -- say a Linux PC for example (sorry, not permitted - although it too is perfectly legal).
So do not be fooled into thinking we have won. The MPAA is not agreeing to expanding any of our rights! In fact they will be taking away rights through technology as opposed to through laws (although the DMCA will serve to enforce the technology as if it were law).
If you haven't yet read Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture, do it now!
I think this is one of those patent cases that are obvious after you hear it. I think it's simple and elegant -- brilliant in fact. I wish I had thought of it.
This is not a case of simply launching something with compressed air, which has been done millions of times before. This is a specific application of replacing a normally explosive launch mechanism with a simpler and safer pneumatic system -- specifically in the area of pyrotechnics.
It's unlikely that you will be seeing consumer fireworks operating in this fashion anytime soon. Coordinating the launch with the fuse that detonates the device would be very difficult. It's a great system for Disney though, since they use a radio controlled system to precisely detonate the fireworks.
Also, this air-launch patent appears to have been around for ten years or so. (Not sure if the article is referring to a newer patent or not). So, I guess the news is the release of rights to a non-profit.
During my brief time at MS (did I just actually admit that on slashdot!?) I found this to be one of the most frustrating aspects of development. Don't get me wrong - I believe in frequent builds. But every day?
Bear in mind that we are talking about products that involve tens or hundreds of developers and components and can take hours to build. It gets to be a real hassle to try to check in changes -- you are limited to a couple hour window in the morning to do so. And you constantly have to check out other's changes and rebuild with your latest changes so that you can ensure that your check-ins will not break the build (the most extreme transgression imaginable).
I personally found it very difficult to be productive in this environment. Now, this was several years ago so perhaps they have developed better methodologies to handle this... but I found it stiffling.
I'm not sure what the right interval for builds is. At my current position we do them weekly. I would expect more frequent builds as we get closer to shipping.
What would it take to look for one email, from one account ? Could they even do it ?
They could, but only if the emails were sent using their SMTP server. If someone uses a hotmail account as the return address but then uses an open relay to send the spam, they would have no way of knowing. Although I suspect that they would see an unusually high number of bounce messages (unless the spammer used an extremely up to date and accurate bulk address list).
...states that have periodic car inspection laws expect car owners to keep their cars up to snuff even though average car owners aren't mechanics, so why not?
Of course a poorly maintained car can result in the death of the owner as well as others. While I hate spam as much as the next guy, it's still not a matter of life and death.
I think that disconnecting misbehaving PCs is a reasonable remedy -- but I'm opposed to instituting any kind of fines. Unless you're willing to hold the software publishers liable as well for vulnerabilities in their products (I'm guessing that with Microsoft's lobbying power we're never gonna see that happen).
I'm not totally sure if this is directly related to the ASTA statement or not, but Reuters is reporting that major ISPs are pushing to unplug spam-sending PCs.
Personally, I think that this would be a step in the right direction, but one comment in the article has me concerned...
But the group also suggested consumers be held accountable if their machines are exploited by spammers.
Is it reasonable to expect that your average home user will act as responsibly as a company's system administrator at keeping their systems patched? Heck, I'm not all that certain that the sys admins are doing all that great of a job of it (Slashdot readers excepted of course).
I miss the good ol' days when just about every radio station and his brother put their content online -- for free! Then some spoil sport had to go and notice that there was not money in that.
Anyway, for something different check out Phil Hendrie. It's not free, but it is a talk show unlike any other. While I disagree with many of his political views... his interviews are hilarious. I'll let you in on the joke -- Phil plays the part of both the interviewer and interviewee. Of course, the people calling in to argue against some ridiculous viewpoint don't know that (hilarity ensues... yadayadayada).
I also wish I could find an online (free or otherwise) audio source for the Lionel Show. We no longer have a local affiliate and I miss his brand of intelligent topics.
Kim Kommand... Someone who beta-tested Unix games while in grade school, *and* she's, well, female... and you have no interest?
We are talking about radio here... not live strip shows. I probably wouldn't pass up an opportunity to see Ms. Kommando sans clothing... but her radio show is only good for a chuckle or two.
Is it that much easier to touch a screen... than it is to just write the piece of paper yourself?
You wouldn't think so, would you? The paper method seems to work fine up in Canada. But apparently we Americans can only handle pointing at things. I guess there are advantages when it comes to multi-lingual support, but I'd actually prefer a paper voting system -- and I'm certainly no ludite.
a receipt which the voter can take out of the polling area opens many doors to new abuses
Agreed. It is important to understand that when we talk about a paper receipt we are talking about a piece of paper that the voter can look at and verify and then place it into a ballot box. In some systems, this ballot is behind glass and is never even touched by the voter.
Verifiable voting is not at odds with anonymous voting. Both are essential to ensure a free and fair election.
The argument seems to be that the disabled will be unable to verify that their printed receipt will match the intended ballot. This may be true. It may also be true that a certain percentage of (non-disabled) voters will be too lazy to double check their printed receipt. But this is fine.
No one says that each vote must be verified - it is simply sufficient that each vote be verifiable. Since no one knows who will verify their vote and who won't, they can't afford to try and cheat the system. So, unless the implementors of the voting systems know who the disabled voters are (and therefore who's vote they might get away with changing), it's not really a problem.
In my opinion democracy is too precious to trust to an unverifiable voting system.
Slashdot Mirror
DRM will keep your shared programming to a max of 9 good friends.
So I wonder what will prevent people from auctioning off their "friendship" on eBay? Yes, you can be my friend for an opening bid of only one dollar... did I mention that I have the entire collection of the Simpsons episodes? (Feel free to substitute some other show in this example with one of greater rarity but narrower appeal).
And 23% of all virus activity comes to you courtesy of Margaret Tillman of Chebansee, Illinois who dutifully clicks on every email attachment and forwards every chain email that comes her way.
Here's to you Ms. Tillman; we salute you.
On a Washington State Ferry in the middle of Puget Sound. Although I don't consider this unusual as I do this pretty much everyday.
Someday the ferries promise Wi-Fi connections... until then this is made possible by AvantSlash.
...yes, it's a shame that Apple makes a product with a feature set and at a price that sells well (80,000 pre-orders, apparently), but that you don't like. Maybe you should email Steve Jobs and see if he can create a different version and price it specially just for you.
Look, I said that it is a cool product (like most Apple products are). I was just expressing my opinion (I thought that was what the Slashdot Comments section was all about) on why I'm not going to buy one. You can agree or disagree with me as you please (or if you got mod points mod me as flamebait I guess).
I also assume (correctly or not) that I am not unique and that there are others out there that are just interesting in streaming audio to various areas of their house.
In any case, I'll be sure to make a little mental note... do make disparaging comments about Apple on Slashdot.
The Airport Express is cool. It's not priced too badly. But it's not really what I want.
I don't need a wireless access point -- already got one of those. I don't need to share a printer -- already doing that, thank you.
But I DO want to stream audio to my stereo! So why not just eliminate all the other crap and sell a simple box with ethernet in one side and audio out the other side? And since I'm just dreaming here... set the price at $49.95. Heck, I might even buy two!
Now add the ability to control iTunes remotely (say from a Palm or PocketPC) and we've got a product.
The DNC might want to invest in several of these little goodies. Power them up and problem solved.
Sure OLED's are showing up on phones and cameras... but what I'm really waiting for is the big stuff. I'm talking 42", 50" and 60"!
Plasma just isn't dropping in price fast enough and I'm concerned about it's limited life. Now if I can get an OLED flat panel display for say a couple hundred bucks... I'd even be willing to replace it every five to ten years at that price.
Well it's still a bit pricy (eMachineShop) -- figure $50 to $100 for a simple one off part. But it certainly is an interesting idea.
They claim that their software and service is accessible for neophyte 3D designers. I certainly fit into that category. As soon as I get some spare time [flips through calandar...], well someday, I'll download the software and play around with it. It costs nothing to experiment and get a price quote.
Same with the circuit board design site. I've got a couple of designs that I've wanted to put together some boards for. If nothing else the thought of free schematic design software is appealing.
I can't help but think that this is the future of jump starting small businesses...
Don't be fooled. This announcement is not saying that the MPAA will agree that you are within your rights to backup and/or time/device shift your legally obtained media (you are). Instead, they are saying that they are going to implement (with the help of Microsoft) technologies that ensure that that is all you are able to do with the media.
So forget about taking a backup copy of your movie to a friend's house and trying to play it on their equipment (ain't gonna happen -- although you have the right to do so).
And forget about trying to play the movie on a non-Microsoft device -- say a Linux PC for example (sorry, not permitted - although it too is perfectly legal).
So do not be fooled into thinking we have won. The MPAA is not agreeing to expanding any of our rights! In fact they will be taking away rights through technology as opposed to through laws (although the DMCA will serve to enforce the technology as if it were law).
If you haven't yet read Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture , do it now!
I second the Patenting the Obvious.
I think this is one of those patent cases that are obvious after you hear it. I think it's simple and elegant -- brilliant in fact. I wish I had thought of it.
This is not a case of simply launching something with compressed air, which has been done millions of times before. This is a specific application of replacing a normally explosive launch mechanism with a simpler and safer pneumatic system -- specifically in the area of pyrotechnics.
It's unlikely that you will be seeing consumer fireworks operating in this fashion anytime soon. Coordinating the launch with the fuse that detonates the device would be very difficult. It's a great system for Disney though, since they use a radio controlled system to precisely detonate the fireworks.
Also, this air-launch patent appears to have been around for ten years or so. (Not sure if the article is referring to a newer patent or not). So, I guess the news is the release of rights to a non-profit.
I knew I picked a bad week to not be rich.
The chances of an unguided, sub-sonic rocket taking out an airplane is very small.
Tell me about it! But I'm determined to keep trying!
The product should be built every day
During my brief time at MS (did I just actually admit that on slashdot!?) I found this to be one of the most frustrating aspects of development. Don't get me wrong - I believe in frequent builds. But every day?
Bear in mind that we are talking about products that involve tens or hundreds of developers and components and can take hours to build. It gets to be a real hassle to try to check in changes -- you are limited to a couple hour window in the morning to do so. And you constantly have to check out other's changes and rebuild with your latest changes so that you can ensure that your check-ins will not break the build (the most extreme transgression imaginable).
I personally found it very difficult to be productive in this environment. Now, this was several years ago so perhaps they have developed better methodologies to handle this... but I found it stiffling.
I'm not sure what the right interval for builds is. At my current position we do them weekly. I would expect more frequent builds as we get closer to shipping.
What would it take to look for one email, from one account ? Could they even do it ?
They could, but only if the emails were sent using their SMTP server. If someone uses a hotmail account as the return address but then uses an open relay to send the spam, they would have no way of knowing. Although I suspect that they would see an unusually high number of bounce messages (unless the spammer used an extremely up to date and accurate bulk address list).
...states that have periodic car inspection laws expect car owners to keep their cars up to snuff even though average car owners aren't mechanics, so why not?
Of course a poorly maintained car can result in the death of the owner as well as others. While I hate spam as much as the next guy, it's still not a matter of life and death.
I think that disconnecting misbehaving PCs is a reasonable remedy -- but I'm opposed to instituting any kind of fines. Unless you're willing to hold the software publishers liable as well for vulnerabilities in their products (I'm guessing that with Microsoft's lobbying power we're never gonna see that happen).
I'm not totally sure if this is directly related to the ASTA statement or not, but Reuters is reporting that major ISPs are pushing to unplug spam-sending PCs.
Personally, I think that this would be a step in the right direction, but one comment in the article has me concerned...
But the group also suggested consumers be held accountable if their machines are exploited by spammers.
Is it reasonable to expect that your average home user will act as responsibly as a company's system administrator at keeping their systems patched? Heck, I'm not all that certain that the sys admins are doing all that great of a job of it (Slashdot readers excepted of course).
They been saying this, what, 3 years now?
Three years? Really? Well what do you know? You're right!
Now if you want a better example of digital convergence gone bad than the N-GAGE, check here.
And I'm sorry that I wished Mr. T would eat his balls.
Ok, not really. But then, I'm not under a court ruling to do so.
So what's the point of having a fast CPU? Video encoding? Photoshop?
Answered our own question, we have.
I miss the good ol' days when just about every radio station and his brother put their content online -- for free! Then some spoil sport had to go and notice that there was not money in that.
Anyway, for something different check out Phil Hendrie. It's not free, but it is a talk show unlike any other. While I disagree with many of his political views... his interviews are hilarious. I'll let you in on the joke -- Phil plays the part of both the interviewer and interviewee. Of course, the people calling in to argue against some ridiculous viewpoint don't know that (hilarity ensues... yadayadayada).
I also wish I could find an online (free or otherwise) audio source for the Lionel Show. We no longer have a local affiliate and I miss his brand of intelligent topics.
Kim Kommand ... Someone who beta-tested Unix games while in grade school, *and* she's, well, female... and you have no interest?
We are talking about radio here... not live strip shows. I probably wouldn't pass up an opportunity to see Ms. Kommando sans clothing... but her radio show is only good for a chuckle or two.
Sie klettert das Treppenhaus zum Himmel.
Blame the fish if I screwed this up.
Is it that much easier to touch a screen ... than it is to just write the piece of paper yourself?
You wouldn't think so, would you? The paper method seems to work fine up in Canada. But apparently we Americans can only handle pointing at things. I guess there are advantages when it comes to multi-lingual support, but I'd actually prefer a paper voting system -- and I'm certainly no ludite.
a receipt which the voter can take out of the polling area opens many doors to new abuses
Agreed. It is important to understand that when we talk about a paper receipt we are talking about a piece of paper that the voter can look at and verify and then place it into a ballot box. In some systems, this ballot is behind glass and is never even touched by the voter.
Verifiable voting is not at odds with anonymous voting. Both are essential to ensure a free and fair election.
The argument seems to be that the disabled will be unable to verify that their printed receipt will match the intended ballot. This may be true. It may also be true that a certain percentage of (non-disabled) voters will be too lazy to double check their printed receipt. But this is fine.
No one says that each vote must be verified - it is simply sufficient that each vote be verifiable. Since no one knows who will verify their vote and who won't, they can't afford to try and cheat the system. So, unless the implementors of the voting systems know who the disabled voters are (and therefore who's vote they might get away with changing), it's not really a problem.
In my opinion democracy is too precious to trust to an unverifiable voting system.