Think of it this way: If said robot surgeon screws up and renders me a veggie for the rest of my life, I'd rather have Microsoft with their untold billion$ behind it, due to the massive lawsuit I'd file.
With a Linux system, who would be responsible, the open source community, or the red-zone closed source firm that developed the software? Either way, I'm sure they wouldn't have the amount of cash that Microsoft has on hand to make me happy.
Granted, the ultimate goal is to -not- get my brain minced in the first place. That being said, this was an entirely uncalled for cheap shot at Microsoft. The fact is, Microsoft makes some perfectly reliable software, and developing for Windows does not automatically make one 'evil' or any other childish term thrown around here.
This type of behavior is all too comon here on Slashdot, and immature pot-shots like this are one of the many reasons that Linux acceptance is not as great as it could be.
A couple points, as I used to work in the airship industry www.lightships.com:
1 - This is not new. I remember reading about this in Popular Science almost 10 years ago.
2 - This is true.
3 - A little political nugget: Germany kneww Hydrogen was dangerous and wanted desperately to use Helium instead, but the US controlled Helium distribution at the time, and blocked export of Helium to Germany, so they were forced to use Hydrogen.
OK. Excuse my if I wrong, but wouldnt ambient light be well, ambient light?
This is NOT ambient light. This is backlighting. Hell, my keyboard is being lit by ambient light right now, and it has been since I bought it. And so has every keyboard I've ever owned.
In fact, everything in my house is lit by ambient light. Well, you get the idea.
For a website that touts itself as "News for nerds", maybe a little lexical verification would be in order, since fact-checking is apparently out of the question.
arrrgghhh...[struggles with demon hand]....must....change....urls....argggghhh
Don't forget the blue LEDs mounted on the windsheild washer nozzles......Wait a minute, this thing doesn't have a windshield, so there probably aren't any washer nozzles either, but you would definitely have to install at least a few strategically placed blue LEDs somewhere on this puppy.
Oh, and don't forget the moron-installed fog lights. You know, the special ones for use in clear weather. Be sure to ask the dweeb who installs them to point the lights -up-. It's perfect for blinding the other drivers, I mean pilots.
I am an avid cyclist, and I can tell you this: It takes more than just nutrients to get the job done. They don't say exactly what chemicals will be delivered by this system, but a cyclist would need:
Carbohydrates, and lots of them. This is the body's main source of fuel during aerobic exercise.
Electrolytes, to maintain the proper chemical balances in your body. This helps muscles perform at peak efficiency and staves off cramps.
Water, because buckets of it are lost from sweating. Dehydration is perhaps the easiest way to ensure a poor performance.
IANAN (nutritionist), but I've been cycling in both recreation and competition for about 10 years, and the things mentioned above are common knowledge to most cyclists.
You've got a whole bunch of companies to add to your shit list, then.
Add Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson because you can't run Linux on your mobile phone.
You can add Ford, Chevy, Honda, and Toyota because you can't run Wnidows on your car's ECM.
You can even add the contractor who built your house because it can't handle the stress of long term elephant storage.
The fact is, just because you bought the hardware, doesn't mean that the manufacturer has any obligation to support you in your quest to get *whatever* working on it.
I wouldn't expect Apple to support me when I try to install Windows on my Mac any more than I'd expect Microsoft to support me when I try to install Linux on my X-Box.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that it's wrong to try to install *whatever* on a particular piece of hardware. I'm simply saying that if the hardware wasn't designed with *whatever* in mind, it's wrong to expect the manufacturer to support you when you try to install *whatever*.
You may be right, but I fail to see the problem here.
Yeah, it would be really neato to have a watch/computer that can run any OS, or a real computer that can run any OS, but why are you expecting it to?
If Microsoft develops the hardware, why would anyone expect anything other than a Microsoft OS to run on it?
I think we've been spoiled for years by this. Ever since the IBM clones people have this idea that the hardware must let you run whatever you want on it, and this is fundamentally wrong.
Look at Apple if you doubt me. Until OSX, Macs only ran MacOS out of the box. You wouldn't dream of complaining to Apple if you couldn't boot Debian, right? Why would you have any expectation that apple would design it's hardware with anything but MacOS in mind?
If you don't like the hardware, make your own, just like the Agenda VR3. There wasn't a PDA that ran Linux out of the box available at the time, and these folks were tired of duct-tape workarounds that get Linux running on a PDA, so they just designed their own hardware, and made it run Linux out of the box.
Please remember that hardware developers have absolutely no obligation to make sure that their hardware will allow *whatever* to run on it, even more so if the hardware developer is also the software developer.
This may be bad for us, and take away lots of the "neato" geek factor that is OSS, but in my book the hardware developers are becoming the scapegoat on this one.
Contrary to popular opinion, Microsoft and Real et al are not in business to make products that work well, weather they're marketing those products to consumers like us, or media providers (in this case).
These companies are in business to make money, and that little thing we like to call "the truth" means very little to them. They have no qualms about telling bald face lies to anyone who is potentially a customer, as does any advertising firm.
I know it's just semantics, but I think it's important for people to remember that these companies are not in business to make anything other than money for themselves.
I think the key term here is "free". As long as you're not making (a) money from a sale, and (b) additional copies of the media, I think you're safe. The idea is that one copy of the media has been paid for by someone, and one copy of it is being transferred around your immediate "circle of friends". The "circle of friends" part is my way of saying that you can't rent out a theatre and charge the public to come and watch the DVD you paid for.
According to http://www.mpaa.org, "Videocassette piracy is the illegal duplication, distribution, rental or sale of copyrighted videocassettes".
All this said, I think you're not breaking any laws by lending a legitimately purchased tape/CD/DVD to a friend provided that you're not making any money, and you're not making any copies. This doesn't mean that it's illegal to sell your old CDs to a used CD store. It just means that the law is not as crystal clear on that type of transaction.
And remember, IANAL, so take all of this with a grain of salt. Next time you rent a DVD, take a minute to fully read that warning text before the movie. It's pretty straightforward.
Check this link for more interesting text, Especially the parts about "VIDEOCASSETTE PIRACY", "Back-to-back Copying", "SIGNAL THEFT", "BROADCAST PIRACY", and "PUBLIC PERFORMANCE". At the very least, it's interesting to see exactly what the MPAA has to say about these issues without all of the Slashdot conjecture that you really can't trust.
As far as I remember, the prohibition (that blue screen warning at the start of the movie) only prohibits public performance or broadcast. So, your friend can lend you the DVD, but you can't take it to the local theatre and charge people to come watch it.
I seroiusly hope they don't do anything like this. Can you imagine? It will be just like the spam/web advertisement problem we have today. The users impose filters, and the advertisers devise increasingly sneaky ways to get around those filters.
How long will it be before your TV's picture-in-picture starts displaying commercials in the little PIP window, or if you don't have PIP, your TV can just change channels, ala a fullscreen popup advertisement in your web browser? Wait a minute, I should patent these ideas!
The thing you need to remember is that we're talking about digital, bit for bit copies of media. The reason nobody has a problem with VHS copies and cassette tapes is that they are analog. And as anyone who has made VHS or cassette tape copies knows, there is a degradation of quality with each copy. It's the old idea about "a copy of a copy of a copy". In the analog world, a copy is not the same as the original. So if you make a copy of a TV show and give it to your brother, who makes a copy of his copy, and gives it to his friend, who makes a copy of that, etc., it won't get very far. My guess is that within 5 generations or so, VHS would be practically unwatchable or pretty annoying at best.
This is precisely why the media companies don't care. A few people here and there making a copy doesn't hurt anything because that original copy is not as good as the pristine source, and any copies of the first copy will have increasing degradation. Also, analog media degrades over time, so a VHS tape or a cassette won't last forever. The problem comes when you can digitally copy something, but for bit, and the millionth copy is exactly the same as the first, and all of the copies can last practically forever. It instantly becomes unnecessary for you and all of your friends, and all of their friends to run out and buy that new DVD. One person can buy it, and make perfect, immortal copies for the whole group. And it instantly becomes very attractive to pirate content. And it instantly becomes extremely dangerous for the survivability of the media companies' profits.
In my opinion, this is why the media companies are so scared.
"in the event of a bankruptcy, Microsoft acquired all of Sendo's intellectual property related to the z100 Stinger SmartPhone, and was then free to do whatever it wanted, which in this case turned out to be going behind Sendo's back..."
blah blah blah, Microsoft sucks, blah blah blah.
I hate Microsoft jsut as much as the next guy, but it seems to me that Sendo would have signed a contract agreeing to these terms, right? And if they did, why are they complaining?
OK, I can understand if Microsoft purposely undermined them in order to gain control of their IP, but still shouldn't they have considered the bad things that can happen when signing contracts with Satan...I mean Mr. Gates? I mean really, considering recent media coverage, almost everyone knows that Microsoft doesn't play nice with it's neighbors.
I guess this is just another case of someone letting the mighty dollar cloud their judgement, and once again, they got burned.
Re:Let's all jump on the Pillory Kevin bandwagon!
on
Kevin Free
·
· Score: 1
I don't know precisely, and frankly you're not worth my time to look it up, but Mitnick was also seroiusly into cc fraud, phone phreaking and cellular ein cloning, all of which are very illegal, and are hardly victimless.
Mitnick was a criminal. He did some dumb things, and got caught because he was dumb. I don't agreee with the fact that they made him sit in jail for a long time, but that has nothing to do with his skills as a hacker, cracker, or social engineer. It's a testament to how bad our judicial system sucks.
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of smart people, for sure.
Think of it this way:
If said robot surgeon screws up and renders me a veggie for the rest of my life, I'd rather have Microsoft with their untold billion$ behind it, due to the massive lawsuit I'd file.
With a Linux system, who would be responsible, the open source community, or the red-zone closed source firm that developed the software? Either way, I'm sure they wouldn't have the amount of cash that Microsoft has on hand to make me happy.
Granted, the ultimate goal is to -not- get my brain minced in the first place. That being said, this was an entirely uncalled for cheap shot at Microsoft. The fact is, Microsoft makes some perfectly reliable software, and developing for Windows does not automatically make one 'evil' or any other childish term thrown around here.
This type of behavior is all too comon here on Slashdot, and immature pot-shots like this are one of the many reasons that Linux acceptance is not as great as it could be.
Does anyone remember CodeGreen?
This was a worm that propagated like CodeRed, but instead of diong malicious things, it patched the insecure system.
There's also CRclean, which does the same, but only to machines that attempt to infect it first.
Ain't It Cool has a "story" (or baseless rumor, it is AIC after all)
Now if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is.
A couple points, as I used to work in the airship industry www.lightships.com:
1 - This is not new. I remember reading about this in Popular Science almost 10 years ago.
2 - This is true.
3 - A little political nugget: Germany kneww Hydrogen was dangerous and wanted desperately to use Helium instead, but the US controlled Helium distribution at the time, and blocked export of Helium to Germany, so they were forced to use Hydrogen.
Good point. And a loose grip is not exactly the best thing for high speeds, exactly when you're -not- applying the brakes.
Good point. You're absolutely right.
My hands were typing "carbohydrates", but my brain was thinking "glucose".
Or Windows2000, powered by NT tychnology
I love BSD, but don't know much about it's history.
That being said, I always thought that "BSD" was short for "Berkeley Server Daemon". Am I wrong?
OK. Excuse my if I wrong, but wouldnt ambient light be well, ambient light?
This is NOT ambient light. This is backlighting. Hell, my keyboard is being lit by ambient light right now, and it has been since I bought it. And so has every keyboard I've ever owned.
In fact, everything in my house is lit by ambient light. Well, you get the idea.
For a website that touts itself as "News for nerds", maybe a little lexical verification would be in order, since fact-checking is apparently out of the question.
arrrgghhh...[struggles with demon hand]....must....change....urls....argggghhh
Which "key parts"?
The flux-capacitor? or the flubber?
I started out this post trying to be funny, but now I seriously think this may be just a marketing gimmick.
I wonder if they'd let the buyer come to their office and watch -his- machine actually fly before he takes delivery.
Who's to say that you're not bidding on some full size mock-up?
Don't forget the blue LEDs mounted on the windsheild washer nozzles... ...Wait a minute, this thing doesn't have a windshield, so there probably aren't any washer nozzles either, but you would definitely have to install at least a few strategically placed blue LEDs somewhere on this puppy.
Oh, and don't forget the moron-installed fog lights. You know, the special ones for use in clear weather. Be sure to ask the dweeb who installs them to point the lights -up-. It's perfect for blinding the other drivers, I mean pilots.
I am an avid cyclist, and I can tell you this:
It takes more than just nutrients to get the job done. They don't say exactly what chemicals will be delivered by this system, but a cyclist would need:
Carbohydrates, and lots of them. This is the body's main source of fuel during aerobic exercise.
Electrolytes, to maintain the proper chemical balances in your body. This helps muscles perform at peak efficiency and staves off cramps.
Water, because buckets of it are lost from sweating. Dehydration is perhaps the easiest way to ensure a poor performance.
IANAN (nutritionist), but I've been cycling in both recreation and competition for about 10 years, and the things mentioned above are common knowledge to most cyclists.
How about the YRO or Privacy icons?
After all, your personal, private nutrient uptake data is being sent to a microprocessor, where big-brother can do heaven-only-knows-what with it.
You're right. Good point. Nuff said.
Well, OK then.
You've got a whole bunch of companies to add to your shit list, then.
Add Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson because you can't run Linux on your mobile phone.
You can add Ford, Chevy, Honda, and Toyota because you can't run Wnidows on your car's ECM.
You can even add the contractor who built your house because it can't handle the stress of long term elephant storage.
The fact is, just because you bought the hardware, doesn't mean that the manufacturer has any obligation to support you in your quest to get *whatever* working on it.
I wouldn't expect Apple to support me when I try to install Windows on my Mac any more than I'd expect Microsoft to support me when I try to install Linux on my X-Box.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that it's wrong to try to install *whatever* on a particular piece of hardware. I'm simply saying that if the hardware wasn't designed with *whatever* in mind, it's wrong to expect the manufacturer to support you when you try to install *whatever*.
You may be right, but I fail to see the problem here.
Yeah, it would be really neato to have a watch/computer that can run any OS, or a real computer that can run any OS, but why are you expecting it to?
If Microsoft develops the hardware, why would anyone expect anything other than a Microsoft OS to run on it?
I think we've been spoiled for years by this. Ever since the IBM clones people have this idea that the hardware must let you run whatever you want on it, and this is fundamentally wrong.
Look at Apple if you doubt me. Until OSX, Macs only ran MacOS out of the box. You wouldn't dream of complaining to Apple if you couldn't boot Debian, right? Why would you have any expectation that apple would design it's hardware with anything but MacOS in mind?
If you don't like the hardware, make your own, just like the Agenda VR3. There wasn't a PDA that ran Linux out of the box available at the time, and these folks were tired of duct-tape workarounds that get Linux running on a PDA, so they just designed their own hardware, and made it run Linux out of the box.
Please remember that hardware developers have absolutely no obligation to make sure that their hardware will allow *whatever* to run on it, even more so if the hardware developer is also the software developer.
This may be bad for us, and take away lots of the "neato" geek factor that is OSS, but in my book the hardware developers are becoming the scapegoat on this one.
Contrary to popular opinion, Microsoft and Real et al are not in business to make products that work well, weather they're marketing those products to consumers like us, or media providers (in this case).
These companies are in business to make money, and that little thing we like to call "the truth" means very little to them. They have no qualms about telling bald face lies to anyone who is potentially a customer, as does any advertising firm.
I know it's just semantics, but I think it's important for people to remember that these companies are not in business to make anything other than money for themselves.
"And this is groundbreaking how?"
And this is "Stuff that matters" how? If you're saying yourself that's it's pretty much not important, then why are you posting it?
I think the key term here is "free". As long as you're not making (a) money from a sale, and (b) additional copies of the media, I think you're safe. The idea is that one copy of the media has been paid for by someone, and one copy of it is being transferred around your immediate "circle of friends". The "circle of friends" part is my way of saying that you can't rent out a theatre and charge the public to come and watch the DVD you paid for.
According to http://www.mpaa.org, "Videocassette piracy is the illegal duplication, distribution, rental or sale of copyrighted videocassettes".
All this said, I think you're not breaking any laws by lending a legitimately purchased tape/CD/DVD to a friend provided that you're not making any money, and you're not making any copies. This doesn't mean that it's illegal to sell your old CDs to a used CD store. It just means that the law is not as crystal clear on that type of transaction.
And remember, IANAL, so take all of this with a grain of salt. Next time you rent a DVD, take a minute to fully read that warning text before the movie. It's pretty straightforward.
Check this link for more interesting text, Especially the parts about "VIDEOCASSETTE PIRACY", "Back-to-back Copying", "SIGNAL THEFT", "BROADCAST PIRACY", and "PUBLIC PERFORMANCE". At the very least, it's interesting to see exactly what the MPAA has to say about these issues without all of the Slashdot conjecture that you really can't trust.
http://www.mpaa.org/anti-piracy/
I dont think so, but IANAL.
As far as I remember, the prohibition (that blue screen warning at the start of the movie) only prohibits public performance or broadcast. So, your friend can lend you the DVD, but you can't take it to the local theatre and charge people to come watch it.
I seroiusly hope they don't do anything like this. Can you imagine? It will be just like the spam/web advertisement problem we have today. The users impose filters, and the advertisers devise increasingly sneaky ways to get around those filters.
How long will it be before your TV's picture-in-picture starts displaying commercials in the little PIP window, or if you don't have PIP, your TV can just change channels, ala a fullscreen popup advertisement in your web browser? Wait a minute, I should patent these ideas!
The thing you need to remember is that we're talking about digital, bit for bit copies of media. The reason nobody has a problem with VHS copies and cassette tapes is that they are analog. And as anyone who has made VHS or cassette tape copies knows, there is a degradation of quality with each copy. It's the old idea about "a copy of a copy of a copy". In the analog world, a copy is not the same as the original. So if you make a copy of a TV show and give it to your brother, who makes a copy of his copy, and gives it to his friend, who makes a copy of that, etc., it won't get very far. My guess is that within 5 generations or so, VHS would be practically unwatchable or pretty annoying at best.
This is precisely why the media companies don't care. A few people here and there making a copy doesn't hurt anything because that original copy is not as good as the pristine source, and any copies of the first copy will have increasing degradation. Also, analog media degrades over time, so a VHS tape or a cassette won't last forever. The problem comes when you can digitally copy something, but for bit, and the millionth copy is exactly the same as the first, and all of the copies can last practically forever. It instantly becomes unnecessary for you and all of your friends, and all of their friends to run out and buy that new DVD. One person can buy it, and make perfect, immortal copies for the whole group. And it instantly becomes very attractive to pirate content. And it instantly becomes extremely dangerous for the survivability of the media companies' profits.
In my opinion, this is why the media companies are so scared.
I like your signature. Very creative.
"in the event of a bankruptcy, Microsoft acquired all of Sendo's intellectual property related to the z100 Stinger SmartPhone, and was then free to do whatever it wanted, which in this case turned out to be going behind Sendo's back..."
blah blah blah, Microsoft sucks, blah blah blah.
I hate Microsoft jsut as much as the next guy, but it seems to me that Sendo would have signed a contract agreeing to these terms, right? And if they did, why are they complaining?
OK, I can understand if Microsoft purposely undermined them in order to gain control of their IP, but still shouldn't they have considered the bad things that can happen when signing contracts with Satan...I mean Mr. Gates? I mean really, considering recent media coverage, almost everyone knows that Microsoft doesn't play nice with it's neighbors.
I guess this is just another case of someone letting the mighty dollar cloud their judgement, and once again, they got burned.
I don't know precisely, and frankly you're not worth my time to look it up, but Mitnick was also seroiusly into cc fraud, phone phreaking and cellular ein cloning, all of which are very illegal, and are hardly victimless.
Mitnick was a criminal. He did some dumb things, and got caught because he was dumb. I don't agreee with the fact that they made him sit in jail for a long time, but that has nothing to do with his skills as a hacker, cracker, or social engineer. It's a testament to how bad our judicial system sucks.