If the reason Kodak failed is because they failed to see the shift in attitude towards photographs, then why is it that traditional camera makers like Canon and Nikon are alive and well?
I think the writer failed to see the obvious here. The reason Kodak failed is because Kodak is primarily a film and photo chemicals maker and not primarily a camera maker. With less people using film it is obvious Kodak can't base its business model on an obsolescent technology. Nikon and Canon are primarily camera makers and they were able to make the shift to digital successfully. Kodak was not.
Kodak's error was that it decided to hold onto a flawed business model rather than just closing down the company and returning the assets to the stockholders. Some companies are destined to close down. It's just the way it is.
I have been to a professional conference where all the attendees---except one---are wearing slacks, collared shirts or business uniforms. The one sore thumb was in a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Everyone wondered what kind of company he works for that would allow their representative to come to a conference dressed like that.
And if you think the guy is smart, forget about it. He is not. During the discussion no one would take his ideas seriously because obviously if he cannot even be bother to dress appropriately for a professional conference one has to doubt whether he can even be bothered to think deeply about what he is about to say.
What distribution are we supposed to use now?
Ubuntu has given up on its users, and is turning into an interface for the elderly, the disabled and netbook people.
I'd rather have my advanced UI that lets me do whatever I want with my workstation, thank you very much.
Slackware.
Ubuntu is targeted at users. If you want hardcore, go Slackware, or Knoppix or Linux From Scratch. Why so much hate on Unity when there is plenty of Linux distributions around?
High risk projects that carry a high rate of return when successful are important in the technology industry. More so in aviation. Boeing needs to do this in order not to become like HP---a company that rested on its laurels and never took the risks of innovating. You sound like one of the guys at Wall Street.
In any project that involves, new, innovative, and highly speculative technology there is always the possibility of failure. If NASA decided to shut down its space program after several rockets exploded on their launchpad back in the 1950's and 1960's, America wouldn't have landed on the moon and the space age would be Russian and Chinese dominated and not American. Even so, if the financial and risk management is any good, project failures should not bring a company down. NASA continued with its space program because it had a mandate from the president and the bottomless pockets of the US government.
Boeing is still alive and kicking. They do have enough projects that are successful that will keep the company in the forefront of aviation for years to come. Remember, Boeing created and dominates the industry of pilot-less drones that many believe shall be the future of military aviation. They invented the Boeing 747 that redefined how many passengers can be carried safely into the sky by a single aircraft. The 747 is the gift that keeps on giving but Boeing is right in not resting on the success of this 1960's era project. I hope it keeps on conducting the high risk projects that Wall Street and arm-chair analysts like to criticize when it fails.
It's not a mistake. It's called expanding into the hardware side of the mobile business. Google needs to have a hardware division if it wants to compete with Apple and Microsoft---both of which have hardware divisions. Google can expand into the hardware side in one of two ways: (a) spend money to create the division or (b) buy it from someone else. Many of the pundits who think the Motorola deal is not such a good one are not accountants and do not have access to privileged accounting information. Google made the computations and they decided that buying the mobile division from Motorola makes sense from their strategic viewpoint.
Will the Motorola deal work for Google? We do not know. Lots of things that seem a hundred percent sure often don't turn out as expected. But from the viewpoint of business strategy and decision making, the motorola deal is a very good one. The deal is better than not doing anything at all and watching helplessly as Apple and Microsoft (who have become friends because of a common enemy) chip away at the rising comet of Android via their legal shenanigans. It could also mean Google boarding the train too late as Microsoft slowly but surely turns Nokia into their mobile division through cross licensing and sweetheart deals. With a former Microsoft executive at the helm of Nokia, Microsoft does not even have to buy Nokia outright.
The acquisition of Motorola is a master stroke by Google. It took everyone by surprise. You could very well bet that within the executive offices of Microsoft and Apple are people worried that the owner of the mobile OS that has taken a huge portion of the smartphone market in such a short time now also has a hardware division of its own; a division with factories that can produce phones, tablets, electronic appliances and whatnot. Things have become very interesting.
How do you know Neanderthals were genetically inferior?
Because they went extinct. You guys want to be so politically correct that you are even afraid to call the neanderthals inferior. Come on! There is no chance that someone in the world right now would be offended by the statement that Neanderthals are inferior. Homo Sapiens Sapiens dominates the world today while the neanderthals are nowhere to be found. That, in itself, indicates that in terms of biological success, neanderthals are inferior to us.
Maybe we killed them off: we are nimbler, smarter, and probably more agressive than they. Our African ancestors went to Europe, the Neanderthals stayed where they were. That shows we have initiative and the smarts to plan ahead. Maybe the neanderthals are not as adaptable as us. When Europe became warmer, they were unable to cope. In any case, they are no longer here while we are in every corner of the earth.
So they found we share, what 4% of our genes? We share over 98% of our genes with the chimpanzees! Four percent of the remaining 2% is not such a big deal. Our ancestors captured and raped Neanderthal women, and then adopted the offspring. Babies are babies everywhere. We find them cute. I have no doubt our ancestors find the Neanderthal babies cute also. It is those adopted babies that contributed the genes to our gene pool over the many generations. But make no mistake, the Neanderthals are extinct. We are not them and they are not us.
This new discovery is very intriguing but it does not take away from the fact the Neanderthals are the loser species.
Global warming is more like a belief in God than it is a scientific theory.
Examples of Global warming fundamentalist religion I have heard.
Winter is late this year. Fundamentalist GW: Global warming, of course. Soon, there will be no winters.
This year's winter is the most severe in recent years with the temperature plummetting to record levels. FGW: The fact that there is severe winter in one place does not mean that there is severe winter all over the world. It can be warming globally but deep freezing in some localized areas like the northern states.
The oceans are warming up! FGW: Global warming, definitely.
The oceans are cooling! FGW: Because the arctic ice caps are melting, the ocean is cooling. It's just like what would happen if you put ice in tap water. The ice will melt and the water will cool.
The upper trophosphere is expanding! FGW: This is a scientific validation of global warming. As warm air rises it expands and cools. The trophosphere is expanding because the air is warming up. Heating up air gives it more kinetic energy and forces it to expand.
The upper trophosphere has shrunk and collapsed onto the lower layers! FGW: This proves there is global warming! Heat is trapped in the lower atmosphere by an inversion layer caused by greenhouse gases which is why the trophosphere has now shrunk.
Large chunks of ice are calving off from Antarctic glaciers leading to more icebergs. FGW: Global warming caused those bergs to calve off from the main ice-sheet.
There are noticeably less icebergs this year than previously. FGW: Exactly what you would expect from global warming is less icebergs. Isn't that obvious?
With any observable immediately explained by global warming, how is this any different from a belief in a God that chooses to intervene or not intervene depending on a whim?
I hope climate science advances away from its political agenda and concentrates on getting more data to let us know exactly what is happening.
Litko is a foreman of Ajax Chemical's main factory. When ABC Chem got embroiled in a legal scandal, Litko used the ensuing confusion and lack of supervision to sell off parts of ABC Chem's factories. He also used ABC Chem's property as collateral for loans with banking institutions, made sales deals with clients for ABC Chem products and then kept the profits. Litko also invested ABC Chems money and kept them for himself.
After four years, ABC Chem was finally was able to shake off the legal scandal and moved towards controlling its factories again.
They soon found out that Litko is now a multi-billionaire and that he already owns most of the erstwhile property of ABC Chem.
ABC Chem decided to retrieve the wealth that they believe ABC Chem is legally and morally entitled to. Unfortunately, because Litko is now an oligarch, Litko is able to hire the best lawyers and is able to fend off the legal barrage for as long as possible while he makes his escape to London. In London, he settles comfortably and uses his new-found wealth to buy a football club.
In all definitions of the term, Litko is a criminal.
From the article:
The chess master, however, sees cracks in the Kremlin wall and believes that Mr Putin will give him an opening for a counter-attack. Mr Kasparov argues that, despite the oil riches, the vast majority of Russians are increasingly enduring economic hardship that will burst to the surface politically next year.
Mr. Kasparov, the grandmaster, should ask himself exactly where did Mr. Berezovsky and Mr. Russian Owner of the Chelsea Football Club get their money to become stupendously wealthy in such a short time.
Unlike Mr. Kasparov, the majority of Russians (those 80% that support Putin) are aware that Berezovsky and his ilk are the Litkos who raped Russia of its natural wealth during the confusion of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Kasparov does not have to look very far in search of where Russia's wealth went. He need only stare in the direction of his financial backers.
again! Do those people who wrote CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION over and over again in their lame effort to earn slashdot karma even read the report?
Probably not. Because if they did, they will see that the paper is not one of those correlation-therefore-causation blog-level research they often read.
From the paper's abstract
Autism is currently estimated to affect approximately one in every 166 children, yet the
cause or causes of the condition are not well understood. One of the current theories concerning
the condition is that among a set of children vulnerable to developing the condition because of
their underlying genetics, the condition manifests itself when such a child is exposed to a
(currently unknown) environmental trigger. In this paper we empirically investigate the
hypothesis that early childhood television viewing serves as such a trigger.
In other words, this study is not about looking for the causes of autism but about verifying if the correlation predicted by
hypothesis manifests itself. It's an entirely different thing.
Maybe the next time people recite the correlation-is-not-causation karma (without actually knowing a hint about statistics) perhaps they should read the research paper first?
A little shadow anomaly isn't going to seriously dent the Big Bang theory.
There is so much evidence for the Big Bang and predictions based on it have
been observed that it will take more than a little inconsistency to
make the theory suspect. You need something more substantial than shadows
to expect a rehauling of the Big Bang.
Remember that there were serious questions about the applicability of Newtonian Dynamics on a large scale too when it was determined that galaxies could not
have kept their structure if calculations were based on ND only. However, rather than modify ND, scientists chose to posit an unseen dark matter just to save ND. As it turns out, there is indeed dark matter!
Unix was killed by the high price of licenses. Unix during the early 1990's was supposed to be for the big boys --- the enterprise customers willing to pay up to 10,000 USD per seat for a Unix license.
With the license for Windows NT starting at less than 1000USD, the enterprises which formed the majority of the paying Unix customer base soon found a way to make do with NT and delete their Unix installations.
It wasn't open standards and the fragmentation that did Unix in, it was plain hubris among the Unix vendors who cannot fathom a future where a cheaper Windows NT would replace the robust, stable and widely admired Unix they are selling.
The Chinese president is due to meet US president George Bush later this month when issues of piracy, counterfeiting, and intellectual property are expected to be raised.
Something tells me this is one of those Chinese Government edicts that will be largely ignored once Mr. Bush leaves China.
The Chinese President is certainly not in the mood to discuss Microsoft's Intellectual Property Rights when there are more pressing matters to be discussed with the US President. He'll just point to the edict and politely say that the Chinese Government is already taking steps to address problems of piracy. Then he'll quickly change to another topic as soon as he is able.
Its bad news because if someone tried to patent A Method of Using Nanotechnology To Cure Mammalian Organic Diseases and was
granted the license, then that person can sue almost everyone who comes up with a nano*** to cure any human diseases.
It's like someone getting a patent for A Method of Protecting Human Habitats from the Elements. Everyone who builds a roof over a house now owes a license fees to the patent holder.
OK, so there is prior art with roofs, but is there such a prior art with the new and exciting field of nanotechnology?
I guess not.
The US Patent System is severely broken and must be fixed, somehow. Otherwise, truly innovative companies may just decide to move their businesses to China or India and do their manufacturing there.
I remember the time during the 1980's when the US State Department hobbled almost every computer company which tried to export their goods with a thicket of regulations and bureaucratic red tape. It was feared that the Intel 8088 CPU is so advanced that it constitutes supercomputer technology that could be of military use! Hence export restrictions on Intel, Apple, IBM, etc.
The net result of those restrictions was that Intel, Fairchild, and other semiconductor companies moved their manufacturing facilities to sites in Mexico, Europe, the Philippines, Malaysia, etc. Sites that are beyond the reach of US Government export restrictions.
We are seeing a similar exportation of technology again with regards to stem cell research. If the patent system is not fixed soon, nanotechnology may soon follow the same offshoring trend.
I think for 98% of the people who buy a digital camera, 35mm film is actually cheaper.
The first camera that I ever bought is an Olympus C-750UZ. Yes, it's a digital camera and yes after the initial expense, each shot is actually free. But after three years of using the C-750UZ and perhaps 50,000 shots I have started to yearn for more.
What do I miss? How about (a) quick autofocus (b) interchangeable lenses (c) real manual focussing instead of the joke that Olympus has on the C-750 (d) high speed continuous shooting (e) better ISO 400 and above (f) a depth of field preview button?
After some reasearch, it turns out that the digital camera that would satisfy those requirements for me would be a Canon EOS20D. A digital wonder that costs USD1800.00 in our country. And that's only for the body. For the lens I would have to shell out more.
Now I'm going to try film. I just bought a very good second hand Canon T90 that has everything that I want (except autofocus) for only USD30, price including a 70-210mm f/4 zoom lens. I was also able to buy a Canon 50mm f/1.8 FD lens for peanuts. Peanuts because the USD20 price I paid for it included a Canon T50 camera.
Buying a film camera has brought the economics of digital cameras vividly to my attention. Nikon is ceasing production of 35mm cameras because digital cameras are more profitable than film cameras. They are not necessarily cheaper or better than 35mm film SLRs. Let's see why.
A digital camera is obsolete after only one year. Joe Schmoe will need to buy another one next year.
The lens on the cheap point and shoot digital cameras that Joe Schmo can afford to buy is cheap to manufacture. Joe Schmoe does not know that it isn't megapixels that count but the quality of the lens. The Canon EOS D30 has only 3 megapixels but coupled with an L-quality lens it will blow away Joe Schmoe's 8 megapixel point and shoot.
Joe Schmoe can shoot thousands of shots for free but once he decides to print a few of them he will need to spend money on computers, software, inkjet printers and photo paper. Of course Joe Schmo can send his jpeg files to a digital printshop but if he is going to do that anyway why buy the digital camera? Professionals buy a digital camera because they have control over image quality with their array of digital editing software like Photoshop.
Expect Nikon to introduce a line of printers.
Joe Schmo is made to believe that after only 80 rolls of film he will have paid for a new Nikon D70. However, Joe Schmo is not made aware that that price is only for the body and does not include the lens and the various accessories and supporting equipment that the Nikon D70 needs to strut its stuff.
Joe Schmo is also not aware that those 80 rolls of film calculation already include the processing fees and 4R sized prints for all 2880 shots.
Joe Schmo somehow is also made unaware that he probably shoots only 10-15 rolls of film a year.
With a digital camera Joe Schmoe is convinced to shoot 800 images of his cat rolling on the carpet and 1000 shots of his morning bacon being fried. It makes Joe Schmoe satisfied knowing that he has saved so much money because can you imagine how much those shots would have cost on 35mm film?
In short, Joe Schmo is probably better off buying a cheap 35mm point and shoot and shooting lots of 35mm film than with his new digital wonder.
There is a difference between a vulnerability and an exploit. A vulnerability is just a potential weakness, a chink in the armor so to speak, but potential weaknesses cannot be taken advantage of unless it is exploited. It is thus the number of exploits that is the primary consideration when speaking of security.
Of course, Linux will have a large number of visible vulnerabilities! It is open source and anybody with two eyes and a passing knowledge of C should be able to find vulnerabilities almost everywhere. However, are those vulnerabilities actually exploitable? In most cases, Linux security alerts consist entirely of possible vulnerabilities and in most cases also, those vulnerabilities are quickly patched up and repaired; well before any practical exploits are written for it.
The case is not the same with Microsoft Windows. Because Windows is closed-source, the only way to demonstrate a vulnerability in Windows is to actually write an exploit for it! Thus, whenever a vulnerability has been discovered for windows, you can bet your Momma's last penny that there is
a very good chance of the existence of a working exploit for it.
How many vulnerabilities are there in Windows we do not know of because we cannot examine the
source? Judging from the number of exploits (written by people without access to Windows source code, by the way) we can
infer with good accuracy that the total number of vulnerabilities in windows should be several times that of the number of exploits. I am too lazy to make a count but perhaps
someone with the inclination can create a matrix showing Vulnerabilities vs exploit vis a vis Windows vs Linux. If we assume that the ratio of exploits to vulnerabilities is the same for both operating systems, what would be the estimate of
the number of vulnerabilities in windows? If we further include
the fact that Linux is open source while Windows is not,
what would be the estimated number of exploits in Windows?
That would make an interesting study.
It is Linux's open-source nature that gives it the disadvantage when a
simple-minded count of the security alerts for Windows versus
the number of security alerts for Linux is made.
But keep in mind that almost all security alerts for windows are not of vulnerabilities but of practical, demonstrably working, and potentially already widespread exploits. Most security alerts for Linux are of vulnerabilities.
In any discussion of security between Linux and Windows, the crucial distinction between vulnerability and exploit should be clearly enunciated.
I have two inkjet printers: a real cheap Epson Stylus 43SX and an Epson Stylus Photo R310. I use the 43SX for cheap color prints on ordinary paper and the R310 for photos.
I have succeeded in installing the 43SX under Linux and and currently in the process of installing the R310 so it will run under Linux too. I have used the Epson R310 under Win2000 and the results are satisfactory.
When printing to glossy paper the R310 prints look better than the prints I get from professional photo labs. Perhaps because I tend to tweak the colors and levels from my digicam using photoshop.
According to my experience:
Print out a sample print from your digital camera and then adjust your monitor gamma so it will match the printer output. Now you can tweak the colors and levels ever so slightly and what you see on your monitor will be very close to the actual printer output.
If your camera has manual exposure controls, underexpose your shots slightly. You can always adjust the levels later with Gimp or Photoshop.
If you are going to visit the Philippines, there is a shop along Quirino Avenue where they modify your printer so it will accept a bulk inkflow system. They will remove the original Epson cartridges and attach ink cartridges that are connected to bottles containing printer ink. While your friends back in the states are complaining about the high cost of printer ink, you will giggle with delight as you pour ink into your bulk inflow system at a cost of only 20 dollars per liter per color!
The registry is a real point of failure; despite your attempts to deny it. I believe your experience is not typical of the majority of users of MS Windows.
A corporate system has characteristics that are unique to to such systems. For example: Corporate systems don't usually fill their hard drives with the myriad of software that are usually found in home systems: games, photo editors, educational programs, etc.
If you haven't seen any examples of registry problems then I assure you you will be surprised at the horrors it can bring.
You see, the problem is not with the idea of the centralized registry itself but with the fact that the operating system (in this case MSWin) assumes that whatever program modifies the registry will modify it in such a way that it is still left in a consistent state.
Please read that again so you may understand. In other words, MSWin assumes that all installed software will play nice and that programmers have taken great care to ensure the safety and consistency of the registry.
Unfortunately, this leaves the stability of the entire system in the hands of unknown programmers who may or may not have done their homework!
What happens when a user decides to click on the cancel button in the middle of an installation and the program conveniently forgets that it has already modified the registry and thus should roll back whatever changes it has made? What do you think will happen to the registry now?
Ever wondered why Windows advises users to exit all other running programs before installing new software? What happens when program A modifies the registry but before it was able to save the changes, program B modifies and saves its changes to the same central registry? What happens to the changes made by program B when program A now saves its changes? This is called the concurrency problem and it is a real problem when two or more processes access and modify the same resource.
What if an installed program decides to insert information in the centralized registry that is specifically discouraged by Microsoft but which a lazy programmer decides is actually quite safe because it doesn't seem to have any deleterious effects in his system? Of course his system has very little installed software since it is a development system after all.
We can go on and on with possible disaster scenarios. In fact, you can even make it into a learning activity.
Discussion: List scenarios where a centralized registry is a disadvantage to the stability and consistency of a system. What do you think is a more reasonable compromise? Multiple configuration files with their attendant stability at the expense of complicated configuration management, or unstable systems but with a single API and thus easier configuration management?
Points for discussion: How many times are you expected to configure a typical application? Do you agree with the Unix philosophy that since software configuration is typically done only a few times and more often only once, that a fire and forget policy is more reasonable?
Additional points for discussion: Why is software configuration under a single registry system is not likely to be a fire and forget system?
I took a course in BS Physics and I had a classmate like that. He entered University at the age of 10 direct from grade 5. His teachers noticed him sleeping most of the time in classes but when tested he knew more than his teachers. He was accelerated to a special science high school for above-average kids but after 6 months his teachers told his parents that they have nothing more to teach him. He was then sent directly to university where he was enrolled in the BS Math, BS Physics and MS Physics courses at the same time!
He is good! He can compute sines and cosines in his head and can sum a taylor series without writing anything down. When he became my lab mate, we would use him as a calculator because he can compute much faster than our electronic calculators. During the time spent entering numbers on the calculator he would be able to tell us the results. We just decided to call out the numbers to him rather than have the calculator do it for us. He is a walking calculator.
That was more than twenty years ago. Ever since graduating from university I have sought to find out if he has somehow made a significant contribution to physics commensurate with his abilities. After scouring newspapers and the university newsletters, I have found none. It was a disappointment.
I don't know if going to university at such an early age was the right thing he did. Obviously, he was far too advanced to stay in grade 5. However, I doubt it if being forced to study in the university at his age was the right approach. He was interviewed by a newspaper once when he was my classmate. He was asked how he felt about being accelerated from grade 5 to university in less than a year. I can't forget what he said in the interview. He said he felt lonely because he has no friends in the university. All the others guys want to talk about is their girlfriends while all he wanted to do was build a paper airplane and sail it across the classroom.
How many versions of Windows XP are there? Really just two, Home Edition and Professional Edition. How many versions of Linux 2.6 are there? According to that article, around 300. It is way, way too complicated for regular people.
[sarcasm] Way to go, genius! However, why don't you begin your rants with the state of the vehicular system? There are just way too many types of vehicles in use today! SUVs, coupes, sports cars, dump trucks, vans, motorcycles, the variety just boggles the mind.
Why don't all these vehicle manufacturers just standardize on one make and one model and one configuration so the poor consumer doesn't have to rack his mind deciding whether he should buy that Lexus when a basic Yugo is more than enough to take the groceries home.
Also, have you seen those hippies with their turbo-charged mustangs and those low lifes with their garish, confusing and utterly useless Harley Davidsons? What is the world coming to these days? What's next? Three versions of Windows Vista? How is Joe Schmo supposed to take that in? [/sarcasm]
I am a high school mathematics teacher and I train students for mathematics competitions. I think most of you are missing the point of Dr. Wildberger.
Dr. Wildberger is not trying to redefine trigonometry, he is simply trying to give it a new perspective and hopefully, the new perspective would allow new insights into new methods of solving trigonometric problems. Protesting that memorizing the trigonometric functions as side adjacent over side opposite, etc., etc., is very easy and intuitive ignores the fact that in analytic geometry, that is not even how the trigonometric functions are defined!
Yes, really! For example, the sine of theta is defined in analysis as the y component of the radial vector from the origin to a point in a circle of unit radius whose arc distance from the x-axis is theta. The cosine of theta is defined similarly but this time taking the x-component. From this two simple definitions, the entire panoply of the trigonometric identities can be usefully derived!
The analytical definition is certainly not intuitive and not easy to memorize for a high school student! The side opposite, side adjacent trick is just that, a trick that is useful sometimes and certainly useful enough for high school mathematics but it is not a very useful definition as far as analysis is concerned.
For example, computing the derivative of the cosine function is not easy to understand if you restrict the definition of cosine to side adjacent over hypotenuse! Not to mention the fact that most students think there is magic involved in the computation of the trigonometric functions because the method of computation is not in their textbooks. It is only when one studies the calculus that the methods for computing the trigonometric functions are explained!
Dr. Wildberger has an idea that he thinks will make trigonometry more intuitive and I hope he is really onto something here. It would certainly help me with my students. I have read only the downloadable first chapter of the book and the idea is intriguing. Waving off Wildberger's new ideas without reading the entire book and without understanding the mathematics of trigonometry is just tragic.
In times like this I always remember the architect (I forgot the name, help me out here please) who refused to accept an architecture medal because the society that was giving out the medal invited Prince Charles to hand out the medal. That architect said, "I refuse to accept a medal from a person who believes that our grandfathers already know everything there is to know about how to build buildings and that there is nothing we can ever add to that knowledge anymore."
Actually this is the funniest scamming
of the scammers I have ever read.
It also gives you a succinct lesson on how scamming
works!
Re:A lesson the Linux worlds needs to learn
on
Why VHS Was Better
·
· Score: 1
Linux is doomed to be a niche player until this fact is more widely
accepted.
In a way, you are correct, however realize that
server and enterprise systems were considered niche
products until
it became obvious that IBM was making billions
of dollars a year on that niche. Now, every serious software
company (including Microsoft) aims to have
at least a presence in that sphere.
The same thing will happen with home systems.
Linux on a home system is a niche
product but Linux on high availability,
business-oriented, mission critical systems less so.
Note that I am not saying Linux is not a niche
product but seeing as Linux is a natural path
from Unix, Linux has the potential to be
at least a major player in the latter.
Whoever wins in the business segment
has the potential to expand into the
home segment. The IBM PC took that
path and eventually took over
the home and small office market
from Apple; leaving Apple with the
niche product despite it being
first on the market!
The critical question that must be answered is
whether home systems will continue
to look and be made the same way it
has been since the 1980's.
Apparently, even Microsoft doesn't think
so. Witness their putative expansion
into home console systems via the
XBox. If the
PC takes a drastic change in
technological direction, the advantages of Windows
in terms of infrastructure will evaporate.
Witness again the imminent demise
of VHS due to the onslaught of DVD!
In fact, if, or perhaps I should
say when, home systems migrate
from the general purpose computers
of today to the console oriented
systems of the future, Linux will be
more than ready to take whatever Microsoft
will hurl at it.
I agree. However I also suggest that
packets streaming into any port under a gaussian bell
curve probability and/or a poisson distribution
also be filtered out. I heard that the newest
version of the linux kernel has mechanisms for
thermodynamically analyzing all packets
for signs of randomness. As all computer scientists
and mathematicians know, humans are not random
and it is therefore unlikely that packets sent
from a client will arrive at any given server
randomly. Richard Stallman in his PhD
thesis ``The Statistical Thermodynamics of
Software Evolution'' says as much. Please read
the paper for details.
Sorry, I don't have the URL. I'm not
a karma whore.
... The
user will then (hopefully) download the infected media file off the RIAA
server, and later play it on their own machine.
So, the RIAA itself is giving away copies of its copyrighted
material. Wouldn't that amount to an explicit permission
to download and copy?
Followed by the ostensible list.
mplayer (www.mplayerhq.org)
WinAMP (www.winamp.com)
Windows Media Player (www.microsoft.com),
xine (xine.sourceforge.net),
mpg123 (www.mpg123.de),
xmms (www.xmms.org)
I don't know much about media players but is this even possible?
Media files are supposed to be data and should not be able
to control the player.
I would have believed the post if
only Microsoft's Windows Media Player is listed. After
all, I would expect as much from the inventors of Outlook,
Word and Excel.
And then there is...
Next, all media on the machine is cataloged, and
the full list is sent back to the RIAA headquarters...... when it can be used as evidence in criminal
proceedings against those criminals who think it's OK to break the law.
Gobbles could learn a few things from watching cop movies.
You don't warn your targets you're tailing them! That is
unless you really aren't tailing them.
Slashdot Mirror
If the reason Kodak failed is because they failed to see the shift in attitude towards photographs, then why is it that traditional camera makers like Canon and Nikon are alive and well?
I think the writer failed to see the obvious here. The reason Kodak failed is because Kodak is primarily a film and photo chemicals maker and not primarily a camera maker. With less people using film it is obvious Kodak can't base its business model on an obsolescent technology. Nikon and Canon are primarily camera makers and they were able to make the shift to digital successfully. Kodak was not.
Kodak's error was that it decided to hold onto a flawed business model rather than just closing down the company and returning the assets to the stockholders. Some companies are destined to close down. It's just the way it is.
I have been to a professional conference where all the attendees---except one---are wearing slacks, collared shirts or business uniforms. The one sore thumb was in a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Everyone wondered what kind of company he works for that would allow their representative to come to a conference dressed like that.
And if you think the guy is smart, forget about it. He is not. During the discussion no one would take his ideas seriously because obviously if he cannot even be bother to dress appropriately for a professional conference one has to doubt whether he can even be bothered to think deeply about what he is about to say.
What distribution are we supposed to use now? Ubuntu has given up on its users, and is turning into an interface for the elderly, the disabled and netbook people.
I'd rather have my advanced UI that lets me do whatever I want with my workstation, thank you very much.
Slackware.
Ubuntu is targeted at users. If you want hardcore, go Slackware, or Knoppix or Linux From Scratch. Why so much hate on Unity when there is plenty of Linux distributions around?
High risk projects that carry a high rate of return when successful are important in the technology industry. More so in aviation. Boeing needs to do this in order not to become like HP---a company that rested on its laurels and never took the risks of innovating. You sound like one of the guys at Wall Street.
In any project that involves, new, innovative, and highly speculative technology there is always the possibility of failure. If NASA decided to shut down its space program after several rockets exploded on their launchpad back in the 1950's and 1960's, America wouldn't have landed on the moon and the space age would be Russian and Chinese dominated and not American. Even so, if the financial and risk management is any good, project failures should not bring a company down. NASA continued with its space program because it had a mandate from the president and the bottomless pockets of the US government.
Boeing is still alive and kicking. They do have enough projects that are successful that will keep the company in the forefront of aviation for years to come. Remember, Boeing created and dominates the industry of pilot-less drones that many believe shall be the future of military aviation. They invented the Boeing 747 that redefined how many passengers can be carried safely into the sky by a single aircraft. The 747 is the gift that keeps on giving but Boeing is right in not resting on the success of this 1960's era project. I hope it keeps on conducting the high risk projects that Wall Street and arm-chair analysts like to criticize when it fails.
It's not a mistake. It's called expanding into the hardware side of the mobile business. Google needs to have a hardware division if it wants to compete with Apple and Microsoft---both of which have hardware divisions. Google can expand into the hardware side in one of two ways: (a) spend money to create the division or (b) buy it from someone else. Many of the pundits who think the Motorola deal is not such a good one are not accountants and do not have access to privileged accounting information. Google made the computations and they decided that buying the mobile division from Motorola makes sense from their strategic viewpoint.
Will the Motorola deal work for Google? We do not know. Lots of things that seem a hundred percent sure often don't turn out as expected. But from the viewpoint of business strategy and decision making, the motorola deal is a very good one. The deal is better than not doing anything at all and watching helplessly as Apple and Microsoft (who have become friends because of a common enemy) chip away at the rising comet of Android via their legal shenanigans. It could also mean Google boarding the train too late as Microsoft slowly but surely turns Nokia into their mobile division through cross licensing and sweetheart deals. With a former Microsoft executive at the helm of Nokia, Microsoft does not even have to buy Nokia outright.
The acquisition of Motorola is a master stroke by Google. It took everyone by surprise. You could very well bet that within the executive offices of Microsoft and Apple are people worried that the owner of the mobile OS that has taken a huge portion of the smartphone market in such a short time now also has a hardware division of its own; a division with factories that can produce phones, tablets, electronic appliances and whatnot. Things have become very interesting.
How do you know Neanderthals were genetically inferior?
Because they went extinct. You guys want to be so politically correct that you are even afraid to call the neanderthals inferior. Come on! There is no chance that someone in the world right now would be offended by the statement that Neanderthals are inferior. Homo Sapiens Sapiens dominates the world today while the neanderthals are nowhere to be found. That, in itself, indicates that in terms of biological success, neanderthals are inferior to us.
Maybe we killed them off: we are nimbler, smarter, and probably more agressive than they. Our African ancestors went to Europe, the Neanderthals stayed where they were. That shows we have initiative and the smarts to plan ahead. Maybe the neanderthals are not as adaptable as us. When Europe became warmer, they were unable to cope. In any case, they are no longer here while we are in every corner of the earth.
So they found we share, what 4% of our genes? We share over 98% of our genes with the chimpanzees! Four percent of the remaining 2% is not such a big deal. Our ancestors captured and raped Neanderthal women, and then adopted the offspring. Babies are babies everywhere. We find them cute. I have no doubt our ancestors find the Neanderthal babies cute also. It is those adopted babies that contributed the genes to our gene pool over the many generations. But make no mistake, the Neanderthals are extinct. We are not them and they are not us.
This new discovery is very intriguing but it does not take away from the fact the Neanderthals are the loser species.
newstands to pay a fee to them because the presence of the newspapers attracts people to the newstands.
Maybe the managers thinking about this should just leave the media business. They don't seem to know anything about it.
Global warming is more like a belief in God than it is a scientific theory.
Examples of Global warming fundamentalist religion I have heard.
With any observable immediately explained by global warming, how is this any different from a belief in a God that chooses to intervene or not intervene depending on a whim?
I hope climate science advances away from its political agenda and concentrates on getting more data to let us know exactly what is happening.
Consider this scenario:
Litko is a foreman of Ajax Chemical's main factory. When ABC Chem got embroiled in a legal scandal, Litko used the ensuing confusion and lack of supervision to sell off parts of ABC Chem's factories. He also used ABC Chem's property as collateral for loans with banking institutions, made sales deals with clients for ABC Chem products and then kept the profits. Litko also invested ABC Chems money and kept them for himself.
After four years, ABC Chem was finally was able to shake off the legal scandal and moved towards controlling its factories again. They soon found out that Litko is now a multi-billionaire and that he already owns most of the erstwhile property of ABC Chem.
ABC Chem decided to retrieve the wealth that they believe ABC Chem is legally and morally entitled to. Unfortunately, because Litko is now an oligarch, Litko is able to hire the best lawyers and is able to fend off the legal barrage for as long as possible while he makes his escape to London. In London, he settles comfortably and uses his new-found wealth to buy a football club.
In all definitions of the term, Litko is a criminal.
From the article:
Mr. Kasparov, the grandmaster, should ask himself exactly where did Mr. Berezovsky and Mr. Russian Owner of the Chelsea Football Club get their money to become stupendously wealthy in such a short time.
Unlike Mr. Kasparov, the majority of Russians (those 80% that support Putin) are aware that Berezovsky and his ilk are the Litkos who raped Russia of its natural wealth during the confusion of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Kasparov does not have to look very far in search of where Russia's wealth went. He need only stare in the direction of his financial backers.
again! Do those people who wrote CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION over and over again in their lame effort to earn slashdot karma even read the report?
Probably not. Because if they did, they will see that the paper is not one of those correlation-therefore-causation blog-level research they often read.
From the paper's abstract
In other words, this study is not about looking for the causes of autism but about verifying if the correlation predicted by hypothesis manifests itself. It's an entirely different thing.
Maybe the next time people recite the correlation-is-not-causation karma (without actually knowing a hint about statistics) perhaps they should read the research paper first?
A little shadow anomaly isn't going to seriously dent the Big Bang theory. There is so much evidence for the Big Bang and predictions based on it have been observed that it will take more than a little inconsistency to make the theory suspect. You need something more substantial than shadows to expect a rehauling of the Big Bang.
Remember that there were serious questions about the applicability of Newtonian Dynamics on a large scale too when it was determined that galaxies could not have kept their structure if calculations were based on ND only. However, rather than modify ND, scientists chose to posit an unseen dark matter just to save ND. As it turns out, there is indeed dark matter!
Don't sound the death knell on the big bang yet.
Unix was killed by the high price of licenses. Unix during the early 1990's was supposed to be for the big boys --- the enterprise customers willing to pay up to 10,000 USD per seat for a Unix license.
With the license for Windows NT starting at less than 1000USD, the enterprises which formed the majority of the paying Unix customer base soon found a way to make do with NT and delete their Unix installations.
It wasn't open standards and the fragmentation that did Unix in, it was plain hubris among the Unix vendors who cannot fathom a future where a cheaper Windows NT would replace the robust, stable and widely admired Unix they are selling.
At the end of TFA is the statement
Something tells me this is one of those Chinese Government edicts that will be largely ignored once Mr. Bush leaves China.
The Chinese President is certainly not in the mood to discuss Microsoft's Intellectual Property Rights when there are more pressing matters to be discussed with the US President. He'll just point to the edict and politely say that the Chinese Government is already taking steps to address problems of piracy. Then he'll quickly change to another topic as soon as he is able.
Its bad news because if someone tried to patent A Method of Using Nanotechnology To Cure Mammalian Organic Diseases and was granted the license, then that person can sue almost everyone who comes up with a nano*** to cure any human diseases.
It's like someone getting a patent for A Method of Protecting Human Habitats from the Elements. Everyone who builds a roof over a house now owes a license fees to the patent holder. OK, so there is prior art with roofs, but is there such a prior art with the new and exciting field of nanotechnology? I guess not.
The US Patent System is severely broken and must be fixed, somehow. Otherwise, truly innovative companies may just decide to move their businesses to China or India and do their manufacturing there.
I remember the time during the 1980's when the US State Department hobbled almost every computer company which tried to export their goods with a thicket of regulations and bureaucratic red tape. It was feared that the Intel 8088 CPU is so advanced that it constitutes supercomputer technology that could be of military use! Hence export restrictions on Intel, Apple, IBM, etc.
The net result of those restrictions was that Intel, Fairchild, and other semiconductor companies moved their manufacturing facilities to sites in Mexico, Europe, the Philippines, Malaysia, etc. Sites that are beyond the reach of US Government export restrictions.
We are seeing a similar exportation of technology again with regards to stem cell research. If the patent system is not fixed soon, nanotechnology may soon follow the same offshoring trend.
I think for 98% of the people who buy a digital camera, 35mm film is actually cheaper.
The first camera that I ever bought is an Olympus C-750UZ. Yes, it's a digital camera and yes after the initial expense, each shot is actually free. But after three years of using the C-750UZ and perhaps 50,000 shots I have started to yearn for more.
What do I miss? How about (a) quick autofocus (b) interchangeable lenses (c) real manual focussing instead of the joke that Olympus has on the C-750 (d) high speed continuous shooting (e) better ISO 400 and above (f) a depth of field preview button?
After some reasearch, it turns out that the digital camera that would satisfy those requirements for me would be a Canon EOS20D. A digital wonder that costs USD1800.00 in our country. And that's only for the body. For the lens I would have to shell out more.
Now I'm going to try film. I just bought a very good second hand Canon T90 that has everything that I want (except autofocus) for only USD30, price including a 70-210mm f/4 zoom lens. I was also able to buy a Canon 50mm f/1.8 FD lens for peanuts. Peanuts because the USD20 price I paid for it included a Canon T50 camera.
Buying a film camera has brought the economics of digital cameras vividly to my attention. Nikon is ceasing production of 35mm cameras because digital cameras are more profitable than film cameras. They are not necessarily cheaper or better than 35mm film SLRs. Let's see why.
Expect Nikon to introduce a line of printers.
Joe Schmo is also not aware that those 80 rolls of film calculation already include the processing fees and 4R sized prints for all 2880 shots. Joe Schmo somehow is also made unaware that he probably shoots only 10-15 rolls of film a year.
With a digital camera Joe Schmoe is convinced to shoot 800 images of his cat rolling on the carpet and 1000 shots of his morning bacon being fried. It makes Joe Schmoe satisfied knowing that he has saved so much money because can you imagine how much those shots would have cost on 35mm film?
In short, Joe Schmo is probably better off buying a cheap 35mm point and shoot and shooting lots of 35mm film than with his new digital wonder.
It's a pity that 35mm will soon be obsolete.
There is a difference between a vulnerability and an exploit. A vulnerability is just a potential weakness, a chink in the armor so to speak, but potential weaknesses cannot be taken advantage of unless it is exploited. It is thus the number of exploits that is the primary consideration when speaking of security.
Of course, Linux will have a large number of visible vulnerabilities! It is open source and anybody with two eyes and a passing knowledge of C should be able to find vulnerabilities almost everywhere. However, are those vulnerabilities actually exploitable? In most cases, Linux security alerts consist entirely of possible vulnerabilities and in most cases also, those vulnerabilities are quickly patched up and repaired; well before any practical exploits are written for it.
The case is not the same with Microsoft Windows. Because Windows is closed-source, the only way to demonstrate a vulnerability in Windows is to actually write an exploit for it! Thus, whenever a vulnerability has been discovered for windows, you can bet your Momma's last penny that there is a very good chance of the existence of a working exploit for it.
How many vulnerabilities are there in Windows we do not know of because we cannot examine the source? Judging from the number of exploits (written by people without access to Windows source code, by the way) we can infer with good accuracy that the total number of vulnerabilities in windows should be several times that of the number of exploits. I am too lazy to make a count but perhaps someone with the inclination can create a matrix showing Vulnerabilities vs exploit vis a vis Windows vs Linux. If we assume that the ratio of exploits to vulnerabilities is the same for both operating systems, what would be the estimate of the number of vulnerabilities in windows? If we further include the fact that Linux is open source while Windows is not, what would be the estimated number of exploits in Windows?
That would make an interesting study.
It is Linux's open-source nature that gives it the disadvantage when a simple-minded count of the security alerts for Windows versus the number of security alerts for Linux is made. But keep in mind that almost all security alerts for windows are not of vulnerabilities but of practical, demonstrably working, and potentially already widespread exploits. Most security alerts for Linux are of vulnerabilities.
In any discussion of security between Linux and Windows, the crucial distinction between vulnerability and exploit should be clearly enunciated.
I have two inkjet printers: a real cheap Epson Stylus 43SX and an Epson Stylus Photo R310. I use the 43SX for cheap color prints on ordinary paper and the R310 for photos.
I have succeeded in installing the 43SX under Linux and and currently in the process of installing the R310 so it will run under Linux too. I have used the Epson R310 under Win2000 and the results are satisfactory.
When printing to glossy paper the R310 prints look better than the prints I get from professional photo labs. Perhaps because I tend to tweak the colors and levels from my digicam using photoshop.
According to my experience:
And I kid you not.
The registry is a real point of failure; despite your attempts to deny it. I believe your experience is not typical of the majority of users of MS Windows.
A corporate system has characteristics that are unique to to such systems. For example: Corporate systems don't usually fill their hard drives with the myriad of software that are usually found in home systems: games, photo editors, educational programs, etc.
If you haven't seen any examples of registry problems then I assure you you will be surprised at the horrors it can bring.
You see, the problem is not with the idea of the centralized registry itself but with the fact that the operating system (in this case MSWin) assumes that whatever program modifies the registry will modify it in such a way that it is still left in a consistent state.
Please read that again so you may understand. In other words, MSWin assumes that all installed software will play nice and that programmers have taken great care to ensure the safety and consistency of the registry.
Unfortunately, this leaves the stability of the entire system in the hands of unknown programmers who may or may not have done their homework!
What happens when a user decides to click on the cancel button in the middle of an installation and the program conveniently forgets that it has already modified the registry and thus should roll back whatever changes it has made? What do you think will happen to the registry now?
Ever wondered why Windows advises users to exit all other running programs before installing new software? What happens when program A modifies the registry but before it was able to save the changes, program B modifies and saves its changes to the same central registry? What happens to the changes made by program B when program A now saves its changes? This is called the concurrency problem and it is a real problem when two or more processes access and modify the same resource.
What if an installed program decides to insert information in the centralized registry that is specifically discouraged by Microsoft but which a lazy programmer decides is actually quite safe because it doesn't seem to have any deleterious effects in his system? Of course his system has very little installed software since it is a development system after all.
We can go on and on with possible disaster scenarios. In fact, you can even make it into a learning activity.
Discussion: List scenarios where a centralized registry is a disadvantage to the stability and consistency of a system. What do you think is a more reasonable compromise? Multiple configuration files with their attendant stability at the expense of complicated configuration management, or unstable systems but with a single API and thus easier configuration management?
Points for discussion: How many times are you expected to configure a typical application? Do you agree with the Unix philosophy that since software configuration is typically done only a few times and more often only once, that a fire and forget policy is more reasonable?
Additional points for discussion: Why is software configuration under a single registry system is not likely to be a fire and forget system?
I took a course in BS Physics and I had a classmate like that. He entered University at the age of 10 direct from grade 5. His teachers noticed him sleeping most of the time in classes but when tested he knew more than his teachers. He was accelerated to a special science high school for above-average kids but after 6 months his teachers told his parents that they have nothing more to teach him. He was then sent directly to university where he was enrolled in the BS Math, BS Physics and MS Physics courses at the same time! He is good! He can compute sines and cosines in his head and can sum a taylor series without writing anything down. When he became my lab mate, we would use him as a calculator because he can compute much faster than our electronic calculators. During the time spent entering numbers on the calculator he would be able to tell us the results. We just decided to call out the numbers to him rather than have the calculator do it for us. He is a walking calculator. That was more than twenty years ago. Ever since graduating from university I have sought to find out if he has somehow made a significant contribution to physics commensurate with his abilities. After scouring newspapers and the university newsletters, I have found none. It was a disappointment. I don't know if going to university at such an early age was the right thing he did. Obviously, he was far too advanced to stay in grade 5. However, I doubt it if being forced to study in the university at his age was the right approach. He was interviewed by a newspaper once when he was my classmate. He was asked how he felt about being accelerated from grade 5 to university in less than a year. I can't forget what he said in the interview. He said he felt lonely because he has no friends in the university. All the others guys want to talk about is their girlfriends while all he wanted to do was build a paper airplane and sail it across the classroom.
[sarcasm]
Way to go, genius! However, why don't you begin your rants with the state of the vehicular system? There are just way too many types of vehicles in use today! SUVs, coupes, sports cars, dump trucks, vans, motorcycles, the variety just boggles the mind.
Why don't all these vehicle manufacturers just standardize on one make and one model and one configuration so the poor consumer doesn't have to rack his mind deciding whether he should buy that Lexus when a basic Yugo is more than enough to take the groceries home.
Also, have you seen those hippies with their turbo-charged mustangs and those low lifes with their garish, confusing and utterly useless Harley Davidsons? What is the world coming to these days? What's next? Three versions of Windows Vista? How is Joe Schmo supposed to take that in?
[/sarcasm]
I am a high school mathematics teacher and I train students for mathematics competitions. I think most of you are missing the point of Dr. Wildberger.
Dr. Wildberger is not trying to redefine trigonometry, he is simply trying to give it a new perspective and hopefully, the new perspective would allow new insights into new methods of solving trigonometric problems. Protesting that memorizing the trigonometric functions as side adjacent over side opposite, etc., etc., is very easy and intuitive ignores the fact that in analytic geometry, that is not even how the trigonometric functions are defined!
Yes, really! For example, the sine of theta is defined in analysis as the y component of the radial vector from the origin to a point in a circle of unit radius whose arc distance from the x-axis is theta. The cosine of theta is defined similarly but this time taking the x-component. From this two simple definitions, the entire panoply of the trigonometric identities can be usefully derived!
The analytical definition is certainly not intuitive and not easy to memorize for a high school student! The side opposite, side adjacent trick is just that, a trick that is useful sometimes and certainly useful enough for high school mathematics but it is not a very useful definition as far as analysis is concerned.
For example, computing the derivative of the cosine function is not easy to understand if you restrict the definition of cosine to side adjacent over hypotenuse! Not to mention the fact that most students think there is magic involved in the computation of the trigonometric functions because the method of computation is not in their textbooks. It is only when one studies the calculus that the methods for computing the trigonometric functions are explained!
Dr. Wildberger has an idea that he thinks will make trigonometry more intuitive and I hope he is really onto something here. It would certainly help me with my students. I have read only the downloadable first chapter of the book and the idea is intriguing. Waving off Wildberger's new ideas without reading the entire book and without understanding the mathematics of trigonometry is just tragic.
In times like this I always remember the architect (I forgot the name, help me out here please) who refused to accept an architecture medal because the society that was giving out the medal invited Prince Charles to hand out the medal. That architect said, "I refuse to accept a medal from a person who believes that our grandfathers already know everything there is to know about how to build buildings and that there is nothing we can ever add to that knowledge anymore."
Just my two cents.
Actually this is the funniest scamming of the scammers I have ever read. It also gives you a succinct lesson on how scamming works!
In a way, you are correct, however realize that server and enterprise systems were considered niche products until it became obvious that IBM was making billions of dollars a year on that niche. Now, every serious software company (including Microsoft) aims to have at least a presence in that sphere.
The same thing will happen with home systems. Linux on a home system is a niche product but Linux on high availability, business-oriented, mission critical systems less so. Note that I am not saying Linux is not a niche product but seeing as Linux is a natural path from Unix, Linux has the potential to be at least a major player in the latter.
Whoever wins in the business segment has the potential to expand into the home segment. The IBM PC took that path and eventually took over the home and small office market from Apple; leaving Apple with the niche product despite it being first on the market!
The critical question that must be answered is whether home systems will continue to look and be made the same way it has been since the 1980's. Apparently, even Microsoft doesn't think so. Witness their putative expansion into home console systems via the XBox. If the PC takes a drastic change in technological direction, the advantages of Windows in terms of infrastructure will evaporate. Witness again the imminent demise of VHS due to the onslaught of DVD!
In fact, if, or perhaps I should say when, home systems migrate from the general purpose computers of today to the console oriented systems of the future, Linux will be more than ready to take whatever Microsoft will hurl at it.
I agree. However I also suggest that packets streaming into any port under a gaussian bell curve probability and/or a poisson distribution also be filtered out. I heard that the newest version of the linux kernel has mechanisms for thermodynamically analyzing all packets for signs of randomness. As all computer scientists and mathematicians know, humans are not random and it is therefore unlikely that packets sent from a client will arrive at any given server randomly. Richard Stallman in his PhD thesis ``The Statistical Thermodynamics of Software Evolution'' says as much. Please read the paper for details.
Sorry, I don't have the URL. I'm not a karma whore.
Probably a hoax.
So, the RIAA itself is giving away copies of its copyrighted material. Wouldn't that amount to an explicit permission to download and copy?
Followed by the ostensible list.
mplayer (www.mplayerhq.org) WinAMP (www.winamp.com) Windows Media Player (www.microsoft.com), xine (xine.sourceforge.net), mpg123 (www.mpg123.de), xmms (www.xmms.org)
I don't know much about media players but is this even possible? Media files are supposed to be data and should not be able to control the player. I would have believed the post if only Microsoft's Windows Media Player is listed. After all, I would expect as much from the inventors of Outlook, Word and Excel.
And then there is ...
Gobbles could learn a few things from watching cop movies. You don't warn your targets you're tailing them! That is unless you really aren't tailing them.