Good point. But even if the Supreme Court took this case and ruled in the infringer's favor, she would still owe at least $200 per song, which would work out to $7400. See 17 USC 504(c)(2) ("In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200").
This is easy and requires no new hardware.
On Windows Vista:
1) Right Click on Desktop
2) Select Personalize
3) On the Left hand side, select "Adjust font size (DPI)"
4) Select a larger size and press ok (or you can use the button below to customize the DPI)
Now you can enjoy your high resolution and actually read everything!
There are other options to make the icons bigger, but the important thing is the font.
Firstly, any software running in a medical device (i.e. mammogram machine) has to be certified. Developers aren't just downloading any old open source software and putting it into their device, especially the critical parts. This is especially true for flight software, which have the highest levels of certification in the world. So I don't think this situation would ever really arise.
Secondly, the plaintiff's will have a very hard time proving negligence. Most software is known to have bugs in it. A reasonable developer will have a bug or two slip into their code. Unless it was foreseeable that their code was going to be depended on for some life-critical application (not foreseeable to an open source developer, because that would be insane), then they won't be liable.
Thirdly, there are no warranties on open software, developers release their code as-is. It is clearly marked as having no warranty. Whoever downloads the code from the mammogram company will be a supervening actor in any resulting injury and will cut the causal chain of the open source developer's negligence.
There are probably other issues I'm forgetting, but I wouldn't expect this case to have much of a chance. Please point me to a case and prove me wrong.
Consumers now have a choice of buying error-prone cheap software (i.e. Microsoft, Linux, Apple), or pay a programmer to develop an expensive but rock-solid system (older open source platforms like openBSD).
This bill will basically force everyone to pay for expensive reliable software. It violates free market principles and should be roundly condemned. For some industries, namely car manufacturer, this shift in liability works because we highly value our safety. And, as a public policy, we don't want anyone driving cheap unsafe vehicles. But I see know problem with consumers using cheap error-prone computers.
True, we spend lots of money on IT support, virus protection, and the Geek Squad, but under this new rule, we'll be forced to spend this money upfront.
I don't get it... javascript games and demos have been around for a while (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=javascript+games). Firefox renders these perfectly well and minefield renders them faster than Chrome. There is nothing new here, its just a publicity stunt.
Now that Google is heavily investing money and man-hours into the Firefox web-browser, is it a coincidence that Thunderbird is being kicked out of the Mozilla organization? Thunderbird competes squarely with Google's flagship email product Gmail. I'm not one to start conspiracy theories, but it does seem a bit curious.
Sounds like a job for ethicist... you know the guy in the NYT magazine. The real question is "Are you ethically obligated to inform them that they have underperformed?"
I'm working (almost done) on a debugger that lets you run and step your program backwards as well as forwards. It lets you check out the state of the program at any time. Additionally I'm working on a tool which visualizes the call stack over time. You can also save whole program runs to review them later.
All of this without any code instrumentation so it runs at full speed (depending on your setup).
Check it out at: www.ghs.com/products/timemachine.html
(the web page really doesn't do it justice)
It is a great idea to take different components and glue them together using languages like python, perl, (or for the web) php. However once those components are glued together they only fit one specific purpose. No one can take advantage of all of your glue-work, which may be a large project in itself.
We need better ways to glue and then encapsulate. Take a number of components possibly of different languages, or even possibly architectures, glue them together, wrap them up in a single shared object binary, and expose only the needed portions.
With a language like python you can get 90% there, but its reliance on the python runtime is a major bummer. Compiled python may be a valid choice, but I haven't seen it used too much in practice.
Debian only runs on linux. If Iceweasel takes any firefox market share away it will be from other linux web browsers. It won't be battling on the windows front, so it wont effect the Firefox vs. Explorer competition.
Even though the JIT and interpreted languages are (nearly) as fast as native code in execution, in practive they are not. Languages like C# and Java make it very easy to create many wastfull objects. In C/C++ you don't have convinence of a garbage collector to clean up your mess. In C/C++ you have to keep strict record keeping of all of the objects, and as a result objects get reused more often. I have found that C#/Java software runs slower only because the coding style does not enforce object reuse.
Green Hills Software already has a product which can trace anything. I think it does it by recompiling (or relinking?) the software with its proprietary compiler. But once you do that you can trace anything, not just system code. Seems like a cool product if you have the dough. Here's more info, with screenshots: http://www.ghs.com/products/timemachine.html
I saw Matrox at ESC (Embedded Systems Conference) two weeks ago when they first announced it. I actually got to play with it and I have to say it may be the coolest pc-graphics related technology in 2006. You get to use peripheral vision when playing video games.
The one down-side is that it isn't DVI compatible, only analog.
SpaceX has delayed this launch for about two years now. It has filled its followers with false hope that commericialization of space is just around the corner.
You may not have noticed but on there website it says that they're delaying it again from Thursday to Friday.
"It also consumes 1000 watts of power." WRONG!
The board requires a 1000 Watt power supply, not neccesarily 1000 watts of power. The power supply is the upper limit of how much the board can consume. Most computers come with a 300 watt power supply even though they normally use only about 100 Watts.
That being said, this board probably consumes quite a bit of power (but much less than 1000 watts) if it needs such a heavy duty power supply.
I've been a subscriber for years now and the New York Times continues to impress me. What newspapers have the balls to to take on the Bush administration the way the NYT is doing so? Many newspapers passivly report on the information that falls into their lap. The New York Times goes to hell and back to seek out the truth.
However their does lawsuit raise questions about the press's place to make news rather than just report it.
Regardless... I think they're doing a great job and hope they're able to get the information they want.
entropy encoding might be a subset of a larger family of algorithms called markov modelling
Markov modeling is used in linear prediction which is normally (although not always) a lossy form of compression. It is typically used in speech.
There are two lossless methods: entropy encoding and dictionary coding
Dictionary coding is a type of entropy coding. Arithmetic coding is another type of entropy coding, and so is Huffman. LZW is was the first algorithm to use a dictionary approach and it is commonly synonymous with the approach.
the DEFLATE algorithm is based on LZ77, another variant of dictionary coding. gzip uses DEFLATE,
I would be suprised to here that gzip uses both dictionary and Huffman coding. A proper dictionary based algorithm normally outperforms gzip by about 10 to 30%.
LZW is just an optimization of LZ
No it isn't. LZ has a serious flaw in it which occurs pretty frequently. The 'W' was a guy working for Sperry (they made submarines) who found the flaw and fixed it. It was Sperry which originally had the patent on the 'W' part which made it proprietary.
The next part gets a bit fuzzy.... I think Sperry sold it to another company which eventually made its way to Unisys. A previous commenter said that the patents expired, which would be great. But I think there may be more legal trouble ahead (otherwise why wouldn't gzip use it?).
Lossless data compression is a pretty well studied subject. Shannon started it back in the 40's and plenty of research has gone into it since.
There are basically three ways to do lossless compression: Huffman, Arithmetic, and LZW. Technically Huffman can achieve the best of three, however its generally the worst because of implmentation issues (it would take a lot of processing to do rigourous Huffman encoding).
Arithmetic coding is generally better but is difficult to implment. I think IBM is the company who actually sells an arithmetic coder (I could be wrong though).
LZW is by far the best of the three (you can read online how it works), but alas it is patented and anyone who gives away free copies of it will get sued.
I know for a fact that gzip uses Huffman, which would explain its lackluster performance. I haven't researched it further, but I would not be suprised if the three proprietary compression programs which "won" this review use LZW. I also wouldn't be suprised if they pay a good amount to LZW's patent holders (Unisys I think).
I'd be interested to see how gzip performs on its "maximum compression" setting. Like I said earlier, Huffman can can achieve the theortical limit on compression where LZW cannot.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point. But even if the Supreme Court took this case and ruled in the infringer's favor, she would still owe at least $200 per song, which would work out to $7400. See 17 USC 504(c)(2) ("In a case where the infringer sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that such infringer was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages to a sum of not less than $200").
This is easy and requires no new hardware. On Windows Vista: 1) Right Click on Desktop 2) Select Personalize 3) On the Left hand side, select "Adjust font size (DPI)" 4) Select a larger size and press ok (or you can use the button below to customize the DPI) Now you can enjoy your high resolution and actually read everything! There are other options to make the icons bigger, but the important thing is the font.
Note that in all of your cases a person was physically injured.
This bill attempts to shift liability for all sorts of damages, not just personal injury.
FUD FUD FUD
Firstly, any software running in a medical device (i.e. mammogram machine) has to be certified. Developers aren't just downloading any old open source software and putting it into their device, especially the critical parts. This is especially true for flight software, which have the highest levels of certification in the world. So I don't think this situation would ever really arise.
Secondly, the plaintiff's will have a very hard time proving negligence. Most software is known to have bugs in it. A reasonable developer will have a bug or two slip into their code. Unless it was foreseeable that their code was going to be depended on for some life-critical application (not foreseeable to an open source developer, because that would be insane), then they won't be liable.
Thirdly, there are no warranties on open software, developers release their code as-is. It is clearly marked as having no warranty. Whoever downloads the code from the mammogram company will be a supervening actor in any resulting injury and will cut the causal chain of the open source developer's negligence.
There are probably other issues I'm forgetting, but I wouldn't expect this case to have much of a chance. Please point me to a case and prove me wrong.
This bill will reduce consumer freedom.
Consumers now have a choice of buying error-prone cheap software (i.e. Microsoft, Linux, Apple), or pay a programmer to develop an expensive but rock-solid system (older open source platforms like openBSD).
This bill will basically force everyone to pay for expensive reliable software. It violates free market principles and should be roundly condemned. For some industries, namely car manufacturer, this shift in liability works because we highly value our safety. And, as a public policy, we don't want anyone driving cheap unsafe vehicles. But I see know problem with consumers using cheap error-prone computers.
True, we spend lots of money on IT support, virus protection, and the Geek Squad, but under this new rule, we'll be forced to spend this money upfront.
I don't get it... javascript games and demos have been around for a while (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=javascript+games). Firefox renders these perfectly well and minefield renders them faster than Chrome. There is nothing new here, its just a publicity stunt.
To reuse or not to reuse... that is the question
Now that Google is heavily investing money and man-hours into the Firefox web-browser, is it a coincidence that Thunderbird is being kicked out of the Mozilla organization? Thunderbird competes squarely with Google's flagship email product Gmail. I'm not one to start conspiracy theories, but it does seem a bit curious.
Sounds like a job for ethicist... you know the guy in the NYT magazine. The real question is "Are you ethically obligated to inform them that they have underperformed?"
I'm working (almost done) on a debugger that lets you run and step your program backwards as well as forwards. It lets you check out the state of the program at any time. Additionally I'm working on a tool which visualizes the call stack over time. You can also save whole program runs to review them later. All of this without any code instrumentation so it runs at full speed (depending on your setup). Check it out at: www.ghs.com/products/timemachine.html (the web page really doesn't do it justice)
It is a great idea to take different components and glue them together using languages like python, perl, (or for the web) php. However once those components are glued together they only fit one specific purpose. No one can take advantage of all of your glue-work, which may be a large project in itself.
We need better ways to glue and then encapsulate. Take a number of components possibly of different languages, or even possibly architectures, glue them together, wrap them up in a single shared object binary, and expose only the needed portions.
With a language like python you can get 90% there, but its reliance on the python runtime is a major bummer. Compiled python may be a valid choice, but I haven't seen it used too much in practice.
You want some advice???? Stop reading Slashdot and get a girlfriend.
Debian only runs on linux. If Iceweasel takes any firefox market share away it will be from other linux web browsers. It won't be battling on the windows front, so it wont effect the Firefox vs. Explorer competition.
Even though the JIT and interpreted languages are (nearly) as fast as native code in execution, in practive they are not. Languages like C# and Java make it very easy to create many wastfull objects. In C/C++ you don't have convinence of a garbage collector to clean up your mess. In C/C++ you have to keep strict record keeping of all of the objects, and as a result objects get reused more often.
I have found that C#/Java software runs slower only because the coding style does not enforce object reuse.
Green Hills Software already has a product which can trace anything. I think it does it by recompiling (or relinking?) the software with its proprietary compiler. But once you do that you can trace anything, not just system code. Seems like a cool product if you have the dough. Here's more info, with screenshots: http://www.ghs.com/products/timemachine.html
I saw Matrox at ESC (Embedded Systems Conference) two weeks ago when they first announced it. I actually got to play with it and I have to say it may be the coolest pc-graphics related technology in 2006. You get to use peripheral vision when playing video games.
The one down-side is that it isn't DVI compatible, only analog.
SpaceX has delayed this launch for about two years now. It has filled its followers with false hope that commericialization of space is just around the corner.
You may not have noticed but on there website it says that they're delaying it again from Thursday to Friday.
"It also consumes 1000 watts of power."
WRONG!
The board requires a 1000 Watt power supply, not neccesarily 1000 watts of power. The power supply is the upper limit of how much the board can consume. Most computers come with a 300 watt power supply even though they normally use only about 100 Watts.
That being said, this board probably consumes quite a bit of power (but much less than 1000 watts) if it needs such a heavy duty power supply.
I've been a subscriber for years now and the New York Times continues to impress me. What newspapers have the balls to to take on the Bush administration the way the NYT is doing so? Many newspapers passivly report on the information that falls into their lap. The New York Times goes to hell and back to seek out the truth.
However their does lawsuit raise questions about the press's place to make news rather than just report it.
Regardless... I think they're doing a great job and hope they're able to get the information they want.
Flame me... i don't care. This person doesn't know anything about how the internet works.
This is an advertisment for wikimedia. They want you to donate to their recent fundraiser. Kinda shameful having slashdot post it.
Seems great... just needs wifi, a browser, email and chat client and then it would be set.
entropy encoding might be a subset of a larger family of algorithms called markov modelling
Markov modeling is used in linear prediction which is normally (although not always) a lossy form of compression. It is typically used in speech.
There are two lossless methods: entropy encoding and dictionary coding
Dictionary coding is a type of entropy coding. Arithmetic coding is another type of entropy coding, and so is Huffman. LZW is was the first algorithm to use a dictionary approach and it is commonly synonymous with the approach.
the DEFLATE algorithm is based on LZ77, another variant of dictionary coding. gzip uses DEFLATE,
I would be suprised to here that gzip uses both dictionary and Huffman coding. A proper dictionary based algorithm normally outperforms gzip by about 10 to 30%.
LZW is just an optimization of LZ
No it isn't. LZ has a serious flaw in it which occurs pretty frequently. The 'W' was a guy working for Sperry (they made submarines) who found the flaw and fixed it. It was Sperry which originally had the patent on the 'W' part which made it proprietary.
The next part gets a bit fuzzy.... I think Sperry sold it to another company which eventually made its way to Unisys. A previous commenter said that the patents expired, which would be great. But I think there may be more legal trouble ahead (otherwise why wouldn't gzip use it?).
Lossless data compression is a pretty well studied subject. Shannon started it back in the 40's and plenty of research has gone into it since.
There are basically three ways to do lossless compression: Huffman, Arithmetic, and LZW. Technically Huffman can achieve the best of three, however its generally the worst because of implmentation issues (it would take a lot of processing to do rigourous Huffman encoding).
Arithmetic coding is generally better but is difficult to implment. I think IBM is the company who actually sells an arithmetic coder (I could be wrong though).
LZW is by far the best of the three (you can read online how it works), but alas it is patented and anyone who gives away free copies of it will get sued.
I know for a fact that gzip uses Huffman, which would explain its lackluster performance. I haven't researched it further, but I would not be suprised if the three proprietary compression programs which "won" this review use LZW. I also wouldn't be suprised if they pay a good amount to LZW's patent holders (Unisys I think).
I'd be interested to see how gzip performs on its "maximum compression" setting. Like I said earlier, Huffman can can achieve the theortical limit on compression where LZW cannot.