This does not mean that water molecules have one and a half hydrogen atoms at all. If you use electrolysis to separate the hydrogen and oxygen from a quantity of water, you will get VERY close to twice the number of oxygen atoms as hydrogen. If they gave a little more detail on their experiments it would be helpful to judge what they actually mean.
For instance, if they are just shooting electrons and neutrons at water and counting how many hit hydrogen nuclei and how many hit oxygen nuclei, you would expect a larger number than normal to hit oxygen since the nucleus is larger (three times the protons and neutrons of hydrogen). They do say "25% fewer protons than expected", but they don't say what they expected or why.
Also, did they have the water in a vacuum chamber? If not, there would be dissolved gasses present in the water that their beam could hit as well. I didn't notice any count for Nitrogen so they must not have done it in a glass sitting on a table, but they don't say.
I agree it is a little misleeding how they say it, but they do say in the 100-500 attosecond range, which is less than 10e-15 (0.1 to 0.5 * 10e-15) and close enough to say "less than 10e-15" and get the point across...
I see a lot of replies say it's not ok because you'd be beaming signals back into their property as well. Maybe a cleaner way to get the point across would be just to listen on on those signals.
Would it be wrong to sniff all wireless packets to read someone's email, see what websites they visit, and find their passwords? Would it be wrong to read that risque email from your wife or listen to you having phone sex (cordless phone) with your mistress?
If they can listen to any conversation they want by hooking up with the cell phone company, they still have to know what phone they want to listen in on. You can buy pre-paid cellular phones now that you can activate and talk on without ever signing up for service or talking to a salesperson.
What if they are tailing a terrorist group though and see them using cell phones, but don't have them registered anywhere? It would be very difficult to find out what account you wanted to listen in on. However, with encryption turned off they could probably use equipment to pick up only the signal coming from 50 feet in one direction to find out what it is, and listen immediately.
What if we could tap into Zero Point Energy? The idea of zero point energy is controversial, but it's interesting to think about. What if we could tap into this nearly limitless source of power in a small and economical way? Imagine batteries with ten times the power output per volume of today's batteries, but they would never run out. Laptops and palm-sized computers would be used everywhere. You could even replace that noisy hot power supply in your tower computer with a ZPE battery. People could begin living off the power grid. Everything could have a ZPE battery to power itself. I imagine this would lead to a sharp reduction in cost and widespread adoptation of wireless sensor networks. Hate sticking to your leather seats in the summer? Leave your electronic car's air conditioner on while you're at work. Maybe we could find a way to absorb heat and convert it into ZPE instead of merely transferring it to the outside.
One of the biggest uses would have to be travel. Buy an electric car and never pay for fuel again. Start using propeller based planes or switch to super-fast electric trains. Maybe we could even have jets with ION propulsion. Ten times the propulsion for the same amount of fuel. Now we're talking about economical space travel. The cost of a trip to orbit could become affordable to about everyone. We could take the time to get to mars down from nine months to under 1.
I think this would be great and make it easier for people to filter out spam if people actually used it, but it wouldn't remove the traffic from the internet, now accounting for more than 1/2 of all email. What should be done is it should be illegal to give your email address away or make it illegal to send bulk emails unless you have a relationship with that person (i.e. people that have purchased something from your website, they've signed up for a mailing list, etc.).
Next it should be illegal with larger penalties (up to $100,000 and 10 years in jail) to use fraudulent headers. Some spam emails I get put places before their in the "Received" headers and use bogus domain names or email addresses. Also messages many times don't really describe what they contain. For example, I get a lot of spam that have the subject lines "Hi" or "Re: your order" that don't come from people just wanting to say "Hi" or in response to an order I actually placed. This should be considered fraud in my book.
Also I just got an html email (the "Re: your order" one) that had html comments with random letters and numbers inserted in the middle of each word. Granted they don't hurt your ability to view the message in HTML, but their only purpose could be to obfuscate the text of the message, trying to keep someone from filtering by message content.
I also think it should be illegal to sell or give your email address away to another party. There should be an exception for individuals of course, but that's all you really need. Make it illegal to harvest email addresses by crawling the web and using VRFY on mail servers. It would be pretty easy to setup a "sting" by planing bogus email addresses and tracking down the people that send them emails, then putting them away for a very long time.
I imagine that since $10,000 and one year in jail is the maximum penalty that it would be reserved for the worst offenders. First timers would probably get off with a slap on the wrist (community service). I agree that this should only be used if you don't have a prior relationship with the sender.
Thanks for the link! I used to play THGTTG on my Commodore 64:) Playing the game actually got me interested enough to buy the books. I bought a bundle of Infocom games about 10 years ago that had it. There were 20 games on 5 floppy disks (Zork 0 took up almost two whole disks is why there were so many). I still have those backed up, although I haven't played them in years. Good thing they weren't copy protected, eh?
No, but you do have a door. People are free to drive by your house and take a picture of it, or anything else out in public view. That reminds me of the girl that lost the lawsuit against Girls Gone Wild. If someone doesn't want their web page to be archived or cached, they can "put up a door" by using "robots.txt". If they really don't want to let the public at large see it, lock the door by protecting the content with a password. If they want to make absolutely sure no one sees it that they don't specifically show it to, they should save it as an HTML file on their personal computer and not even publish it on the web.
Oppenheim uses this phrase several times in the discussion, but I'd like to see some actual numbers. If he's just talking about the retail price of CDs I would agree, but the actual cost of making a CD has decreased over time. I think when they make a press of a CD for $5000, the cost per cd goes down to a few cents. The price of a CD in case with accompanying jacket art and information has to be close to $1, yet most CDs cost over $15.
I believe the cost of production has gone down as well. More studios are popping up where a band can go to get their music professionally recorded at cheaper and cheaper prices. New computer equipment and software can let bands that have a little technical know-how (or have friends/fans that do) record their own professional sounding tracks.
Last but not least, if the recording industry would embrace the new distribution medium of the internet, the distribution costs would approach zero.
For one thing, copyright didn't originally extend to 80 years. I think it was more like 14 years, with the possibility of extending it one time for another 14 years. At that amount, anything produced on or before 1975 would be in the public domain. That seems pretty fair to me. The only purpose of copyright law is to motivate people to create works that can eventually be used by anyone. The umpteen copyright extensions the last century didn't server to increase that motivation, but to keep those works from their rightful place in the public domain.
By stealing from the public domain, I think he was talking about the fact that those works should be in the public domain, and that the copyright holders hanging on to them for longer than they should is "stealing". I don't like using the word steal or theft though because we are not talking about physical property. However, it does apply better than the RIAA's use of the word. Consider this: If copyright holders keep control of their works longer than they should, they actually do deprive me of the use of that material. That more accurately fits the definition of theft.
I think what they are trying to say is that they are running some version of the Linux OS, which is running applications that they 100% wrote themselves. I don't believe linking with the standard C (not C++) library and making operating system calls is prohibited by the GPL.
I don't think it's necessary to do away with broadcast TV completely, there's a lot of unused channels, especially in the rural areas that don't get cable. Where I grew up, we got 4 VHF channels and eventually one UHF channel. That's 7 out of 12 VHF channels unused and 40-50 UHF channels. Why not license that spectrum out to other uses?
I found them on http://www.pricewatch.com. They had nice attributes and an excellent price, so I bought their 19" model (X9G I think) with 1280x1024 resolution. The picture is fantastic, I just wish it had a better response time, you can't really play first person shooters on it. I use it mainly for work though and have a 19" crt for gaming:)
I used to have a cable modem and was very happy with it. Then a few months later I started getting dropped from Everquest two or three times a night when playing. The connection light on the cable modem would go out and I couldn't access anything on the net for 45 - 60 seconds, then it would start working again. Six months later I started getting dropped for an hour at a time. A few months later my connection started going down each morning before 10:00 and staying down until 8:00 or so at night. There was absolutely nothing AT&T could do for me. I tried calling every time it was down but soon got so frustrated with their tech support (every time they would make me check my connections, turn off my cable modem, turn off my computer, unplug them, plug them back in, etc., etc., etc.) that I wanted to smash my cable modem into a million pieces. Thank God for DSL! The maximum download speed is quite a bit smaller (~60kb/s compared with 400kb/s), but the upload speed is double (30kb/s compared with 15kb/s). That doesn't really matter to me though, at least I have a connection to the internet that I can actually use! I've never been disconnected from Everquest because of a network problem on my end, the service did go down one weekend and another time that I know of for an hour, but hasn't in a good 6 months now. Jason Goemaat
I assume you're talking about a spinning ring around the earth? Of course as it went faster and faster it would be thrown apart by centrifugal force. At any point on the ring, each particle would be going straight at nearly 300,000 km/s. Within let's say 1/10 of a second (I don't feel like researching the diameter of the earth and figuring it out righ tnow), all of those particles are now moving at a different direction 90 degrees from their previous direction. All of that force will have to be absorbed by the ring.
Anyway, none of the particles is moving in a reference frame, they're constantly changing their direction because they are spinning.
If you saw a section of the ring move by at nearly the speed of light, you would measure it as smaller than if it were at rest. An observer in the section would also measure you as smaller then if he was at rest. The important distinction is that the apparent shrinkage occurs only in the direction of motion. i.e. the ring would still have the same diameter around the earth and each section would have the same height.
Jason
Can someone explain to me what he was saying about it being wrong to include firmware binary code in the kernel source for drivers? It appears he thinks it is a violation of the GNU License to do that because the "source" (assembly language for some embedded processor?) is not included. The license does not however say that every piece of software that is licensed under the GPL has be comprised solely of GNU licensed source code. It only says that if you use and modify GPL source code, you must provide the source code for free when you distribute your application. If the source code for the firmware was never GPLed, there is nothing that says it has to be included.
This is one of the points I have been trying to make. Consumers want windows. I am glad you concur.
I definitely agree with you that most consumers want Windows. That's the point, that MS is using their position in the market to force people to buy Windows that normally wouldn't want it. Democracy is based on majority rule, but protecting the rights of the minority. If computer manufacturers want to save money with MS, they are forced to sign a licensing agreement that says they have to pay MS for every computer they produce. They do of course because 95% of their customers want it and saving that money helps their bottom line. The problem is that they then have no incentive to make computers with different operating systems because they're paying for Windows anyway. This monopolistic practice prevents other operating systems from getting a foothold.
What the hell are you trying to say here? You lost me with this paragraph. I tried to take it apart but it does not make any sense. I assume that the Tape Player is still Windows and now I naturally assume the CD Player is Linux.
First of I want to say that I have Windows on two computers in my house and Linux on one. I'm not a Linux zealot, and I believe that Windows is a better operating system for desktop use. I think X11 is the death of Linux on the desktop. I would have liked to try BeOs out when it was available, but I wasn't going to pay the extra money to get it and bother with installing it when Windows was already on my computer. I think the desktop OS market is largely devoid of choice due to Microsoft's machinations.
But if a company that makes computers wants to have a CD player instead of a tape player they could install the CD player without having to pay for the tape player ever again. Then again they lose their market because everyone wants tapes and a tape player. Am I even following you here? What happened to record players?
That's exactly right. Dell for instance could start selling computers with Linux installed (or BeOs if it was still alive, or another new OS that comes out), but they would lose the price benefit from their deal with Microsoft. 95 percent of the computers they produce would start costing more money and they would be in a less competitive position in the market, hurting their sales. MS is shutting other operating systems out of the large OEM market, never letting them get a foothold and build their market share.
I think the record player could represent other choices before MS gained a monopoly, maybe OS/2.
And the equalizer comment also didn't make a lot of sense. But here I go. I assume that the equalizer is a web browser. What you are trying to say I suppose is that there are better browsers out there because of the 10 band 5 band analogy. But companies can't bundle other equalizers with the tape deck? Are you smoking crack? I have seen OEM's install Netscape right along side Explorer. Nothing wrong with that.
The point is who wants to buy a stereo with two equalizers? I sure wouldn't. An OEM manufacturers cannot make the 10 band equalizer the default one, the consumer would have to switch it to the default themselves, and the 5 band built-in equalizer would always be there.
The analogies don't fit perfectly because we are talking about different products (software/stereos). Also there was never one company that owned exclusive rights to tape players. There is no way to make them perfect but I believe they do show a point. If you require more help understanding any of this feel free to email me.
Microsoft can say that it would take them an "indefinite" period of time to prepare a response, but can't the judge limit that? Couldn't she say "You have two weeks to prepare in light of the new evidence."?
I just don't get it. How is setting up an icon for Winamp on someone's desktop and deleting the Windows Media Player icon "fragmenting" Windows? What MS is doing is unfairly hurting competitors who may have a better product. The whole point is the mass of people that don't own a computer and are buying their first one, or that don't want to mess around with buying other software or downloading it from the internet, especially if they have a slow connection or no connection.
If someone wants to buy a computer now for writing college papers and playing single-player games, they get the bloat of a media player, internet browser, etc. included in the purchase price. The "integration" has also bloated the operating system beyond reason, taking up more disk space (is it 200mb or more now for IE?) and memory, even if it isn't running. Not to mention the security holes that are included for free with every MS product.
Why should a computer manufacturer be forced to leave the desktop icons that Microsoft installed and not use other applications? Say what you want, IE and Windows Media Player are APPLICATIONS, not operating system components. If a computer manufacturer decided that it's customers may like Mozilla and Winamp better, they're out of luck. They are robbed of a chance to provide a better product than their competitors, and the companies that produce alternatives to MS applications are deprived of a chance to enter the OEM market. The consumers are also robbed of a choice.
How can you call OSS advocates communists? I don't consider someone that wishes to make the world a better place by giving away something they created a communist, I'd consider them generous.
No one is saying that Microsoft has to give away their software for free, just that they have to compete on a level playing field. If they make the best product that users want to use, they can charge whatever they want for it, even if they do make 33% average profit off the products they sell in this tough economy.
What the anti-trust laws were created for was to keep companies from battling on unfair grounds. They can make whatever product they want and sell it for whatever price they want. It becomes unfair when a company uses their overwhelming position in a market to keep others from competing. Having a consumer landscape devoid of choice sounds more communistic to me. Make everyone have Windows so that if you have Windows, your neighbor has Windows. If you use Windows Media Player, your neighbor uses Windows Media Player. If you have Internet Explorer, your neighbor has Internet Explorer. I'm writing this reply in Mozilla right now, which I've found to be superior to Internet Explorer for everything but accessing sites (mostly MS sites) that require IE to run. Thank God that HTML isn't a proprietary Microsoft protocol.
Think of it this way... Imagine for a second that years ago one company produced tape decks and had a monopoly. They were the only company that produced tape decks and made a huge profit. Right now a simple portable radio could cost twice as much if it had a tape deck in it. Sure you would be guaranteed that it would be compatible with all audio tapes because one company makes all the equipment (hasn't that happened anyway?).
Tape decks are so great that they soon take over 95% of the stereo market. Imagine that a stereo could only have one audio component at a time without taking it apart and replacing it (much like installing a new operating system yourself). Now the company that makes tape decks decides to charge manufacturers for a tape deck in every stereo they produce, even if it only comes with a record player. Most consumers want to have tape decks so there is nothing the stereo producers can do unless they want to spend twice as much for the tape decks, and if they don't put a tape deck in the stereo anyway, they'll have to pay for it so they go ahead. If a user want a record player, they can buy it and take apart the stereo to replace the tape player themselves.
Now imagine that another company invents the CD player. The quality is better, the CDs last longer, and you can skip between songs. But no manufacturers produce stereos with CD players because they would have to pay the other company for the tape deck anyway. In addition to paying for the CD player, you'd be paying the first company for the Tape player even though the stereo had a CD player instead. Who would buy these stereos that cost twice as much and don't support the readily available audio tapes? What company would produce CDs when so few people had the equipment to play them?
The answer is no one. It would not make economic sense because the Tape company would be making money even if their product wasn't being used. This is what Microsoft has done with their requirement that PC manufacturers pay by computer they sell instead of how many copies of Windows are actually on those computers. What stereo company is going to stand up to the Tape deck company when they face losing 95% of their customers?
Now lets say that another company creates an equalizer to improve the sound quality of tapes (CDs and Phonographs too for the few people that use them). The Tape company soon decides this is a good thing and starts including it's own 5-band equalizer with every tape deck it produces. Sure they cost more to produce now and some people don't care or would rather use the other brand of equalizer, but isn't it better to have a standard equalizer for everyone to use (sarcasm)? Now the Tape manufacturer tells the stereo companies that they cannot sell their equipment with a different equalizer connected to the stereo, even though there are 10 band equalizers out now with lighted displays. The Tape company claim it's impossible now to separate the equalizer from the Tape deck, even though a guy down the street did just that and was going to bring it into court, but the Tape company would string the trial out another year.
This is an example of a company using their position in the market to unfair advantage. These practices stifle innovation and are to the detriment of the consumer (that's you and me by the way).
How can you call OSS advocates communists? I don't consider someone that wishes to make the world a better place by giving away something they created a communist, I'd consider them generous.
No one is saying that Microsoft has to give away their software for free, just that they have to compete on a level playing field. If they make the best product that users want to use, they can charge whatever they want for it, even if they do make 33% average profit off the products they sell in this tough economy.
What the anti-trust laws were created for was to keep companies from battling on unfair grounds. They can make whatever product they want and sell it for whatever price they want. It becomes unfair when a company uses their overwhelming position in a market to keep others from competing. Having a consumer landscape devoid of choice sounds more communistic to me. Make everyone have Windows so that if you have Windows, your neighbor has Windows. If you use Windows Media Player, your neighbor uses Windows Media Player. If you have Internet Explorer, your neighbor has Internet Explorer. I'm writing this reply in Mozilla right now, which I've found to be superior to Internet Explorer for everything but accessing sites (mostly MS sites) that require IE to run. Thank God that HTML isn't a proprietary Microsoft protocol.
Think of it this way... Imagine for a second that years ago one company produced tape decks and had a monopoly. They were the only company that produced tape decks and made a huge profit. Right now a simple portable radio could cost twice as much if it had a tape deck in it. Sure you would be guaranteed that it would be compatible with all audio tapes because one company makes all the equipment (hasn't that happened anyway?).
Tape decks are so great that they soon take over 95% of the stereo market. Imagine that a stereo could only have one audio component at a time without taking it apart and replacing it (much like installing a new operating system yourself). Now the company that makes tape decks decides to charge manufacturers for a tape deck in every stereo they produce, even if it only comes with a record player. Most consumers want to have tape decks so there is nothing the stereo producers can do unless they want to spend twice as much for the tape decks, and if they don't put a tape deck in the stereo anyway, they'll have to pay for it so they go ahead. If a user want a record player, they can buy it and take apart the stereo to replace the tape player themselves.
Now imagine that another company invents the CD player. The quality is better, the CDs last longer, and you can skip between songs. But no manufacturers produce stereos with CD players because they would have to pay the other company for the tape deck anyway. In addition to paying for the CD player, you'd be paying the first company for the Tape player even though the stereo had a CD player instead. Who would buy these stereos that cost twice as much and don't support the readily available audio tapes? What company would produce CDs when so few people had the equipment to play them?
The answer is no one. It would not make economic sense because the Tape company would be making money even if their product wasn't being used. This is what Microsoft has done with their requirement that PC manufacturers pay by computer they sell instead of how many copies of Windows are actually on those computers. What stereo company is going to stand up to the Tape deck company when they face losing 95% of their customers?
This is an example of a company using their position in the market to unfair advantage. These practices stifle innovation and are to the detriment of the consumer (that's you ane me by the way).
First off, they wanted to bring in this person as a rebuttal to Microsoft saying that it was IMPOSSIBLE to make a modular version of windows. There is no way to declare a rebuttal witness before you know they are needed. It's a common practice to call them in. I'm sure MS wants another huge delay because it would be so embarassing to be caught in a lie during such a high publicity trial.
Microsoft didn't say that it would cost one billion dollars to make a modular version, they said it COULDN'T be done. Here comes a guy that did it for very little money (I'm not sure of the specifics, but I guarantee he didn't spend a billion dollars on it). Doesn't that show that Microsoft outright lied? If he did spend a billion dollars on it, that's still less than 1/2 (closer to 1/3) of Microsoft's FIRST QUARTER PROFITS. And whose fault is it that Windows isn't modular in the first place?
Sure it's possible to make a modular version of Windows, it's just that Microsoft wouldn't be in control anymore, people could choose what they want for a web browser, media player, or chat program. The problem with that for Microsoft is that if other standards become widespread, people might be more likely to choose another operating system and they would begin to lose money. I know they just hate the popularity of MP3. Anyone with Linux or a Mac can use those files. They wish everyone was using the proprietary windows media format so they'd have to be running Windows. MP3 became popular before MS could strike however, and the world is a better place for it.
As for support, why can't they just say that they won't support audio players that are not theirs if an OEM installs it? I'm sure they don't now since other ones are available. I see no difference in installing a different audio player as a consumer and having an OEM manufacturer do it.
Consumer: I can't play MP3 files.
MS: Are you using Windows Media Player (R)?
Consumer: No...
MS: Sorry, that is not our product, use Windows Media Player next time
If someone installs Winamp now, does microsoft stop supporting their Windows operating system? Maybe that's the next step in the MS plan: "You have to use what we give you and install only MS products, or we will not give you support."
Consumers are not being helped by this philosophy, they are being robbed of more and more choices as the years go on. Microsoft is trying to move towards a time when every developer works for them and they are in control of every piece of software. Frankly as a developer, that scares the pants off me.
If you're thinking about setting up something to do that just to cool the earth, it would be simpler and more efficien to paint everything white to reflect the light back into space.
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For instance, if they are just shooting electrons and neutrons at water and counting how many hit hydrogen nuclei and how many hit oxygen nuclei, you would expect a larger number than normal to hit oxygen since the nucleus is larger (three times the protons and neutrons of hydrogen). They do say "25% fewer protons than expected", but they don't say what they expected or why.
Also, did they have the water in a vacuum chamber? If not, there would be dissolved gasses present in the water that their beam could hit as well. I didn't notice any count for Nitrogen so they must not have done it in a glass sitting on a table, but they don't say.
I agree it is a little misleeding how they say it, but they do say in the 100-500 attosecond range, which is less than 10e-15 (0.1 to 0.5 * 10e-15) and close enough to say "less than 10e-15" and get the point across...
Actually in the US there is a law: ECPA
Would it be wrong to sniff all wireless packets to read someone's email, see what websites they visit, and find their passwords? Would it be wrong to read that risque email from your wife or listen to you having phone sex (cordless phone) with your mistress?
What if they are tailing a terrorist group though and see them using cell phones, but don't have them registered anywhere? It would be very difficult to find out what account you wanted to listen in on. However, with encryption turned off they could probably use equipment to pick up only the signal coming from 50 feet in one direction to find out what it is, and listen immediately.
One of the biggest uses would have to be travel. Buy an electric car and never pay for fuel again. Start using propeller based planes or switch to super-fast electric trains. Maybe we could even have jets with ION propulsion. Ten times the propulsion for the same amount of fuel. Now we're talking about economical space travel. The cost of a trip to orbit could become affordable to about everyone. We could take the time to get to mars down from nine months to under 1.
Next it should be illegal with larger penalties (up to $100,000 and 10 years in jail) to use fraudulent headers. Some spam emails I get put places before their in the "Received" headers and use bogus domain names or email addresses. Also messages many times don't really describe what they contain. For example, I get a lot of spam that have the subject lines "Hi" or "Re: your order" that don't come from people just wanting to say "Hi" or in response to an order I actually placed. This should be considered fraud in my book.
Also I just got an html email (the "Re: your order" one) that had html comments with random letters and numbers inserted in the middle of each word. Granted they don't hurt your ability to view the message in HTML, but their only purpose could be to obfuscate the text of the message, trying to keep someone from filtering by message content.
I also think it should be illegal to sell or give your email address away to another party. There should be an exception for individuals of course, but that's all you really need. Make it illegal to harvest email addresses by crawling the web and using VRFY on mail servers. It would be pretty easy to setup a "sting" by planing bogus email addresses and tracking down the people that send them emails, then putting them away for a very long time.
I imagine that since $10,000 and one year in jail is the maximum penalty that it would be reserved for the worst offenders. First timers would probably get off with a slap on the wrist (community service). I agree that this should only be used if you don't have a prior relationship with the sender.
Thanks for the link! I used to play THGTTG on my Commodore 64 :) Playing the game actually got me interested enough to buy the books. I bought a bundle of Infocom games about 10 years ago that had it. There were 20 games on 5 floppy disks (Zork 0 took up almost two whole disks is why there were so many). I still have those backed up, although I haven't played them in years. Good thing they weren't copy protected, eh?
No, but you do have a door. People are free to drive by your house and take a picture of it, or anything else out in public view. That reminds me of the girl that lost the lawsuit against Girls Gone Wild. If someone doesn't want their web page to be archived or cached, they can "put up a door" by using "robots.txt". If they really don't want to let the public at large see it, lock the door by protecting the content with a password. If they want to make absolutely sure no one sees it that they don't specifically show it to, they should save it as an HTML file on their personal computer and not even publish it on the web.
I believe the cost of production has gone down as well. More studios are popping up where a band can go to get their music professionally recorded at cheaper and cheaper prices. New computer equipment and software can let bands that have a little technical know-how (or have friends/fans that do) record their own professional sounding tracks.
Last but not least, if the recording industry would embrace the new distribution medium of the internet, the distribution costs would approach zero.
By stealing from the public domain, I think he was talking about the fact that those works should be in the public domain, and that the copyright holders hanging on to them for longer than they should is "stealing". I don't like using the word steal or theft though because we are not talking about physical property. However, it does apply better than the RIAA's use of the word. Consider this: If copyright holders keep control of their works longer than they should, they actually do deprive me of the use of that material. That more accurately fits the definition of theft.
I think what they are trying to say is that they are running some version of the Linux OS, which is running applications that they 100% wrote themselves. I don't believe linking with the standard C (not C++) library and making operating system calls is prohibited by the GPL.
I don't think it's necessary to do away with broadcast TV completely, there's a lot of unused channels, especially in the rural areas that don't get cable. Where I grew up, we got 4 VHF channels and eventually one UHF channel. That's 7 out of 12 VHF channels unused and 40-50 UHF channels. Why not license that spectrum out to other uses?
I found them on http://www.pricewatch.com. They had nice attributes and an excellent price, so I bought their 19" model (X9G I think) with 1280x1024 resolution. The picture is fantastic, I just wish it had a better response time, you can't really play first person shooters on it. I use it mainly for work though and have a 19" crt for gaming :)
I used to have a cable modem and was very happy with it. Then a few months later I started getting dropped from Everquest two or three times a night when playing. The connection light on the cable modem would go out and I couldn't access anything on the net for 45 - 60 seconds, then it would start working again. Six months later I started getting dropped for an hour at a time. A few months later my connection started going down each morning before 10:00 and staying down until 8:00 or so at night.
There was absolutely nothing AT&T could do for me. I tried calling every time it was down but soon got so frustrated with their tech support (every time they would make me check my connections, turn off my cable modem, turn off my computer, unplug them, plug them back in, etc., etc., etc.) that I wanted to smash my cable modem into a million pieces.
Thank God for DSL! The maximum download speed is quite a bit smaller (~60kb/s compared with 400kb/s), but the upload speed is double (30kb/s compared with 15kb/s). That doesn't really matter to me though, at least I have a connection to the internet that I can actually use! I've never been disconnected from Everquest because of a network problem on my end, the service did go down one weekend and another time that I know of for an hour, but hasn't in a good 6 months now.
Jason Goemaat
I assume you're talking about a spinning ring around the earth? Of course as it went faster and faster it would be thrown apart by centrifugal force. At any point on the ring, each particle would be going straight at nearly 300,000 km/s. Within let's say 1/10 of a second (I don't feel like researching the diameter of the earth and figuring it out righ tnow), all of those particles are now moving at a different direction 90 degrees from their previous direction. All of that force will have to be absorbed by the ring. Anyway, none of the particles is moving in a reference frame, they're constantly changing their direction because they are spinning. If you saw a section of the ring move by at nearly the speed of light, you would measure it as smaller than if it were at rest. An observer in the section would also measure you as smaller then if he was at rest. The important distinction is that the apparent shrinkage occurs only in the direction of motion. i.e. the ring would still have the same diameter around the earth and each section would have the same height. Jason
Jason Goemaat
jasong@netins.net
I definitely agree with you that most consumers want Windows. That's the point, that MS is using their position in the market to force people to buy Windows that normally wouldn't want it. Democracy is based on majority rule, but protecting the rights of the minority. If computer manufacturers want to save money with MS, they are forced to sign a licensing agreement that says they have to pay MS for every computer they produce. They do of course because 95% of their customers want it and saving that money helps their bottom line. The problem is that they then have no incentive to make computers with different operating systems because they're paying for Windows anyway. This monopolistic practice prevents other operating systems from getting a foothold.
What the hell are you trying to say here? You lost me with this paragraph. I tried to take it apart but it does not make any sense. I assume that the Tape Player is still Windows and now I naturally assume the CD Player is Linux.
First of I want to say that I have Windows on two computers in my house and Linux on one. I'm not a Linux zealot, and I believe that Windows is a better operating system for desktop use. I think X11 is the death of Linux on the desktop. I would have liked to try BeOs out when it was available, but I wasn't going to pay the extra money to get it and bother with installing it when Windows was already on my computer. I think the desktop OS market is largely devoid of choice due to Microsoft's machinations.
But if a company that makes computers wants to have a CD player instead of a tape player they could install the CD player without having to pay for the tape player ever again. Then again they lose their market because everyone wants tapes and a tape player. Am I even following you here? What happened to record players?
That's exactly right. Dell for instance could start selling computers with Linux installed (or BeOs if it was still alive, or another new OS that comes out), but they would lose the price benefit from their deal with Microsoft. 95 percent of the computers they produce would start costing more money and they would be in a less competitive position in the market, hurting their sales. MS is shutting other operating systems out of the large OEM market, never letting them get a foothold and build their market share.
I think the record player could represent other choices before MS gained a monopoly, maybe OS/2.
And the equalizer comment also didn't make a lot of sense. But here I go. I assume that the equalizer is a web browser. What you are trying to say I suppose is that there are better browsers out there because of the 10 band 5 band analogy. But companies can't bundle other equalizers with the tape deck? Are you smoking crack? I have seen OEM's install Netscape right along side Explorer. Nothing wrong with that.
The point is who wants to buy a stereo with two equalizers? I sure wouldn't. An OEM manufacturers cannot make the 10 band equalizer the default one, the consumer would have to switch it to the default themselves, and the 5 band built-in equalizer would always be there.
The analogies don't fit perfectly because we are talking about different products (software/stereos). Also there was never one company that owned exclusive rights to tape players. There is no way to make them perfect but I believe they do show a point. If you require more help understanding any of this feel free to email me.
Jason Goemaat
jasong@netins.net
Jason Goemaat
jasong@netins.net
If someone wants to buy a computer now for writing college papers and playing single-player games, they get the bloat of a media player, internet browser, etc. included in the purchase price. The "integration" has also bloated the operating system beyond reason, taking up more disk space (is it 200mb or more now for IE?) and memory, even if it isn't running. Not to mention the security holes that are included for free with every MS product.
Why should a computer manufacturer be forced to leave the desktop icons that Microsoft installed and not use other applications? Say what you want, IE and Windows Media Player are APPLICATIONS, not operating system components. If a computer manufacturer decided that it's customers may like Mozilla and Winamp better, they're out of luck. They are robbed of a chance to provide a better product than their competitors, and the companies that produce alternatives to MS applications are deprived of a chance to enter the OEM market. The consumers are also robbed of a choice.
Jason Goemaat
jasong@netins.net
No one is saying that Microsoft has to give away their software for free, just that they have to compete on a level playing field. If they make the best product that users want to use, they can charge whatever they want for it, even if they do make 33% average profit off the products they sell in this tough economy.
What the anti-trust laws were created for was to keep companies from battling on unfair grounds. They can make whatever product they want and sell it for whatever price they want. It becomes unfair when a company uses their overwhelming position in a market to keep others from competing. Having a consumer landscape devoid of choice sounds more communistic to me. Make everyone have Windows so that if you have Windows, your neighbor has Windows. If you use Windows Media Player, your neighbor uses Windows Media Player. If you have Internet Explorer, your neighbor has Internet Explorer. I'm writing this reply in Mozilla right now, which I've found to be superior to Internet Explorer for everything but accessing sites (mostly MS sites) that require IE to run. Thank God that HTML isn't a proprietary Microsoft protocol.
Think of it this way... Imagine for a second that years ago one company produced tape decks and had a monopoly. They were the only company that produced tape decks and made a huge profit. Right now a simple portable radio could cost twice as much if it had a tape deck in it. Sure you would be guaranteed that it would be compatible with all audio tapes because one company makes all the equipment (hasn't that happened anyway?).
Tape decks are so great that they soon take over 95% of the stereo market. Imagine that a stereo could only have one audio component at a time without taking it apart and replacing it (much like installing a new operating system yourself). Now the company that makes tape decks decides to charge manufacturers for a tape deck in every stereo they produce, even if it only comes with a record player. Most consumers want to have tape decks so there is nothing the stereo producers can do unless they want to spend twice as much for the tape decks, and if they don't put a tape deck in the stereo anyway, they'll have to pay for it so they go ahead. If a user want a record player, they can buy it and take apart the stereo to replace the tape player themselves.
Now imagine that another company invents the CD player. The quality is better, the CDs last longer, and you can skip between songs. But no manufacturers produce stereos with CD players because they would have to pay the other company for the tape deck anyway. In addition to paying for the CD player, you'd be paying the first company for the Tape player even though the stereo had a CD player instead. Who would buy these stereos that cost twice as much and don't support the readily available audio tapes? What company would produce CDs when so few people had the equipment to play them?
The answer is no one. It would not make economic sense because the Tape company would be making money even if their product wasn't being used. This is what Microsoft has done with their requirement that PC manufacturers pay by computer they sell instead of how many copies of Windows are actually on those computers. What stereo company is going to stand up to the Tape deck company when they face losing 95% of their customers?
Now lets say that another company creates an equalizer to improve the sound quality of tapes (CDs and Phonographs too for the few people that use them). The Tape company soon decides this is a good thing and starts including it's own 5-band equalizer with every tape deck it produces. Sure they cost more to produce now and some people don't care or would rather use the other brand of equalizer, but isn't it better to have a standard equalizer for everyone to use (sarcasm)? Now the Tape manufacturer tells the stereo companies that they cannot sell their equipment with a different equalizer connected to the stereo, even though there are 10 band equalizers out now with lighted displays. The Tape company claim it's impossible now to separate the equalizer from the Tape deck, even though a guy down the street did just that and was going to bring it into court, but the Tape company would string the trial out another year.
This is an example of a company using their position in the market to unfair advantage. These practices stifle innovation and are to the detriment of the consumer (that's you and me by the way).
Jason Goemaat
jasong@netins.net
No one is saying that Microsoft has to give away their software for free, just that they have to compete on a level playing field. If they make the best product that users want to use, they can charge whatever they want for it, even if they do make 33% average profit off the products they sell in this tough economy.
What the anti-trust laws were created for was to keep companies from battling on unfair grounds. They can make whatever product they want and sell it for whatever price they want. It becomes unfair when a company uses their overwhelming position in a market to keep others from competing. Having a consumer landscape devoid of choice sounds more communistic to me. Make everyone have Windows so that if you have Windows, your neighbor has Windows. If you use Windows Media Player, your neighbor uses Windows Media Player. If you have Internet Explorer, your neighbor has Internet Explorer. I'm writing this reply in Mozilla right now, which I've found to be superior to Internet Explorer for everything but accessing sites (mostly MS sites) that require IE to run. Thank God that HTML isn't a proprietary Microsoft protocol.
Think of it this way... Imagine for a second that years ago one company produced tape decks and had a monopoly. They were the only company that produced tape decks and made a huge profit. Right now a simple portable radio could cost twice as much if it had a tape deck in it. Sure you would be guaranteed that it would be compatible with all audio tapes because one company makes all the equipment (hasn't that happened anyway?).
Tape decks are so great that they soon take over 95% of the stereo market. Imagine that a stereo could only have one audio component at a time without taking it apart and replacing it (much like installing a new operating system yourself). Now the company that makes tape decks decides to charge manufacturers for a tape deck in every stereo they produce, even if it only comes with a record player. Most consumers want to have tape decks so there is nothing the stereo producers can do unless they want to spend twice as much for the tape decks, and if they don't put a tape deck in the stereo anyway, they'll have to pay for it so they go ahead. If a user want a record player, they can buy it and take apart the stereo to replace the tape player themselves.
Now imagine that another company invents the CD player. The quality is better, the CDs last longer, and you can skip between songs. But no manufacturers produce stereos with CD players because they would have to pay the other company for the tape deck anyway. In addition to paying for the CD player, you'd be paying the first company for the Tape player even though the stereo had a CD player instead. Who would buy these stereos that cost twice as much and don't support the readily available audio tapes? What company would produce CDs when so few people had the equipment to play them?
The answer is no one. It would not make economic sense because the Tape company would be making money even if their product wasn't being used. This is what Microsoft has done with their requirement that PC manufacturers pay by computer they sell instead of how many copies of Windows are actually on those computers. What stereo company is going to stand up to the Tape deck company when they face losing 95% of their customers?
This is an example of a company using their position in the market to unfair advantage. These practices stifle innovation and are to the detriment of the consumer (that's you ane me by the way).
Jason Goemaat
jasong@netins.net
Microsoft didn't say that it would cost one billion dollars to make a modular version, they said it COULDN'T be done. Here comes a guy that did it for very little money (I'm not sure of the specifics, but I guarantee he didn't spend a billion dollars on it). Doesn't that show that Microsoft outright lied? If he did spend a billion dollars on it, that's still less than 1/2 (closer to 1/3) of Microsoft's FIRST QUARTER PROFITS. And whose fault is it that Windows isn't modular in the first place?
Sure it's possible to make a modular version of Windows, it's just that Microsoft wouldn't be in control anymore, people could choose what they want for a web browser, media player, or chat program. The problem with that for Microsoft is that if other standards become widespread, people might be more likely to choose another operating system and they would begin to lose money. I know they just hate the popularity of MP3. Anyone with Linux or a Mac can use those files. They wish everyone was using the proprietary windows media format so they'd have to be running Windows. MP3 became popular before MS could strike however, and the world is a better place for it.
As for support, why can't they just say that they won't support audio players that are not theirs if an OEM installs it? I'm sure they don't now since other ones are available. I see no difference in installing a different audio player as a consumer and having an OEM manufacturer do it.
Consumer: I can't play MP3 files.
MS: Are you using Windows Media Player (R)?
Consumer: No...
MS: Sorry, that is not our product, use Windows Media Player next time
If someone installs Winamp now, does microsoft stop supporting their Windows operating system? Maybe that's the next step in the MS plan: "You have to use what we give you and install only MS products, or we will not give you support."
Consumers are not being helped by this philosophy, they are being robbed of more and more choices as the years go on. Microsoft is trying to move towards a time when every developer works for them and they are in control of every piece of software. Frankly as a developer, that scares the pants off me.
Jason Goemaat
jasong@netins.net
Jason