The sad thing is is that while the parent is not remotely funny or clever in any objective sense but rather the latest in a stream of predictible./ attempts at humor, it will doubtlessly be modded up to +5, funny because of the nature of what happens to early posts here in terms of the number of eyeballs.
This suggestion may seem sensible or even "insightful" at first, but at the end of the day it's just plain studid.
A university invests in a pipe of size X. It is not reasonable to assume that everybody in the university needs or even should be entitled to a sub-pipe of size X/n, even over time.
Researchers (including students), sharing large amounts of data with colleagues regularly need more bandwidth than poets, and it's wasteful for everybody to have an alotted amount of bandwidth the size of the top researcher's needs.
The alternative, then, is a complex and expensive system of forms and administration as to "who needs more bandwidth, for how long, and how much." This is silly and stupid compared with the more obvious "the university exists to provide bandwidth for academic purposes. NOT downloading home-videos from your brother's server and CERTAINLY not for downloading 'scooby doo' DIVxs.
the original author is basically engaging in a slippery-slope fallacy without insightfully addressing any of the subtler aspects of the relevant technology policy decisions that need to be considered.
I am always underwhelmed by arguments that " {grey activity} should be legal because it would help {microsoft/mpaa/riaa} sell more {software/movies/music}."
The fact of the matter is that if under current law those companies are the rightsholders, it is up to them to decide whether or not to undertake some alternate distribution method. Just because under some economic analysis such grey activities may help them sell more units does not make those activities any more legal or morally acceptable.
If you honestly a) hate RIAA and b) think that Napster et al increased music sales, then you would NOT have used napster, right?
Amazon: "these comission sales were made against our TOS, so we will be paying NO comissions on those sales."
it's not a jet.
on
Skydriving
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
it's not a jet. the airplane pictured in the article is a turboprop--i'm no expert at these, but i'm guessing of the pilatus or britten-norman variety.
given that the skill level involved in thusly launching a car without a parachute is essentially zero, fifteen thousand clams seems like a lot of money. whatever it is that they're throwing the car out of is a typical big skydiver hauler. total fuel to 13,000 feet is less than $100 or $200 worst case. Car clean up = $300 or so (let's just say). Pilot - $150, absolute max. Assorted handlers--let's say, a few hundred. $15k seems way out of line.
Of course, if your client is toyota or whoever it said in the article, you might as well charge $150k.
FWIF: (FAA) Federal Aviation Regulations state that it is legal to throw / drop things from an airplane as long as care is taken to insure no damage to persons or property on the surface.
I've overcome the urge to own. I would gladly pay a reasonable price for video on demand at DVD quality with DVD features and not have to hassle with physical discs OR insane download times. Ditto MP3s.
demographically if you're not microsoft based, your money is seen to really not matter. (I first wrote "doesn't matter", but then changed it to the less flame-worthy version above, even if my personal opinion as a longtime retail software guy is better captured in the original, callous as that sounds).
Make yourself matter, then (be you a Linux user, a Mac user, or just a user of an alternate player.) As i wrote previously, as I believe that this is a run up to an integration with MS's TV-linked PC initiative, I think I see why it's MS-proprietary at least for now.
24 hours before whatever protection mechanism they use is cracked.
Of course, that kind of comment (my own), misses the point. Those that would take the trouble to do such a thing (college students, "self-taught" anti intellectual property zealots) are probably not substantial lost revenue anyway.
My prediction: Whoever it is is doing this is smart enough to realize that they wont make any money off of it anytime soon, even when broadband makes it to the home PC as long as the home PC sits on a desk with a 17" screen. Rather, they are using this time to pilot technologies and probe some of the subtleties of user behaviour so that when more fully internet-aware TV-related devices like that whatzit that microsoft is working on are released, they can capitalize.
On balance, these individuals continue to be far wealthier and more successful than the average critic here.
I mean, even getting a job at a private equity firm, as a few of those on the list have, is fairly impressive, as is going back to business school with several million in the bank.
Once again, we see that, as far as the online music debate goes, Slashdot is about advocacy, not the search for truth.
Every morsel of an article that comes out that purports to support the notion that the blatant disregard for intellectual property rights that recent technologies have popularized is a moral, economic, business, or societal good is trumpeted. None of the many serious articles to the contrary are raised.
RIAA and other "suits" are demonized regularly while "free beer" folk heroes are interviewed.
Come on now. A little balance, please.
My guess is that the 'webcam' method is an attempt to limit government liability.
Typically, automated weather comes from a series of ASOS and AWOS sensor stations typically located at airports. These probably cost in the area of a few tens of thousands of dollars each to install. Even many pilots dont know this, but it is even possible to phone many AWOSs/ASOSs directly, and hear their automated robot guy tell you about current conditions.
AWOSs/ASOSs are industrial-strength weather sensing. They occasionally get confused (especially when there are multiple cloud layers), but in general they're good to get a good picture of what is going on.
So, the question is: why doesn't the government just put ASOSs/AWOSs wherever in alaska they're setting up webcams?
Ok, the answer to that one is probably cost and intrusiveness. A webcam uses next to zero space.
But is there an inbetween alternative? Why not put together a thousand dollar sensor station that does things like compute windspeed and take a good guess at ceilings?
Ah--because even though that data would likely be better than the meager stuff that a webcam provides. What does a webcam do for weather? Possibly less than a weather rock.
If it takes pictures of the ground, I can't tell how deep the snow is. If it takespictures of teh air, I can't tell how high the clouds are. I dont know what the windspeed is. I dont know if the visibility is terrestrial radiation crud or something more substantial.
So why not a mini weather station? becuse the quantified, interpreted data provided by them is not reliable. webcams force the pilot to do the interpretation him/herself. Less liability.
Yes, exactly my point. IBM published the specs so that 3rd party vendors could create plug-in cards. Those specs also allowed people at Compaq and elsewhere to relatively trivially reverse engineer everything else about the PC, and from then on IBM went from a position of extreme strength in the PC field to being the company that brought us the Ambra, OS2 Warp, and the butterfly keyboard.
IBM may have caused demand to increase, but you're confusing AGGREGATE demand from PCs from monetizable demand by IBM. IBM is essentially out of the PC business now. It's hard to play "what if" in this situation and I am fully cognizant of the limitations of the following statement, but look at it this way: at this point, Apple is arguably doing better in PCs than IBM is.
It's also not clear that IBM had much choice in doing what they did. But to call their actions as successful FOR THEMSELVES in the PC sphere is quite a stretch.
The article tries to build from basic economic principles, but conveniently misses one, the problem of free riders.
Let's look as his examples:
Netscape is trying to commoditize the browser market.. in order to dominate the server market. This would have been plausible in, say, 1997. I find it amazing that he tries to push this by anybody--the browser was commoditized.. and servers turned out to be irrelevant! Where is netscape now?
IBM is investing in open source software to bolster its consulting services... -- wait a minute. IBM's fortune was made in the early 50s by being the king or proprietary--you couldn't even buy their computers--you had to lease them! The US government eventually stopped this, but IBM's greatest period of success in the computer age was when it had a complete monopoly on sales and service of its own, very closed product lines. With the IBM 360 series, IBM saw some erosion of this due to "plug compatible" peripherals produced elsewhere. With the IBM PC (btw.. the author's description of IBM's "success" in commoditizing the PC makes NO sense whatsoever), IBM did poorer still--we all know how badly they did.
But let's look at the specifics--IBM is a BIG company. Let's say (hypothetically) it could put its full weight behind OSS and therefore contribute a whopping 3% to the total corpus of reasonable OSS stuff. Suddenly, it has what--spent a lot of money for the benefit of all while increasing what it can personally consult on by a whopping 3%. Even if there are network, learning, or syndicate effects, this situation screams "free rider problem."
Ditto for Transmeta..
It's almost ironic that the author pics such dead or dying companies like Netscape, Transmeta, IBM, etc for his examples.. Look, I like these companies as much as anybody for their past, but let's face it..
I could go on, but this article is a big swing and miss.
600 feet above the city is not particularly low. You wouldn't really notice a helicopter at 600 feet.
Small airplanes routinely fly at 1000 feet above populated areas. Helicopters fly at a couple of hundred feet routinely, though they're not supposed to.
The definition of flying accepted by most pilo ts, including myself is that flying involves the production of lift.
Lift is produced (this is simplified, but run with this for now) by pressure diffential--lower pressure above the wing or rotor.
By this definition, airplanes, gliders, and helicopters fly. Rocket ships do not--they are simply thrusted into space. Hot-air Balloons are likewise held up by the conversion of chemical potential energy to heat.
Paper airplanes fly if their wings produce a reasonable amount of lift. Most do, and I suspect that our Japanese plane produces quite a bit in order to stay airborne. A crumpled up piece of paper produces next to zero lift.. it's ability to sail through the air is, again, based on thrust.. the conversion of chemical energy (hamburgers) into kinetic energy via your arm. it will otherwise more or less follow a classic newtonian parabola.
- certified flight instructor / instrument instructor / multiengine instructor / airline transport pilot
Come on. I want cheeseburgers for a reduced price. The fact that I can't get cheeseburgers for a reduced price isn't a conspiracy or market failure (or some bizarre notion of "belief that I am a criminal" or even "obese"), it's a conscious decision by the suppliers to price their cheeseburgers at the price at which point they will extract maximal profit. Demand, meet supply.
Big Blue Gone in 10
on
IBM Spins Down
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
I predict IBM will effectively cease to exist in 10 years or less unless they strike it big with.. something.
Yes, they have an impressive past--but what do they have now?
They have their fingers in many areas but lead in few. Hard drives are just the latest example.
Their strength is their institutional consulting contracts... but that's hardly a growth path as the IBM name slowly, over time, becomes known for nothing in particular.
Yes, IBM does (has done) great research. But research is expensive and I don't see anything in particular that IBM has been able to capitalize on coming out of IBM research for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
The sad thing is is that while the parent is not remotely funny or clever in any objective sense but rather the latest in a stream of predictible ./ attempts at humor, it will doubtlessly be modded up to +5, funny because of the nature of what happens to early posts here in terms of the number of eyeballs.
A university invests in a pipe of size X. It is not reasonable to assume that everybody in the university needs or even should be entitled to a sub-pipe of size X/n, even over time.
Researchers (including students), sharing large amounts of data with colleagues regularly need more bandwidth than poets, and it's wasteful for everybody to have an alotted amount of bandwidth the size of the top researcher's needs.
The alternative, then, is a complex and expensive system of forms and administration as to "who needs more bandwidth, for how long, and how much." This is silly and stupid compared with the more obvious "the university exists to provide bandwidth for academic purposes. NOT downloading home-videos from your brother's server and CERTAINLY not for downloading 'scooby doo' DIVxs.
The "initial" copyright protection in the USA was in _1709_ with the statute of Anne.
By 19099 (1911) in the US (UK) it was effectively 56 years, with renewals (life of the author + 50 years.)
the original author is basically engaging in a slippery-slope fallacy without insightfully addressing any of the subtler aspects of the relevant technology policy decisions that need to be considered.
MOD THE PARENT DOWN!
*plonk*
The fact of the matter is that if under current law those companies are the rightsholders, it is up to them to decide whether or not to undertake some alternate distribution method. Just because under some economic analysis such grey activities may help them sell more units does not make those activities any more legal or morally acceptable.
If you honestly a) hate RIAA and b) think that Napster et al increased music sales, then you would NOT have used napster, right?
Amazon: "these comission sales were made against our TOS, so we will be paying NO comissions on those sales."
given that the skill level involved in thusly launching a car without a parachute is essentially zero, fifteen thousand clams seems like a lot of money. whatever it is that they're throwing the car out of is a typical big skydiver hauler. total fuel to 13,000 feet is less than $100 or $200 worst case. Car clean up = $300 or so (let's just say). Pilot - $150, absolute max. Assorted handlers--let's say, a few hundred. $15k seems way out of line.
Of course, if your client is toyota or whoever it said in the article, you might as well charge $150k.
FWIF: (FAA) Federal Aviation Regulations state that it is legal to throw / drop things from an airplane as long as care is taken to insure no damage to persons or property on the surface.
I've overcome the urge to own. I would gladly pay a reasonable price for video on demand at DVD quality with DVD features and not have to hassle with physical discs OR insane download times. Ditto MP3s.
Make yourself matter, then (be you a Linux user, a Mac user, or just a user of an alternate player.) As i wrote previously, as I believe that this is a run up to an integration with MS's TV-linked PC initiative, I think I see why it's MS-proprietary at least for now.
Of course, that kind of comment (my own), misses the point. Those that would take the trouble to do such a thing (college students, "self-taught" anti intellectual property zealots) are probably not substantial lost revenue anyway.
My prediction: Whoever it is is doing this is smart enough to realize that they wont make any money off of it anytime soon, even when broadband makes it to the home PC as long as the home PC sits on a desk with a 17" screen. Rather, they are using this time to pilot technologies and probe some of the subtleties of user behaviour so that when more fully internet-aware TV-related devices like that whatzit that microsoft is working on are released, they can capitalize.
I mean, even getting a job at a private equity firm, as a few of those on the list have, is fairly impressive, as is going back to business school with several million in the bank.
Every morsel of an article that comes out that purports to support the notion that the blatant disregard for intellectual property rights that recent technologies have popularized is a moral, economic, business, or societal good is trumpeted. None of the many serious articles to the contrary are raised.
RIAA and other "suits" are demonized regularly while "free beer" folk heroes are interviewed. Come on now. A little balance, please.
My guess is that the 'webcam' method is an attempt to limit government liability.
Typically, automated weather comes from a series of ASOS and AWOS sensor stations typically located at airports. These probably cost in the area of a few tens of thousands of dollars each to install. Even many pilots dont know this, but it is even possible to phone many AWOSs/ASOSs directly, and hear their automated robot guy tell you about current conditions.
AWOSs/ASOSs are industrial-strength weather sensing. They occasionally get confused (especially when there are multiple cloud layers), but in general they're good to get a good picture of what is going on.
So, the question is: why doesn't the government just put ASOSs/AWOSs wherever in alaska they're setting up webcams?
Ok, the answer to that one is probably cost and intrusiveness. A webcam uses next to zero space.
But is there an inbetween alternative? Why not put together a thousand dollar sensor station that does things like compute windspeed and take a good guess at ceilings?
Ah--because even though that data would likely be better than the meager stuff that a webcam provides. What does a webcam do for weather? Possibly less than a weather rock.
If it takes pictures of the ground, I can't tell how deep the snow is. If it takespictures of teh air, I can't tell how high the clouds are. I dont know what the windspeed is. I dont know if the visibility is terrestrial radiation crud or something more substantial.
So why not a mini weather station? becuse the quantified, interpreted data provided by them is not reliable. webcams force the pilot to do the interpretation him/herself. Less liability.
Also, perhaps, less safety.
- FAA Certified Gold Seal Flight Instructor
your employer was not too bright. The going rate is about RM$3-5 per disc (US$1), or RM$10 (US$3) if you're a tourist.
Does the term "Myth of the Golden Age" have any meaning to you?
IBM may have caused demand to increase, but you're confusing AGGREGATE demand from PCs from monetizable demand by IBM. IBM is essentially out of the PC business now. It's hard to play "what if" in this situation and I am fully cognizant of the limitations of the following statement, but look at it this way: at this point, Apple is arguably doing better in PCs than IBM is.
It's also not clear that IBM had much choice in doing what they did. But to call their actions as successful FOR THEMSELVES in the PC sphere is quite a stretch.
Let's look as his examples:
Netscape is trying to commoditize the browser market .. in order to dominate the server market. This would have been plausible in, say, 1997. I find it amazing that he tries to push this by anybody--the browser was commoditized.. and servers turned out to be irrelevant! Where is netscape now?
IBM is investing in open source software to bolster its consulting services ... -- wait a minute. IBM's fortune was made in the early 50s by being the king or proprietary--you couldn't even buy their computers--you had to lease them! The US government eventually stopped this, but IBM's greatest period of success in the computer age was when it had a complete monopoly on sales and service of its own, very closed product lines. With the IBM 360 series, IBM saw some erosion of this due to "plug compatible" peripherals produced elsewhere. With the IBM PC (btw.. the author's description of IBM's "success" in commoditizing the PC makes NO sense whatsoever), IBM did poorer still--we all know how badly they did.
But let's look at the specifics--IBM is a BIG company. Let's say (hypothetically) it could put its full weight behind OSS and therefore contribute a whopping 3% to the total corpus of reasonable OSS stuff. Suddenly, it has what--spent a lot of money for the benefit of all while increasing what it can personally consult on by a whopping 3%. Even if there are network, learning, or syndicate effects, this situation screams "free rider problem."
Ditto for Transmeta..
It's almost ironic that the author pics such dead or dying companies like Netscape, Transmeta, IBM, etc for his examples.. Look, I like these companies as much as anybody for their past, but let's face it..
I could go on, but this article is a big swing and miss.
Small airplanes routinely fly at 1000 feet above populated areas. Helicopters fly at a couple of hundred feet routinely, though they're not supposed to.
- Airline Transport Pilot
Lift is produced (this is simplified, but run with this for now) by pressure diffential--lower pressure above the wing or rotor.
By this definition, airplanes, gliders, and helicopters fly. Rocket ships do not--they are simply thrusted into space. Hot-air Balloons are likewise held up by the conversion of chemical potential energy to heat.
Paper airplanes fly if their wings produce a reasonable amount of lift. Most do, and I suspect that our Japanese plane produces quite a bit in order to stay airborne. A crumpled up piece of paper produces next to zero lift.. it's ability to sail through the air is, again, based on thrust.. the conversion of chemical energy (hamburgers) into kinetic energy via your arm. it will otherwise more or less follow a classic newtonian parabola.
- certified flight instructor / instrument instructor / multiengine instructor / airline transport pilot
and ebay pulled out of japan.
What idiots modded this up?
Come on. I want cheeseburgers for a reduced price. The fact that I can't get cheeseburgers for a reduced price isn't a conspiracy or market failure (or some bizarre notion of "belief that I am a criminal" or even "obese"), it's a conscious decision by the suppliers to price their cheeseburgers at the price at which point they will extract maximal profit. Demand, meet supply.
Yes, they have an impressive past--but what do they have now?
They have their fingers in many areas but lead in few. Hard drives are just the latest example.
Their strength is their institutional consulting contracts... but that's hardly a growth path as the IBM name slowly, over time, becomes known for nothing in particular.
Yes, IBM does (has done) great research. But research is expensive and I don't see anything in particular that IBM has been able to capitalize on coming out of IBM research for a while.
I dunno.. I just see relevance lost.