Those are good segments. NPR does a good job as usual of bringing everything that we've been keeping up with on slashdot and putting it into short segments that are easy for the average Joe to listen to. Highly recommended links for the non-geeky to get up to date on this.
Oh, and the parent poster makes a guest appearance or two on there as well.
That would only be more efficient in the following conditions:
Postage + Disk_Cost
and
average_postal_transit_time
The above conditions would only really be efficient for large amounts of data. Where large amounts of data is relative to your bandwidth and other fellow sharers.
* I omitted the sender's bandwidth on the the extremely far reaching assumption that the file sharer uploads enough back to the network as he downloads.
* This is a gross exaggeration and meant more for humor than real world modeling. That's right, laugh it's meant to be funny and geeky.
I assume it was a judge who ordered Demonoid's ISP to disconnect Demonoid. If a trade organization like CRIA can order an ISP to disconnect a customer directly, then things are extremely bad in Canada.
The details are scarce here. We only have the word of one source that the CRIA is involved at all. Given the state of such shaky evidence, wouldn't the next hypothesis be that it is not legal troubles at all?
I mean, backhoes have been attempting the take down of the internet for quite some time. (Those big one armed bastards!)
My point being, what's the use of discussing this without any further information? We're just speculating until we have it.
Flash takes up no more resources than say Photoshop. And I can't imagine too many instances where you'd want both of them running at the same time.
And of course there are preferences for developers too. I wouldn't load up the wysiwyg, for instance, and that would save the comp a bit of grinding. I also tend to use photoshop in spurts. I do a bunch of image editing all at once and then move on to coding for a while. So, I can shut it down between uses. And flash, I use so very rarely. It's a handy tool for what it does, but I so seldom need it for what it's good for.
Even if I've got server software set up on the laptop (php,asp,coldfusion), I would be just fine with 1GHz system and a heavy amount of RAM.
I think what he bought was under $300. Disney's "Cars" game for the Wii, Power Squid surge protector. (I assume that's under $300, but we are talking circuit city here.) So, $1,000 + 6 months jail, worst case scenerio. He probably would have gotten far less than that.
Well, if you're going to compare it to real fencing...
I've taken a couple of martial arts, and let me tell you, Street Fighter does not live up to it.
All joking aside, the game might be cool. But, if I were looking for some real competitive light saber action, I'd probably just build a few boffers and go at it with some friends.
That said, it was handled POORLY. At most, he should have been simply ejected, not arrested. He got tasered for resisting arrest, which was understandable given the behavior I saw on the video.
Given his behavior, I wonder if simple ejection would have been enough. He was obviously upset and figuratively foaming at the mouth. The officers probably figured that if he's putting up this much of a fight on the way to the door, he's likely to be persistent in causing a disturbance after the initial ejection. That's probably when they slapped the cuffs on him. I'd be surprised if any of the officers thought the charges would genuinely stick.
If they had all rushed the police the crowd could have helped him.. regardless of whether the police were doing the right thing, the crowd should have tried to save the guy..
Have you ever seen a large group of people react to a violent situation? One of two things happen: Nothing. Or total carnage.
There is rarely any middle ground. Had the crowd gotten involved you would likely be reading a headline like "Crowd Beats Policemen to Death" followed by some commentary on how they still haven't located all of their body parts.
It also costs the ISP's money to leave the bot nets up. Imagine how much bandwidth would just free itself up if all the spam, phishing, DDoS, and virus attacks just stopped. I don't know the statistics, but it must make up a shit load of traffic.
Of course, there is a profit to be made in people upping their connection speeds because their pwnd computer is spewing garbage.
But, if I were offered a service where I could count on less of this crap clogging up my tubes, I'd take it.
seriously, if you are a columnist who is supposed to act as the gatekeeper to new technologies for mainstream america and you can't make ubuntu work... then mainstream america needs a new gatekeeper.
Normally, I'm all about the end user and understanding the plight of the non-computer literate. But seriously, just about every problem he's mentioned is fixable and just a Google search away.
Computers are not a magic, mind reading, fix everything in one click device. This guy expects everything to work out of the box perfectly and to his specs.
Not even windows machines do that. In comparison, it takes a fair bit of configuring out of the box to even get a windows machine ready for safe internet access.
If you want dedicated artists, you'll either have to have the state pay for it ( good luck selling that in America ) , or have sponsorships of wealthy patrons and corporations ( selling out, anyone? ).
You missed the obvious middle ground here. These two scenarios are perfectly logical if you lived in medieval Europe. But, it's the internet age. It's fairly trivial technologically for a lot of people to give a small amount of money to promote an artist in this day and age. There just needs to be incentives for the masses to drop a dollar or two the artist's way.
And that's not a hard thing to figure out. Most websites exist off of this concept. An iTunes like approach could do it. Add in concerts and other revenue streams and the only thing that stands in the way of that being a valid model for artists is the RIAA, their marketing and their own talent.
I'm not saying that it'll be easy for the artist. The beginning will be especially difficult. But, I am saying that it's not unreasonable to expect somebody to be able to make a living off of it. Especially considering how much more money people are willing to spend on their entertainment compared to any other time in history.
And even if they did, they are a legally confirmed monopoly. Any defense on their part that licensing says so, can be easily responded to with "What choice did I, the consumer, have in the matter?"
Legally it's a bad spot for them. They should know that.
Well, unless the television show found a way to circumvent law, they'd still have to raise the money and go through the campaign. And even if it's only a month of this or a month of that, it's a hell of a lot more perspective than most candidates will ever know.
Next time around elections will be held in a reality TV format, much like Survivor.
You know, I've thought about this a few times. And it would be a cool idea if and only if, the contestants on the show were required to do the following:
Work 2 minimum wage jobs to support a family (1 month minimum).
Serve as a soldier for a month. (Grunt, entry level. No officer training for them. War time preferable.)
Live in a slum.
Volunteer in an AIDS clinic for a week. (Or any non-profit helping low-income or uninsured)
The list of things I could think of that politicians need first hands experience with and don't, could go on forever.
Slashdot Mirror
Those are good segments. NPR does a good job as usual of bringing everything that we've been keeping up with on slashdot and putting it into short segments that are easy for the average Joe to listen to. Highly recommended links for the non-geeky to get up to date on this.
Oh, and the parent poster makes a guest appearance or two on there as well.
Should we break it to him that he's still got a 32% chance of failure?
...excuse me while I go convert to Catholicism.
The equations messed up, sorry. Here they are:
Postage + Disk_Cost < ISP_Monthly_Fee/Seconds(current_month) * download_time_in_seconds
and
average_postal_transit_time < download_time_in_days
That would only be more efficient in the following conditions:
Postage + Disk_Cost
and
average_postal_transit_time
The above conditions would only really be efficient for large amounts of data. Where large amounts of data is relative to your bandwidth and other fellow sharers.
* I omitted the sender's bandwidth on the the extremely far reaching assumption that the file sharer uploads enough back to the network as he downloads.
* This is a gross exaggeration and meant more for humor than real world modeling. That's right, laugh it's meant to be funny and geeky.
I mean, backhoes have been attempting the take down of the internet for quite some time. (Those big one armed bastards!)
My point being, what's the use of discussing this without any further information? We're just speculating until we have it.
Flash takes up no more resources than say Photoshop. And I can't imagine too many instances where you'd want both of them running at the same time.
And of course there are preferences for developers too. I wouldn't load up the wysiwyg, for instance, and that would save the comp a bit of grinding. I also tend to use photoshop in spurts. I do a bunch of image editing all at once and then move on to coding for a while. So, I can shut it down between uses. And flash, I use so very rarely. It's a handy tool for what it does, but I so seldom need it for what it's good for.
Even if I've got server software set up on the laptop (php,asp,coldfusion), I would be just fine with 1GHz system and a heavy amount of RAM.
Don't forget Illinois. It's already illegal to speak English there.
Personally, my favorite stores receive my shopping privileges with them because they never check my bag.
I think what he bought was under $300. Disney's "Cars" game for the Wii, Power Squid surge protector. (I assume that's under $300, but we are talking circuit city here.) So, $1,000 + 6 months jail, worst case scenerio. He probably would have gotten far less than that.
see penalties
Can ya be afixin my computer? *fnzownt*
Did ya be gettin' that memo? *fnzownt*
Can ya be a gettin' that new OS to me 'morrow? *fnzownt*
Avast! We need to gabber about dem der TPS reports. *fnzownt*
Yar, you be a scoutin' my wench's booty! *fnzownt*
Well, if you're going to compare it to real fencing...
I've taken a couple of martial arts, and let me tell you, Street Fighter does not live up to it.
All joking aside, the game might be cool. But, if I were looking for some real competitive light saber action, I'd probably just build a few boffers and go at it with some friends.
There's an idea with some potential.
And then I just flung it out there!
There is rarely any middle ground. Had the crowd gotten involved you would likely be reading a headline like "Crowd Beats Policemen to Death" followed by some commentary on how they still haven't located all of their body parts.
It also costs the ISP's money to leave the bot nets up. Imagine how much bandwidth would just free itself up if all the spam, phishing, DDoS, and virus attacks just stopped. I don't know the statistics, but it must make up a shit load of traffic.
Of course, there is a profit to be made in people upping their connection speeds because their pwnd computer is spewing garbage.
But, if I were offered a service where I could count on less of this crap clogging up my tubes, I'd take it.
Computers are not a magic, mind reading, fix everything in one click device. This guy expects everything to work out of the box perfectly and to his specs.
Not even windows machines do that. In comparison, it takes a fair bit of configuring out of the box to even get a windows machine ready for safe internet access.
Wait, are we talking about China, or America's minimum wage?
The funny thing is, MS arguably has better hardware than they have software.
There seems to be a lot of nice statistics here: http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx, in case you are curious about the latest trends.
You missed the obvious middle ground here. These two scenarios are perfectly logical if you lived in medieval Europe. But, it's the internet age. It's fairly trivial technologically for a lot of people to give a small amount of money to promote an artist in this day and age. There just needs to be incentives for the masses to drop a dollar or two the artist's way.
And that's not a hard thing to figure out. Most websites exist off of this concept. An iTunes like approach could do it. Add in concerts and other revenue streams and the only thing that stands in the way of that being a valid model for artists is the RIAA, their marketing and their own talent.
I'm not saying that it'll be easy for the artist. The beginning will be especially difficult. But, I am saying that it's not unreasonable to expect somebody to be able to make a living off of it. Especially considering how much more money people are willing to spend on their entertainment compared to any other time in history.
And even if they did, they are a legally confirmed monopoly. Any defense on their part that licensing says so, can be easily responded to with "What choice did I, the consumer, have in the matter?"
Legally it's a bad spot for them. They should know that.
Well, unless the television show found a way to circumvent law, they'd still have to raise the money and go through the campaign. And even if it's only a month of this or a month of that, it's a hell of a lot more perspective than most candidates will ever know.
- Work 2 minimum wage jobs to support a family (1 month minimum).
- Serve as a soldier for a month. (Grunt, entry level. No officer training for them. War time preferable.)
- Live in a slum.
- Volunteer in an AIDS clinic for a week. (Or any non-profit helping low-income or uninsured)
The list of things I could think of that politicians need first hands experience with and don't, could go on forever.