the only option is to ramp up the system's capacity, which involves upgrading and replacing huge amounts of expensive infrastructure. I for one would love to see higher bandwidths, but I don't suffer from the illusion that project would be cheap.
It doesn't have to be cheap, they're collecting billions in monthly payments every year.
Anyways, I don't mind throttling if it's done correctly. Think of scheduling processes on a timesharing CPU: you don't artifically limit each process to 1/N of the CPU. You don't guess about what each process is trying to accomplish and penalize it for that. Long-running processes gradually get lower priority, bursty processes get high burst rates. (However, Linux seems to allocate the processor per process, whereas it ought to be per user... in the case of bandwidth, opening a bunch of connections should not create advantage).
China is a sovereign country with its own set of rules & customs. It has the right to determine it's own destiny
Amen, the slashdot community should quit strongarming the Chinese government into complying with our will. Just because the whole world has to do whatever slashdot says doesn't mean we should abuse our power.
By the way, why do you place national self-determination above individual freedom when the two are in conflict?
I hope advertisers don't get ahold of this research. If they find out that being near the front of search results is important, they might start playing dirty tricks to get to the front! The entire Web could be reduced to a mush of keyword spamming and link farms, making it difficult to find solid information! Whew, I sure hope that doesn't happen, it would be awful.
Right now you and your buddies playing music in a garage can, with a small investment of a few hundred dollars or so, record, master and produce music for sale. What happens when the same will be true for video...
What has happened to the recording industry? Not much, that I can tell. Almost all popular bands are still owned by Big Music. The industry does seem to be in decline (or just a slump, who can tell?) but it doesn't seem to be due to the proliferation of recording technology.
I just bought a PS2 last month, my first game console since the Atari 2600. (I played on the PC until about 5 years ago, then got out of gaming. But now my son is getting old enough for us to play together). My only annoyance so far is that they didnt' include a built-in memory card, since it's practically a requirement.
I picked the PS2 essentially because of its popularity - I wanted a huge library of good, cheap (used) games available. I went to a local game store and got Gran Tourismo for $3 (used), and it's a great game. I got Splinter Cell and Ratchet & Clank for about $7 each. The Gamecube wouldn't have been a bad choice either, but I went with the PS2 because of my perception that it had more, and cheaper, games available.
The problem is the cellphone companies are winning the war because they have the killer app. And they're not very motivated to offer general-purpose capabilities like a Palm. They like every little thing locked down and a separate line item on the monthly bill.
I disagree. I think the total creative vision required for a modern game like World of Warcraft is in fact much greater than that required for Pac-Man. I don't believe one or two geniuses and a bunch of lackeys could make a Pixar film or a good modern video game.
I don't think arguing over some dictionary definition of Open is the point, but rather to figure out the costs and benefits of different aspects of openness to all the parties involved. Look at how BSD and GPL differ in their interpretations of openness, and how those differences have played out over the years, for instance with the fragmentation of BSD. These decisions do matter.
Walmart's buying power comes from the consumers who buy from them, so blame the consumers. This is no different than complaining that most theaters don't run XXX movies. A lot of us (the public) simply don't care to shop or recreate in that type of environment.
In addition to OpenDocument, OpenOffice still supports its previous native document format, sxw. Perhaps the "filters" page refers to sxw compatibility?
Seriously. When was the last time Real has been the least bit relevant?
True, but not because they use DRM. Almost all content producers use DRM, or stay out of the online market alltogether. It's not clear to me that most of us consumers will object. On the one hand, Sony's media technologies have failed again and again because of the onerous restrictions they impose; on the other hand, Apple is doing good business with iTunes and FairPlay. Personally I would never invest in a music collection that can only play on one brand of player, but a lot of people are doing just that.
Using the word "die" is hyperbole, but I have to agree that Open Source doesn't seem to have much future in the content distribution biz. My guess is that the situation will be a lot like it is today: Linux will lag in support for new codecs and media services. Some of the companies will eventually release Linux clients, which will be closed-source and inferior in quality and features. It'll be a pain, but not the end of the world.
Not exactly. From my reading of the article, this law doesn't legalize anything that's illegal today. It says, "no spying, except for these loopholes." Now, we can (and probably should) complain about the loopholes, but don't forget that right now there are no loopholes, because there is no law - whatever's in the fine print, goes. This law would prevent most companies from doing whatever they want simply by hiding legalize in the fine print, as they do now. The only catch is, certain companies (such as Microsoft, not surprisingly) can keep writing arbitrary EULAs wherein you "grant" them permission to do whatever they want.
And what is the truth of your version? I still don't see it. From where I stand, I never see Dell exerting pressure or making decisions. They try to offer exactly what people want. They never surprise me with, "wow, what a great idea, I thought I wanted X but not anymore now that Dell has shown me what Y can do."
There's nothing wrong with what Dell does, really. And they're probably customer-driven just as much as Wintel driven. But, no, I don't see them as doing anything more than selling made-in-Taiwan computers cheaper than the others, with a modicum of support.
ABC offers the shows with commercials for free or you pay for them commercial free on iTunes. Isn't that what everyone's been asking for? Assuming the quality of the downloads on iTunes gets to HD in the near future, I know most of my complaints will be well on their way to being resolved.
Yes, that's what I think too. (Except the technical detail of iTunes not working for me on Linux).
Do people actually think that asking for the network to provide the shows free of charge without advertising is a reasonable request?
Almost all of us *are* paying for TV, I know I do, to the tune of about $75/month. So no, I don't worry about grabbing something that was already piped into my livingroom once (while I wasn't there). I agree that downloading what you wouldn't otherwise get (i.e. downloading HBO shows if you don't get HBO) is different. (Actually I rarely ever download; I PVR instead, which is identical from the industry's point of view).
I know real TV economics are currently more complicated than that, but they shouldn't be, and maybe acting as if you're really paying a monthly bill for what you watch will move the market in that direction. I welcome the day I can stop paying for 199 misc. channels and start paying for ala-carte programs I actually watch. Right now the most expensive cable channel I get is ESPN, which I absolutely never watch. It's wasteful, and of course it's the consumer that has to suck it up.
There are distros that install 5-6 window managers, 5 different text editors, mutiple multimedia players, and thats insane
Until recently I would have agreed. I was pretty consciencious about removing unused packages etc. Then recently at work a tech set up a RHEL laptop for me. I was surprised how few additional apps I had to install, and it was nice. Are there 1000s of unused apps on there? Yep. But I can't seem to remember why I should care. 5 GB of disk space is a few pennies, it isn't worth the bother for me anymore.
You specifically mention the kernel, but after reading the article I'm not sure whether Negroponte really meant the kernel, or the user environment. I haven't seen that the kernel itself is fat. Until fairly recently I had a 486 laptop running a 2.6 kernel, and I claim the new kernels run better than the old ones (more responsive). Also, linux is gaining wide acceptance on embedded applications with much less processing power than the $100 laptop. 500 mhz and 128 MB of RAM really isn't bad at all for the kernel and a lightweight windowing environment.
Multitasking OpenOffice and Firefox with a dozen tabs open, on the other hand, will be problematic.
So you're saying it's harder to seach content stored on your computer than if it's stored all over the Internet?
Besides, great thing about Wikipedia is you don't need to search it. You just look up the topic you want, and there's your information, already organized. (And yeah, I know books have been doing just that since the invention of the printing press. But I could never afford a copy of Britannica, could you?)
So if you're stuck in a corner, I'd say that's because you're painting yourself in there.
Granted. But it's not something individual Americans can choose not to be a part of.
Anyways, the traditional reason some places have such high gas prices is because their governments have huge gas taxes. But the tax money collected doesn't just disappear; it's spent back into the country, including the people who paid it. High taxes are a pain, but then you figure in things like not having to pay out of pocket for health care, and getting a real pension.
The possible future of extreme gas prices will be quite different. Instead of going into taxes and back to the people, the energy windfall will go partly to Big Oil, but mostly to oil-rich nations. All that wealth will still produce jobs, if you're willing to go to Dubai to get them. And the balance of world power will shift. (We're supposed to worry about terrorists getting money from poppy seeds and mosque fundraisers?)
Slashdot Mirror
Anyways, I don't mind throttling if it's done correctly. Think of scheduling processes on a timesharing CPU: you don't artifically limit each process to 1/N of the CPU. You don't guess about what each process is trying to accomplish and penalize it for that. Long-running processes gradually get lower priority, bursty processes get high burst rates. (However, Linux seems to allocate the processor per process, whereas it ought to be per user... in the case of bandwidth, opening a bunch of connections should not create advantage).
These ad-hock hacks, layer upon layer, are exactly what make Windows *MORE* difficult to use than Linux for an expert user.
By the way, why do you place national self-determination above individual freedom when the two are in conflict?
I hope advertisers don't get ahold of this research. If they find out that being near the front of search results is important, they might start playing dirty tricks to get to the front! The entire Web could be reduced to a mush of keyword spamming and link farms, making it difficult to find solid information! Whew, I sure hope that doesn't happen, it would be awful.
And yet, strangely, Word is much more popular than notepad.exe.
I picked the PS2 essentially because of its popularity - I wanted a huge library of good, cheap (used) games available. I went to a local game store and got Gran Tourismo for $3 (used), and it's a great game. I got Splinter Cell and Ratchet & Clank for about $7 each. The Gamecube wouldn't have been a bad choice either, but I went with the PS2 because of my perception that it had more, and cheaper, games available.
Palm as a standalone company has no future selling cheap, simple devices. If they ever took off, Casio would start pumping them out for $25.
The problem is the cellphone companies are winning the war because they have the killer app. And they're not very motivated to offer general-purpose capabilities like a Palm. They like every little thing locked down and a separate line item on the monthly bill.
It certainly does. I wonder if General Dynamics will honor the Russian patents :)
I disagree. I think the total creative vision required for a modern game like World of Warcraft is in fact much greater than that required for Pac-Man. I don't believe one or two geniuses and a bunch of lackeys could make a Pixar film or a good modern video game.
I don't think arguing over some dictionary definition of Open is the point, but rather to figure out the costs and benefits of different aspects of openness to all the parties involved. Look at how BSD and GPL differ in their interpretations of openness, and how those differences have played out over the years, for instance with the fragmentation of BSD. These decisions do matter.
Walmart's buying power comes from the consumers who buy from them, so blame the consumers. This is no different than complaining that most theaters don't run XXX movies. A lot of us (the public) simply don't care to shop or recreate in that type of environment.
In addition to OpenDocument, OpenOffice still supports its previous native document format, sxw. Perhaps the "filters" page refers to sxw compatibility?
Using the word "die" is hyperbole, but I have to agree that Open Source doesn't seem to have much future in the content distribution biz. My guess is that the situation will be a lot like it is today: Linux will lag in support for new codecs and media services. Some of the companies will eventually release Linux clients, which will be closed-source and inferior in quality and features. It'll be a pain, but not the end of the world.
Not exactly. From my reading of the article, this law doesn't legalize anything that's illegal today. It says, "no spying, except for these loopholes." Now, we can (and probably should) complain about the loopholes, but don't forget that right now there are no loopholes, because there is no law - whatever's in the fine print, goes. This law would prevent most companies from doing whatever they want simply by hiding legalize in the fine print, as they do now. The only catch is, certain companies (such as Microsoft, not surprisingly) can keep writing arbitrary EULAs wherein you "grant" them permission to do whatever they want.
There's nothing wrong with what Dell does, really. And they're probably customer-driven just as much as Wintel driven. But, no, I don't see them as doing anything more than selling made-in-Taiwan computers cheaper than the others, with a modicum of support.
I know real TV economics are currently more complicated than that, but they shouldn't be, and maybe acting as if you're really paying a monthly bill for what you watch will move the market in that direction. I welcome the day I can stop paying for 199 misc. channels and start paying for ala-carte programs I actually watch. Right now the most expensive cable channel I get is ESPN, which I absolutely never watch. It's wasteful, and of course it's the consumer that has to suck it up.
Stability sounds nifty until it's time for the inevitable apocalyptic "total rewrite" that Microsoft is now choking on.
Multitasking OpenOffice and Firefox with a dozen tabs open, on the other hand, will be problematic.
Besides, great thing about Wikipedia is you don't need to search it. You just look up the topic you want, and there's your information, already organized. (And yeah, I know books have been doing just that since the invention of the printing press. But I could never afford a copy of Britannica, could you?)
Anyways, the traditional reason some places have such high gas prices is because their governments have huge gas taxes. But the tax money collected doesn't just disappear; it's spent back into the country, including the people who paid it. High taxes are a pain, but then you figure in things like not having to pay out of pocket for health care, and getting a real pension.
The possible future of extreme gas prices will be quite different. Instead of going into taxes and back to the people, the energy windfall will go partly to Big Oil, but mostly to oil-rich nations. All that wealth will still produce jobs, if you're willing to go to Dubai to get them. And the balance of world power will shift. (We're supposed to worry about terrorists getting money from poppy seeds and mosque fundraisers?)