Reason why we bitch at cell phones and features is honestly, how many times have I fired up the brower to surf the net? 0 in 2 phone over the last 4 years. Yet my service hasn't improved in terms of quality of calls and still get quite a few dropped calls. And I've been with 3 different companies and yet no real difference in terms of quality of call and dropped calls. This is what the mass public wants. I mean being able to chat with AIM or MSN users is neat, but really 90% of us really only want clear calls that aren't dropped 30% of the time.
People here on this site are primarily that other 10% that wants the latest and greatest geeky tech stuff. Now as I get older, I no longer play as many games or as much. Most I play is an occastional EA hockey game if I am over with the guys at one of their houses with an X-Box.
Honestly most people hear forget that over 90% of the mass general public could care less about the texture mapping of games. They use their computer for email, internet, office type apps (word processor and maybe spreadsheet), Quicken, and solitare. I think my dad's old 486 handled most of those tasks okay. A lot of people here forget that most people truely are not like the geeks and nerds and do not care. And I must be turning into one of those "normal" people as I get into my upper 20's now because I had a palm pilot, went back to pen and paper to schedule my meetings, I haven't purchased a new game since 2000. I don't own a Playstation 2 or X-Box and my G3 iBook seems to handle everything I need at home just fine.
Back to the topic, using GPU for vector math would be great in the industry I am now in (animation/rendering). Company I've working as a consultant ditched their Alpha boxes and propitary rendering software for off the shelf IBM Blade servers and both Lightwave and Maya for the rendering bit. They did a sample rendering test and the freaking quad Alpha 500 boxes still edged out a single dual 2Ghz Xeon blade. However now they have 28 processors in the about the same space as an old quad Alpha box plus reduced the size of the server room by 35% and added space for an additional 5 employees and we now used their workstations to process renders when they are gone in the evenings. Imagine what we could do if we could tap their latest and greatest vid card as well to do their renderings.
If someone steals your gun and goes down the steet and kills someone is it your fault for owning the gun?
When was the last time someone died of a computer worm from some's priated copy of windows?
Its really apples and oranges here. I think one of the most famous cases was with the chinese government and Boeing. China bought several 737's for their national airline back in the 1980's I believe and then reversed engineered the aircraft to copy and build thier own.
Well, their copies wouldn't even fly or would barely fly and they came to Boeing and asked, "Could you help us figure out why our copies of your airplanes won't fly?" And Boeing said no.
If you steal some software I've been working on and then ask why its not working, do you really think I am going to tell you why? Do you think I should tell you why? I don't, you stole it, you didn't pay for the product and related service(s).
I know MS has a hate-hate relationship here, but come on, if you steal a copy, they don't owe you jack.
And on a flamer note: TORT reform is desperately needed in the US to cap some of these damages and hold the trial lawyers at bay. The Civil legal system is nuts here.
More money at the schools is not the answer. Stripping the schools down to basics of education is the answer. Our state as a massive buget shortfall and one school district had to layoff 20% of its teachers. The next week they dedicated their $3.2M new football stadium. This was a High School.
Stip the schools down to reading, writing, math, sciences, and for god's sake Civics. If you want music, art, drama, or sports then goto private lessons or community bands, theater group, art classes, and sports clubs.
Let's get the schools out of the sports business and into the education business.
I need to find some more info to back this up, but if I remember something from a lecture on Plato and Greek, the word(s) used to say that that atlantis was as big as as continent, if copied down by someone dislysic like myself could also mean "between" the land masses of Asia and Africa. Again I need to go look this up and see if I can find it again. It has been like 3 years since my last ancient greek class.
First of the, the House has always been out of the loop when it comes to treaties. How it has been since day 1. Number 2, the Sentate was largely an appointed position up until the last 100 years or so. State Houses typically choose the senator, not the people.
While the House was meant to be a represenative body of the people, the Senate was supposed to be made up of elder statesmen and professional politions. Good, bad, indifferent, that was the way things were set up.
Here is where I take issues with you. Yes I am a regular Mac users, but I also have a number of PC's around as well. Granted its my job to provide support to others on both platforms.
With that disclaimer out of the way, let me say why I like Apple's DRM policies is the fact that over all it is fair. Downloading songs for free from Napster, back in the day, and name your P2P service is stealing unless the band/group distributes the tracks for free.
I've seen people pay USD 1.50 a track for cell phone ringtones. And many of the people I knew in college would have gladly paid $.99 per track for the songs they wanted. And people are doing it including myself. I typically purchased maybe 4 CD's a year if that, now its one or two tracks a month.
The problem with many DRM solutions before Apple's fairplay was they were too restrictive and therefore did not make a good alternative. Like many things in life, the solution was about balance. If your going to distribute and sell music and other digital content over the Internet, your going to have to use some kind of DRM. The key was finding a balance and Apple was the first to do just that. Your allowed to download and copy to several computers, digital devices and even Burn several copies to CD. Overall I think it is a win-win for all.
Let's talk about the "Evil Industry" motives of many here at slashdot. Is it true the RIAA boarders on needed to be bitch slapped with RICO laws, yes. Did they calude to drive up music prices, yes. Do they give artists a fair shake, no. But stealing to make a point is not making a point people. Want to really send a message to artists to stand up, stop going to see them in concert, boycott anything they do. That's where they make their money. Really want to make a statement, stop listening to them. That will shake up the industry real quick.
FInally I will leave with a Simpsons refrence. Episode from season 2 in Lisa Vs. The Eighth Comandment: "Just read the brochure Marge"
Myth: Stealing Cable is wrong
Fact: Cable companies are large multibillion dollar companies
That is the falacy that I see here repeated time and time again on this issue: "Well they are an evil corporation, therefore by doing wrong I am doing right!" Sorry, but downloading movies, music, software and not paying for it is stealing folks. And if you do it, you have no moral high ground on those evil companies.
I am still using my 48G on almost a daily basis after at least 10 years of use and about 3 sets of batteries. In fact, just replaced the 3 AAA's last week. I also have an HP business calculator, seemed like the 48G handled all the finacial stuff except for MIRR that's been great and can switch between RPN and normal mode.
But lets say for instance that an islamic revolution would happen in say Pakistan and the new leadership is quite willing to use such weapons against an ally, say India. And currently, the nuke threat posed by North Korea leaves us with no military options. If by use of the ABL one could counter the insurance policy of nukes + MRBM/ICBM's, then the threat of overwhelming military force once again becomes an option.
As far as a weapon from a terrorist group, only intel can prevent that from happening and is a realistic threat and inevitable reality. In 1998 or 1999 the FBI released a report in which they fully believed that one US city would be hit with a nuke by terrorist by 2010. The only question is when and what city will go. Thus far, Intel around the world has been pretty sucessful in stopping sale of materials and weapons such as these, but its only a matter of time before it happens.
And it doesn't matter if its Bush or Kerry or who in office, its going to happen. As good as intel is at stopping that 99/100 attacks, 9/11 proves there will always be one that eventually get through. The nuking of a US City is something I have long accepted as going to happen. As I said, not a matter of if, but when. I remember on 9/11 thinking, "20,000 people dead...man we got off lucky" and most people didn't understand that statement until I explained I always expected a couple Million dead in a mushroom cloud.
But that's just me...and I don't think like other people.
Two things I will say about this is that filming in HD is a totally different ball game, and darkening sets is a common trick for shows movies needed lots of special effects. Darker sets will not show mistakes. And of the 3 episodes of Enterprise I've seen in the first season, looks like there are a lot explosions and other special effects.
Liked TNG, and DS9 was good especially rewatching the old episodes. Never got into Voyager, it left the St. Louis market about half-way into its second season and then I went to college and spent my time doing other things.
Currently, the only two shows I watch are Stargate SG1 and the Simpsons. And SG1 is funny because they make fun of themselves and everything else that is cliche sci-fi. Like calling Anubus: "You know, tall guy in a dark cloack with greecy skinned cliche over the top bad guy?"
While using video games instead of 3D CGI software like Blender, Maya, et al. is kind of innovative, but the first season of Red Vs. Blue also was well written. The dialogue was funny and there were several inside jokes about gamers and the game itself. My favorite line is still, "Stay here....Tank....Stay here....Tank. Ah Screw it!".
However there has been a lot of really well done low budget fan films over the past few years. In fact I know someone that made videos from Battlefield 1942 from in game where the graphics are boardering on good high quality CGI work.
And I think that trend will continue. We used an Application called FRAPS in windows to pull video from games and save to a file on the Harddrive as we were making a music video using Rogue Spear: Black Thorn for a broadcast class once and then switched to Macs and added sound and such in iMovie.
I think the major thing here, is that the technology has increased to the point where its become easier and cheaper for creative people to share their ideas. But still, it takes quality writing and acting skills to pull these things off, otherwise it is no different than anyother form of eye candy that Hollywood puts out.
In Bill Maher's case it was, "What you might say may not play well with the audenice. At which point, they have the right to boycott your program and create negitve press for (IIRC) Disney". Watching what he says basically got him trouble with the consuming public, not the government and Disney made a business decision: He's a loose cannon, drop 'em.
While Jefferson et. al wrote
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Note that the "Governments are insituted amoung Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". Aka, Government is made up by people that can decide to give or taketh away freedom so long as the governed agree.
With the G5's, I've seen a huge shift back to Macintosh in the past 6 months by graphics and ad shops. (I am a technology consultant specializing in graphics systems) I know of several architecture firms in town that wish Autodesk would release AutoCad for the Macintosh so that they can take advantages of having all their development on one platform. Right now, most of the firms I work with usually have a couple Macs around for Final Cut Pro production. Some are still 100% PC shops that use Premiere, however due to the many problems with Premiere 6, several purchased Macs and never looked back.
Still, it should be interesting to see how this could affect the rendering crowd. Imagine being able to use a program like Maya then when everyone goes home at night, use all their workstations to help process a render job. That could save a lot of businesses a lot of time and increase their profits. I know because we have a 100 CPU render-farm we rent out to local businesses so they can get a jump on their next business.
I don't mean to be a troll, but there is one reason why I have advised several consulting clients in the past to SUN and Solaris certified applications. A couple of my clients include fortune 1000 companies that invested around USD 50 million into their ERP and CRM systems and what sold them on Sun was the fact that the let's say their ERP software no longer works in Solaris 10. Sun will send a team of software engineers to make sure their application will work.
Granted, they paid through the teeth for the hardware and custom developed software, but they have assurances that it WILL be compatable with future versions and if it breaks, Sun will fix it. Granted this was about two years ago. Its that level of support they were looking for and they were willing to pay the premium for the service.
We run a political based site and also have helped several local groups by setting up easy to use CMS systems to power their websites and saying that the Internet has major power to make or break a canidate is a not always true.
Once again people are getting what the Internet really is confused. I will point to WorldofEnds.com for those that need a refresher. And those too lazy to RTFA here is my one sentence summery: The internet is an Inter-network which is comprised by a common protocal (The Internet Protocal [IP]), and all the internet does and cabable of doing is routining data packets from point A to point B through this inter-network. It has no value added components. All value is created at the ends: ie the website/server that host the site and your home/office computer.
To me, all the internet really has done is sped up communications and decreased its cost. You can reach 500 like minded people with a single click as opposed to phone tree or letters that would have to be organized and logistically setup days if not weeks in advance of a meeting. Now you can send an email out the day before of even the day of an event as a reminder for not a lot of money and spend more time and efforts on traditional technquies, like cavanassing.
Canidates can also use the internet to provide a real time press-release machine and issue statements, and whatever else they wish to communicate. But in the end, their website really is just an interactive campaign brochsure that instead of having a detachable "please send money" leaflet, they have a "Click here to Donate" button.
Another factor, especially with local elections, is people want to see and talk with their candidates in person. They want to gauge just what type of person he/she is for themselves. Really it is the elections at the local level, grassroots, that your vote really counts the most.
I know several people that went in and on top of their ~$30k a year starting salary, Air Force in Navy in the cases I know about, also paid off their near $50k - 80k in college loans too.
Wow, looks like EUCD got it on steriods
on
EU Passes Nasty IP Law
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Well time to watch karama go bye-bye.
In December of 2002 I got to give a presentation over IP rights and the EU to members of the German Parliment and other officials from several soon to be EU members' Embassies as well as officials from the United States and the UK. *now for the karama hit* I was arguing that while technology allows easier infringement, people's copyrights, patents, etc. need to be respected and that they key wasn't in new laws, but enforcement of existing laws.
At that time the EUCD was "Supposed" to be in effect by the 23rd of December 2002, if I remember correctly. For some reason people think of the Internet as something "new" that requires "new" laws for a "new" time, and that is the false primise that I brought up in my 30 minute presentation, well I hope...German is a second language to me and far from perfect, however the professor advising said I did fine.
The Worldsofends.com paper/site whatever it is brings up the very point of what the Internet is: a method of transmission of data. The internet itself is designed to route data packets and that's about it. (that's my summation of their main point anyway...RTFA make sure I'm not smoking anything)
Right now I am doing a study for the local chamber of commerce and downtown development agency about collecting sales tax for internet transactions at least in the United States and basically my arguement is this: A company that uses an online catalog (shopping cart) to facilitate sales of goods that are shipped between state lines is not any different that an existing mail order/catalog business. The only difference is that the paper printed catalog has been replaced by the innovation of an online shopping cart. There is no need for "new" laws, simply enforcing existing laws that govern this industry.
Once you explain it in those terms, people begin to understand that business on the internet is no different than brick and morter. Don't get me wrong, there are some other pressing international issues that are still being worked out like the old Yahoo! Vs. France (9th Circus of Appeals case).
Copyright is really is no different. All that needed to be said in the DMCA and the EUCD or now EUIPsomethingsomething was: "The internet, or anyother electronic transmission method is still subject to the laws of international copyright".
Geesh, maybe after my masters degree, I should start some foundation that attempts to advise people, hold seminars, charge $500 a head and make a lot of money.
I surprise I haven't seen, "But BSD was dying...they HAD to switch to Windows". Hotmail ran on FreeBSD, not Linux....not trolling, just pointing out a mere fact.
I used them once with the inital $750 that I purchased with my CC. And had filled out information about my checking account and never checked or didn't mess with checking my account for their micropayments. Then about a year later I noticed about $500 missing from my checking account and noticed it was an electronic withdrawl. I closed the checking account and my paypal account as that was the only account with any electronic withdrawls.
Never have had an issue since. Now if I buy anything from Ebay, which is maybe once or twice a year, I send payment via Western Union. Costs and extra $5.
We had a local pawn/game shop that was raided for "receiveing" stolen property. The evidence was seized and is still being held for evidence until after the trial. Then the owner should get their stuff back. But in most states shouldn't the store and the manager be worried about the possible crime of recieveing stolen merchandice?
We no longer host any of our Linux-based servers in the United States, we have moved all those to German based companies due to their legal rulings against SCO.
Although recently we've switched to a Managed dedicated server package from Schuland-Partner AG (1and1) for not much more than we were paying. Yes we lost some control, but as our sites are ecommerce-based we were loosing time and money running our own self-managed solutions. Now they worry about the firewall and we worry about making sales. Works out better for us for 70 Euro a month.
Userfriendliness is there, defacto standards are not quite. SuSE/Novell will become that standard for desktop use. RH's ending of their consumer line pretty much puts it out of contention. This will also probably lead to KDE becoming the dominiate desktop, however there is still Sun's Java Desktop and Gnome out there as well.
Furthermore, until you see more *gasp* propitary software like Photoshop et. al., Quickbooks, etc. for Linux, you are not going to see many people switching. Right now, Maya is one of the few applications. Until more of these applications and Linux gets a little less geekish with some kind of VISE like installer for installing programs, it will remain a non-option for many small businesses that have more than just "drones". Because they have to be able to install and use the system as well.
There are a few in the Opensource community that would love all software to roam "free" in all sense of the word, but I for one do not think that Opensource is the answer to every problem. Java is one of those tools that I fail to see what the beneift would be, hell it could be even worse if it went OSS.
Why? Well remember JVM and how Microsoft corrupted the compatiablity? Java's goal is to be cross platform and to do so means there needs to be a centralized development effort. If suddenly there are 50 versions of J2EE on the market, each with its unquie traits, which do I run? How do I know that the app I program will work on the others? If it doesn't run on everything, hasn't the point of Java been defeated?
I once worked for a company that was looking to port some of its Solaris & AIX Applications to Linux, but 3 months into the project, the question became what distros to support. They tried porting their application with some modifications. Got it to run fine on RedHat 5.x (it was a while ago), but then it took some playing around to work with SuSE and we never did get it to compile on Slackware. When they said they planned to support RedHat default only, meaning if system admins were using a tweaked box or kernal, we would not offer support. Needless to say, potential clients scoffed at the idea and after 6 months they decided that the Linux Market wasn't worth the hassle until some standards had emerged. This is why a lot of developers won't port to linux, especially desktop applications: too many variations.
I see the same potential of Java, to become slpit into so many forks, that it defeats the purpose in the first place.
I like opensource applications, but I don't think that Opensource is always the answer. Another good example is a good friend that is developing a support ticket application for the company he works for. I asked him, "Isn't there several GPL'd apps outhere that could installed within a couple hours?" He responded of course, but he put it this way: "I like to use my own code and not other peoples. Its a lot less messy that way." and I see his point.
IF it wasn't for opensource, I would have never learned how to program in PHP, PERL, and various SQL databases, it was a great learning tool, but like every tool, there is the correct tool for the job. I say this as I switched from Linux to Macintosh almost two years ago now and I am willing to pay for the luxury of having everything work. Just like we now pay for managed instead of self-managed servers for our business. There is only 3 of us and we now have enough business that its costing us more to run our own servers than to pay a little extra for managed services where the keep up with the updates and such.
All I am saying is that projects have goals. Sometimes Opensource meets those goals, but its not a cure all. The beauty is that we have the choice of using Opensource or to use a propritary solution.
I can't say I was into Ultima, but they did produce my favorite game of all time: Privateer. I can remember spending a few hours to get the EMM386 file correct in order to play the game. Honestly, it didn't work well until I bought the CD version at Sam's for $10 with both the speach and add-on campaign. Privateer was the first game I ever saw where there was a story line, but you could choose when to prosue it or weave in and out. I used to play it for hours in Jr. High and until Tie Fighter was released.
Privateer 2 was something else: it didn't even bear the wing commander name nor Universe. Privateer 2 was the last DOS game I ever bought and never did complete it...I lost interest and had other things going on in my High School years.
But, hey, Sierra killed of my other favorite developer from back in the day, Dynmix or something like that...the folks that made the Aces series of flight sims. It was the gold standard until Combat Sim by microsoft came out...
I don't buy games anymore for computers. For starters, I use Macintosh now, second off, just don't have the time. Although its a shame to see such an old vetern fade away...
Problem with the Doomsday clock, or at least the exerpt they have printed on the website, is that in 1963, was about 90 minutes during the Cuban missile crisis...so translate that into doomsday clock time:.001 seconds.
Slashdot Mirror
People here on this site are primarily that other 10% that wants the latest and greatest geeky tech stuff. Now as I get older, I no longer play as many games or as much. Most I play is an occastional EA hockey game if I am over with the guys at one of their houses with an X-Box.
Honestly most people hear forget that over 90% of the mass general public could care less about the texture mapping of games. They use their computer for email, internet, office type apps (word processor and maybe spreadsheet), Quicken, and solitare. I think my dad's old 486 handled most of those tasks okay. A lot of people here forget that most people truely are not like the geeks and nerds and do not care. And I must be turning into one of those "normal" people as I get into my upper 20's now because I had a palm pilot, went back to pen and paper to schedule my meetings, I haven't purchased a new game since 2000. I don't own a Playstation 2 or X-Box and my G3 iBook seems to handle everything I need at home just fine.
Back to the topic, using GPU for vector math would be great in the industry I am now in (animation/rendering). Company I've working as a consultant ditched their Alpha boxes and propitary rendering software for off the shelf IBM Blade servers and both Lightwave and Maya for the rendering bit. They did a sample rendering test and the freaking quad Alpha 500 boxes still edged out a single dual 2Ghz Xeon blade. However now they have 28 processors in the about the same space as an old quad Alpha box plus reduced the size of the server room by 35% and added space for an additional 5 employees and we now used their workstations to process renders when they are gone in the evenings. Imagine what we could do if we could tap their latest and greatest vid card as well to do their renderings.
When was the last time someone died of a computer worm from some's priated copy of windows?
Its really apples and oranges here. I think one of the most famous cases was with the chinese government and Boeing. China bought several 737's for their national airline back in the 1980's I believe and then reversed engineered the aircraft to copy and build thier own.
Well, their copies wouldn't even fly or would barely fly and they came to Boeing and asked, "Could you help us figure out why our copies of your airplanes won't fly?" And Boeing said no.
If you steal some software I've been working on and then ask why its not working, do you really think I am going to tell you why? Do you think I should tell you why? I don't, you stole it, you didn't pay for the product and related service(s).
I know MS has a hate-hate relationship here, but come on, if you steal a copy, they don't owe you jack.
And on a flamer note: TORT reform is desperately needed in the US to cap some of these damages and hold the trial lawyers at bay. The Civil legal system is nuts here.
Stip the schools down to reading, writing, math, sciences, and for god's sake Civics. If you want music, art, drama, or sports then goto private lessons or community bands, theater group, art classes, and sports clubs.
Let's get the schools out of the sports business and into the education business.
I need to find some more info to back this up, but if I remember something from a lecture on Plato and Greek, the word(s) used to say that that atlantis was as big as as continent, if copied down by someone dislysic like myself could also mean "between" the land masses of Asia and Africa. Again I need to go look this up and see if I can find it again. It has been like 3 years since my last ancient greek class.
Very well, I shall. Give me about two weeks to compile the research and we shall see...
While the House was meant to be a represenative body of the people, the Senate was supposed to be made up of elder statesmen and professional politions. Good, bad, indifferent, that was the way things were set up.
With that disclaimer out of the way, let me say why I like Apple's DRM policies is the fact that over all it is fair. Downloading songs for free from Napster, back in the day, and name your P2P service is stealing unless the band/group distributes the tracks for free.
I've seen people pay USD 1.50 a track for cell phone ringtones. And many of the people I knew in college would have gladly paid $.99 per track for the songs they wanted. And people are doing it including myself. I typically purchased maybe 4 CD's a year if that, now its one or two tracks a month.
The problem with many DRM solutions before Apple's fairplay was they were too restrictive and therefore did not make a good alternative. Like many things in life, the solution was about balance. If your going to distribute and sell music and other digital content over the Internet, your going to have to use some kind of DRM. The key was finding a balance and Apple was the first to do just that. Your allowed to download and copy to several computers, digital devices and even Burn several copies to CD. Overall I think it is a win-win for all.
Let's talk about the "Evil Industry" motives of many here at slashdot. Is it true the RIAA boarders on needed to be bitch slapped with RICO laws, yes. Did they calude to drive up music prices, yes. Do they give artists a fair shake, no. But stealing to make a point is not making a point people. Want to really send a message to artists to stand up, stop going to see them in concert, boycott anything they do. That's where they make their money. Really want to make a statement, stop listening to them. That will shake up the industry real quick.
FInally I will leave with a Simpsons refrence. Episode from season 2 in Lisa Vs. The Eighth Comandment: "Just read the brochure Marge"
Myth: Stealing Cable is wrong
Fact: Cable companies are large multibillion dollar companies
That is the falacy that I see here repeated time and time again on this issue: "Well they are an evil corporation, therefore by doing wrong I am doing right!" Sorry, but downloading movies, music, software and not paying for it is stealing folks. And if you do it, you have no moral high ground on those evil companies.
I am still using my 48G on almost a daily basis after at least 10 years of use and about 3 sets of batteries. In fact, just replaced the 3 AAA's last week. I also have an HP business calculator, seemed like the 48G handled all the finacial stuff except for MIRR that's been great and can switch between RPN and normal mode.
As far as a weapon from a terrorist group, only intel can prevent that from happening and is a realistic threat and inevitable reality. In 1998 or 1999 the FBI released a report in which they fully believed that one US city would be hit with a nuke by terrorist by 2010. The only question is when and what city will go. Thus far, Intel around the world has been pretty sucessful in stopping sale of materials and weapons such as these, but its only a matter of time before it happens.
And it doesn't matter if its Bush or Kerry or who in office, its going to happen. As good as intel is at stopping that 99/100 attacks, 9/11 proves there will always be one that eventually get through. The nuking of a US City is something I have long accepted as going to happen. As I said, not a matter of if, but when. I remember on 9/11 thinking, "20,000 people dead...man we got off lucky" and most people didn't understand that statement until I explained I always expected a couple Million dead in a mushroom cloud.
But that's just me...and I don't think like other people.
Liked TNG, and DS9 was good especially rewatching the old episodes. Never got into Voyager, it left the St. Louis market about half-way into its second season and then I went to college and spent my time doing other things.
Currently, the only two shows I watch are Stargate SG1 and the Simpsons. And SG1 is funny because they make fun of themselves and everything else that is cliche sci-fi. Like calling Anubus: "You know, tall guy in a dark cloack with greecy skinned cliche over the top bad guy?"
However there has been a lot of really well done low budget fan films over the past few years. In fact I know someone that made videos from Battlefield 1942 from in game where the graphics are boardering on good high quality CGI work.
And I think that trend will continue. We used an Application called FRAPS in windows to pull video from games and save to a file on the Harddrive as we were making a music video using Rogue Spear: Black Thorn for a broadcast class once and then switched to Macs and added sound and such in iMovie.
I think the major thing here, is that the technology has increased to the point where its become easier and cheaper for creative people to share their ideas. But still, it takes quality writing and acting skills to pull these things off, otherwise it is no different than anyother form of eye candy that Hollywood puts out.
While Jefferson et. al wrote
Note that the "Governments are insituted amoung Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". Aka, Government is made up by people that can decide to give or taketh away freedom so long as the governed agree.
Nice little thought, isn't it.
Still, it should be interesting to see how this could affect the rendering crowd. Imagine being able to use a program like Maya then when everyone goes home at night, use all their workstations to help process a render job. That could save a lot of businesses a lot of time and increase their profits. I know because we have a 100 CPU render-farm we rent out to local businesses so they can get a jump on their next business.
Granted, they paid through the teeth for the hardware and custom developed software, but they have assurances that it WILL be compatable with future versions and if it breaks, Sun will fix it. Granted this was about two years ago. Its that level of support they were looking for and they were willing to pay the premium for the service.
Once again people are getting what the Internet really is confused. I will point to WorldofEnds.com for those that need a refresher. And those too lazy to RTFA here is my one sentence summery: The internet is an Inter-network which is comprised by a common protocal (The Internet Protocal [IP]), and all the internet does and cabable of doing is routining data packets from point A to point B through this inter-network. It has no value added components. All value is created at the ends: ie the website/server that host the site and your home/office computer.
To me, all the internet really has done is sped up communications and decreased its cost. You can reach 500 like minded people with a single click as opposed to phone tree or letters that would have to be organized and logistically setup days if not weeks in advance of a meeting. Now you can send an email out the day before of even the day of an event as a reminder for not a lot of money and spend more time and efforts on traditional technquies, like cavanassing.
Canidates can also use the internet to provide a real time press-release machine and issue statements, and whatever else they wish to communicate. But in the end, their website really is just an interactive campaign brochsure that instead of having a detachable "please send money" leaflet, they have a "Click here to Donate" button.
Another factor, especially with local elections, is people want to see and talk with their candidates in person. They want to gauge just what type of person he/she is for themselves. Really it is the elections at the local level, grassroots, that your vote really counts the most.
I know several people that went in and on top of their ~$30k a year starting salary, Air Force in Navy in the cases I know about, also paid off their near $50k - 80k in college loans too.
In December of 2002 I got to give a presentation over IP rights and the EU to members of the German Parliment and other officials from several soon to be EU members' Embassies as well as officials from the United States and the UK. *now for the karama hit* I was arguing that while technology allows easier infringement, people's copyrights, patents, etc. need to be respected and that they key wasn't in new laws, but enforcement of existing laws.
At that time the EUCD was "Supposed" to be in effect by the 23rd of December 2002, if I remember correctly. For some reason people think of the Internet as something "new" that requires "new" laws for a "new" time, and that is the false primise that I brought up in my 30 minute presentation, well I hope...German is a second language to me and far from perfect, however the professor advising said I did fine.
The Worldsofends.com paper/site whatever it is brings up the very point of what the Internet is: a method of transmission of data. The internet itself is designed to route data packets and that's about it. (that's my summation of their main point anyway...RTFA make sure I'm not smoking anything)
Right now I am doing a study for the local chamber of commerce and downtown development agency about collecting sales tax for internet transactions at least in the United States and basically my arguement is this: A company that uses an online catalog (shopping cart) to facilitate sales of goods that are shipped between state lines is not any different that an existing mail order/catalog business. The only difference is that the paper printed catalog has been replaced by the innovation of an online shopping cart. There is no need for "new" laws, simply enforcing existing laws that govern this industry.
Once you explain it in those terms, people begin to understand that business on the internet is no different than brick and morter. Don't get me wrong, there are some other pressing international issues that are still being worked out like the old Yahoo! Vs. France (9th Circus of Appeals case).
Copyright is really is no different. All that needed to be said in the DMCA and the EUCD or now EUIPsomethingsomething was: "The internet, or anyother electronic transmission method is still subject to the laws of international copyright".
Geesh, maybe after my masters degree, I should start some foundation that attempts to advise people, hold seminars, charge $500 a head and make a lot of money.
I surprise I haven't seen, "But BSD was dying...they HAD to switch to Windows". Hotmail ran on FreeBSD, not Linux....not trolling, just pointing out a mere fact.
Never have had an issue since. Now if I buy anything from Ebay, which is maybe once or twice a year, I send payment via Western Union. Costs and extra $5.
We had a local pawn/game shop that was raided for "receiveing" stolen property. The evidence was seized and is still being held for evidence until after the trial. Then the owner should get their stuff back. But in most states shouldn't the store and the manager be worried about the possible crime of recieveing stolen merchandice?
Although recently we've switched to a Managed dedicated server package from Schuland-Partner AG (1and1) for not much more than we were paying. Yes we lost some control, but as our sites are ecommerce-based we were loosing time and money running our own self-managed solutions. Now they worry about the firewall and we worry about making sales. Works out better for us for 70 Euro a month.
Furthermore, until you see more *gasp* propitary software like Photoshop et. al., Quickbooks, etc. for Linux, you are not going to see many people switching. Right now, Maya is one of the few applications. Until more of these applications and Linux gets a little less geekish with some kind of VISE like installer for installing programs, it will remain a non-option for many small businesses that have more than just "drones". Because they have to be able to install and use the system as well.
Why? Well remember JVM and how Microsoft corrupted the compatiablity? Java's goal is to be cross platform and to do so means there needs to be a centralized development effort. If suddenly there are 50 versions of J2EE on the market, each with its unquie traits, which do I run? How do I know that the app I program will work on the others? If it doesn't run on everything, hasn't the point of Java been defeated?
I once worked for a company that was looking to port some of its Solaris & AIX Applications to Linux, but 3 months into the project, the question became what distros to support. They tried porting their application with some modifications. Got it to run fine on RedHat 5.x (it was a while ago), but then it took some playing around to work with SuSE and we never did get it to compile on Slackware. When they said they planned to support RedHat default only, meaning if system admins were using a tweaked box or kernal, we would not offer support. Needless to say, potential clients scoffed at the idea and after 6 months they decided that the Linux Market wasn't worth the hassle until some standards had emerged. This is why a lot of developers won't port to linux, especially desktop applications: too many variations.
I see the same potential of Java, to become slpit into so many forks, that it defeats the purpose in the first place.
I like opensource applications, but I don't think that Opensource is always the answer. Another good example is a good friend that is developing a support ticket application for the company he works for. I asked him, "Isn't there several GPL'd apps outhere that could installed within a couple hours?" He responded of course, but he put it this way: "I like to use my own code and not other peoples. Its a lot less messy that way." and I see his point.
IF it wasn't for opensource, I would have never learned how to program in PHP, PERL, and various SQL databases, it was a great learning tool, but like every tool, there is the correct tool for the job. I say this as I switched from Linux to Macintosh almost two years ago now and I am willing to pay for the luxury of having everything work. Just like we now pay for managed instead of self-managed servers for our business. There is only 3 of us and we now have enough business that its costing us more to run our own servers than to pay a little extra for managed services where the keep up with the updates and such.
All I am saying is that projects have goals. Sometimes Opensource meets those goals, but its not a cure all. The beauty is that we have the choice of using Opensource or to use a propritary solution.
Privateer 2 was something else: it didn't even bear the wing commander name nor Universe. Privateer 2 was the last DOS game I ever bought and never did complete it...I lost interest and had other things going on in my High School years.
But, hey, Sierra killed of my other favorite developer from back in the day, Dynmix or something like that...the folks that made the Aces series of flight sims. It was the gold standard until Combat Sim by microsoft came out...
I don't buy games anymore for computers. For starters, I use Macintosh now, second off, just don't have the time. Although its a shame to see such an old vetern fade away...
Problem with the Doomsday clock, or at least the exerpt they have printed on the website, is that in 1963, was about 90 minutes during the Cuban missile crisis...so translate that into doomsday clock time: .001 seconds.