Not all extreeme athletes expect to be bailed out. Aron Ralston was a rock climber who had a boulder land on his arm trapping him. Did he decide to lay there and die. No. He broke his arm and then cut it off with a dull knife in order to free himself. Not particularly relevant to the Jon Johansen case, but very impressive.
What about kiosk mode (I think that's what it's called) where a browser runs as a full screen app. Lots of businesses already run them. I'm sure that Netscape has been able to do this for a while...
I have no opinions about eMachines. I don't know much about them, but...
There is an easy way to resolve this conundrum...
Build your own system. You get to choose what components to put in. You know that everything is assembled properly. You're familiar with your machine, so if there's a problem, you can fix it easily. You usually save money.
I just put together a new machine:
Athlon XP 2500+
1 GB 333 MHz RAM
Nice mboard (MSI KT4 w/audio, lan)
Nice case w/550W very quiet power supply.
I reused the sound card from my old machine (SoundBlaster Pro MP3+), and my friend gave me a video card he wasn't using (Radeon 9600)
I assembled it, popped in the hard dive from my old machine, and it booted right up (I've since then reinstalled at my leisure).
Altogether, I spent $350. Sure, I could have saved some money if I'd gone with cheaper components, but I wanted to be confident in what went into my computer.
Assembling the machine wasn't a big deal at all, most of the work was doing the research to decide what I wanted, but you have to do that when you buy a full system, too.
The likelyhood of life elsewhere remains the same whether humans will ever be able to observe it or not. The likelihood of finding life is a different thing.
No that's not true. By "likelihood" of life elsewhere what we really mean is our best estimates of that likelihood. Those estimates really do change with the data.
In fact it is already a foregone conclusion whether life exists in the universe, but we don't know, so we can only speak probabilistically about it.
That's it! I'm forming a class-action suit on behalf of all broadcasters against remote control manufacturers under the auspices of the DMCA.
Better yet. Let's sue those evil people who put the channel up/down buttons on TVs at all. There should be only one channel, and if you don't like it, too fucking bad. You go to jail if you don't watch.
Now that I'm on a rampage, here, why don't we outlaw all websites except for one. Which one? This one!
I think that I remember a prof of mine talking about a class assignment he had either given or done in where the object was to write a program that could imitate author's styles...
The slashdot editors could liase with the patent examiners to try and formulate a better solution;)
I know you were joking, but you actually might be on to something here.
One way to better weed out bogus patents or patents for which prior art exists is to involve the public more in the process. Perhaps, making all of the applications available on-line with a Slashdot type message board for a period of weeks or months before patent examiners get involved might allow the public to do some of the research which could help to lead the patent process in the right direction.
There would still be some bad patents slip through because of the sheer volume of applications, but how often have you seen a patent award posted to Slashdot only to see three great examples of prior art in the comments right away.
Hmmmm. Interesting points. I rather agree about the importance of security w/respect to our important data. However, I'm not sure that problem here is really a matter of our systems being too complicated to handle. The problems of DOS attacks, identity theft, and personal privacy would support your points better.
The vote counting problem is actually quite easy to solve. Vote counting machines have no real need to be networked. We're not talking about internet voting here. A LAN to connect all of the machines at one polling place would be useful, but if there's not connected to the outside world, it should make security much easier. The real problem here is that there is no way for the voter to verify his/her own vote. For that we need a paper trail.
The real problem here is the amount of influence that big business has over government. The article refered to congressmen being overwhelmed by all of the bells and whistles of the the machines. The average congressman is not well enough informed to be able to distinguish the voting companies' lobbyists' propoganda from objective analysis.
Our legislators are too unqualified to make important decisions about many issues, from the environment to IP issues. I think we simply need more qualified legislators. Some of the most intelligent people in our country become doctors, lawyers, professors, or technical professionals. These jobs often pay more than governmental jobs without the hastles of election. The way these politician make real money is by working in industry after they retire/lose.
My proposal is this: Every congressman should be paid (tax free) $3*10^6/yr. Every senator should be paid $8*10^6/yr. The president should make $2*10^7/yr. These amounts are a pittance compared to the national budget that these people write every year. If it saves U.S. taxpayers 1% of the U.S. Budget, it will save more than 2*10^10 every year. Furthermore, senators, congressmen, and the president should not be allowed to spend their own money on campaigns. They should only be allowed to accept contributions from individuals (NOT corporations), and only from individuals that are registered to vote in their districts. Also, the spending limit for a campaign should be the yearly salary of that position. To prevent politicians from selling out to big corporations for promises of future gainful employment, they should not be allowed to hold jobs for corporations for 6 years after they retire/lose. The generous compensation they receive should more than make up for this restriction.
Also, before every election, there should be a flyer circulated by election official containing a resume for each candidate, and a one-page statement. That way, voters could have an opportunity to base their votes on something more than just twenty second sound bytes.
This system would guarantee the election of qualified people to govern with a minimum of influence from special interest groups and corporations. Of course, it's not realistic to implement. The average voter would be way too offended
I rather agree. I think that one of the points Carr was trying to make (I've only read summaries; I didn't download the PDF at $7) is that it's not always necessary to go balls-to-the-wall when setting up IT infrastructure. For instance, does the secretary really need a new Athlon-64 FX with 8 GB ram just to use Word to type letters for the Boss? How extensive an IT infrastruce does a dentist's office need? Tape back-up might be a more affordable solution than a NET APP.
When new high-tech solutions come out, they're more expensive and don't always have the bugs worked out. Hardware tends to be more expensive but few bugs. Software tends to have more bugs, but doesn't decrease in price. In either case, the amount that the new technology adds to productivity can be offset by the cost of the new hardware or the headaches of new bugs. Thus it is aften better to wait.
I know it was imagined a long time ago (early 20th century I think), but I guess no one expected it to become a reality until recently. In 50 years, will people be writing about a space elevator as a Technological Flights Of Fancy That Fizzled?
If it does indeed become a relity, a space elevator would surely help space tourism and permanent space colonies to be realized as well.
In grade/middle school some people resented me because of my grades/intelligence. You know what I did when I got picked on? I picked back. A witty remark will often slow a bully quite well. Sure, this isn't a very civilized situation, but who ever said that kids were civilized?
At least, there is no physical harm done in cyber-bullying. There's also no reasonable way to stop it. Shall we enact rules for school children that they never say anything that isn't nice on school time or off? Some of the examples amount to slander, and if they get particularly bad, you could bring a suit, but c'mon there are enough lawsuits now without every school child suing every other child for slander.
I realize that being made fun of isn't very pleasant, but that's something that kids have to deal with. Their parents should help put it in perspective.
I've heard the argument put forth that the Arwen/Aragorn love interest was played up to have more femal echaracters, but what about Galadriel?
She was easily the most compelling character in the book. The beauty and wisdom of Galadriel were very important to the story. The Fellowship visit to Lothlorien was not emphaisized and Gladriel was not either. Why was that taken out? Wouldn't the role of women in the movie been advanced more by the portayal of such a strong, beautiful, wise woman? It wouldn't have been as appealing in the standard melodramatic hollywood way as the Liv Tyler love interest, but it would have been very interesting.
As to the Gandalf/Sauron angle, I think you mean Gandalf/Sarumen. It is a pitty it's not in ROTK, it was one of the more interesting parts of the story.
Wrong. The fans do not want to see more of Liv Tyler. Actually, I thought the emphasis of the romance between Arwen and Aragorn almost ruined it. The book didn't emphasis it at all, and the part about Elrond opposing the union... grrr.
Arwen did not play a big part in the books. I think they only reason that she's playing a big part in the movies is because she's being played by Liv Tyler. Yes, Liv is attractive, but for Christ's sake, these movies cost many millions of dollars to make. Do it right. If I want to see Liv Tyler, I'll look up some pics on the internet.
Sorry. Let me clarify myself. You are right that it would not be fair if musicians were not able to profit from the fruits of their labors. I just don't care if music executives and stockholders in record companies profit from the fruits of musicians labors.
It is true that people would continue to play music for the sake of playing music even without monetary compensation, but certainly good musicians should be able to make careers from their talent and hard work. I don't think that file sharing hurts that possibility.
First of all, if the music COMPANIES go out of business, then I don't really care. Musicians will still make music because they love to, not because they make money at it. They'll still make very good money by doing live performance like in the days before recording, but they'll be able to use digital recordings as an advertising vehicle. No Britney won't be making $40*10^6/yr, but who gives a fuck. Under that model, talented musicians would actually do better because more people would be able to listen to them.
As to movies... I don't know. I don't pirate movies, but I do think that if ANYTHING is beemed over public airwaves (the spectrum belongs to the people not to some few corporations), then it should be free to retransmit them for non-commercial use.
We have governments to protect against theft, murder, rape, etc. Governments also help to build big community oriented projects such as highways and bridges, and provide services to the community.
Governments are already serving both of those roles on the internet already. If my credit card info is stolen on-line, the FBI will try to track the criminal. Ditto for terrorists who try to organize on-line and pedophiliacs who try to lure kids on-line. Governments are also already providing on-line services (fcc, usps, etc).
There certainly are several things that have been ignored lately (abuse of DNS by a couple of major players), and perhaps ICANN should have a less corporate component (maybe representatives from major research universities), but putting the government in charge of the most innovative means of communication would be awful. It already spoon feeds us our TV and radio, and the governments of the world should keep their hands off the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Not all extreeme athletes expect to be bailed out. Aron Ralston was a rock climber who had a boulder land on his arm trapping him. Did he decide to lay there and die. No. He broke his arm and then cut it off with a dull knife in order to free himself. Not particularly relevant to the Jon Johansen case, but very impressive.
Not only that, he might get a nice bounty on the pelts from Gates and Co.
What about kiosk mode (I think that's what it's called) where a browser runs as a full screen app. Lots of businesses already run them. I'm sure that Netscape has been able to do this for a while...
I have no opinions about eMachines. I don't know much about them, but...
There is an easy way to resolve this conundrum...
Build your own system. You get to choose what components to put in. You know that everything is assembled properly. You're familiar with your machine, so if there's a problem, you can fix it easily. You usually save money.
I just put together a new machine: Athlon XP 2500+ 1 GB 333 MHz RAM Nice mboard (MSI KT4 w/audio, lan) Nice case w/550W very quiet power supply. I reused the sound card from my old machine (SoundBlaster Pro MP3+), and my friend gave me a video card he wasn't using (Radeon 9600) I assembled it, popped in the hard dive from my old machine, and it booted right up (I've since then reinstalled at my leisure).
Altogether, I spent $350. Sure, I could have saved some money if I'd gone with cheaper components, but I wanted to be confident in what went into my computer.
Assembling the machine wasn't a big deal at all, most of the work was doing the research to decide what I wanted, but you have to do that when you buy a full system, too.
The likelyhood of life elsewhere remains the same whether humans will ever be able to observe it or not. The likelihood of finding life is a different thing.
No that's not true. By "likelihood" of life elsewhere what we really mean is our best estimates of that likelihood. Those estimates really do change with the data.
In fact it is already a foregone conclusion whether life exists in the universe, but we don't know, so we can only speak probabilistically about it.
That's it! I'm forming a class-action suit on behalf of all broadcasters against remote control manufacturers under the auspices of the DMCA.
Better yet. Let's sue those evil people who put the channel up/down buttons on TVs at all. There should be only one channel, and if you don't like it, too fucking bad. You go to jail if you don't watch.
Now that I'm on a rampage, here, why don't we outlaw all websites except for one. Which one? This one!
Actually, I even skip the commercials when watching live TV without a DVR.
It's called changing the channel until the commercial is over!
Yeah. This seems like a teeribly awful patent. I guess if it were awarded, it would be difficult to abuse, but it should never be awarded at all.
I think that I remember a prof of mine talking about a class assignment he had either given or done in where the object was to write a program that could imitate author's styles...
I think that he said that there was good success.
The slashdot editors could liase with the patent examiners to try and formulate a better solution ;)
I know you were joking, but you actually might be on to something here.
One way to better weed out bogus patents or patents for which prior art exists is to involve the public more in the process. Perhaps, making all of the applications available on-line with a Slashdot type message board for a period of weeks or months before patent examiners get involved might allow the public to do some of the research which could help to lead the patent process in the right direction.
There would still be some bad patents slip through because of the sheer volume of applications, but how often have you seen a patent award posted to Slashdot only to see three great examples of prior art in the comments right away.
You're right. The university has every right to monitor usage...
And talented students and faculty have every right to attend other institutions that don't impose unreasonable restrictions.
Hmmmm. Interesting points. I rather agree about the importance of security w/respect to our important data. However, I'm not sure that problem here is really a matter of our systems being too complicated to handle. The problems of DOS attacks, identity theft, and personal privacy would support your points better.
The vote counting problem is actually quite easy to solve. Vote counting machines have no real need to be networked. We're not talking about internet voting here. A LAN to connect all of the machines at one polling place would be useful, but if there's not connected to the outside world, it should make security much easier. The real problem here is that there is no way for the voter to verify his/her own vote. For that we need a paper trail.
The real problem here is the amount of influence that big business has over government. The article refered to congressmen being overwhelmed by all of the bells and whistles of the the machines. The average congressman is not well enough informed to be able to distinguish the voting companies' lobbyists' propoganda from objective analysis.
Our legislators are too unqualified to make important decisions about many issues, from the environment to IP issues. I think we simply need more qualified legislators. Some of the most intelligent people in our country become doctors, lawyers, professors, or technical professionals. These jobs often pay more than governmental jobs without the hastles of election. The way these politician make real money is by working in industry after they retire/lose.
My proposal is this: Every congressman should be paid (tax free) $3*10^6/yr. Every senator should be paid $8*10^6/yr. The president should make $2*10^7/yr. These amounts are a pittance compared to the national budget that these people write every year. If it saves U.S. taxpayers 1% of the U.S. Budget, it will save more than 2*10^10 every year. Furthermore, senators, congressmen, and the president should not be allowed to spend their own money on campaigns. They should only be allowed to accept contributions from individuals (NOT corporations), and only from individuals that are registered to vote in their districts. Also, the spending limit for a campaign should be the yearly salary of that position. To prevent politicians from selling out to big corporations for promises of future gainful employment, they should not be allowed to hold jobs for corporations for 6 years after they retire/lose. The generous compensation they receive should more than make up for this restriction.
Also, before every election, there should be a flyer circulated by election official containing a resume for each candidate, and a one-page statement. That way, voters could have an opportunity to base their votes on something more than just twenty second sound bytes.
This system would guarantee the election of qualified people to govern with a minimum of influence from special interest groups and corporations. Of course, it's not realistic to implement. The average voter would be way too offended
Are there any production systems that use this canvassing process?
Better yet, any open source systems that use it?
Thanks! Good info.
I rather agree. I think that one of the points Carr was trying to make (I've only read summaries; I didn't download the PDF at $7) is that it's not always necessary to go balls-to-the-wall when setting up IT infrastructure. For instance, does the secretary really need a new Athlon-64 FX with 8 GB ram just to use Word to type letters for the Boss? How extensive an IT infrastruce does a dentist's office need? Tape back-up might be a more affordable solution than a NET APP.
When new high-tech solutions come out, they're more expensive and don't always have the bugs worked out. Hardware tends to be more expensive but few bugs. Software tends to have more bugs, but doesn't decrease in price. In either case, the amount that the new technology adds to productivity can be offset by the cost of the new hardware or the headaches of new bugs. Thus it is aften better to wait.
SCO has claimed that the GPL is invalid. Does anybody know what grounds this claim is made on?
I only know vague things McBride has said like a liscense is only binding if you pay for it? Does anyone know anything more detailed?
I live in a Rochester, New York, a fair sized city with a lot of light pollution and heavy cloud cover. I never get to see any good Celestial events.
I know it was imagined a long time ago (early 20th century I think), but I guess no one expected it to become a reality until recently. In 50 years, will people be writing about a space elevator as a Technological Flights Of Fancy That Fizzled?
If it does indeed become a relity, a space elevator would surely help space tourism and permanent space colonies to be realized as well.
Why is it not ethical? If she didn't want people to see her butt she should have worn a more loose garment or just stayed at home.
In grade/middle school some people resented me because of my grades/intelligence. You know what I did when I got picked on? I picked back. A witty remark will often slow a bully quite well. Sure, this isn't a very civilized situation, but who ever said that kids were civilized?
At least, there is no physical harm done in cyber-bullying. There's also no reasonable way to stop it. Shall we enact rules for school children that they never say anything that isn't nice on school time or off? Some of the examples amount to slander, and if they get particularly bad, you could bring a suit, but c'mon there are enough lawsuits now without every school child suing every other child for slander.
I realize that being made fun of isn't very pleasant, but that's something that kids have to deal with. Their parents should help put it in perspective.
I've heard the argument put forth that the Arwen/Aragorn love interest was played up to have more femal echaracters, but what about Galadriel?
She was easily the most compelling character in the book. The beauty and wisdom of Galadriel were very important to the story. The Fellowship visit to Lothlorien was not emphaisized and Gladriel was not either. Why was that taken out? Wouldn't the role of women in the movie been advanced more by the portayal of such a strong, beautiful, wise woman? It wouldn't have been as appealing in the standard melodramatic hollywood way as the Liv Tyler love interest, but it would have been very interesting.
As to the Gandalf/Sauron angle, I think you mean Gandalf/Sarumen. It is a pitty it's not in ROTK, it was one of the more interesting parts of the story.
Wrong. The fans do not want to see more of Liv Tyler. Actually, I thought the emphasis of the romance between Arwen and Aragorn almost ruined it. The book didn't emphasis it at all, and the part about Elrond opposing the union ... grrr.
Arwen did not play a big part in the books. I think they only reason that she's playing a big part in the movies is because she's being played by Liv Tyler. Yes, Liv is attractive, but for Christ's sake, these movies cost many millions of dollars to make. Do it right. If I want to see Liv Tyler, I'll look up some pics on the internet.
Sorry. Let me clarify myself. You are right that it would not be fair if musicians were not able to profit from the fruits of their labors. I just don't care if music executives and stockholders in record companies profit from the fruits of musicians labors.
It is true that people would continue to play music for the sake of playing music even without monetary compensation, but certainly good musicians should be able to make careers from their talent and hard work. I don't think that file sharing hurts that possibility.
First of all, if the music COMPANIES go out of business, then I don't really care. Musicians will still make music because they love to, not because they make money at it. They'll still make very good money by doing live performance like in the days before recording, but they'll be able to use digital recordings as an advertising vehicle. No Britney won't be making $40*10^6/yr, but who gives a fuck. Under that model, talented musicians would actually do better because more people would be able to listen to them.
... I don't know. I don't pirate movies, but I do think that if ANYTHING is beemed over public airwaves (the spectrum belongs to the people not to some few corporations), then it should be free to retransmit them for non-commercial use.
As to movies
We have governments to protect against theft, murder, rape, etc. Governments also help to build big community oriented projects such as highways and bridges, and provide services to the community.
Governments are already serving both of those roles on the internet already. If my credit card info is stolen on-line, the FBI will try to track the criminal. Ditto for terrorists who try to organize on-line and pedophiliacs who try to lure kids on-line. Governments are also already providing on-line services (fcc, usps, etc).
There certainly are several things that have been ignored lately (abuse of DNS by a couple of major players), and perhaps ICANN should have a less corporate component (maybe representatives from major research universities), but putting the government in charge of the most innovative means of communication would be awful. It already spoon feeds us our TV and radio, and the governments of the world should keep their hands off the internet.