According to the report, Japan's article output rose at an average annual rate of 3.1 percent, five times faster than the United States.
The European Union, which passed the U.S. several years ago in total numbers of articles published, posted an average annual growth rate of 2.8 percent during the same period, more than four times faster than the United States.
Law of diminishing returns my ass. And this plateu began to occur in the 90s? Would that be the late 90s? Would that be right before the Fundy/faux-Conservative/Anti-Intellectual revolution in politics occurred in the US? Massive sweeping tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% (most importantly corporations) does tend to dampen scientific development; so does cutting the programs that rely on those tax dollars for funding. Unbridled, shameless bedsharing between corporations and educational institutions resulting in patents instead of universally accessible scientific results also tends to suffocate collaboration (i.e. scientific progress).
If anything, the rapid proliferation of computer, network, and storage technologies should have made the 200X years a blockbuster decade for science and technology in the US. But sadly my friends, when you ignore politics...or live in a country ignorant enough to vote extremists into office...you will see very real effects down the road. The only bright side to having that clown in the whitehouse and his cronies in power is that a great deal of money (read massive debt that you and your children will have the responsibility of paying down over decades) went into defense related research and development. Historically, those technologies will eventually migrate back into civilian hands.
Can't you store off peak power, and then use it during peak times? People just aren't committed to the (expensive) environment....
"no... try to guess how huge a battery you'd have to have to store the energy you consume during one day;-)"
Actually you can.
I researched this several years ago when I was designing an "off the grid" home. One solution is based on the flywheel. The idea is to pour a very heavy, precisely balanced, cylinder of concrete and bury it underground near the foundation of the home. The cylinder is then suspended on magnetic bearings and uses magnetic induction to store electricity in the form of rotational kinetic energy. This stored energy could then be withdrawn from the flywheel by reversing the magnetic induction effect to induce current. Devices like these have been in use for several years now at large industrial facilities. They are usually employed as a UPS(Uninterruptible power supply) in the event of a blackout.
The only problem with these devices besides the cost of installation is the need for ground stability. So in this case, many Californians near a faultline would find this solution impractical.
House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) was quoted as saying, 'If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act.'
A Republican from Texas is threatening broke college students; go figure. Can't we just give this state (especially the folks living in Crawford) back to Mexico?
Democrats need to be very very careful with DRM and associating with the **AAs. The last 7 years have made me hate the Republican party enough to never vote Red again in my life...and I used to be a Republican (in college when I was clueless about the real world, and didn't have the ability to forsee how the republican party has annihilated the middle class over the last 7 years).
Bottom line, if the Dems go hard with DRM I will go with the independents and libertarians...regardless of whether this gives the Republicans an edge...I will not support a DRM friendly party that puts the rights of corporations over individual human rights. For Christ's sake Democrats are suppost the represent us...the people...corporate interests should always come second to any true Democrat in office.
Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one.
Yep, I've been an AMD fan for the last 8 years, the C2D chips have had me on the fence...but reading this has cinched the deal for me. It will be years before I buy another AMD/ATI product for my home PCs...and I've bought at least 10 AMD CPUs in the past 8 years. Note to manufacturers: go with DRM and you will lose your core customers...and that negativity will filter to forums, IRC, word of mouth etc. I don't just buy CPUs for myself, I give advice to dozens of people like my girlfriend, family, friends, etc. because I'm the 'computer guy'. If the 'computer guy' says 'AMD sucks, you'll be much happier with an Intel chip', they listen.
Sorry Pal: There's nothing to care about. Night. Always. Out THERE. No Princess Lea and no life, no hope no understanding. No 'people' ---no emotion. Nothing nada nix nyet. No one drop of life. Utter emptiness after 13.7 billion years and nothing to show for it, but a couple weakly bent 4-dim tensor fields and... us. Better pop that Coors' Lite, pal, cause it's gonna be a long day.
hahaha, sorry you got modded as flamebait 'cause that's some funny stuff.
Stop writing misleading headlines like these just to grap page-views, a lot of us happen to actually care about stuff like SETI and don't appreciate the run-around.
Could this be the new backbone of the mobile effort?
God I hope so, we all know how pitiful the state of broadband is in the US...DSL is cramped(it's a twisted pair of two copper wires) and the cable companies are acting like the greedy pigs they are(expensive, anti-upstream, abusive).
The consumer is desperate for an alternative. Without competition we might as well be living in Communist Russia. Just look at AMD vs. Intel, or nVidia vs. ATI....that is how innovation happens.
This is something we've been waiting for for far too long. Broadband is probably the single-most important innovation of the last 10 years, and it's also one of the most stagnant(especially in the US). We desperately need a new competitor in this market.
The Westinghouse LVM-37W3 is hands down the best widescreen gaming monitor for less than $1000 available today. I have owned the previous model, a Westinghouse LVM-37w1, for a year now and it's fantastic for gaming. No pixel-lag or ghosting at all, vibrant colors, quick response time while playing shooters, lots and lots of screenspace for extra chat/UI windows while playing MMOGs, etc.
I use this monitor with my PC and it's the ideal screen-size for my viewing distance of 6'. I lean back on a reclining chair and put my feet up on my desk displacing my eyes about 6' from the center of the screen. Here's a good view distance calculator to determine the ideal screen size for your use case.
Notable Specs:
Contrast Ratio 1000:1 Response Time 8 ms
2 years ago specs like that were unheard of for a large LCD. When I bought mine last year the price was roughly $1,700...now you can get a superior model for $800! Amazing.
If you want HDTV, buy a separate and easily replaceable tuner. That way when the mafia...errr MPAA and FCC...finally implement HDCP it will be easier to circumvent.
I am an older man (44), an avid fan of video games, and I am faced with a problem; my hands are becoming arthritic as I get older. I fear I will soon have to completely give up the console games I have loved over the years. To that end, let me ask the Slashdot Nation -- if you were going to give it up, what games would you insist on playing before you had to quit? I'm willing to make some effort to do this, and spend some cash; I will buy the new consoles if I need to, or try to find obscure titles.
I think you'll find there are many gems you've missed over the years which you can still play quite comfortably.
I would highly recommend buying or building a PC (dump the console), and installing emulators for the following systems:
Apple IIgs, Commodore 64, Atari ST, DOS, Amiga, etc.
There are many wonderful games with rich gameplay for these platforms, and they will be much easier on your arthritis. Old classics like The Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Master of Magic, Master of Orion, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Dungeon Master, Ultima V, Nethack, Zork, etc. will all be much easier on your fingers than a console controller...and they all have rich gameplay. You're an older guy, so play like a grown-up and and give up the eye-candy...look under the surface...these games were designed with care and I think you'll be very satisfied with them. In my book gameplay is 10 times more important than graphics, and there have been some wonderful classics written over the last 25 years.
I would also recommend anything from the TBS (turn-based-strategy) genre where player speed isn't a factor. The Civilization games by Sid Meier are a good example.
Many politicians don't understand the technology issues that could affect government IT schemes
Actually, most politicians...or more specifically their interns and advisers...are very knowledgeable about information technology. It's a tool that allows millions of people to share information quickly and easily. The internet is the most empowering democratic tool in history.
That's why most politicians are doing everything they can to stifle, suffocate, and regulate the internet into something that no longer threatens them. Look at how the current administration is using the FCC for instance...net neutrality anyone?
journalism should not be equated with activism. The inverse is also true. A journalist's function is not to opine, to analyze, or to lobby. It is to inform - to go places I can't and collect information I might find useful, without violating any standards of ethics, law, decency, or essential privacy.
I agree that journalistic integrity is a difficult issue. But even the most renowned journalists look for stories that resonate with them personally; that's how they decide if a story is worth telling. They also tell news in such a way that attempts to instigate change. A good example of this was Edward R. Murrow who directly challenged Senator Joseph McCarthy on national television. (If anyone is interested in this story, you might enjoy Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005) )
"During this time people in a variety of situations, primarily those employed in government, in the entertainment industry or in education, were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before various government or privately run panels, committees and agencies. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment, destruction of their careers, and even imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts that would later be overturned, laws that would later be declared unconstitutional, dismissals for reasons that would be later declared illegal or actionable, or extra-legal procedures that would later come into general disrepute."
The tipping point of McCarthy's censure started with one journalist speaking his conscience.
This does not take into account the bogosity of your cause and its methods. You'd like me to burn a personal day that I might need later to protest and hopefully shorten the presidency of a lame duck? With whom would he be replaced? Given the chain of succession, we would replace Bush with Cheney. Is that a desirable goal? Suppose Bush and Cheney both go? Condoleeza Rice? That might work, but if the "World Can't Wait for regime change", where are you going to dig up the shadow government with which to replace the current POTUS and VPOTUS (and Cabinet)? I'm sorry, but we don't have a true parliamentary system. There are no replacements to be had. We're still two years away from electing them.
The primary aim of this demonstration is to bolster support for the upcoming house and senate elections on November 7th.
Because this article is about Citizen Journalism, I'd like to perform a civil action and report to those of you who may not be aware of a significant upcoming event. This coming Thursday, October 5th, there will be a national walkout/strike/protest demonstrating against the Bush administration.
These demonstrations are being held in almost every major city in the United States on the same day, If you are interested please read this website for more details. Here is a listing of local events if you are interested in attending. Please join us on October 5th.
Mods, considering the nature of this thread topic (growing "citizen journalism" movement) please be kind.
Physics and AI coprocessors are 2 years too late - with the increasing availability of dual core processors in even midrange consumer systems now, and quad core on the horizon, engineering time is much better spent on making an app multithreaded so that it runs efficiently on hyperthreaded and dual core machines
I agree that multithreaded game engines are probably the wave of the future, but I would still love to see these physics and AI co-processors integrated onto video cards. Expecting gamers to pay $200 for a PCIe physics card, and another $200 on a PCIe AI card is obviously not going to fly.
Solution:
1) Don't make a separate card 2) License these chips to nVidia or ATI so they can place the chips directly onto their video cards. Then bundle the drivers with the graphics driver download, and work with Microsoft to ensure that the next version of DirectX supports these new features. 3) If that's not feasible (video card is too bulky, not enough bandwidth through the single PCIe16 or PCIe32 slot, etc.), then integrate the physics and AI chips onto motherboards specifically designed for gamers. 4) As a last resort, get the physics and AI guys together so they can release a single card that's reasonably priced...and make sure they work closely with Microsoft for DirectX support.
We need GPUs because graphics processing is highly parallelized, something which is terribly innefficient on general purpose CPUs. In the same way, if physics and AI processing can benefit dramatically from a specialized architecture then it makes sense to build these chips. Even a high-end quad core CPU can't compete with a 32 pipeline graphics card.
How do you create a market for a product, and make money of a product that has a huge initial creative investment, but then no manufacturing cost, and is in infinite supply?
Viral marketing. Case in point:
1) Valve software releases Half-Life in 1998, a successful single-player FPS/RPG. 2) Half-Life sells relatively well, recouping initial creative investment costs. 3) The Half-Life engine is designed in a modular and highly modifiable way, allowing enthusiasts to create mods like counter-strike and day-of-defeat. 4) About 10 times the number of people who bought half-life for the single-player experience are now buying half-life simply to play counter-strike with their friends. 5) Massive and totally unexpected profit
So here's an example of a product that was developed well(good software practice, open standards, extensibility, etc.) that made enough money in the initial selling not to cause a panic...but ended up making a fortune after modifications made by players and enthusiasts requiring people to buy the game in order to play the mods. The hysteria following the counter-strike phenomenon also fueled tremendous hype and marketing clout for the release of Half-Life II.
So, Valve built their game to be open and modifiable and that decision ended up rewarding them ten times over, and none of that was by way of planning...it just happened naturally (i.e. the market recognized the product's value and Valve was rewarded).
In the same way, if something like Napster was still around and people could download music without fear of the RIAA many old and new bands would get lots more publicity and exposure to the younger generations and they'd be selling out concert venues left and right. It used to be that the radio and records were designed to entice people to go see live performances, the RIAA has almost killed that through DRM. The same thing may very well happen to video if the MPAA continues to emulate the RIAA. Word of mouth about talented actors and directors will be more and more stifled as less people are inclined to risk being disappointed again by another bad movie. The MPAA can always secure the right to show films in a theatre, so why not allow people to trade DVDs and.MPGs before the theatre release in order to increase word of mouth(more viral marketing) so that friends will tell friends how great a certain film is? Then when it opens next week, there will be lots and lots of people who've heard all about it and can't wait to see it on the big screen.
Ultimately the biggest problem is that companies have undervalued the power of word-of-mouth, something which is becoming more and more important with blogs, youtube, e-mail etc. Spending a bunch of cash to generate marketing hype about products that must be good because so much money was spent making them is absurd. Many consumers are exhausted by the empty hype and continuous disappointment of seeing movie after movie that doesn't deliver what they expected based on previews. These industries need to dramatically decrease the ammount of money they spend on ads and instead use those funds to support newer and more risky ventures. Valve discovered a gold-mine by accident by simply doing the right thing(opening their product to free modification), and there are plenty of other unforseen opportunities like that just waiting to happen. Companies need to be more open, more trusting of consumers(which actually become producers if you let them), and more willing to take risks if they want to hit it big. DRM stifles their ability to do so in almost every way, and creates a great deal of customer dissatisfaction with the company and the product (impressions like that don't go away easily, and do in fact hurt sales).
Doing this for software or games today is a more difficult problem however. In a sense if 40% of the people using your software pirated it, then you are still benefitting from viral marketing and wor
Does anybody outside of Microsoft actually care about Vista? WinXP is fairly stable, it runs all the software (or nearly all of it) developed for every version of Windows since Win95.
Unfortunately the next version of DirectX will only be released for Vista. That means that any new games using later versions of DirectX will require you to shell out the $399US for Vista in order to play the game.
It's a play right out of the abusive monopoly handbook.
And what civil liberty is that? No, really, I want to know.
"This is the internet equivalent of:"
I wasn't claiming any direct detraction of civil liberties, though threatening one of the most important forums of public discourse certainly qualifies in my book.
While I am sounding cautionary notes about new legislation, let me make clear that if broadband providers engage in anticompetitive conduct, we will not hesitate to act using our existing authority,' she said. 'But I have to say, thus far, proponents of Net neutrality regulation have not come to us to explain where the market is failing or what anticompetitive conduct we should challenge.'
This is the internet equivalent of:
We're going to take away your civil liberties, and if you want them back the burden of proof that they've been violated is on you.
It's sad that most Christians base their faith on The Bible and not the teachings of Christ. This is the same problem Fundamentalist Muslims are suffering from...they confuse the Qur'an(and subsequent mistranslations and commentaries) with the spiritual message of Mohammed. Both Mohammed and Jesus promoted love, tolerance, forgiveness, and understanding. None of which is in conflict with science(the pursuit of truth).
If the direct teachings of these prophets were the focus of religious organizations(instead of using scriptures to control their followers through fear), science would be embraced by the world religions rather than shunned by it.
Slashdot Mirror
Well...I'm rooting for MS on this one. Some 3rd world countries have better wireless broadband access than we do.
The telecom and cable monopolies are holding the FCC in their pockets and stifling innovation.
According to the report, Japan's article output rose at an average annual rate of 3.1 percent, five times faster than the United States.
The European Union, which passed the U.S. several years ago in total numbers of articles published, posted an average annual growth rate of 2.8 percent during the same period, more than four times faster than the United States.
Law of diminishing returns my ass. And this plateu began to occur in the 90s? Would that be the late 90s? Would that be right before the Fundy/faux-Conservative/Anti-Intellectual revolution in politics occurred in the US? Massive sweeping tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% (most importantly corporations) does tend to dampen scientific development; so does cutting the programs that rely on those tax dollars for funding. Unbridled, shameless bedsharing between corporations and educational institutions resulting in patents instead of universally accessible scientific results also tends to suffocate collaboration (i.e. scientific progress).
If anything, the rapid proliferation of computer, network, and storage technologies should have made the 200X years a blockbuster decade for science and technology in the US. But sadly my friends, when you ignore politics...or live in a country ignorant enough to vote extremists into office...you will see very real effects down the road. The only bright side to having that clown in the whitehouse and his cronies in power is that a great deal of money (read massive debt that you and your children will have the responsibility of paying down over decades) went into defense related research and development. Historically, those technologies will eventually migrate back into civilian hands.
Can't you store off peak power, and then use it during peak times? People just aren't committed to the (expensive) environment. ...
;-)"
"no...
try to guess how huge a battery you'd have to have to store the energy you consume during one day
Actually you can.
I researched this several years ago when I was designing an "off the grid" home. One solution is based on the flywheel. The idea is to pour a very heavy, precisely balanced, cylinder of concrete and bury it underground near the foundation of the home. The cylinder is then suspended on magnetic bearings and uses magnetic induction to store electricity in the form of rotational kinetic energy. This stored energy could then be withdrawn from the flywheel by reversing the magnetic induction effect to induce current. Devices like these have been in use for several years now at large industrial facilities. They are usually employed as a UPS(Uninterruptible power supply) in the event of a blackout.
The only problem with these devices besides the cost of installation is the need for ground stability. So in this case, many Californians near a faultline would find this solution impractical.
House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) was quoted as saying, 'If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act.'
A Republican from Texas is threatening broke college students; go figure. Can't we just give this state (especially the folks living in Crawford) back to Mexico?
I am a strong believer in the importance of copyright, especially in a digital age.
Well, he just lost my vote. Let's see if Al (yes he's running) or Hillary make the same mistake.
Democrats need to be very very careful with DRM and associating with the **AAs. The last 7 years have made me hate the Republican party enough to never vote Red again in my life...and I used to be a Republican (in college when I was clueless about the real world, and didn't have the ability to forsee how the republican party has annihilated the middle class over the last 7 years).
Bottom line, if the Dems go hard with DRM I will go with the independents and libertarians...regardless of whether this gives the Republicans an edge...I will not support a DRM friendly party that puts the rights of corporations over individual human rights. For Christ's sake Democrats are suppost the represent us...the people...corporate interests should always come second to any true Democrat in office.
Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one.
Yep, I've been an AMD fan for the last 8 years, the C2D chips have had me on the fence...but reading this has cinched the deal for me. It will be years before I buy another AMD/ATI product for my home PCs...and I've bought at least 10 AMD CPUs in the past 8 years. Note to manufacturers: go with DRM and you will lose your core customers...and that negativity will filter to forums, IRC, word of mouth etc. I don't just buy CPUs for myself, I give advice to dozens of people like my girlfriend, family, friends, etc. because I'm the 'computer guy'. If the 'computer guy' says 'AMD sucks, you'll be much happier with an Intel chip', they listen.
Can AMD screw up any worse?
Well, at least something good came from Katrina.
Sorry Pal: There's nothing to care about. Night. Always. Out THERE. No Princess Lea and no life, no hope no understanding. No 'people' ---no emotion. Nothing nada nix nyet. No one drop of life. Utter emptiness after 13.7 billion years and nothing to show for it, but a couple weakly bent 4-dim tensor fields and ... us. Better pop that Coors' Lite, pal, cause it's gonna be a long day.
hahaha, sorry you got modded as flamebait 'cause that's some funny stuff.
OK no offense, but this is bullshit.
Stop writing misleading headlines like these just to grap page-views, a lot of us happen to actually care about stuff like SETI and don't appreciate the run-around.
Tell the President there's oil on the ISS.
haha, would so mod you up if I had the points.
Could this be the new backbone of the mobile effort?
God I hope so, we all know how pitiful the state of broadband is in the US...DSL is cramped(it's a twisted pair of two copper wires) and the cable companies are acting like the greedy pigs they are(expensive, anti-upstream, abusive).
The consumer is desperate for an alternative. Without competition we might as well be living in Communist Russia. Just look at AMD vs. Intel, or nVidia vs. ATI....that is how innovation happens.
This is something we've been waiting for for far too long. Broadband is probably the single-most important innovation of the last 10 years, and it's also one of the most stagnant(especially in the US). We desperately need a new competitor in this market.
Damn straight, information wants to be free!
How did Slashdot get so incredibly populated with noobs?
EMULATORS
I'd ask you to look the word up on wikipedia, but you've probably never heard of that either.
RIP SD
The Westinghouse LVM-37W3 is hands down the best widescreen gaming monitor for less than $1000 available today. I have owned the previous model, a Westinghouse LVM-37w1, for a year now and it's fantastic for gaming. No pixel-lag or ghosting at all, vibrant colors, quick response time while playing shooters, lots and lots of screenspace for extra chat/UI windows while playing MMOGs, etc.
I use this monitor with my PC and it's the ideal screen-size for my viewing distance of 6'. I lean back on a reclining chair and put my feet up on my desk displacing my eyes about 6' from the center of the screen. Here's a good view distance calculator to determine the ideal screen size for your use case.
Notable Specs:
Contrast Ratio 1000:1
Response Time 8 ms
2 years ago specs like that were unheard of for a large LCD. When I bought mine last year the price was roughly $1,700...now you can get a superior model for $800! Amazing.
If you want HDTV, buy a separate and easily replaceable tuner. That way when the mafia...errr MPAA and FCC...finally implement HDCP it will be easier to circumvent.
More information here
I am an older man (44), an avid fan of video games, and I am faced with a problem; my hands are becoming arthritic as I get older. I fear I will soon have to completely give up the console games I have loved over the years. To that end, let me ask the Slashdot Nation -- if you were going to give it up, what games would you insist on playing before you had to quit? I'm willing to make some effort to do this, and spend some cash; I will buy the new consoles if I need to, or try to find obscure titles.
I think you'll find there are many gems you've missed over the years which you can still play quite comfortably.
I would highly recommend buying or building a PC (dump the console), and installing emulators for the following systems:
Apple IIgs, Commodore 64, Atari ST, DOS, Amiga, etc.
There are many wonderful games with rich gameplay for these platforms, and they will be much easier on your arthritis. Old classics like The Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Master of Magic, Master of Orion, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Dungeon Master, Ultima V, Nethack, Zork, etc. will all be much easier on your fingers than a console controller...and they all have rich gameplay. You're an older guy, so play like a grown-up and and give up the eye-candy...look under the surface...these games were designed with care and I think you'll be very satisfied with them. In my book gameplay is 10 times more important than graphics, and there have been some wonderful classics written over the last 25 years.
I would also recommend anything from the TBS (turn-based-strategy) genre where player speed isn't a factor. The Civilization games by Sid Meier are a good example.
Good luck.
Many politicians don't understand the technology issues that could affect government IT schemes
Actually, most politicians...or more specifically their interns and advisers...are very knowledgeable about information technology. It's a tool that allows millions of people to share information quickly and easily. The internet is the most empowering democratic tool in history.
That's why most politicians are doing everything they can to stifle, suffocate, and regulate the internet into something that no longer threatens them. Look at how the current administration is using the FCC for instance...net neutrality anyone?
journalism should not be equated with activism. The inverse is also true. A journalist's function is not to opine, to analyze, or to lobby. It is to inform - to go places I can't and collect information I might find useful, without violating any standards of ethics, law, decency, or essential privacy.
I agree that journalistic integrity is a difficult issue. But even the most renowned journalists look for stories that resonate with them personally; that's how they decide if a story is worth telling. They also tell news in such a way that attempts to instigate change. A good example of this was Edward R. Murrow who directly challenged Senator Joseph McCarthy on national television. (If anyone is interested in this story, you might enjoy Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005) )
"During this time people in a variety of situations, primarily those employed in government, in the entertainment industry or in education, were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before various government or privately run panels, committees and agencies. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment, destruction of their careers, and even imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts that would later be overturned, laws that would later be declared unconstitutional, dismissals for reasons that would be later declared illegal or actionable, or extra-legal procedures that would later come into general disrepute."
The tipping point of McCarthy's censure started with one journalist speaking his conscience.
This does not take into account the bogosity of your cause and its methods. You'd like me to burn a personal day that I might need later to protest and hopefully shorten the presidency of a lame duck? With whom would he be replaced? Given the chain of succession, we would replace Bush with Cheney. Is that a desirable goal? Suppose Bush and Cheney both go? Condoleeza Rice? That might work, but if the "World Can't Wait for regime change", where are you going to dig up the shadow government with which to replace the current POTUS and VPOTUS (and Cabinet)? I'm sorry, but we don't have a true parliamentary system. There are no replacements to be had. We're still two years away from electing them.
The primary aim of this demonstration is to bolster support for the upcoming house and senate elections on November 7th.
Because this article is about Citizen Journalism, I'd like to perform a civil action and report to those of you who may not be aware of a significant upcoming event. This coming Thursday, October 5th, there will be a national walkout/strike/protest demonstrating against the Bush administration.
These demonstrations are being held in almost every major city in the United States on the same day, If you are interested please read this website for more details. Here is a listing of local events if you are interested in attending. Please join us on October 5th.
Mods, considering the nature of this thread topic (growing "citizen journalism" movement) please be kind.
Thankyou.
Physics and AI coprocessors are 2 years too late - with the increasing availability of dual core processors in even midrange consumer systems now, and quad core on the horizon, engineering time is much better spent on making an app multithreaded so that it runs efficiently on hyperthreaded and dual core machines
I agree that multithreaded game engines are probably the wave of the future, but I would still love to see these physics and AI co-processors integrated onto video cards. Expecting gamers to pay $200 for a PCIe physics card, and another $200 on a PCIe AI card is obviously not going to fly.
Solution:
1) Don't make a separate card
2) License these chips to nVidia or ATI so they can place the chips directly onto their video cards. Then bundle the drivers with the graphics driver download, and work with Microsoft to ensure that the next version of DirectX supports these new features.
3) If that's not feasible (video card is too bulky, not enough bandwidth through the single PCIe16 or PCIe32 slot, etc.), then integrate the physics and AI chips onto motherboards specifically designed for gamers.
4) As a last resort, get the physics and AI guys together so they can release a single card that's reasonably priced...and make sure they work closely with Microsoft for DirectX support.
We need GPUs because graphics processing is highly parallelized, something which is terribly innefficient on general purpose CPUs. In the same way, if physics and AI processing can benefit dramatically from a specialized architecture then it makes sense to build these chips. Even a high-end quad core CPU can't compete with a 32 pipeline graphics card.
How do you create a market for a product, and make money of a product that has a huge initial creative investment, but then no manufacturing cost, and is in infinite supply?
.MPGs before the theatre release in order to increase word of mouth(more viral marketing) so that friends will tell friends how great a certain film is? Then when it opens next week, there will be lots and lots of people who've heard all about it and can't wait to see it on the big screen.
Viral marketing. Case in point:
1) Valve software releases Half-Life in 1998, a successful single-player FPS/RPG.
2) Half-Life sells relatively well, recouping initial creative investment costs.
3) The Half-Life engine is designed in a modular and highly modifiable way, allowing enthusiasts to create mods like counter-strike and day-of-defeat.
4) About 10 times the number of people who bought half-life for the single-player experience are now buying half-life simply to play counter-strike with their friends.
5) Massive and totally unexpected profit
So here's an example of a product that was developed well(good software practice, open standards, extensibility, etc.) that made enough money in the initial selling not to cause a panic...but ended up making a fortune after modifications made by players and enthusiasts requiring people to buy the game in order to play the mods. The hysteria following the counter-strike phenomenon also fueled tremendous hype and marketing clout for the release of Half-Life II.
So, Valve built their game to be open and modifiable and that decision ended up rewarding them ten times over, and none of that was by way of planning...it just happened naturally (i.e. the market recognized the product's value and Valve was rewarded).
In the same way, if something like Napster was still around and people could download music without fear of the RIAA many old and new bands would get lots more publicity and exposure to the younger generations and they'd be selling out concert venues left and right. It used to be that the radio and records were designed to entice people to go see live performances, the RIAA has almost killed that through DRM. The same thing may very well happen to video if the MPAA continues to emulate the RIAA. Word of mouth about talented actors and directors will be more and more stifled as less people are inclined to risk being disappointed again by another bad movie. The MPAA can always secure the right to show films in a theatre, so why not allow people to trade DVDs and
Ultimately the biggest problem is that companies have undervalued the power of word-of-mouth, something which is becoming more and more important with blogs, youtube, e-mail etc. Spending a bunch of cash to generate marketing hype about products that must be good because so much money was spent making them is absurd. Many consumers are exhausted by the empty hype and continuous disappointment of seeing movie after movie that doesn't deliver what they expected based on previews. These industries need to dramatically decrease the ammount of money they spend on ads and instead use those funds to support newer and more risky ventures. Valve discovered a gold-mine by accident by simply doing the right thing(opening their product to free modification), and there are plenty of other unforseen opportunities like that just waiting to happen. Companies need to be more open, more trusting of consumers(which actually become producers if you let them), and more willing to take risks if they want to hit it big. DRM stifles their ability to do so in almost every way, and creates a great deal of customer dissatisfaction with the company and the product (impressions like that don't go away easily, and do in fact hurt sales).
Doing this for software or games today is a more difficult problem however. In a sense if 40% of the people using your software pirated it, then you are still benefitting from viral marketing and wor
Does anybody outside of Microsoft actually care about Vista? WinXP is fairly stable, it runs all the software (or nearly all of it) developed for every version of Windows since Win95.
Unfortunately the next version of DirectX will only be released for Vista. That means that any new games using later versions of DirectX will require you to shell out the $399US for Vista in order to play the game.
It's a play right out of the abusive monopoly handbook.
And what civil liberty is that?
No, really, I want to know.
"This is the internet equivalent of:"
I wasn't claiming any direct detraction of civil liberties, though threatening one of the most important forums of public discourse certainly qualifies in my book.
While I am sounding cautionary notes about new legislation, let me make clear that if broadband providers engage in anticompetitive conduct, we will not hesitate to act using our existing authority,' she said. 'But I have to say, thus far, proponents of Net neutrality regulation have not come to us to explain where the market is failing or what anticompetitive conduct we should challenge.'
This is the internet equivalent of:
We're going to take away your civil liberties, and if you want them back the burden of proof that they've been violated is on you.
Science threatens their faith.
It's sad that most Christians base their faith on The Bible and not the teachings of Christ. This is the same problem Fundamentalist Muslims are suffering from...they confuse the Qur'an(and subsequent mistranslations and commentaries) with the spiritual message of Mohammed. Both Mohammed and Jesus promoted love, tolerance, forgiveness, and understanding. None of which is in conflict with science(the pursuit of truth).
If the direct teachings of these prophets were the focus of religious organizations(instead of using scriptures to control their followers through fear), science would be embraced by the world religions rather than shunned by it.