...the 3d Xerox machine. How they could get the color of the fruit right but couldn't get out the taste of toner. Looks like we're getting one step closer to life imitating art.
Seems like you could make some really intricate hard candies with such a machine. It'd have to be cheaper, though.
That's a good point. The band's label did provide a marketing service, which has monetary value. But it's equally clear that the labels are charging an unreasonable amount for the service they're providing. For instance, charging mfg and dist for songs sold on itunes, which have no manufacturing costs and microscopic distribution costs.
So now we may be going too far the other way. (Or maybe not -- perhaps other types of marketing (example: viral) will replace traditional marketing.) In any case, artists may now be in a little better position to renegotiate their traditional contracts. I don't expect this development to completely break the chokehold the labels have on the industry, but it might cause some hasty changes.
If Comcast's solution fakes communication from one torrent client to another, wouldn't a straightforward workaround be to add authenticated messaging to torrent clients?
If my client would only respond to a "shut-off" directive if it could be authenticated against the credentials negotiated at the beginning of the session, it'd be a lot more difficult for Comcast to spoof it.
"And I suppose I could say that I'd personally like to see more of the different garbage dumps that just the one we saw in Sanford and Sons . But that would make me sound like a geek."
I suppose you could, but I'm not sure why you'd want to.
"The problem with making a Star Trek Babies movie is that there is absolutely NO THREAT to any of the characters."
Well, maybe. My understanding of the concept is that this Trek universe is supposed to have been really and truly rebooted, by Romulan time-travelers. The new franchise is supposed to be a different time stream, where (in theory) new things can happen.
Whether they actually take advantage of this, remains to be seen, of course. But Baby Rand, for instance, doesn't necessarily have to survive just because she has a bit part in Trek IV.
In fact, something they could do early in the franchise to establish the new continuity, is kill off an establish character, and choose some recognizable redshirt casualty and make them a recurring character.
I might say that I'd personally like to see more of the different types of craft in the Trek universe, less emphasis on Enterprise and it's sisters, but that would make me sound like a geek.
I'm wondering how many of the old cues they'll keep. Will we see a return to velour shirts and micro-minis? Not that there's anything bad about that (especially the latter) but I have to wonder how much the bridge will resemble a seventies disco.
Oh carp, I mean "A View to a Kill". "The Living Daylights" was ok as far as Bond films go, more closely following the original story than most of them.
This isn't relevant to the Trek reboot, of course, because there's no original novels to use as source, and... how do I say this politely?... novels written since vary, um, wildly in quality. I would rather see well-written, original stories within the Trek universe, with cues from past works instead of slavish devotion. Of course, we'll get what we get. Will have to wait and see.
Oh man, with all due respect, I have to disagree. Bond started sucking long before they ran out of Ian Flemming novels. Remember Moonraker? Octopussy? For Your Eyes Only? The (shudder) Living Daylights?
If Casino Royale is a true reboot, they're free to remake/update all those early Ian Flemming novels, do them in order, so the overall story arc (yes, there is one) makes sense, and, you know, make films that don't suck.
Understand completely. You're right, it's not 1966, or 1977, or 1987 or even 1993. I'm so horribly tired of Star Trek I can't even begin to express it.
Still... I was horribly tired of that campy travesty that was the James Bond franchise until reluctantly seeing Casino Royale. The approach was fresh enough that I actually had a good time and might even see the next film.
There's nothing really wrong with the Star Trek concept, it's been recent execution (movies and tv) that's been appallingly banal.
This franchise reboot could really suck -- it could do for the movies what Enterprise did for Trek on TV -- finally driving the last nail into a coffin that should have been inhumed a decade earlier.
And yet... And yet... With a fresh cast and decent writing, it could be decent. I'm not betting anything either way; just reserving judgement until the trailers start coming out.
"I wonder how much it costs to get this kind of thing done - I'd be happy to start a donation pool to round-up as much funding as it would take to get all these guys wiped out. Maybe that will be the trick, in the end? Make spamming too dangerous for anyone to risk getting involved?"
I bet you'd get lots of funding if you sent out a mass mailing.
When you remember the experience of listening to your favorite tune, isn't that a meat copy? Isn't playing a track at a party creating several copies of the work at varying fidelities, depending on the individual's ability to remember the experience (and how many drinks they've had)?
Clearly, after you listen to a tune, you should legally forget you've heard it, or pay an additional fee.
Violators will have to have their memories erased. Until they perfect that-there memory erasing drug currently being tested on mice, lobotomies will have to do.
There will be booths for this purpose at concert exits.
Admittedly, it's on the museum shelf next to the original red spiral bound 4.2 BSD manual. Unfortunately, the Pickett I had in high school disappeared years ago.
My freshman college math teacher used a Curta for routine calculations.
My entire 1974 tax return went into purchase of an HP 45. The slide rule didn't get much use after that, but I kept it around because it would work without batteries.
But seriously, regardless of what the actual mechanism is, what impact does this have in the business arena? Most of my work is done on network attach storage. Does this mean that while the system is playing a system noise or voicemail, access to my data is severely reduced? What if I don't *care* whether voicemail is of the highest fidelity, while I very emphatically care that access to NAS shares is unhindered?
Moreover, it seems to me that there is the potential of a deadly embrace if the sound being played is originating on the network, and the audio driver throttles back the network to preserve sound quality, which starves the driver, which throttles the network further, in a feedback loop. How does this issue manifest itself in netmeeting-like situations?
My place of employment has been avoiding Vista, so I don't have an opportunity to experiment with the above. What have others seen?
This is a little ironic considering I've just scrubbed KB929338 off a bunch of systems that suddenly (after an 3:00 AM drive-by update) started bluescreening and/or refusing to boot. But that probably didn't count as a virus in the stats.
> Actually we have already implemented that here in Ireland and I have to say as a consumer it's something I'm happy with. I pay an extra couple of cent or maybe a couple of euro on the big electric/electronic items and I get to have my old items disposed of correctly in a manner that is better for the environment.
It's a nice idea, but this is the US, and the way these thing usually work is that the tax is imposed, the money goes into the general fund, and that's it. No funds go towards the purported purpose of the tax, which in this case means there will still be no place to take my old computer gear except for the dump or that place over on the other side of the city where they refurbish stuff and give it to the poor.
To be honest, I fully expect a double whammy -- an e-fee on new purchases, and either a penalty or complete prohibition of disposal, which will be sold as the politicians "doing something about the problem". Computer stuff will just collect up in back yards like refrigerators do now.
The first thing I thought of when I saw this article is that I need to pull all the old stuff out of the attic and make a dump run while I still can.
SMOKING AFFECTS OTHER PEOPLE. There's this little thing called second-hand smoke. I seem to recall it being actually worse than first-hand smoke, since the first-hand smoker at least has a filter.
*I* seem to recall that the only study that came to this conclusion was actually a summation of several other statistics (some from questionable sources) and has since been disproven. (Although it seems Californians in particular tend to cling to factoids long after their use-by date.)
A little logic is sufficient to see the problems in the claim that second-hand smoke is more deadly than first-hand smoke (implying that the smoker somehow suffers less damage than the non-smokers nearby).
Even if you've never smoked, just by watching a smoker (if you can find one) you can immediately see that most of the smoke comes from the exhalation, which has indeed gone through the filter (and been filtered a second time by the smoker's lungs).
This leaves only the residual smoke coming from the tip that could put bystanders at higher risk than the smoker himself.
But, the smoker is geographically closest to his own cigarette, and it could reasonably be assumed that on the average, he inhales more of the residual (non-filtered) smoke than others in the same room.
So the smoker gets all of the smoke going through the filter (which is most of the smoke produced by the cigarette) and most of the small amount of residual smoke coming off the other end, and yet, the smoker's wife sitting on the other end of the couch is at greater risk?
So, like, she could start smoking, and use her own lit cigarette as a kind of gas mask to avoid the residual fumes from his cigarette, and be healthier?
Why would someone run Genuine Advantage on a copy they knew was non-genuine?
I've had two failures -- one on a previously registered system after a motherboard replacement, and one on a new thinkpad when I tried to activate the pre-installed copy with the license key on the bottom of the unit. Both took calls to Microsoft to correct. In the first case, I had to explain why the hardware had changed, and assure the operator that I was not trying to install the same copy on a second machine. The second time we never did figure out what was wrong, and, after taking the serial number of the laptop, the operator eventually gave me a new license key. I always wondered whether those two GA failures counted as non-genuine copies.
About Vista putting applications in a reduced functionality mode, doesn't XP already do that? I've seen Windows Automatic Update break my Media Center, my workstation and my daughter's laptop. This week, Internet Explorer (version 6) has, for unknown reasons, suddenly started taking a minute and a half to load Yahoo, vs less than 5 seconds for Firefox.
Seems to me that Windows has been "putting applications in reduced functionality mode" for a very long time. I think the only difference is that with Vista they'd be doing it intentionally.
I'd rather see SCO lose the court battle first, laying their spurious claims forever at rest, and *then* go bankrupt. I'm concerned that some black hat might buy-out their IP and renew the harassment, perhaps with greater resources. (Not naming any naMeS here...)
About once a month Verizon calls my home to promote FIOS. Apparently the no-call list doesn't apply if you do business with the vendor. (I get my land line from Verizon.) The salescreature usually waxes enthusiastic about the performance of FIOS, and I have to wait for him to wind down before I can get a question in edgewise. My question is always: Can I continue to use my current ISP? (I have DSL, but with an alternate carrier because Verizon charges an unreasonable price for a static IP.) The answer (so far) is always no, I have to use the one Verizon assigns me. I then ask what the price per month is for a static ip. The answer (so far) is always about 2.5 times what I'm paying now.
I'd like FIOS. A friend has it and loves it. But until they either open it up to other ISPs or provide a competitive price for static IPs, I'll have to stick to what I have. Too bad, as I'm also interested in FIOS TV as a replacement for our elderly DirecTV setup, but until they budge on the network issue, I won't be budging on the TV issue.
I agree that we would prefer informed decisions, but the assumption that your voting neighbors are more informed is often going to be false. So many are woefully ignorant of the actual issues -- else why is the last-minute hyperbole effective?
Even if you don't know everything about every issue, there's probably some issues or offices you do know enough about. I tend to leave blank the issues or offices about which I can't scrape together an opinion. That's usually confined to vague local offices with candidates I've never heard of.
"But many movie executives and industry experts are beginning to conclude that something more fundamental is at work: too many Hollywood movies these days, they say, just are not good enough."
Slashdot Mirror
Seems like you could make some really intricate hard candies with such a machine. It'd have to be cheaper, though.
It's been done...
That's a good point. The band's label did provide a marketing service, which has monetary value. But it's equally clear that the labels are charging an unreasonable amount for the service they're providing. For instance, charging mfg and dist for songs sold on itunes, which have no manufacturing costs and microscopic distribution costs.
So now we may be going too far the other way. (Or maybe not -- perhaps other types of marketing (example: viral) will replace traditional marketing.) In any case, artists may now be in a little better position to renegotiate their traditional contracts. I don't expect this development to completely break the chokehold the labels have on the industry, but it might cause some hasty changes.
If Comcast's solution fakes communication from one torrent client to another, wouldn't a straightforward workaround be to add authenticated messaging to torrent clients?
If my client would only respond to a "shut-off" directive if it could be authenticated against the credentials negotiated at the beginning of the session, it'd be a lot more difficult for Comcast to spoof it.
Ron
"And I suppose I could say that I'd personally like to see more of the different garbage dumps that just the one we saw in Sanford and Sons . But that would make me sound like a geek."
I suppose you could, but I'm not sure why you'd want to.
"The problem with making a Star Trek Babies movie is that there is absolutely NO THREAT to any of the characters."
Well, maybe. My understanding of the concept is that this Trek universe is supposed to have been really and truly rebooted, by Romulan time-travelers. The new franchise is supposed to be a different time stream, where (in theory) new things can happen.
Whether they actually take advantage of this, remains to be seen, of course. But Baby Rand, for instance, doesn't necessarily have to survive just because she has a bit part in Trek IV.
In fact, something they could do early in the franchise to establish the new continuity, is kill off an establish character, and choose some recognizable redshirt casualty and make them a recurring character.
I might say that I'd personally like to see more of the different types of craft in the Trek universe, less emphasis on Enterprise and it's sisters, but that would make me sound like a geek.
I'm wondering how many of the old cues they'll keep. Will we see a return to velour shirts and micro-minis? Not that there's anything bad about that (especially the latter) but I have to wonder how much the bridge will resemble a seventies disco.
"The (shudder) Living Daylights?"
Oh carp, I mean "A View to a Kill". "The Living Daylights" was ok as far as Bond films go, more closely following the original story than most of them.
This isn't relevant to the Trek reboot, of course, because there's no original novels to use as source, and... how do I say this politely?... novels written since vary, um, wildly in quality. I would rather see well-written, original stories within the Trek universe, with cues from past works instead of slavish devotion. Of course, we'll get what we get. Will have to wait and see.
Oh man, with all due respect, I have to disagree. Bond started sucking long before they ran out of Ian Flemming novels. Remember Moonraker? Octopussy? For Your Eyes Only? The (shudder) Living Daylights?
If Casino Royale is a true reboot, they're free to remake/update all those early Ian Flemming novels, do them in order, so the overall story arc (yes, there is one) makes sense, and, you know, make films that don't suck.
Understand completely. You're right, it's not 1966, or 1977, or 1987 or even 1993. I'm so horribly tired of Star Trek I can't even begin to express it.
Still... I was horribly tired of that campy travesty that was the James Bond franchise until reluctantly seeing Casino Royale. The approach was fresh enough that I actually had a good time and might even see the next film.
There's nothing really wrong with the Star Trek concept, it's been recent execution (movies and tv) that's been appallingly banal.
This franchise reboot could really suck -- it could do for the movies what Enterprise did for Trek on TV -- finally driving the last nail into a coffin that should have been inhumed a decade earlier.
And yet... And yet... With a fresh cast and decent writing, it could be decent. I'm not betting anything either way; just reserving judgement until the trailers start coming out.
"I wonder how much it costs to get this kind of thing done - I'd be happy to start a donation pool to round-up as much funding as it would take to get all these guys wiped out. Maybe that will be the trick, in the end? Make spamming too dangerous for anyone to risk getting involved?"
I bet you'd get lots of funding if you sent out a mass mailing.
Wait a minute...
Well, it's good because I'm receiving less spam. I'd think that was obvious.
Clearly, after you listen to a tune, you should legally forget you've heard it, or pay an additional fee.
Violators will have to have their memories erased. Until they perfect that-there memory erasing drug currently being tested on mice, lobotomies will have to do.
There will be booths for this purpose at concert exits.
Ron
A more apt parallel might be with attempts to shut down used CD stores.
Wow, think of all the PC hardware and Windows sales he's thwarted.
Ron
My freshman college math teacher used a Curta for routine calculations.
My entire 1974 tax return went into purchase of an HP 45. The slide rule didn't get much use after that, but I kept it around because it would work without batteries.
But seriously, regardless of what the actual mechanism is, what impact does this have in the business arena? Most of my work is done on network attach storage. Does this mean that while the system is playing a system noise or voicemail, access to my data is severely reduced? What if I don't *care* whether voicemail is of the highest fidelity, while I very emphatically care that access to NAS shares is unhindered?
Moreover, it seems to me that there is the potential of a deadly embrace if the sound being played is originating on the network, and the audio driver throttles back the network to preserve sound quality, which starves the driver, which throttles the network further, in a feedback loop. How does this issue manifest itself in netmeeting-like situations?
My place of employment has been avoiding Vista, so I don't have an opportunity to experiment with the above. What have others seen?
This is a little ironic considering I've just scrubbed KB929338 off a bunch of systems that suddenly (after an 3:00 AM drive-by update) started bluescreening and/or refusing to boot. But that probably didn't count as a virus in the stats.
It's a nice idea, but this is the US, and the way these thing usually work is that the tax is imposed, the money goes into the general fund, and that's it. No funds go towards the purported purpose of the tax, which in this case means there will still be no place to take my old computer gear except for the dump or that place over on the other side of the city where they refurbish stuff and give it to the poor.
To be honest, I fully expect a double whammy -- an e-fee on new purchases, and either a penalty or complete prohibition of disposal, which will be sold as the politicians "doing something about the problem". Computer stuff will just collect up in back yards like refrigerators do now.
The first thing I thought of when I saw this article is that I need to pull all the old stuff out of the attic and make a dump run while I still can.
Ron
*I* seem to recall that the only study that came to this conclusion was actually a summation of several other statistics (some from questionable sources) and has since been disproven. (Although it seems Californians in particular tend to cling to factoids long after their use-by date.)
A little logic is sufficient to see the problems in the claim that second-hand smoke is more deadly than first-hand smoke (implying that the smoker somehow suffers less damage than the non-smokers nearby).
Even if you've never smoked, just by watching a smoker (if you can find one) you can immediately see that most of the smoke comes from the exhalation, which has indeed gone through the filter (and been filtered a second time by the smoker's lungs).
This leaves only the residual smoke coming from the tip that could put bystanders at higher risk than the smoker himself.
But, the smoker is geographically closest to his own cigarette, and it could reasonably be assumed that on the average, he inhales more of the residual (non-filtered) smoke than others in the same room.
So the smoker gets all of the smoke going through the filter (which is most of the smoke produced by the cigarette) and most of the small amount of residual smoke coming off the other end, and yet, the smoker's wife sitting on the other end of the couch is at greater risk?
So, like, she could start smoking, and use her own lit cigarette as a kind of gas mask to avoid the residual fumes from his cigarette, and be healthier?
Ron
I've had two failures -- one on a previously registered system after a motherboard replacement, and one on a new thinkpad when I tried to activate the pre-installed copy with the license key on the bottom of the unit. Both took calls to Microsoft to correct. In the first case, I had to explain why the hardware had changed, and assure the operator that I was not trying to install the same copy on a second machine. The second time we never did figure out what was wrong, and, after taking the serial number of the laptop, the operator eventually gave me a new license key. I always wondered whether those two GA failures counted as non-genuine copies.
Ron
Seems to me that Windows has been "putting applications in reduced functionality mode" for a very long time. I think the only difference is that with Vista they'd be doing it intentionally.
Ron
I'd rather see SCO lose the court battle first, laying their spurious claims forever at rest, and *then* go bankrupt. I'm concerned that some black hat might buy-out their IP and renew the harassment, perhaps with greater resources. (Not naming any naMeS here...)
I'd like FIOS. A friend has it and loves it. But until they either open it up to other ISPs or provide a competitive price for static IPs, I'll have to stick to what I have. Too bad, as I'm also interested in FIOS TV as a replacement for our elderly DirecTV setup, but until they budge on the network issue, I won't be budging on the TV issue.
Ron
I agree that we would prefer informed decisions, but the assumption that your voting neighbors are more informed is often going to be false. So many are woefully ignorant of the actual issues -- else why is the last-minute hyperbole effective?
Even if you don't know everything about every issue, there's probably some issues or offices you do know enough about. I tend to leave blank the issues or offices about which I can't scrape together an opinion. That's usually confined to vague local offices with candidates I've never heard of.
Ron
A blinding flash of the obvious.
Ron