There are 50 million PS3 consoles out there. 70 millon PSN accounts. 17 million Playstation Home social networking accounts. 8 million MOVE controllers. This is the community that the geek pisses off so easily and it is huge and it is enraged.
there are enough fringe elements in the community to make us dangerous as a whole.
It seems well within the power of the finge elements within the geek community to destroy it as a whole.
The core market for the PS3 is the mddle class family.
The PS3 FAT based HPC cluster is for the research lab on a starvation budget.
The reason the lab is starving is because it can't persuade the middle class to subsidize the services it offers - and passing the costs on to Sony's consumer products and sales divsion doesn't go down any easier.
Which is why - if you have an once of sense - you keep these things under the radar.
The geek has an adolescent's sense of entitlement, self-importance - and invulnerability. He is - in his own mind, at least, Lex Luther and Superman combined. Who could be more anarchic and Libertarian than old Lex?
He is everything the middle class despises on the most elemental - visceral - level.
I honestly hope that when I need an x-ray they won't bother checking the amount of radiation I've received in the recent past. It's not like x-rays are a recreational occupation.
It is a question that can and should be asked when deciding whether the scan is necessary and appropriate.
(I) really would like to go there by bicycle (almost impossible to get in by car because they have barricaded off most of the area, but from what people have said, it's pretty easy to sneak in on foot or cycle).
Why are you trying to slip past the barricades?
Do you really want to be asked this question in a Japanese lock-up?
And so the era of mandatory "trusted computing" begins, kicked off, ironically, by Google. If you wish to consume licensed IP content on a device in your possession, then the content owners will determine what computing functions are allowed on such device.
Look around you.
Google didn't start this. Google is playing catch-up.
There isn't an HDTV set, home theater receiver, video game console, set-top box, smartphone or tablet on the market that doesn't offer its own suite of Internet apps.
Thirty percent of prime timedownload traffic in the states is a Netflix stream. If you do not support the licensed Internet radio and television services, you do not have a marketable product.
The "user experience" of the absolute novice is paramount -- sacrificing the simplicity and hackability of the system by the slightly more advanced user (all novice users will reach that stage eventually, remember!).
Not bloody likely.
The novice user is focused on applications. The OS is only the means to an end.
--- and that is what it will remain. He'll gain confidence and skill in the applications he needs to be productive - or in which he finds some entertainment.
But he will never be interested in spending any time under the hood.
Google understands this. Apple understands this. Microsoft understands this.
But the technical hobbyist, the enthusiast, who has driven the Linux client to a blistering 0.73% share of the North American desktop does not.
If a town wants to start a new bus line, or double the number of stops, or open a new school, or put water fountains on Main Street, they just hold a vote at a city council meeting.
The transit line needs vehicles, facilities and staffing.
It will cost millions in borrowed money and interest - before a single bus rolls out of the barn - and the project will go a public referendum, either because state law says it must or because any other course would be politically suicidal.
US cities are creatures of their states. Their freedom of action can be severely limited.
If a town wants to hang some antennas to offer a public amenity on Main Street, probably costing about as much as the water fountains, they gotta go through the equivalent of a consent decree.
Unless you can put real numbers to the cost of a project, you have nothing useful to say.
I fail to see how communities creating their own broad band in areas where commercial ISPs aren't willing to create the service is going to create an unfair advantage to those communities. The main motivation behind the bill is pandering to a greedy and incompetent telecommunications industry.
The motive for the bill is to make sure that cities do not bankrupt themselves on infrastruture they do not know how to build, cannot afford to build and cannot persuade the taxpayer to help subsidize through realistic increases in local sale taxes, property taxes and fees.
How is that different from cash? If I give you a $20, no one will know it happened except for us.
Until that $20 or $25,000 is spent on something that draws a lot of unwanted attention - like the BMW parked out front - or until someone (perhaps your wife) becomes aware that assets are disappearing from your accounts.
Why does an industry that offers so little in terms of value or innovation hold so much power over everyone? Why do we keep allowing these bullies to push us around?
Thirty percent of prime time Internet traffic in the states is a licensed Netflix stream.
That is one measure of value.
So how about about we cut through the crap here for once? P2P is all about the big media fix. The same content that fills the theaters and the DVD and Blu-Ray racks.
The difference is that the paying customer doesn't feel the need to bad-mouth the product.
The difference is that the paying customer has a voice - on which films should be pulled from the vaults for restoration, on which new projects should be green-lighted.
This is what I call the second Microsoft Tax. The first one is the extra ~$30-$60 you pay on your computer that goes to Microsoft for their OS (prices assume it's a new rig with the OEM version pre-installed).
By the time product reaches retail shelves, the economies of scale in producing and marketing the OEM Windows system erase whatever price advantage Linux might have,
The very idea of a "killer app" for Ubuntu is in many ways contrary to the idea of free/open software because such software can always be modified, forked, and/or ported.
Take this argument to its logical conclusion and there is no compelling reason for anyone to migrate to Linux as a client OS.
When the PC began to make its mark in the late seventies and early eighties, the first and most important lesson you learned was to choose your platform based on the programs you needed and wanted to run.
What does your Video game console connect to? How about your set top box? So when you plug all this stuff in to the HDTV, you just forget to plug the PC in? The only machine in the group that is a decent multimedia device, and you think it's sidelined?
The "Internet Enabled" HDTV has WiFI and Ethernet connectivity. It has its own suite of apps.
Netflix. Pandora. OnLive Gaming.
There are dozens more and there are more to come.
The set has optical or HDMI outputs for your sound bar or theater sound system. It may support a USB 3 or SATA HDD.
The "broadcast and Internet DVR" app.
The HDTV becomes the video game console, set top box, Internet radio or whatever you want to make of it.
There may be only one "daisy chained" HDMI cable and a single unified remote controller.
The system is effectively hacker-proof when its guts are inside an 85" wall mounted Panasonic.
--- and your wife and kids have the veto power here.
I'm thinking that there might be a good black market demand for good old fashioned, incandescent light bulbs...no IP addresses, nothing to monitor your use with....
Except the radiant heat of the bulb - and the fact that you are drawing down 300 watts instead of 30 to illuminate the same amount of space.
Gee, they actually made it MORE convenient and people are willing to pay for it. Compare this to what the movie/tv studios do on a regular basis. They make it harder to get the content and people tend to find alternative sources.
Hello!
The studios are the providers - Netflix is one of their licensed distributors.
Better still, the Netflix "app" is on the HDTV, video game console and set top box. The PC is sidelined and with it the BT client.
The terms "general Welfare" were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which Preceded; otherwise numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a Nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union, to appropriate its revenues shou'd have been restricted within narrower limits than the "General Welfare" and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition.
It is therefore of necessity left to the discretion of the National Legislature, to pronounce, upon the objects, which concern the general Welfare, and for which under that description, an appropriation of money is requisite and proper. And there seems to be no room for a doubt that whatever concerns the general Interests of learning of Agriculture of Manufactures and of Commerce are within the sphere of the national Councils as far as regards an application of Money.
The only qualification of the generallity of the Phrase in question, which seems to be admissible, is this--That the object to which an appropriation of money is to be made be General and not local; its operation extending in fact, or by possibility,* throughout the Union, and not being confined to a particular spot.
Think of infrastructure and economic development projects like the state-funded Erie Canal in the 1820s or the federally funded TVA in the 1930s. Once you demonstrate what can be done, you can do more.
The timing on this is almost as convenient as Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Julian Assange being arrested for sexual assault (the former right after he pulled decisively ahead of pro-American Nicolas Sarkozy in the polls...
When did Strauss-Kahn arrive in New York and how many people would know where he would be staying?
To make this work, you would need to know quite a lot about the organization, staffing and routine of the hotel.
The plan demands the successful bribery or coercion of a credible victim - in this case a veteran chamber maid with a nine year old daughter.
You have one chance to get this right or the next time you meet she will be wearing a wire.
It demands stagng the "assault" in a way that will convice the SVU - which is probably every bit as good as its fictional counterpart.
The FBI and anyone else likely to be drawn into a case involving a high-profie foreign diplomat.
There are no innocents, only those who are apathetic. If you're still putting money into Sony's pockets after the crap they've pulled then you are part of the problem and deserve to suffer along with Sony.
Among the 70 million PSN account holders there are, I would imagine, quite a few in a mood to rake the geek and the hacker over the coals.
Far from apathetic.
But simply sharing a different set of values and priorities.
Slashdot Mirror
The community is big, Sony is small
There are 50 million PS3 consoles out there. 70 millon PSN accounts. 17 million Playstation Home social networking accounts. 8 million MOVE controllers. This is the community that the geek pisses off so easily and it is huge and it is enraged.
there are enough fringe elements in the community to make us dangerous as a whole.
It seems well within the power of the finge elements within the geek community to destroy it as a whole.
The core market for the PS3 is the mddle class family.
The PS3 FAT based HPC cluster is for the research lab on a starvation budget.
The reason the lab is starving is because it can't persuade the middle class to subsidize the services it offers - and passing the costs on to Sony's consumer products and sales divsion doesn't go down any easier.
Which is why - if you have an once of sense - you keep these things under the radar.
The geek has an adolescent's sense of entitlement, self-importance - and invulnerability. He is - in his own mind, at least, Lex Luther and Superman combined. Who could be more anarchic and Libertarian than old Lex?
He is everything the middle class despises on the most elemental - visceral - level.
To forget that for one moment is suicidal.
I honestly hope that when I need an x-ray they won't bother checking the amount of radiation I've received in the recent past. It's not like x-rays are a recreational occupation.
It is a question that can and should be asked when deciding whether the scan is necessary and appropriate.
(I) really would like to go there by bicycle (almost impossible to get in by car because they have barricaded off most of the area, but from what people have said, it's pretty easy to sneak in on foot or cycle).
Why are you trying to slip past the barricades?
Do you really want to be asked this question in a Japanese lock-up?
And so the era of mandatory "trusted computing" begins, kicked off, ironically, by Google.
If you wish to consume licensed IP content on a device in your possession, then the content owners will determine what computing functions are allowed on such device.
Look around you.
Google didn't start this. Google is playing catch-up.
There isn't an HDTV set, home theater receiver, video game console, set-top box, smartphone or tablet on the market that doesn't offer its own suite of Internet apps.
Thirty percent of prime timedownload traffic in the states is a Netflix stream. If you do not support the licensed Internet radio and television services, you do not have a marketable product.
The "user experience" of the absolute novice is paramount -- sacrificing the simplicity and hackability of the system by the slightly more advanced user (all novice users will reach that stage eventually, remember!).
Not bloody likely.
The novice user is focused on applications. The OS is only the means to an end.
--- and that is what it will remain. He'll gain confidence and skill in the applications he needs to be productive - or in which he finds some entertainment.
But he will never be interested in spending any time under the hood.
Google understands this. Apple understands this. Microsoft understands this.
But the technical hobbyist, the enthusiast, who has driven the Linux client to a blistering 0.73% share of the North American desktop does not.
Me, I work at a different company, where we decided to treat employees like responsible adults.
How many employees are we talking about here and how exposed is your company to civil and criminal liability should anything go wrong?
If a town wants to start a new bus line, or double the number of stops, or open a new school, or put water fountains on Main Street, they just hold a vote at a city council meeting.
The transit line needs vehicles, facilities and staffing.
It will cost millions in borrowed money and interest - before a single bus rolls out of the barn - and the project will go a public referendum, either because state law says it must or because any other course would be politically suicidal.
US cities are creatures of their states. Their freedom of action can be severely limited.
If a town wants to hang some antennas to offer a public amenity on Main Street, probably costing about as much as the water fountains, they gotta go through the equivalent of a consent decree.
Unless you can put real numbers to the cost of a project, you have nothing useful to say.
I fail to see how communities creating their own broad band in areas where commercial ISPs aren't willing to create the service is going to create an unfair advantage to those communities. The main motivation behind the bill is pandering to a greedy and incompetent telecommunications industry.
The motive for the bill is to make sure that cities do not bankrupt themselves on infrastruture they do not know how to build, cannot afford to build and cannot persuade the taxpayer to help subsidize through realistic increases in local sale taxes, property taxes and fees.
If you're a gamer on a budget, or a college student on a budget, why are you buying a $699 PC?
It will be a laptop.
This is what $750 buys if you shop around a bit:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-RBDV7-4087CL/15746840
I don't understand how people aren't getting this..
It gets better.
The controllers work on both systems.
The retailer can point the student buyer or his parents to the dorm-room sized HDTV. The soundbar. The webcam for Skype...
3) Install Linux on the PC.
Not going to happen.
If you are a gamer on a budget Gog.com has 300 classic DOS and Windows games ready to run under Windows 7, none of them costing more than $10.
If you have student ID then Windows Academic Professional is $80 direct from Microsoft.com.
Expect steeply discounted academic upgrades to Windows 7 Pro, etc., as well.
Expect academic pricing elsewhere for any other must-have software. Expect anything of interest in FOSS to have long since been ported to Windows.
How is that different from cash? If I give you a $20, no one will know it happened except for us.
Until that $20 or $25,000 is spent on something that draws a lot of unwanted attention - like the BMW parked out front - or until someone (perhaps your wife) becomes aware that assets are disappearing from your accounts.
Why does an industry that offers so little in terms of value or innovation hold so much power over everyone? Why do we keep allowing these bullies to push us around?
Thirty percent of prime time Internet traffic in the states is a licensed Netflix stream.
That is one measure of value.
So how about about we cut through the crap here for once? P2P is all about the big media fix. The same content that fills the theaters and the DVD and Blu-Ray racks.
The difference is that the paying customer doesn't feel the need to bad-mouth the product.
The difference is that the paying customer has a voice - on which films should be pulled from the vaults for restoration, on which new projects should be green-lighted.
This is what I call the second Microsoft Tax. The first one is the extra ~$30-$60 you pay on your computer that goes to Microsoft for their OS (prices assume it's a new rig with the OEM version pre-installed).
By the time product reaches retail shelves, the economies of scale in producing and marketing the OEM Windows system erase whatever price advantage Linux might have,
Still, Childs was just plain stupid. He should have:
a) not admitted to having passwords, since he could have easily said that he forgot them since he no longer works there
Saying you can't remember. Saying you can't recall.
That will land you in the county lock-up until hell freezes over or your memory improves. Whichever comes first.
The geek should never tell a lie because he is no damn good at it.
Too many options is why I was drawn to Linux in the first place.
That is your inner geek speaking.
But it makes it mighty hard to build a client OS with mass market appeal.
Particularly if you think your future lies with the small, ultra-portable, mobile device and not the desktop.
The very idea of a "killer app" for Ubuntu is in many ways contrary to the idea of free/open software because such software can always be modified, forked, and/or ported.
Take this argument to its logical conclusion and there is no compelling reason for anyone to migrate to Linux as a client OS.
The numbers seem to bear this out: Top 20 countries by Linux market share
When the PC began to make its mark in the late seventies and early eighties, the first and most important lesson you learned was to choose your platform based on the programs you needed and wanted to run.
The "killer app" really does matter.
What does your Video game console connect to? How about your set top box? So when you plug all this stuff in to the HDTV, you just forget to plug the PC in? The only machine in the group that is a decent multimedia device, and you think it's sidelined?
The "Internet Enabled" HDTV has WiFI and Ethernet connectivity. It has its own suite of apps.
Netflix. Pandora. OnLive Gaming.
There are dozens more and there are more to come.
The set has optical or HDMI outputs for your sound bar or theater sound system. It may support a USB 3 or SATA HDD.
The "broadcast and Internet DVR" app.
The HDTV becomes the video game console, set top box, Internet radio or whatever you want to make of it.
There may be only one "daisy chained" HDMI cable and a single unified remote controller.
The system is effectively hacker-proof when its guts are inside an 85" wall mounted Panasonic.
--- and your wife and kids have the veto power here.
I'm thinking that there might be a good black market demand for good old fashioned, incandescent light bulbs...no IP addresses, nothing to monitor your use with....
Except the radiant heat of the bulb - and the fact that you are drawing down 300 watts instead of 30 to illuminate the same amount of space.
"What does your garden grow?"
doing nothing more than providing programming that I want over a pipe THAT I PAID FOR
What you paid for is residential broadband service at the mass market price.
The last mile and the first.
Gee, they actually made it MORE convenient and people are willing to pay for it. Compare this to what the movie/tv studios do on a regular basis. They make it harder to get the content and people tend to find alternative sources.
Hello!
The studios are the providers - Netflix is one of their licensed distributors.
Better still, the Netflix "app" is on the HDTV, video game console and set top box. The PC is sidelined and with it the BT client.
Most companies won't touch it...if they're running on Linux, they're going to go with a language that's native to the platform, like Java.
What maks JAVA any more "natively" Linux than .NET or Mono?
No. "General Welfare" is a term from contract law
In 1789?
This isn't how Hamilton understood its meaning:
The terms "general Welfare" were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which Preceded; otherwise numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a Nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union, to appropriate its revenues shou'd have been restricted within narrower limits than the "General Welfare" and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition.
It is therefore of necessity left to the discretion of the National Legislature, to pronounce, upon the objects, which concern the general Welfare, and for which under that description, an appropriation of money is requisite and proper. And there seems to be no room for a doubt that whatever concerns the general Interests of learning of Agriculture of Manufactures and of Commerce are within the sphere of the national Councils as far as regards an application of Money.
The only qualification of the generallity of the Phrase in question, which seems to be admissible, is this--That the object to which an appropriation of money is to be made be General and not local; its operation extending in fact, or by possibility,* throughout the Union, and not being confined to a particular spot.
Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures
*- emphasis added.
Think of infrastructure and economic development projects like the state-funded Erie Canal in the 1820s or the federally funded TVA in the 1930s. Once you demonstrate what can be done, you can do more.
The timing on this is almost as convenient as Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Julian Assange being arrested for sexual assault (the former right after he pulled decisively ahead of pro-American Nicolas Sarkozy in the polls...
When did Strauss-Kahn arrive in New York and how many people would know where he would be staying?
To make this work, you would need to know quite a lot about the organization, staffing and routine of the hotel.
The plan demands the successful bribery or coercion of a credible victim - in this case a veteran chamber maid with a nine year old daughter.
You have one chance to get this right or the next time you meet she will be wearing a wire.
It demands stagng the "assault" in a way that will convice the SVU - which is probably every bit as good as its fictional counterpart.
The FBI and anyone else likely to be drawn into a case involving a high-profie foreign diplomat.
There are no innocents, only those who are apathetic. If you're still putting money into Sony's pockets after the crap they've pulled then you are part of the problem and deserve to suffer along with Sony.
Among the 70 million PSN account holders there are, I would imagine, quite a few in a mood to rake the geek and the hacker over the coals.
Far from apathetic.
But simply sharing a different set of values and priorities.