LaTeX is fine, but not Maple/MATLAB. Why not teach Octave and r-project (stat like) instead? They're Free as in libre and more importantly (if $ is a problem), free as in $0. .
If MATLAB is what is being used on campus then MATLAB is what you teach.
I understand that the idea behind the huge penalties is to deter others, but it seems to me that there should (at the very least) be different levels of copyright infringement, piracy, etc. .
If your are the neighborhood provider - the enabler - how many of your friends are burning and retailing their own copies of that DVD-R?
$5 bucks in your pocket, $50 bucks in theirs.
When you come right down to it, it is a neat and profitable little swindle. Much cleaner and safer than trading in the retail boxes that "fell off a truck."
That is why damages are calculated according to a statutory formula and that is why they are meant to hurt.
It is also why the small-timer can find himself brought up on the criminal charge.
In almost all cases, such "piracy" doesn't constitute a lost sale. Either the "pirate" couldn't afford it anyway, or wouldn't buy it if she couldn't "pirate" it. Think students, working mums, etc. Not all of them are- but most. .
The PC game that sells for $60 today will be steeply discounted tomorrow.
Doesn't Activision have the right to recover their development costs and profit from the risk they took to produce the game?
NO. They have a right to TRY. .
If Activation fails to make a profit they have the right to abandon the market.
The small independent producer lives on even tighter margins - and doesn't have a significant backlist of titles to carry him through hard times.
And for Microsoft. Have you seen what their stock was worth once and what it's worth now? .
I'd say Microsoft is in a pretty good position to weather the financial storms:
High-profile exporters dependent on the market logged big losses. Sony plunged 10.7%, to 3,270 yen ($31.28), its lowest point since 2003; rival Nintendo slid by 6.9%, to 43,250 yenPanic Selling Eases By Day's End In Asia [Sept 18]
Every time someone buys a 360 MS makes no money on it. They actually lose money, same with Sony and the PS3, on the other hand Nintendo makes an instant $50 with every Wii console sold. .
It is never quite that simple.
Is Nintendo really netting $50 on each sale of the Wii? You also need to ask how many games are being sold for each system and what the return is there.
Nintendo has proven there is a market for a console one generation behind the XBox 360 and the PS3. But that could be a tougher sell the next time around.
I call Madden '97 to '08 a rip-off. My friends and I would much rather play NFL Blitz or Wayne Gretzky 3D hockey for the N64. These are games that are actually FUN, not just shiny. .
The hard core sports fan wants the game day experience.
Updated rules, stats, rosters, uniforms, stadiums and so on. You have to deliver the look and feel of the game as it plays out on HDTV.
Players are no longer locked into animations. Features of the new animation system include mid-air collisions, big-time, one-handed catches, hurdles, sideline catches and gang tackling. A new fatigue system has been implemented, disallowing users from taking a scrambling quarterback and repeatedly running around behind the line of scrimmage for very long gains. Fatigue also plays a factor when cold-weather teams play in hot weather during the early months of the season.Madden NFL 08
Madden 08 is available in Spanish - something I expect we will be seeing more often.
Apples and oranges. To be honest, I'm not completely sure I understand your point. .
The point is simple enough: before the mp3 the only practical portable media player is the Walkman cassette. The portable CD player is awkward and fragile.
The music almost certainly plays off a commercial cassette or CD.
I think it is more appropriate to blame a broken patent system than capitalism itself. Patents impede competition which is an important concept in capitalism.
.
and what competition was there for the Walkman cassette player before the introduction of the mp3?
Every time I convert someone to Ubuntu, the first thing I do is install the "illegal" mplayer codecs. The poor user will click on some file and get that god-awful "search for codecs" dialog. It makes them feel they are dealing with a lesser OS, because it doesn't "just work" like they've come to expect (of course, they usually didn't install Windows either or they'd know better). A boxed Ubuntu with all codecs for about $30 - $45 right next to the Windows Vista boxes (on sale for JUST $199!) would probably do quite well. Plus the word would start getting out how much easier it is to install and live with than Windows. .
The keyword here is "convert."
Because it implies that the user has an OEM Windows box - and a resident geek willing to install and configure Ubuntu.
The retail box is irrelevant.
The gold standard in the consumer market for damn near thirty years has been the OEM system install. This is never going to change.
I think it's an attack by people who figure that if they have too much of it that Wikipedia won't resemble an old media encylopedia. This argument is pretty stupid, given the nigh-unlimited space in their database .
There is no such thing as unlimited free bandwidth, storage, and processing.
64,000 fan-cruft pages translates to text and multimedia resources that could and should have allocated elsewhere.
What are the legalities of defacing the ID by removing the chip? .
The next time you cross the Peace Bridge into Buffalo let us know.
Personally, I suspect the friendly folks working border security will want to have a little chat with you --- while your car is being stripped down to its last rivet.
HR people are generally worthless and either do data entry for employee information or pretend to care while you complain at them, no real skills needed. .
Perhaps.
But hearing this this refrain echo and re-echo through these threads tends to reinforce the stereotype that the geek doesn't understand or respect "people skills."
By moving their data centers to floating barges in international waters, they are able to save money on taxes and electricity...as well as reside their operations outside the jurisdiction of governments. .
Since when did a barge floating offshore become a sovereign nation?
I wonder what further bad will come out of Mozilla being too corporate. It starts to look like an elegant way of getting a paycheck and less like about making a good browser. .
The Moz Foundation has been corporate from Day 1, beginning with an infusion of cash from AOL in 2003. In 2006 about 85% of its revenues came from its contract with Google - a hefty $57 million. Mozilla Foundation
I would like to see Linux marketing towards the unwashed masses decline. Fewer idiots using Linux means less dumbing down, less time spent by the developers explaining basic usage, and more time actually improving the product. The end result then becomes better for those who don't need their hand held. .
Spoken like a true Geek.
If there is anything the Linux developer does not need it is less communication and engagement with end users.
The problem is a recent study found a vast majority of people (somewhere around 80%) believe that you can text message 911 and you will receive emergency service .
Why not open the 911 service to text? Its advantages for the hearing impaired and others are obvious.
I remember all too well my own experience with what is described as "an ingested foreign object."
If more people would simply live closer to their workplaces (or telecommute) and ride bikes to work, we wouldn't have to worry about these hulking masses lumbering down the road. .
not every worker is a twenty-something geek, not every job puts you in a sleek glass tower and not every city has a climate as benign as southern California.
Students, by definition, are going to make some bad decisions along the way, and one of a university's jobs is to minimize the damage of those decisions so that a student can benefit from learning from their mistakes.
It's one of the reasons colleges like to have "campus police" rather than real police: keep everything "in the family" and out of the "rap sheets" where possible. .
It has been a very long time - an eon ago - since the campus cop has been anything less than the real thing.
Freshmen at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater have always spent their first few days on campus learning college survival - how to join the karate club, cheer like a Warhawk and find English 101. The school is one of about 500 around the country that have purchased "Shots Fired on Campus," a new video training program with tactics for surviving a mass-casualty shooting. It's the latest strategy for college officials who are preparing for the worst in the aftermath of shootings at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois and other universities.
Students hear creepy music and watch a chilling dramatization of a shooter roaming the halls. They learn to identify exit routes, when to barricade or hide, and when to attack a shooter using improvised weapons.Freshman 101: How to survive - and stop - a campus shooting
Students in the sixties began demanding they be treated like adults - and no more excuses - exemptions - for the brainiac or the jock. It is that side of the bargain the geek chooses to forget.
Slashdot Mirror
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If MATLAB is what is being used on campus then MATLAB is what you teach.
.
If your are the neighborhood provider - the enabler - how many of your friends are burning and retailing their own copies of that DVD-R?
$5 bucks in your pocket, $50 bucks in theirs.
When you come right down to it, it is a neat and profitable little swindle. Much cleaner and safer than trading in the retail boxes that "fell off a truck."
That is why damages are calculated according to a statutory formula and that is why they are meant to hurt.
It is also why the small-timer can find himself brought up on the criminal charge.
.
But how Nielsen organizes and interprets those facts may be. How it defines a broadcast market. How it defines a station's target audience.
The advertiser wants to know which FM stations own the drive time market in Miami. He doesn't give a damn if they have an out-of-town zip code.
.
The PC game that sells for $60 today will be steeply discounted tomorrow.
Far Cry $6.
Impatience and greed do not excuse theft.
The hardware requirements for Far Cry were not low end in 2004.
Which raises the interesting question of how your impecunious student or working mum was able to scrounge up the hardware needed to play it.
Eight of the top twenty-five Best Sellers in PC games at Amazon.com are pre-release.
Titles like Wrath of the Lich King and Fallout 3.
NO. They have a right to TRY.
.
If Activation fails to make a profit they have the right to abandon the market.
The small independent producer lives on even tighter margins - and doesn't have a significant backlist of titles to carry him through hard times.
.
I'd say Microsoft is in a pretty good position to weather the financial storms:
High-profile exporters dependent on the market logged big losses. Sony plunged 10.7%, to 3,270 yen ($31.28), its lowest point since 2003; rival Nintendo slid by 6.9%, to 43,250 yen Panic Selling Eases By Day's End In Asia [Sept 18]
Microsoft 4th quarter profit soars 42 percent; Office, Windows sales strong [July]
.
It is never quite that simple.
Is Nintendo really netting $50 on each sale of the Wii? You also need to ask how many games are being sold for each system and what the return is there.
Nintendo has proven there is a market for a console one generation behind the XBox 360 and the PS3. But that could be a tougher sell the next time around.
.
The hard core sports fan wants the game day experience.
Updated rules, stats, rosters, uniforms, stadiums and so on. You have to deliver the look and feel of the game as it plays out on HDTV.
Players are no longer locked into animations. Features of the new animation system include mid-air collisions, big-time, one-handed catches, hurdles, sideline catches and gang tackling. A new fatigue system has been implemented, disallowing users from taking a scrambling quarterback and repeatedly running around behind the line of scrimmage for very long gains. Fatigue also plays a factor when cold-weather teams play in hot weather during the early months of the season. Madden NFL 08
Madden 08 is available in Spanish - something I expect we will be seeing more often.
.
The point is simple enough: before the mp3 the only practical portable media player is the Walkman cassette. The portable CD player is awkward and fragile.
The music almost certainly plays off a commercial cassette or CD.
Winamp does not exist. Napster does not exist.
.
and what competition was there for the Walkman cassette player before the introduction of the mp3?
.
The keyword here is "convert."
Because it implies that the user has an OEM Windows box - and a resident geek willing to install and configure Ubuntu.
The retail box is irrelevant.
The gold standard in the consumer market for damn near thirty years has been the OEM system install. This is never going to change.
.
There is no such thing as unlimited free bandwidth, storage, and processing.
64,000 fan-cruft pages translates to text and multimedia resources that could and should have allocated elsewhere.
.
The next time you cross the Peace Bridge into Buffalo let us know.
Personally, I suspect the friendly folks working border security will want to have a little chat with you --- while your car is being stripped down to its last rivet.
.
It seems safe to assume that your do not live upstate.
The NEXUSborder ID card costs $50 and is acceptable at only about sixteen border crossings nation-wide. NEXUS
.
This isn't a gamer's PC - but this second generation TouchSmart PC suggests what is happening in OEM Vista:
64-Bit Vista is becoming mainstream. The dual or quad core CPU with 3 or 4 GB RAM has a presence at every price point above entry-level.
What interests me most is that NVIDIA's tech is backwards compatible to DX 7 - and designed for the wide screen - big screen - HDTV.
It puts the PC back into the family game room.
.
Perhaps.
But hearing this this refrain echo and re-echo through these threads tends to reinforce the stereotype that the geek doesn't understand or respect "people skills."
.
Since when did a barge floating offshore become a sovereign nation?
.
The Moz Foundation has been corporate from Day 1, beginning with an infusion of cash from AOL in 2003. In 2006 about 85% of its revenues came from its contract with Google - a hefty $57 million. Mozilla Foundation
.
Spoken like a true Geek.
If there is anything the Linux developer does not need it is less communication and engagement with end users.
.
The problem is that people want to learn different things.
PC gamers expect the OS to recede into the background so they can get on with the game.
They are interested in mastering Fallout 3 not the intricacies of getting the game to work under WINE or Caldega.
--- and when they are done with Fallout, they will be moving on to Warhead, Far Cry 2. The next big thing in Windows gaming, whatever that may be.
.
Why not open the 911 service to text? Its advantages for the hearing impaired and others are obvious.
I remember all too well my own experience with what is described as "an ingested foreign object."
.
The neanderthal geek of 1902 made a game of seeing how far and - need it be said? - how cheaply - the electric lines could take him:
a sack of nickels, a cast iron butt and bladder was all you needed to make the run from New York to Chicago.
The Portland Loop is eight miles.
In 1917 there were 45,000 miles of track - but the bloom was off the rose.
A Streetcar City
.
not every worker is a twenty-something geek, not every job puts you in a sleek glass tower and not every city has a climate as benign as southern California.
.
The cost of maintaining tracks, switches, overheads, etc., helped kill the streetcar. It's all over and above the expense of maintaining the road.
There was no simple or economical way to re-route lines or add new ones.
It's one of the reasons colleges like to have "campus police" rather than real police: keep everything "in the family" and out of the "rap sheets" where possible.
.
It has been a very long time - an eon ago - since the campus cop has been anything less than the real thing.
Freshmen at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater have always spent their first few days on campus learning college survival - how to join the karate club, cheer like a Warhawk and find English 101.
The school is one of about 500 around the country that have purchased "Shots Fired on Campus," a new video training program with tactics for surviving a mass-casualty shooting. It's the latest strategy for college officials who are preparing for the worst in the aftermath of shootings at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois and other universities.
Students hear creepy music and watch a chilling dramatization of a shooter roaming the halls. They learn to identify exit routes, when to barricade or hide, and when to attack a shooter using improvised weapons. Freshman 101: How to survive - and stop - a campus shooting
Students in the sixties began demanding they be treated like adults - and no more excuses - exemptions - for the brainiac or the jock. It is that side of the bargain the geek chooses to forget.