The problem of useless data does not scale with available storage space. Either there is useful information in the data or there isn't, it doesn't matter what it's stored on. And remember that data processing speed is also increasing along with storage capacity, and new data-mining techniques are being invented.
Since I don't accept point 1, this is less of a problem. Also, there are applications whose usefulness scales pretty closely with the raw quantity of data that can be stored, like scientific/medical imaging.
Again with point 1: The characteristics of data are not connected to how much of it there is or what it's stored on. Either the government will violate your privacy or it won't; it doesn't matter if your phone logs are stored on data cubes or hard disks or magnetic tape or punch cards. (It may affect for how long these hypothetical phone records are retained, but from a privacy point of view the damage would already be done.)
Not really... Any medium can be economically used to back up any media with higher price per capacity. We're pretty close to the point where it's cheaper to buy a 300G hard disk than 500 CDRs and back up your primary disk to that monster repeatedly. Also, increasing capacity per cost encourages redundancy in storage solutions.
Remember, this is slashdot, where technological progress is always a good thing, unless it makes DRM possible:P
Is a hologram 3D? It's just a flat piece of plastic. All else being equal, if your eyes see two different images with proper parallax it is indistinguishable from seeing into a 3D space.
No, the technology is not perfect, and it's not up to the computers in the Final Fantasy movie yet, but it does what it claims to do.
I think the fuzziness of the server/domain connection in general makes this objection difficult to justify. Is there really any way to tell how many other domains are hosted by the server behind a given domain? Even an IP check is not 100% reliable on multihomed servers. The domain is the entity visible to the rest of the 'net and for everyone besides the server admin it really has no effect on the surfer experience.
And how would you classify a piece of IBM big iron running a whole bunch of different OS instances?:P
From the developer's perspective, ideal DRM (if I can use that expression around here without getting stoned to death) would be provided by a third party. You'd just have to budget enough RAM and CPU to run it on top of your other planned features.
Even if we accept your statement that the cost of copying existing music is zero, the cost of creating new music (necessary to avoid complete stagnation, unless you suggest everyone get into classical) is not zero. Your suggested sale price for music (and total income for the distributor and artist) is zero. Something's going to have to give here, and it's not going to be the fixed costs.
Music does NOT have zero cost of production. Songs don't grow on trees, the master still has to be produced. Even with completely digital mixing and distribution, you have to pay for studio time and for food to keep the artists alive. You can see it as a one-time cost amortized over every sale of the song if you want. And making a digital copy doesn't cost zero either. The ITMS still requires bandwidth, disk space, electricity, and staff.
You can play ITMS songs backwards in the quicktime player, I just tried it (authorization is per-computer, not just in iTunes). As I said, I personally have *never* been inconvenienced by iTunes telling me I can't do something. And, as 500 other posts have said, if you don't like the restrictions iTunes places, you can still burn it to an unrestricted redbook CD.
I agree completely that the RIAA is out of control, but it's NOT going to be replaced by completely unrestricted MP3 distribution. Giving away music for free or allowing it to be downloaded off Kazaa is not a workable business model and anyone trying to make a living off their music is going to charge money for it, whether it's the RIAA or an independent artist selling through iTunes.
Your post, on the other hand, is saying "I won't buy a car because I can't drive it on the sidewalk." The limitations Apple put on iTunes are extremely reasonable and do not interfere with 99% of fair use exercise. If the ITMS dies, the online music business dies with it and the RIAA will own the remaining CD industry forever.
It also looks like it's much taller than a wheelchair. A person unable to walk or stand would probably also be unable to get on or off of the robot without human assistance.
Yes, why don't we replaced a centralized, self-contained system with one that involves thousands of anonymous Internet users. That's much more secure and accountable.
The first problem I see with that is that any object approaching the speed of light (or even a velocity low enough for interplanetary travel within the system) in a gaseous medium would be vaporized rather quickly. Also, even given the above, the Star Wars galaxy appears to be immune to time distortion. And that's not counting other problems like vaporizing planets or the Force.
It's called fiction because it's not real and probably never will be. Sometimes excessively tortured rationalization is worse than "it's just a movie".
You can't ask that the computer beat Kasparov 100% of the time for the same reason you can't guarantee 100% uptime. If the computer beats him the majority of the time over n matches for large n, the computer would be better than Kasparov's average game, and that's good enough for the record.
Although, as was pointed out in the Go thread, computers are getting faster at a far greater rate than grandmasters are getting smarter.
And thanks to those early breakthroughs, you can buy a self-contained monkey collision simulator unit for about $100 these days. Ah, the wonders of technology.
Forget the frog-boiling analogies: Are you being FORCED to buy an HDTV? Is anyone? If the demand isn't there, the companies have no leverage.
Anyone who buys an HDTV (and doesn't return it once they discover its limits) is happy with it. Anyone who doesn't use an HDTV has something they prefer to HD-quality TV shows (like being able to record them). If group B is much larger than group A, game over and we stick with NTSC.
Energy is equivalent to WORK. Information is a static property of a configuration of elements.
What's going on here is a circuit implementation detail. In a normal chip, when you have a bit set to 1 and a bit set to 0 and you flip them both, the bit set to 0 is charged with fresh energy from the power supply and the energy in the bit set to 1 is converted to heat. In this proposed system, the charges would be moved from the 1 to the 0 with no loss and no additional draw on the power supply. Less work, same informational content.
Slashdot Mirror
- The problem of useless data does not scale with available storage space. Either there is useful information in the data or there isn't, it doesn't matter what it's stored on. And remember that data processing speed is also increasing along with storage capacity, and new data-mining techniques are being invented.
- Since I don't accept point 1, this is less of a problem. Also, there are applications whose usefulness scales pretty closely with the raw quantity of data that can be stored, like scientific/medical imaging.
- Again with point 1: The characteristics of data are not connected to how much of it there is or what it's stored on. Either the government will violate your privacy or it won't; it doesn't matter if your phone logs are stored on data cubes or hard disks or magnetic tape or punch cards. (It may affect for how long these hypothetical phone records are retained, but from a privacy point of view the damage would already be done.)
- Not really... Any medium can be economically used to back up any media with higher price per capacity. We're pretty close to the point where it's cheaper to buy a 300G hard disk than 500 CDRs and back up your primary disk to that monster repeatedly. Also, increasing capacity per cost encourages redundancy in storage solutions.
Remember, this is slashdot, where technological progress is always a good thing, unless it makes DRM possibleIs a hologram 3D? It's just a flat piece of plastic. All else being equal, if your eyes see two different images with proper parallax it is indistinguishable from seeing into a 3D space.
No, the technology is not perfect, and it's not up to the computers in the Final Fantasy movie yet, but it does what it claims to do.
Halo had a buggy that resembled the final version (and the Nemesis version) in 1999, and had been in development for a year or two.
I think the fuzziness of the server/domain connection in general makes this objection difficult to justify. Is there really any way to tell how many other domains are hosted by the server behind a given domain? Even an IP check is not 100% reliable on multihomed servers. The domain is the entity visible to the rest of the 'net and for everyone besides the server admin it really has no effect on the surfer experience.
:P
And how would you classify a piece of IBM big iron running a whole bunch of different OS instances?
I hope so, it would cut down on bankruptcy and encourage people to spend only money they actually have.
From the developer's perspective, ideal DRM (if I can use that expression around here without getting stoned to death) would be provided by a third party. You'd just have to budget enough RAM and CPU to run it on top of your other planned features.
I said copies, not music.
::bangs head on table::
Either you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how music production works, or you're stuck in some moneyless sci-fi utopia. I give up.
Even if we accept your statement that the cost of copying existing music is zero, the cost of creating new music (necessary to avoid complete stagnation, unless you suggest everyone get into classical) is not zero. Your suggested sale price for music (and total income for the distributor and artist) is zero. Something's going to have to give here, and it's not going to be the fixed costs.
Music does NOT have zero cost of production. Songs don't grow on trees, the master still has to be produced. Even with completely digital mixing and distribution, you have to pay for studio time and for food to keep the artists alive. You can see it as a one-time cost amortized over every sale of the song if you want. And making a digital copy doesn't cost zero either. The ITMS still requires bandwidth, disk space, electricity, and staff.
You can play ITMS songs backwards in the quicktime player, I just tried it (authorization is per-computer, not just in iTunes). As I said, I personally have *never* been inconvenienced by iTunes telling me I can't do something. And, as 500 other posts have said, if you don't like the restrictions iTunes places, you can still burn it to an unrestricted redbook CD.
I agree completely that the RIAA is out of control, but it's NOT going to be replaced by completely unrestricted MP3 distribution. Giving away music for free or allowing it to be downloaded off Kazaa is not a workable business model and anyone trying to make a living off their music is going to charge money for it, whether it's the RIAA or an independent artist selling through iTunes.
Your post, on the other hand, is saying "I won't buy a car because I can't drive it on the sidewalk." The limitations Apple put on iTunes are extremely reasonable and do not interfere with 99% of fair use exercise. If the ITMS dies, the online music business dies with it and the RIAA will own the remaining CD industry forever.
It also looks like it's much taller than a wheelchair. A person unable to walk or stand would probably also be unable to get on or off of the robot without human assistance.
Yes, why don't we replaced a centralized, self-contained system with one that involves thousands of anonymous Internet users. That's much more secure and accountable.
One game does not make a game studio.
Correct. The Marathon and Myth series had already made the studio.
The first problem I see with that is that any object approaching the speed of light (or even a velocity low enough for interplanetary travel within the system) in a gaseous medium would be vaporized rather quickly. Also, even given the above, the Star Wars galaxy appears to be immune to time distortion. And that's not counting other problems like vaporizing planets or the Force.
It's called fiction because it's not real and probably never will be. Sometimes excessively tortured rationalization is worse than "it's just a movie".
Question: When will Kasparov play his best game?
Answer: Next time.
You can't ask that the computer beat Kasparov 100% of the time for the same reason you can't guarantee 100% uptime. If the computer beats him the majority of the time over n matches for large n, the computer would be better than Kasparov's average game, and that's good enough for the record.
Although, as was pointed out in the Go thread, computers are getting faster at a far greater rate than grandmasters are getting smarter.
"Aw, man... 500,000 channels and only 150 of them have anything good on."
No, everyone has a HUGE list of businesses they complain about on Slashdot and do business with anyway.
And thanks to those early breakthroughs, you can buy a self-contained monkey collision simulator unit for about $100 these days. Ah, the wonders of technology.
It was not decentralized. iTunes has no search ability; people were using sites publishing lists of iTunes streams to share music.
Duh... THE WORLD.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - the free software model was found dead in its Maine home this morning...
Forget the frog-boiling analogies: Are you being FORCED to buy an HDTV? Is anyone? If the demand isn't there, the companies have no leverage.
Anyone who buys an HDTV (and doesn't return it once they discover its limits) is happy with it. Anyone who doesn't use an HDTV has something they prefer to HD-quality TV shows (like being able to record them). If group B is much larger than group A, game over and we stick with NTSC.
Energy is equivalent to WORK. Information is a static property of a configuration of elements.
What's going on here is a circuit implementation detail. In a normal chip, when you have a bit set to 1 and a bit set to 0 and you flip them both, the bit set to 0 is charged with fresh energy from the power supply and the energy in the bit set to 1 is converted to heat. In this proposed system, the charges would be moved from the 1 to the 0 with no loss and no additional draw on the power supply. Less work, same informational content.
What is the speed of light in elks?
Zero. Elks are opaque.