Skype's claims of p2p being totally bullshit, what are the chances we'll see a system with a few providers creating a network? Some being free and some providing services like voicemail (Or records of conversations or something else...)...
Working at the UofT they have a research department (administrative not scientific) which contains about 60-80 people, they have no windows of any kind, not even any windows to other rooms which have windows.
It's the most horrible place I ever worked... imagine clocks on EVERY single wall and flat surface ever desk, every screen... And you still lose time, you think hours have passed and minutes have you think minutes passed and hours have.
Everyone seems sleepy all the time. Horrible.
Maybe they can put web cafe's on that side of the building?
Wouldn't all those problems be resolved by a linux commitee meeting? VOIP seems like something the IEEE should have handled a LONG LONG time ago.
Another point, I'd love to hate Skype (They are the Kazaa Guys right? We've seen this shit before...) however I think most of it comes from getting pressure inside the U.S. first from the telecoms who've had massive profit margins for the last few decades (as they promised us better and cheaper service infrastructure the government allowed this) and second from the FCC and Feds.
The service CAN be free (SkypeOut anyway, with an extension system both could theoretically be free) but not if they need to do mountains of paperwork for the federal government who wants to have a tap to every single call (whether someone's listening or not)...
I think Skype isn't really to blame here, the consumers are for not being organized enough to standardize on a good SIP protocol.
Solution let's have some thoughts and quick reviews of SIP protocols and try and come up with a consensus of what's the best free system available... we might not replace Skype overnight but we can get the ball rolling.
There aren't warez people anymore, they invented bittorrent. Basically if they make every file > 5MB a bittorrent link then there shouldn't be any hosting problems.
Only westerners still think bandwidth is expensive because it still is to our premesis.
My GF in Korea has 150 Megabit for about $30 a month.
Now let's assume that's about the same as what the supplier is paying for (They oversell a bit, minus costs and margins)
Do you know how many websites with no files larger than 5Megs you could host over that connection? 1000s or if you're willing to oversell like telecos then millions.
But I've noticed something strange with Microsoft Mice, they use a specialized driver (19 megs no less) and develop huge stuttering issues when you don't use the driver.
There's also a problem involving the driver locking up occasionally.
1. System loads ram starting with cache and then refrencing any data that is refrenced in that code essentially loading old memory as it is needed.
2. System has no default or code areas, all operating system aspects are in a file parsed on the HD for quick loading and the image is constantly updated to reflect changes. Therefore all traditional operating system elements are removed to make space for a "working" image. This has the benefit of being able to use both: processing power to dynamically create active system elements, and HD access to recover elements that are computationally intensive.
I think a lot of the resistance comes from an unexpected source, racism.
It's easy to ignore the developing world when they have no access to education or communication. Becoming, and by most people's standards become identicle and faceless.
These computers are enablers and they will create people who experience the world in a number of interesting ways.
Millions of children will develop increadible skills at using these tools and they'll be competition for jobs all over the world.
While the term racism may seem harsh at first examine the fact that people's criticisms are so increadibly aggressive. Far more than would be merrited by a simple waste of money and resources.
Hostility tinged with jealously, that these children will be provided a powerful tool, community and opportunity that many of the critics were denied.
Guess what people, computers are cheap and powerful and what you do with them is what matters.
Ask 10 Slashdot readers for a way these laptops will greatly improve the lives of these children and you'll get 100 answers, and likely when we ask 10 million children we'll find millions more.
Don't you get the impression that cosmologists are getting bored?
It seems that more and more of the research is being done by computers with a few experts analysing new findings.
One of the elements of science that people don't really appreciate is that it needs to be predictive, theories need to predict results and then find them upon testing to be accepted.
The feeling of ennui and knowing everything is setting in because researchers don't have a theory to cling to anymore (String theory went Kaput).
While it's useful to generate more data no one seems to be seriously evaluating it anymore (Think craploads of data which is sorted using old paradigms) and it needs to be carefully studied, if some element goes against current theories and is not used to develop a new theory it simply becomes unusable as a test for the next theory.
All of the "be an individual" and "don't conform" marketing seems to neglect the point that societies are hard.
They're hard to build and hard to maintain but they have some pretty increadible advantages.
We arguably have the technology to begin colonizing other solar systems right now (Ion drive, artificial wombs, computer control systems, etc.) and in the meantime the threat of people who don't think of the common good gaining the power to destroy everyone remains.
Pure research is an excellent idea and I think that pure research facilities transform into technological research much more easily than vice versa.
It's about time we had a few new big projects to match the moon landing, we have several economic superpowers now and they need something to do other than fight and play with themselves...
Another big issue is that manufacturing is increasingly computerized, and while it might seem possible to drain all the jobs into management, law and advertising it might be better if we put the impetus towards something that might matter in 20-50 years.
Sure there is, better data structures, Gui's that don't use buttons (difficult to implement which is why they are rarely used), less modular code (think less message parsing), better modular code(think reusable data structures or other elements), compiling with better optimizations etc.
The problem is that these things require something even more valuable then memory, disk space or processing power. Programmer time, time which could be spent wiping out bugs.
You can look at the Coal miners of Britain or Quebec to see what happens when whole industries dry up overnight.
It's not pretty and it's not healthy, society is moving away from using people to manufacture and do manual labour but it's important we go slow.
Moving labour to India neglects the fact that we don't really need to have people in factories here but we need to ease into a more information centric ecconomy.
Their ecconomy will probably not go through a long period of manufacturing (Think Japan) and it's probably for the best as they'll be better adjusted for it and have very interesting ideas surrounding their place in the world.
Case in point, my mother was slobbering over the standard of living of one of the late Victorian queens but to me it was perfectly clear that I prefer my life to theirs.
Our society is significantly more sane socially and sexually, entertainment is available on demand, education is available to all, health care is available to all (last 3 = Canadian), transportation is so easy that the world is your oyster.
I did hear about the amount of money American's pay in taxes each year (>12 Billion), and I thought about what it would be like if you just gave each American >$4000... I realized that inflation would skyrocket and it wouldn't make a damn bit of diffrence, (Think Chapelle show restitution money).
The problem with the rich being so exceedingly wealthy is they are able to obtain things that don't benefit society in any way (McLaren's engineering probably won't filter down into other cars, Porche's commitment to hand building cars keeps more people in menial labour).
Though I think education and health care should be available for everyone for free I think the above refrence to the Queen illustrates that with more money all most people would do is buy shinny objects and faster cars.
Instead of giving them out to developers who might actually contribute to these people but rather to a closed source company trying to make money off of them.
Especially considering Microsoft's previous comments regarding the OLPC project.
By bypassing the standard network stacks inbuilt trojans can render any security totally moot.
With Bittorrent the quality of pirated software is bound to increase, all we need are some friendly people to release checksums for the Vista DVD and then a bunch of Serial #'s.
By making the OS unlock with diffrent serial #'s they reduce the difficulty of cracking it exponentially.
(Lets face facts here, I'm paying for the convenience of the packaging [which includes the DVD itself AND the case], not the movie itself, which is available for free [minus ISP costs] online).
I would like to humbly thank you for properly nesting your parentheses. You, sir, are truly a programmer. People dispute my English Major Cred.. So I provided the above correct brackets.
Do you want direct Democracy or the current climate where you suspect your government doesn't care what you think?
Do you enjoy the thought of spending 100's of millions of dollars each election or referendum?
Does the idea of perpetually having no fair way to educate voters on election day appeal to you?
If so vote paper ballot, otherwise vote for progress.
Sure America will have several stolen elections over the next 15-30 years (Goooo Repubs) but the end result of moving the most powerful nation in the world to a more open system is worth your suffering.
I think everyone on Slashdot knows that if you NEEDED to make a few million dollars in a month your best bet is identity theft, sell a few people's houses and you're rich.
It's low risk, technically simple but you hurt a very specific person who you have to learn a lot about.
It's a bit scary how easy it would be to make money though identity theft.
But considering Slashdot's heavy Linux "Give back" ethical system and hoping it's somewhat indicitive of creative techies everywhere hopefully we'll find a solution before it gets out of hand.
Slashdot Mirror
Something else exciting, system liscencing for games.
$1 per game ring any bells...
There's no more reason console developers should get it than games designed for directX.
It's going to take about 2-3 years before they'll be able to sensibly enforce it.
2-3 years after that the golden age of linux gaming can begin.
All seeing eye ... be happy.
Skype's claims of p2p being totally bullshit, what are the chances we'll see a system with a few providers creating a network? Some being free and some providing services like voicemail (Or records of conversations or something else...)...
Working at the UofT they have a research department (administrative not scientific) which contains about 60-80 people, they have no windows of any kind, not even any windows to other rooms which have windows.
It's the most horrible place I ever worked... imagine clocks on EVERY single wall and flat surface ever desk, every screen... And you still lose time, you think hours have passed and minutes have you think minutes passed and hours have.
Everyone seems sleepy all the time. Horrible.
Maybe they can put web cafe's on that side of the building?
Wouldn't all those problems be resolved by a linux commitee meeting? VOIP seems like something the IEEE should have handled a LONG LONG time ago.
Another point, I'd love to hate Skype (They are the Kazaa Guys right? We've seen this shit before...) however I think most of it comes from getting pressure inside the U.S. first from the telecoms who've had massive profit margins for the last few decades (as they promised us better and cheaper service infrastructure the government allowed this) and second from the FCC and Feds.
The service CAN be free (SkypeOut anyway, with an extension system both could theoretically be free) but not if they need to do mountains of paperwork for the federal government who wants to have a tap to every single call (whether someone's listening or not)...
I think Skype isn't really to blame here, the consumers are for not being organized enough to standardize on a good SIP protocol.
Solution let's have some thoughts and quick reviews of SIP protocols and try and come up with a consensus of what's the best free system available... we might not replace Skype overnight but we can get the ball rolling.
There aren't warez people anymore, they invented bittorrent. Basically if they make every file > 5MB a bittorrent link then there shouldn't be any hosting problems.
Only westerners still think bandwidth is expensive because it still is to our premesis.
My GF in Korea has 150 Megabit for about $30 a month.
Now let's assume that's about the same as what the supplier is paying for (They oversell a bit, minus costs and margins)
Do you know how many websites with no files larger than 5Megs you could host over that connection? 1000s or if you're willing to oversell like telecos then millions.
Thanks for playing welcome to free information.
Herring is typically used as pulp for cat food and fish farms but server right (fried or raw in curry) they are super SUPER tasty.
My gaming mouse of choice has become the Intellimouse Optical .
But I've noticed something strange with Microsoft Mice, they use a specialized driver (19 megs no less) and develop huge stuttering issues when you don't use the driver.
There's also a problem involving the driver locking up occasionally.
2 Scenarios.
1. System loads ram starting with cache and then refrencing any data that is refrenced in that code essentially loading old memory as it is needed.
2. System has no default or code areas, all operating system aspects are in a file parsed on the HD for quick loading and the image is constantly updated to reflect changes. Therefore all traditional operating system elements are removed to make space for a "working" image. This has the benefit of being able to use both: processing power to dynamically create active system elements, and HD access to recover elements that are computationally intensive.
It's not rocket science man, and then just let your house freesze.
If some things need to be kept heated (electronics and such) put them in a storage room with 2 bare lightbulbs.
The bulbs will keep the temperature somewhat moderate and won't use too much power.
Why I'm sure the OLPC project will succeed.
I think a lot of the resistance comes from an unexpected source, racism.
It's easy to ignore the developing world when they have no access to education or communication. Becoming, and by most people's standards become identicle and faceless.
These computers are enablers and they will create people who experience the world in a number of interesting ways.
Millions of children will develop increadible skills at using these tools and they'll be competition for jobs all over the world.
While the term racism may seem harsh at first examine the fact that people's criticisms are so increadibly aggressive. Far more than would be merrited by a simple waste of money and resources.
Hostility tinged with jealously, that these children will be provided a powerful tool, community and opportunity that many of the critics were denied.
Guess what people, computers are cheap and powerful and what you do with them is what matters.
Ask 10 Slashdot readers for a way these laptops will greatly improve the lives of these children and you'll get 100 answers, and likely when we ask 10 million children we'll find millions more.
Don't you get the impression that cosmologists are getting bored?
It seems that more and more of the research is being done by computers with a few experts analysing new findings.
One of the elements of science that people don't really appreciate is that it needs to be predictive, theories need to predict results and then find them upon testing to be accepted.
The feeling of ennui and knowing everything is setting in because researchers don't have a theory to cling to anymore (String theory went Kaput).
While it's useful to generate more data no one seems to be seriously evaluating it anymore (Think craploads of data which is sorted using old paradigms) and it needs to be carefully studied, if some element goes against current theories and is not used to develop a new theory it simply becomes unusable as a test for the next theory.
Well it depends how you look at it.
All of the "be an individual" and "don't conform" marketing seems to neglect the point that societies are hard.
They're hard to build and hard to maintain but they have some pretty increadible advantages.
We arguably have the technology to begin colonizing other solar systems right now (Ion drive, artificial wombs, computer control systems, etc.) and in the meantime the threat of people who don't think of the common good gaining the power to destroy everyone remains.
Pure research is an excellent idea and I think that pure research facilities transform into technological research much more easily than vice versa.
It's about time we had a few new big projects to match the moon landing, we have several economic superpowers now and they need something to do other than fight and play with themselves...
Another big issue is that manufacturing is increasingly computerized, and while it might seem possible to drain all the jobs into management, law and advertising it might be better if we put the impetus towards something that might matter in 20-50 years.
Does anyone remember the Kellogs ads from 1969?
Sure there is, better data structures, Gui's that don't use buttons (difficult to implement which is why they are rarely used), less modular code (think less message parsing), better modular code(think reusable data structures or other elements), compiling with better optimizations etc.
The problem is that these things require something even more valuable then memory, disk space or processing power. Programmer time, time which could be spent wiping out bugs.
You can look at the Coal miners of Britain or Quebec to see what happens when whole industries dry up overnight.
It's not pretty and it's not healthy, society is moving away from using people to manufacture and do manual labour but it's important we go slow.
Moving labour to India neglects the fact that we don't really need to have people in factories here but we need to ease into a more information centric ecconomy.
Their ecconomy will probably not go through a long period of manufacturing (Think Japan) and it's probably for the best as they'll be better adjusted for it and have very interesting ideas surrounding their place in the world.
http://www.iht.com/articles/1993/02/05/cosm.php
I always think of this when people talk about global warming or solar power.
Case in point, my mother was slobbering over the standard of living of one of the late Victorian queens but to me it was perfectly clear that I prefer my life to theirs.
Our society is significantly more sane socially and sexually, entertainment is available on demand, education is available to all, health care is available to all (last 3 = Canadian), transportation is so easy that the world is your oyster.
I did hear about the amount of money American's pay in taxes each year (>12 Billion), and I thought about what it would be like if you just gave each American >$4000... I realized that inflation would skyrocket and it wouldn't make a damn bit of diffrence, (Think Chapelle show restitution money).
The problem with the rich being so exceedingly wealthy is they are able to obtain things that don't benefit society in any way (McLaren's engineering probably won't filter down into other cars, Porche's commitment to hand building cars keeps more people in menial labour).
Though I think education and health care should be available for everyone for free I think the above refrence to the Queen illustrates that with more money all most people would do is buy shinny objects and faster cars.
I heard they made 1000 demo units.
Instead of giving them out to developers who might actually contribute to these people but rather to a closed source company trying to make money off of them.
Especially considering Microsoft's previous comments regarding the OLPC project.
Who you like and those who you don't like.
Why not? Can't we put something in the GPL that says Ballmer Gates, and Hillary Rosen can't use the stuff?
And as more and more banks move to open source they keep doing illegal actions until we sue them! MuaHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA....
Well it's a nice thought.
By bypassing the standard network stacks inbuilt trojans can render any security totally moot.
With Bittorrent the quality of pirated software is bound to increase, all we need are some friendly people to release checksums for the Vista DVD and then a bunch of Serial #'s.
By making the OS unlock with diffrent serial #'s they reduce the difficulty of cracking it exponentially.
(Lets face facts here, I'm paying for the convenience of the packaging [which includes the DVD itself AND the case], not the movie itself, which is available for free [minus ISP costs] online).
I would like to humbly thank you for properly nesting your parentheses. You, sir, are truly a programmer.
People dispute my English Major Cred.. So I provided the above correct brackets.
Do you want direct Democracy or the current climate where you suspect your government doesn't care what you think?
Do you enjoy the thought of spending 100's of millions of dollars each election or referendum?
Does the idea of perpetually having no fair way to educate voters on election day appeal to you?
If so vote paper ballot, otherwise vote for progress.
Sure America will have several stolen elections over the next 15-30 years (Goooo Repubs) but the end result of moving the most powerful nation in the world to a more open system is worth your suffering.
Sure, 100% business machines Likely the high end workstations.
It's a botnet Dream!
Plus there might actually be useful information on these machines.
And 0 day hacks + Windows Phone home (rendering them undetectable) = massive pwnage.
They're right next to South Korea which has a bevy of companies making brilliant MP3 players.
Apple is a hardware company and their audio quality is notably lacking compared to my Creative Players and my GF's iRiver.
I think everyone on Slashdot knows that if you NEEDED to make a few million dollars in a month your best bet is identity theft, sell a few people's houses and you're rich.
It's low risk, technically simple but you hurt a very specific person who you have to learn a lot about.
It's a bit scary how easy it would be to make money though identity theft.
But considering Slashdot's heavy Linux "Give back" ethical system and hoping it's somewhat indicitive of creative techies everywhere hopefully we'll find a solution before it gets out of hand.