"I'd hardly call solid-state drives a "crackpot" technology."
I would. Solid-state drives have been 'the future' since at least 1991 (I had a 128MB ram disk back then)... but they've never been able to compete with hard disks on capacity or performance. Nor are they likely to any time soon, as the need for space (and money to spend on more useful things) continually outweighs the need for speed.
Oh, and that 128MB drive cost roughly $60,000 back then. But Windows 3.1 sure did boot fast.
"Can anyone here at/. come up with a different solution for them?"
Sell music in an open format at a guaranteed quality level with access to their entire back catalogue at a reasonable price (i.e. not $1 a track)? In other words, give their customers what they want at a price they'll pay?
"Digital rights management is essentially a technology mechanism to enforce (or hinder the breaking of) contract law."
But there's no legally-binding contract between buyer and seller when I buy an HD DVD and the DRM is enforced by law through the DMCA. In addition, DRM is a blatant violation of the intention of copyright, which was merely to support the creator before the material entered the public domain... material with effective DRM will _NEVER_ enter the public domain.
So just when users have got around to switching to Vista, they're going to release yet another operating system? Are they planning on instigating a biannual Microsoft Tax now?
"If the price-point for rentals stays in the $2 range (the supermarket where I rent from is usually $1 or $1.50), then you've actually got something that might actually work for the average family."
You mean paying more for something that will take longer to download than going to the rental store?
"Second, this is exactly why we have communications, navigation, geological, and weather satellites and Google Earth."
You mean satellites which are primarily commercial and primarily launched on commercial launchers?
"It's part of why people are spending so much time debating climate change."
The NASA satellites show very little 'climate change' since the 1970s: you have to use flawed ground temperature measurements to create 'global warming' scare stories.
"A space program that has managed to keep two robots working on the surface of Mars for over three years???"
I think you'll find it's the part where they're spending $1,500,000,000 a time to fly pizza to the space station so that they can keep people up there to fix the things that keep breaking that is the part people are complaining about. You'll also notice that most recent unmanned probes have been launched on commercial rockets, not the shuttle.
"If NASA is going to rely on private enterprises, wont it be more expensive for NASA"
Not when the cost of a shuttle launch has averaged around $1,500,000,000 over the course of the program, no. NASA, of course, could always buy Indian rockets... if it wasn't a jobs program to buy votes in America.
"If, therefore, there is value in space exploration, then one could argue that this promotes the general welfare."
By which argument, you can justify the government doing _anything_ which isn't entirely harmful. Maybe you should read up on what the people who wrote the Constitution thought it meant.
However, even if you do believe that, there's no reason why NASA should be running an 'operational' spacecraft. The aeronautical side of NASA does a lot of useful research which assists American companies in future aircraft design and is quite cost-effective... but they don't feel the urge to run an airline. The space side of NASA should be doing similar research work that will assist private space companies, not trying to compete with them.
Sounds like America is very different to the UK. Even when I buy games when they're released rather than waiting for price drops, I can typically buy them for 60% of the recommended price by shopping around.
If game retailers can do that here, I'm not sure why they can't do it elsewhere, unless they've got a really bad deal with the distributors in America.
"I ran a guild for casual people 25 years of age and older... and we had a HELL of a time just getting into BWL with our casual playstyle."
Having raided on MMOGs before, my experience is that the only truly difficult parts are a) finding fifty people of which none are total fucktards who can't do what the raid leader asks and b) managing to stay awake for eight hours to kill the Dropper Of Phat Lewt.
The whole raiding concept sucks ass and is hardly what I call fun.
"It prides itself on "find the random skill/gear drop" grinds"
Nonsense. Anyone can get max gear and any skill they want in Guild Wars with a very limited amount of work... there's nothing like the kind of grind that's in other MMOGs; 'let's go raid the Temple Of Phat Lewt for the five hundredth time and hope the Sword of Total Destruction drops!'
"you can watch an unbalanced Warrior-Monk n00b walk into a guild match and take down four or five people at a time."
Maybe you should try joining a guild that's not full of total noobs.
Indeed. For orbital operations there were few realistic ways to lose a crew on an Apollo flight, because most fatal accidents would have required multiple failures of redundant systems... a lot more ways when going to the Moon and back, but the shuttle doesn't do that so it's an invalid comparison.
Either you have free speech or you don't. The US Constitution guarantees the right to free speech, so this law was blatantly unconstitutional.
"I'm sure you are aware that free speech cannot be used to justify screaming "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, when there is no fire."
You have every right to do so, but you can then hardly complain when you're locked up as a result.
"Some might argue that my examples do not have anything to do with political free speech, and that is what the core of this particular argument is about."
Your example has everything to do with political free speech. If you knew anything about the subject, you'd be aware that the 'shouting fire in a crowded theater' nonsense was government restriction of free speech by anti-war activists.
"Registering as a lobbyist sure as HELL doesn't restrict access or speech. All it does is label you as what you are."
So on that basis, there's no problem with requiring people to register before they make personal statements about politicians, or requiring them to register before they post to the web, or requiring them to register before they say anything to anyone?
'Registration' is censorship through the back door, and can and will be used to punish those who disagree with the government. Surely that's not so hard to understand?
I have no love for political lobbyists, but the only way to have free speech is to have free speech; saying 'some kinds of speech are more equal than others' is absurd.
"The fundamental difficulty with any explanation offered for the complete absence (so far) of any sign of other intelligent life in the universe is that the proposed explanation has to be universally valid."
No. We just have to be first.
This study is nonsense; if you start sending out probes to nearby stars as soon as possible after arriving at the next destination, you can cover the entire galaxy in a million years or less. If intelligence with technology is uncommon, then the first to evolve is likely to take over the entire galaxy before a second appears.
"Not quite. You left out an important part of the sentence...2006 was the warmest year ever recorded."
a) there have been warmer years in the past. b) it's only the 'warmest year ever recorded' by surface thermometers. Not by satellites. c) the surface temperature readings for around 75% of the planet (i.e. the oceans) have been proven to be garbage. Many of the others are little better.
I believe they hope to, but first they need a good idea of where to look for them; the higher the camera resolution, the smaller the area of the surface they can search at any time.
There was some discussion about looking for the Russian probes on the www.unmannedspaceflight.com forums.
Slashdot Mirror
"they've never been able to compete with hard disks on capacity or performance"
:).
Duh... obviously that should have been 'capacity or cost', since performance is about the only real benefit they offer
"I'd hardly call solid-state drives a "crackpot" technology."
I would. Solid-state drives have been 'the future' since at least 1991 (I had a 128MB ram disk back then)... but they've never been able to compete with hard disks on capacity or performance. Nor are they likely to any time soon, as the need for space (and money to spend on more useful things) continually outweighs the need for speed.
Oh, and that 128MB drive cost roughly $60,000 back then. But Windows 3.1 sure did boot fast.
"Can anyone here at /. come up with a different solution for them?"
Sell music in an open format at a guaranteed quality level with access to their entire back catalogue at a reasonable price (i.e. not $1 a track)? In other words, give their customers what they want at a price they'll pay?
Nah, that would be too much like hard work.
"Most pre-recorded VHS tapes had Macrovision on them"
Not in the 80s.
In fact, I don't remember seeing a Macrovisioned tape until the mid 90s. And, even then, it was trivial to remove.
"If they had stood firm against DRM in the first place, these online stores would have never happened."
Indeed. Just as, if they'd refused to put DRM on VHS tapes, there'd never have been any major movies released on VHS.
Oh, wait...
"Digital rights management is essentially a technology mechanism to enforce (or hinder the breaking of) contract law."
But there's no legally-binding contract between buyer and seller when I buy an HD DVD and the DRM is enforced by law through the DMCA. In addition, DRM is a blatant violation of the intention of copyright, which was merely to support the creator before the material entered the public domain... material with effective DRM will _NEVER_ enter the public domain.
So just when users have got around to switching to Vista, they're going to release yet another operating system? Are they planning on instigating a biannual Microsoft Tax now?
$400 is a lot of money to pay for a service pack.
"If the price-point for rentals stays in the $2 range (the supermarket where I rent from is usually $1 or $1.50), then you've actually got something that might actually work for the average family."
You mean paying more for something that will take longer to download than going to the rental store?
Handy for less common movies perhaps.
"Second, this is exactly why we have communications, navigation, geological, and weather satellites and Google Earth."
You mean satellites which are primarily commercial and primarily launched on commercial launchers?
"It's part of why people are spending so much time debating climate change."
The NASA satellites show very little 'climate change' since the 1970s: you have to use flawed ground temperature measurements to create 'global warming' scare stories.
"A space program that has managed to keep two robots working on the surface of Mars for over three years???"
I think you'll find it's the part where they're spending $1,500,000,000 a time to fly pizza to the space station so that they can keep people up there to fix the things that keep breaking that is the part people are complaining about. You'll also notice that most recent unmanned probes have been launched on commercial rockets, not the shuttle.
"If NASA is going to rely on private enterprises, wont it be more expensive for NASA"
Not when the cost of a shuttle launch has averaged around $1,500,000,000 over the course of the program, no. NASA, of course, could always buy Indian rockets... if it wasn't a jobs program to buy votes in America.
"If, therefore, there is value in space exploration, then one could argue that this promotes the general welfare."
By which argument, you can justify the government doing _anything_ which isn't entirely harmful. Maybe you should read up on what the people who wrote the Constitution thought it meant.
However, even if you do believe that, there's no reason why NASA should be running an 'operational' spacecraft. The aeronautical side of NASA does a lot of useful research which assists American companies in future aircraft design and is quite cost-effective... but they don't feel the urge to run an airline. The space side of NASA should be doing similar research work that will assist private space companies, not trying to compete with them.
That does make a certain amount of sense, but Vanguard, for example, is $49.99 on Amazon.com and the equivalent of about $35 on play.com.
Sounds like America is very different to the UK. Even when I buy games when they're released rather than waiting for price drops, I can typically buy them for 60% of the recommended price by shopping around.
If game retailers can do that here, I'm not sure why they can't do it elsewhere, unless they've got a really bad deal with the distributors in America.
"I ran a guild for casual people 25 years of age and older... and we had a HELL of a time just getting into BWL with our casual playstyle."
Having raided on MMOGs before, my experience is that the only truly difficult parts are a) finding fifty people of which none are total fucktards who can't do what the raid leader asks and b) managing to stay awake for eight hours to kill the Dropper Of Phat Lewt.
The whole raiding concept sucks ass and is hardly what I call fun.
"It prides itself on "find the random skill/gear drop" grinds"
Nonsense. Anyone can get max gear and any skill they want in Guild Wars with a very limited amount of work... there's nothing like the kind of grind that's in other MMOGs; 'let's go raid the Temple Of Phat Lewt for the five hundredth time and hope the Sword of Total Destruction drops!'
"you can watch an unbalanced Warrior-Monk n00b walk into a guild match and take down four or five people at a time."
Maybe you should try joining a guild that's not full of total noobs.
"This is very similar to news reporters reporting in Iraq back in 1991."
You do realise that the US forces didn't invade Iraq in 1991, right?
Oh, no, reading the rest of your post I guess that's pretty unlikely.
Indeed. For orbital operations there were few realistic ways to lose a crew on an Apollo flight, because most fatal accidents would have required multiple failures of redundant systems... a lot more ways when going to the Moon and back, but the shuttle doesn't do that so it's an invalid comparison.
"Free speech is not an absolute right."
Either you have free speech or you don't. The US Constitution guarantees the right to free speech, so this law was blatantly unconstitutional.
"I'm sure you are aware that free speech cannot be used to justify screaming "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, when there is no fire."
You have every right to do so, but you can then hardly complain when you're locked up as a result.
"Some might argue that my examples do not have anything to do with political free speech, and that is what the core of this particular argument is about."
Your example has everything to do with political free speech. If you knew anything about the subject, you'd be aware that the 'shouting fire in a crowded theater' nonsense was government restriction of free speech by anti-war activists.
And? Science is science, it doesn't matter who pays for it, what matters is _are they right_?
Free speech is either absolute or non-existent; you can't put restrictions on who can say what and then claim you have free speech.
"Registering as a lobbyist sure as HELL doesn't restrict access or speech. All it does is label you as what you are."
So on that basis, there's no problem with requiring people to register before they make personal statements about politicians, or requiring them to register before they post to the web, or requiring them to register before they say anything to anyone?
'Registration' is censorship through the back door, and can and will be used to punish those who disagree with the government. Surely that's not so hard to understand?
I have no love for political lobbyists, but the only way to have free speech is to have free speech; saying 'some kinds of speech are more equal than others' is absurd.
"The fundamental difficulty with any explanation offered for the complete absence (so far) of any sign of other intelligent life in the universe is that the proposed explanation has to be universally valid."
No. We just have to be first.
This study is nonsense; if you start sending out probes to nearby stars as soon as possible after arriving at the next destination, you can cover the entire galaxy in a million years or less. If intelligence with technology is uncommon, then the first to evolve is likely to take over the entire galaxy before a second appears.
"Not quite. You left out an important part of the sentence...2006 was the warmest year ever recorded."
a) there have been warmer years in the past.
b) it's only the 'warmest year ever recorded' by surface thermometers. Not by satellites.
c) the surface temperature readings for around 75% of the planet (i.e. the oceans) have been proven to be garbage. Many of the others are little better.
I believe they hope to, but first they need a good idea of where to look for them; the higher the camera resolution, the smaller the area of the surface they can search at any time.
There was some discussion about looking for the Russian probes on the www.unmannedspaceflight.com forums.
"For most users, this will seem as seamless as if the app was actually installed and ready to run."
:).
Except when Windows forces you to reboot after installing
I so loved the old Flash player web browser installs that required a reboot in order to view Flash crap on a web page...