Hexadecimal? It becomes: 8D.9E.68.5E... but then again, since the RIAA can't even count burners (maybe they were using octal, so 150 becomes 104!) it's more likely they got lost counting the digits in the IP address - "one, two, three,... three... ummm... oh hell, there can't be more than eight! yeah! there's eight!"
1.) "The Product may not be used by more than two (2) processors at any one time on any single Workstation Computer."
It seems that Microsoft wrote this with dual-CPU workstations in mind. However, what qualifies as a processor? My graphics card has an on-board GPU which is as good as any.
Well, I don't think this is an issue - the "product" is WinXP. Now, you're graphics card is not executing any WinXP code - WinXP is sending it dynamically-generated drawing instructions. To claim that WinXP is "being used" by the GPU doesn't seem to describe the situation. A more accurate description would be "WinXP is CONTROLLING the GPU".
If I'm wrong, we're all going to piracy hell, because there a processors in our sound cards, network adapters, hard-drives and cd-roms,... you get the idea.
I'm sure they only mean processors that are capable of executing/running WinXP, which certainly ONLY covers your AMD/Intel CPU.
I agree that the term "processors" IS ambiguous, but when it's coupled with the "may not be used by more than" phrase, I think it's quite clear that they're talking about PCs with more than 2 CPUs.
But the other issues are rather worrisome. Especially #2 - "The ten connection maximum includes any indirect connections made through "multiplexing"...". How the Hell are you going to know if someone's running NAT on their machine and their entire LAN of 500 PCs is accessing your machine?!? This one IS BULLSHIT.
And since they mention IIS in their clause, doesn't it mean that as a web-server running IIS under WinXP - YOU CAN ONLY SERVE 10 PAGES SIMULTANEOUSLY.
BUT THIS IS GOOD - REALLY. We can get Microsoft to take themselves to court over this one - if microsoft.com is using IIS under WinXP (and if not, they're not sleeping in the bed they've made) wouldn't you agree that it's highly likely that they have served more than 10 pages at one time? If so, Microsoft has broken their own EULA and as a result I don't see how they could take anyone else to court over this issue. So it may well be a complete non-issue.
Still, EULAs need to be regulated so that you either can't lose all sorts of rights when you purchase software, OR the licenses is made available to you before your potential purchase.
Can anyone remind me why Sun chose GNOME over KDE or any other desktop environment? Was it because RedHat has adopted GNOME as their default desktop, or they liked the look of Ximian GNOME? Because I can't really believe that they chose GNOME purely on technical reasons.
Let me defend my last comment - I'm not a KDE or GNOME user, so I don't see one as being evil and the other as good or anything. But I do think that the duplication of effort is a sad waste of effort (I know why RMS started GNOME, and he kinda had a point, but still...)
Anyway, did Sun choose GNOME because it's more "enterprise-friendly" (ie, you can get support from Ximian)? I never heard much discussion on this point and I'm rather curious. (I'm also glad that they chose to adopt on of the main-stream Linux desktops.)
Let's face it - the main focus in a games PC is a blindingly fast GPU that can do umpteen hundred frames/sec at 1600x1200x32 or whatever, so you also need your system to be able to give the data to your video card as fast as possible. (Sound is another consideration, but not quite so major).
But "honest-to-goodness computation" (numerical analysis,...) doesn't use a GPU too intensively, except for displaying graphical data, for which the high-end OpenGL cards are ideal. The main focus here is CPU's performance in doing complex numerical tasks, not just passing data to the AGP slot. And let's face it, multiple-CPU PCs don't necessarily do anything for gaming, but they're great for this sort of stuff.
However, most if not all of the points in this article are quite informative - did YOU know the difference between Athlon XP and MP. I thought I mostly did.
And his choice of ECC RAM - Two to twelve times each year, a bit in memory gets inappropriately flipped... If you're unlucky though, this flipped bit can alter critical data and cause your system to crash. In our situation, a flipped bit could potentially alter our results significantly. Geez.
We come to the video card - a hacked GeForce isn't the same thing as a Quadro - bet some of the FPS freaks might be a little surprised, but the GeForces and Radeons aren't made for this sort of stuff. No real surprise, if you think about. But, as he says, why not a FireGL? Everything comes back to the lesson of the day: know your task. And boy, he certainly does.
Anyway, enough of regurgitating some of the finer points of this great article. Read it for yourself. And don't post comments about how 1337 your Radeon 9700 Pro or Ti4800 is. Know your task.
Wow! This would be great news in the battle against global warming. Down here in Australia, the recent discovery of a convict's sea-height log from the early 1800s or thereabouts showed that the sea level has increased by a moderate amount over the last 200 years.
Perhaps this could relieve the pressure slightly on Earth, when countries like the USA and Australia won't sign on the Kyoto agreement.
The second step he mentions - actually REPAIRING the ozone layer would be a phenomenal achievement, but it may in fact worsen global warming, if the afore-mentioned countries think "Hey! We don't need to worry about global warming! Let's just keep going on as before!"
His record costs have no doubt increased, but his first album, which sounds pretty darned good (both musically and technically) cost him something on the order of $200 and he sold it from the boot of his car.
Mind you, I think he also spent 5-6 hours mixing some other band's material in return for a few hours of using the equipment to mix his own stuff. So perhaps that should be more like $400.
Well, this is what I saw when doing some work experience at such a company... about 7 years ago. They had a few Sun workstations with 25" monitors (and OPTICAL mice - wow!). I'm not sure about the state of projectors back then, but there are some problems with projectors: wall space. In a floor full of cubicles, there just isn't room to use a projector. And meeting rooms can't be used, because they need to be able to check the data constantly... so that's why they have a few monster screens. What the spend on monitors they make up for in fully-utilised office space.
Okay, I'm not gonna buy an LCD screen anytime soon and neither is anyone else I know (but I would like one). But consider companies that require large monitors - they DO exist. For example, petroleum and minerals companies need their employees to inspect large amounts of geographical data as quickly as possible. Quite often they have many 19" to 21" monitors, and one or two 25"+ beasts.
Now, if they're going to have all of these huge monitors, they may still want to be able to use their desks. So LCD screens that take up a small fraction of the desk would be a great improvement upon CRTs. And besides, the trend in screen sizes has always been "bigger IS better". So perhaps Sony is going to restrict itself to the upper-end of the monitor market.
But let's face it, Sony can afford to do this. They have the PS2, MiniDisc, a reputation as a maker of top-quality stereo equipment... I don't think they'd be too worried about losing CRT sales. And CRT sales are declining - it's not a growth market. In fact, in five years time you may not be able to buy brand-new CRTs any more. Why would you want to hang around in such a market?
And if they get an early start on LCD monitors, they may end up in a similar situation ten years down the track to what they had with the Flatron. They may corner the market with some technological gimmick just like before. At least this way, they're giving themselves every chance.
Ahh yes, POST cards. Points Out Stuffed Technology. Before they came in card form, it used to be a little midget in your computer (mind you, back then computers filled entire nations, so they were actually giants) and they'd run around saying "Oooh, look at that! It's stuffed!", for which we'd be forever grateful.
If you can pick up one of these, you'll save yourself tonnes, because POST midgets are cheap, reliable and they feed and clothe themselves. Mind you, when they get bored they start to play with your hardware, so remember to keep a cattle prod close by.
So which brand to get? Choose one that's polite, friendly, doesn't smell to bad (it can get hot in there, people, and they don't like having cooling fans strapped to their heads) and knows his shit. There's nothing worse than a POST midget who insists that "Houston, we have a problem. The red light is flashing" whenever you read data from the hard disk.
Unfortunately, they still haven't been able to solve the issues with SSL under windows, so the windows release comes without SSL. The effect of this can range from none (lots of sites don't use SSL) to the typical IT-Manager complaint "but we NEED SSL". Unfortunately, what they don't realise is that staying with IIS is not the solution.
However, I do know of one company (whom my friend's father works for) that decided not to use Apache because they wanted 2.0.?? (because it was the latest release, so there was no way they would consider 1.x) but couldn't live without SSL. Of course they're using IIS on an unpatched WinNT4 box...
What Apache needs to become the server of choice in companies like this is an education campaign. If you work at such a company, please tell the people in charge of this stuff about Apache, IIS and general security/stability issues under Windows. Mind you, Apache is still the #1 server around, so it is debatable whether this is a necessary step. But for the sake of secure, stable websites that don't leave your site open wider than a $2 hooker (ie, as wide open as the RIAA) please spread the word about Apache.
And Apache/SSL guys, I'm sure you're working on the issue, so best of luck solving it!
Does anyone remember when Billy G criticised the automotive industry, saying that if it had progressed at the same rate as computers, it would cost $0.02 of petrol to travel 100 miles, and so on and so forth...
One senior official from GM replied that this would be true, but also mentioned that
(a) you would need to upgrade your car every year to continue using the roads (b) depending on which brand of car you have, you would be limited to certain roads (c) you car would crash once a day (we're talking windows)
Anyway, back on topic, this got me thinking - the automotive industry is heading down the software path and there are some potential pitfalls they'd want to watch out for.
DON'T let them use Windows CE or WinXP embedded edition. NEVER. I don't want my car to have a software crash, causing the fuel injection, braking, etc to fail. I also don't want my car to have exploits so that any cracker could pop the hood while I'm shopping and 'fine-tune' my car's settings.
Also, just like BIOS tweaking, some things can be taken too far. "Dude, if turn down the brack coolant valve, I can get more petrol throughput and go faster... hey! I can't stop! Aargh!"
They are gonna need to do a huge amount of QA here. (I wonder who would legally be at fault if the car's software fucked up? the vendor or the car's maker?) This may well be a great opportunity for knowledge-based computing and expert systems to demonstrate their value.
Sorry about that - I should have said that I'm glad to see such a beneficial scientific achievement *in the press*. I don't believe that the majority of science is 'pop-science' (except psychology and bits of biology), but just that most of the scientific 'advances' reported in the media are trivial or non-beneficial.
It's also rubbish. Science has done more to help humanity than you realize, and in more ways than you choose to believe. Scientists are not about destroying the world, but they are about discovering as much as possible about it, in as inobtrusively as possible.
Woah! I'm sorry my comment mislead you. I'm a Science/Engineering student, having done Physics and Maths - I appreciate what scientists have done and are continuing to do. I also appreciate that many scientists don't necessarily care about the practical applications of their work. That's fine - I congratulate them. Having completed a Pure Mathematics major, I can appreciate their POV.
I guess I didn't make it clear enough that my gripe lay with the media. I'll be sure to point it out more clearly next time
This sounds like a great but increasingly rare achievement - scientists getting somewhere that actually benefits the world (although I thought that asbestos problems had been mostly solved by removing it from all buildings, etc). I'm sick and tired of reading in the papers about all sorts of trivial or "pop-science" experiments being done by scientists in a last-ditch effort to either get funding or exposure.
Imagine if they could extend this to handle diseases and other toxic chemicals - it could spell a much safer world for everyone. No more anthrax-in-envelopes killing people! Far less dangerous workplaces at chemical production plants. Way to go!
"The law assumes guilt that everyone who buys a blank tape or CD is pirating music"
Okay, that's NOT true, but the RIAA believes it is and the RIAA is the be-all and end-all unfortunately.
But with DRM and copyright extension laws, etc, everyone who uses a blank tape or CD WILL BE PIRATING whatever they put on the tape/CD, because the way we're heading we won't have the right to create backups/copies of anything except what WE create by ourselves. So backing up your ogg collection (ripped from your copy-protected CDs) may end up being considered "pirating". Making a copy of that software CD because it's starting to get a bit scratched and then having to get a crack to ignore the CD-serial check may be considered pirating. Hell, in the end, using computers for anything but content CREATION may be pirating.
Okay, that's a pretty extremist view, but think about the situation we had 10 or 15 years ago - copy-protection? inability to create legal backups? paying a tax to cover alleged piracy as reported by an organisation that can't count CD burners? Where will it end?
Great! Yet another way to DECREASE employee productivity by jumping on the technological bandwagon. Surely they could come up with a better idea than that?
But will everyone buy it? And does everyone polish shoes? I mean, I've NEVER polished my sneakers. I have one pair of leather shoes that get polished maybe 4 or 5 times a year when I use them...
the main thing is - will anyone BUY it? and will it be so cheap? I don't think so - not for a good while at least. The price will eventually come down, but even so...
Imagine never having to polish your shoes again, having glistening white teeth without visiting a dentist, or owning a mobile phone powered by a miniature battery. These are not just idle fantasies, but a reality where small things could make your wildest dreams come true.
wow! this guy's pretty darn wild! I bet for a big night out he turns on the TV and drinks a whole light beer. I mean, c'mon - with all the possibilities for nanotechnology, having self-polishing shoes is the best he could come up with?
it looks that just as with other technologies (www, e-commerce,...) we're gonna have to wait for the pron industry to break new ground and lead the way... oh, the possiblities!!! Wait a minute, don't. Eughh!
Okay, GIFs are good for cartoon-type images, but PNGs really are starting to become more common-place. Probably the only people who'll continue to use GIFs are those who were using them despite the patents and probably couldn't care less. Most people who were worried about the patents would have moved to some other format (probably PNG) and I doubt they'll see much of an incentive to move back.
Silly patent-holders on a widely-available image format. There are much more profitable things to be patented (human birth probably isn't patented, and with really good lawyers you could probably dismiss prior 'art' as pornography or something)
Remember the story on the Register about the guy who got second-degree burns to the crotch as the result of prolonged use of a laptop? Laptop stands should be COMPULSORY safety devices and all laptop users should be thoroughly instructed in the use (well, for the people who can't figure it out... bloody AOLers...)
Just imagine Apple's take in the humble laptop stand... nope, words fail to describe it, so I won't even try.
In my day, video cards didn't even use these new-fangled slot whatsits. We didn't even have monitors back then - the video card had to do all the drawing and thne DISPLAY it to us as well. And we didn't have RAM or ROM either, so we had to remember each byte ourselves and give it to the video card when necessary. Not that it ever TOLD you when it needed a byte, OR which byte it needed. You had to memorise the order in which bytes were required - the list was provided in invisible ink on the back of the installation manual (which we DIDN'T have) and it was written in reverse-polish ascii pseudo-hexadecimal with a Russian accent. AND it could do everything we needed! And it didn't even need a heatsink (but the horses that powered it did need a break every now and then, and you had to train them not to go potty on the computer... that was a real CORE DUMP)
Slashdot Mirror
Hexadecimal? It becomes: 8D.9E.68.5E ... but then again, since the RIAA can't even count burners (maybe they were using octal, so 150 becomes 104!) it's more likely they got lost counting the digits in the IP address - "one, two, three, ... three ... ummm ... oh hell, there can't be more than eight! yeah! there's eight!"
1.) "The Product may not be used by more than two (2) processors at any one time on any single Workstation Computer."
It seems that Microsoft wrote this with dual-CPU workstations in mind. However, what qualifies as a processor? My graphics card has an on-board GPU which is as good as any.
Well, I don't think this is an issue - the "product" is WinXP. Now, you're graphics card is not executing any WinXP code - WinXP is sending it dynamically-generated drawing instructions. To claim that WinXP is "being used" by the GPU doesn't seem to describe the situation. A more accurate description would be "WinXP is CONTROLLING the GPU".
If I'm wrong, we're all going to piracy hell, because there a processors in our sound cards, network adapters, hard-drives and cd-roms, ... you get the idea.
I'm sure they only mean processors that are capable of executing/running WinXP, which certainly ONLY covers your AMD/Intel CPU.
I agree that the term "processors" IS ambiguous, but when it's coupled with the "may not be used by more than" phrase, I think it's quite clear that they're talking about PCs with more than 2 CPUs.
But the other issues are rather worrisome. Especially #2 - "The ten connection maximum includes any indirect connections made through "multiplexing"...". How the Hell are you going to know if someone's running NAT on their machine and their entire LAN of 500 PCs is accessing your machine?!? This one IS BULLSHIT.
And since they mention IIS in their clause, doesn't it mean that as a web-server running IIS under WinXP - YOU CAN ONLY SERVE 10 PAGES SIMULTANEOUSLY.
BUT THIS IS GOOD - REALLY. We can get Microsoft to take themselves to court over this one - if microsoft.com is using IIS under WinXP (and if not, they're not sleeping in the bed they've made) wouldn't you agree that it's highly likely that they have served more than 10 pages at one time? If so, Microsoft has broken their own EULA and as a result I don't see how they could take anyone else to court over this issue. So it may well be a complete non-issue.
Still, EULAs need to be regulated so that you either can't lose all sorts of rights when you purchase software, OR the licenses is made available to you before your potential purchase.
God I hate Microsoft's legal dept...
Can anyone remind me why Sun chose GNOME over KDE or any other desktop environment? Was it because RedHat has adopted GNOME as their default desktop, or they liked the look of Ximian GNOME? Because I can't really believe that they chose GNOME purely on technical reasons.
Let me defend my last comment - I'm not a KDE or GNOME user, so I don't see one as being evil and the other as good or anything. But I do think that the duplication of effort is a sad waste of effort (I know why RMS started GNOME, and he kinda had a point, but still...)
Anyway, did Sun choose GNOME because it's more "enterprise-friendly" (ie, you can get support from Ximian)? I never heard much discussion on this point and I'm rather curious. (I'm also glad that they chose to adopt on of the main-stream Linux desktops.)
Let's face it - the main focus in a games PC is a blindingly fast GPU that can do umpteen hundred frames/sec at 1600x1200x32 or whatever, so you also need your system to be able to give the data to your video card as fast as possible. (Sound is another consideration, but not quite so major).
...) doesn't use a GPU too intensively, except for displaying graphical data, for which the high-end OpenGL cards are ideal. The main focus here is CPU's performance in doing complex numerical tasks, not just passing data to the AGP slot. And let's face it, multiple-CPU PCs don't necessarily do anything for gaming, but they're great for this sort of stuff.
... If you're unlucky though, this flipped bit can alter critical data and cause your system to crash. In our situation, a flipped bit could potentially alter our results significantly. Geez.
But "honest-to-goodness computation" (numerical analysis,
However, most if not all of the points in this article are quite informative - did YOU know the difference between Athlon XP and MP. I thought I mostly did.
And his choice of ECC RAM - Two to twelve times each year, a bit in memory gets inappropriately flipped
We come to the video card - a hacked GeForce isn't the same thing as a Quadro - bet some of the FPS freaks might be a little surprised, but the GeForces and Radeons aren't made for this sort of stuff. No real surprise, if you think about. But, as he says, why not a FireGL? Everything comes back to the lesson of the day: know your task. And boy, he certainly does.
Anyway, enough of regurgitating some of the finer points of this great article. Read it for yourself. And don't post comments about how 1337 your Radeon 9700 Pro or Ti4800 is. Know your task.
Wow! This would be great news in the battle against global warming. Down here in Australia, the recent discovery of a convict's sea-height log from the early 1800s or thereabouts showed that the sea level has increased by a moderate amount over the last 200 years.
Perhaps this could relieve the pressure slightly on Earth, when countries like the USA and Australia won't sign on the Kyoto agreement.
The second step he mentions - actually REPAIRING the ozone layer would be a phenomenal achievement, but it may in fact worsen global warming, if the afore-mentioned countries think "Hey! We don't need to worry about global warming! Let's just keep going on as before!"
Kudos to the University of Ulm!
His record costs have no doubt increased, but his first album, which sounds pretty darned good (both musically and technically) cost him something on the order of $200 and he sold it from the boot of his car.
Mind you, I think he also spent 5-6 hours mixing some other band's material in return for a few hours of using the equipment to mix his own stuff. So perhaps that should be more like $400.
Well, this is what I saw when doing some work experience at such a company ... about 7 years ago. They had a few Sun workstations with 25" monitors (and OPTICAL mice - wow!). I'm not sure about the state of projectors back then, but there are some problems with projectors: wall space. In a floor full of cubicles, there just isn't room to use a projector. And meeting rooms can't be used, because they need to be able to check the data constantly ... so that's why they have a few monster screens. What the spend on monitors they make up for in fully-utilised office space.
Okay, I'm not gonna buy an LCD screen anytime soon and neither is anyone else I know (but I would like one). But consider companies that require large monitors - they DO exist. For example, petroleum and minerals companies need their employees to inspect large amounts of geographical data as quickly as possible. Quite often they have many 19" to 21" monitors, and one or two 25"+ beasts.
... I don't think they'd be too worried about losing CRT sales. And CRT sales are declining - it's not a growth market. In fact, in five years time you may not be able to buy brand-new CRTs any more. Why would you want to hang around in such a market?
Now, if they're going to have all of these huge monitors, they may still want to be able to use their desks. So LCD screens that take up a small fraction of the desk would be a great improvement upon CRTs. And besides, the trend in screen sizes has always been "bigger IS better". So perhaps Sony is going to restrict itself to the upper-end of the monitor market.
But let's face it, Sony can afford to do this. They have the PS2, MiniDisc, a reputation as a maker of top-quality stereo equipment
And if they get an early start on LCD monitors, they may end up in a similar situation ten years down the track to what they had with the Flatron. They may corner the market with some technological gimmick just like before. At least this way, they're giving themselves every chance.
They also found that:
Russian errors cause code
Incorrect code causes errors
Missing code causes errors
Untested code causes errors
Redundant codec causes redundancies
Driver code causes headaches
C code causes buffer overflows
Java code causes exceptions
Perl code causes illiteracy
Solaris code causes rashes
Novell code causes panic attacks
Slashdot code causes multiple reposts
Slashdot articles cause poor-quality posts
Microsoft code causes exploits
Apple code causes user cults
Uncommented code causes code rage
RIAA code causes computers to stop functioning
(Poor idea causes long, desperate post)
Ahh yes, POST cards. Points Out Stuffed Technology. Before they came in card form, it used to be a little midget in your computer (mind you, back then computers filled entire nations, so they were actually giants) and they'd run around saying "Oooh, look at that! It's stuffed!", for which we'd be forever grateful.
If you can pick up one of these, you'll save yourself tonnes, because POST midgets are cheap, reliable and they feed and clothe themselves. Mind you, when they get bored they start to play with your hardware, so remember to keep a cattle prod close by.
So which brand to get? Choose one that's polite, friendly, doesn't smell to bad (it can get hot in there, people, and they don't like having cooling fans strapped to their heads) and knows his shit. There's nothing worse than a POST midget who insists that "Houston, we have a problem. The red light is flashing" whenever you read data from the hard disk.
Unfortunately, they still haven't been able to solve the issues with SSL under windows, so the windows release comes without SSL. The effect of this can range from none (lots of sites don't use SSL) to the typical IT-Manager complaint "but we NEED SSL". Unfortunately, what they don't realise is that staying with IIS is not the solution.
...
However, I do know of one company (whom my friend's father works for) that decided not to use Apache because they wanted 2.0.?? (because it was the latest release, so there was no way they would consider 1.x) but couldn't live without SSL. Of course they're using IIS on an unpatched WinNT4 box
What Apache needs to become the server of choice in companies like this is an education campaign. If you work at such a company, please tell the people in charge of this stuff about Apache, IIS and general security/stability issues under Windows. Mind you, Apache is still the #1 server around, so it is debatable whether this is a necessary step. But for the sake of secure, stable websites that don't leave your site open wider than a $2 hooker (ie, as wide open as the RIAA) please spread the word about Apache.
And Apache/SSL guys, I'm sure you're working on the issue, so best of luck solving it!
Does anyone remember when Billy G criticised the automotive industry, saying that if it had progressed at the same rate as computers, it would cost $0.02 of petrol to travel 100 miles, and so on and so forth ...
... hey! I can't stop! Aargh!"
One senior official from GM replied that this would be true, but also mentioned that
(a) you would need to upgrade your car every year to continue using the roads
(b) depending on which brand of car you have, you would be limited to certain roads
(c) you car would crash once a day (we're talking windows)
Anyway, back on topic, this got me thinking - the automotive industry is heading down the software path and there are some potential pitfalls they'd want to watch out for.
DON'T let them use Windows CE or WinXP embedded edition. NEVER. I don't want my car to have a software crash, causing the fuel injection, braking, etc to fail. I also don't want my car to have exploits so that any cracker could pop the hood while I'm shopping and 'fine-tune' my car's settings.
Also, just like BIOS tweaking, some things can be taken too far. "Dude, if turn down the brack coolant valve, I can get more petrol throughput and go faster
They are gonna need to do a huge amount of QA here. (I wonder who would legally be at fault if the car's software fucked up? the vendor or the car's maker?) This may well be a great opportunity for knowledge-based computing and expert systems to demonstrate their value.
Hang on! That wasn't my complaint! I'm not gonna post another defense, so please read this.
Sorry about that - I should have said that I'm glad to see such a beneficial scientific achievement *in the press*. I don't believe that the majority of science is 'pop-science' (except psychology and bits of biology), but just that most of the scientific 'advances' reported in the media are trivial or non-beneficial.
It's also rubbish. Science has done more to help humanity than you realize, and in more ways than you choose to believe. Scientists are not about destroying the world, but they are about discovering as much as possible about it, in as inobtrusively as possible.
Woah! I'm sorry my comment mislead you. I'm a Science/Engineering student, having done Physics and Maths - I appreciate what scientists have done and are continuing to do. I also appreciate that many scientists don't necessarily care about the practical applications of their work. That's fine - I congratulate them. Having completed a Pure Mathematics major, I can appreciate their POV.
I guess I didn't make it clear enough that my gripe lay with the media. I'll be sure to point it out more clearly next time
Imagine if they could extend this to handle diseases and other toxic chemicals - it could spell a much safer world for everyone. No more anthrax-in-envelopes killing people! Far less dangerous workplaces at chemical production plants. Way to go!
You negative thinkers just need to turn your frown upside down
"The law assumes guilt that everyone who buys a blank tape or CD is pirating music"
Okay, that's NOT true, but the RIAA believes it is and the RIAA is the be-all and end-all unfortunately.
But with DRM and copyright extension laws, etc, everyone who uses a blank tape or CD WILL BE PIRATING whatever they put on the tape/CD, because the way we're heading we won't have the right to create backups/copies of anything except what WE create by ourselves. So backing up your ogg collection (ripped from your copy-protected CDs) may end up being considered "pirating". Making a copy of that software CD because it's starting to get a bit scratched and then having to get a crack to ignore the CD-serial check may be considered pirating. Hell, in the end, using computers for anything but content CREATION may be pirating.
Okay, that's a pretty extremist view, but think about the situation we had 10 or 15 years ago - copy-protection? inability to create legal backups? paying a tax to cover alleged piracy as reported by an organisation that can't count CD burners? Where will it end?
Great! Yet another way to DECREASE employee productivity by jumping on the technological bandwagon. Surely they could come up with a better idea than that?
... no they cant! Dumb bastards!
Hang on
GIF stands for GNU Is Free
GNU stands for GIFs Never Used
the cases IS, FREE, NEVER and USED are left as exercises for the motivated reader.
Do you know how bzip or the new rar (v3) compares to LZW? I know firsthand that rar v3 is a huge improvement over zip.
Also, how does LZO stand-up and what's the deal (GPLed?, ...)
the main thing is - will anyone BUY it? and will it be so cheap? I don't think so - not for a good while at least. The price will eventually come down, but even so ...
Imagine never having to polish your shoes again, having glistening white teeth without visiting a dentist, or owning a mobile phone powered by a miniature battery. These are not just idle fantasies, but a reality where small things could make your wildest dreams come true.
wow! this guy's pretty darn wild! I bet for a big night out he turns on the TV and drinks a whole light beer. I mean, c'mon - with all the possibilities for nanotechnology, having self-polishing shoes is the best he could come up with?
it looks that just as with other technologies (www, e-commerce, ...) we're gonna have to wait for the pron industry to break new ground and lead the way ... oh, the possiblities!!! Wait a minute, don't. Eughh!
Okay, GIFs are good for cartoon-type images, but PNGs really are starting to become more common-place. Probably the only people who'll continue to use GIFs are those who were using them despite the patents and probably couldn't care less. Most people who were worried about the patents would have moved to some other format (probably PNG) and I doubt they'll see much of an incentive to move back.
Silly patent-holders on a widely-available image format. There are much more profitable things to be patented (human birth probably isn't patented, and with really good lawyers you could probably dismiss prior 'art' as pornography or something)
Remember the story on the Register about the guy who got second-degree burns to the crotch as the result of prolonged use of a laptop? Laptop stands should be COMPULSORY safety devices and all laptop users should be thoroughly instructed in the use (well, for the people who can't figure it out ... bloody AOLers ...)
Just imagine Apple's take in the humble laptop stand ... nope, words fail to describe it, so I won't even try.
In my day, video cards didn't even use these new-fangled slot whatsits. We didn't even have monitors back then - the video card had to do all the drawing and thne DISPLAY it to us as well. And we didn't have RAM or ROM either, so we had to remember each byte ourselves and give it to the video card when necessary. Not that it ever TOLD you when it needed a byte, OR which byte it needed. You had to memorise the order in which bytes were required - the list was provided in invisible ink on the back of the installation manual (which we DIDN'T have) and it was written in reverse-polish ascii pseudo-hexadecimal with a Russian accent. AND it could do everything we needed! And it didn't even need a heatsink (but the horses that powered it did need a break every now and then, and you had to train them not to go potty on the computer ... that was a real CORE DUMP)