Competition is good, okay. What bothers me though, is that all of these music sellers are 1) tying your music to a certain platform (windows PC, or Mac OS X for Apple) 2) tying your music (in particular Apple) to a certain hardware (iPod). Now how am I supposed to buy music from the three or four different sellers (Apple, Dell, HP for example, MS in the future) and keed it organized in one simple library of songs / one MP3 player? Simple: I can't. I have to have iTunes reading the iTMS songs; WMP playing MS's files, and so on (OK, maybe WMP will be able to play Dell's and HP's songs; doubtbful, but even though, WMP is crap, I want iTunes for all of them).
Just as if I had to organize my CD collection according to the place I bought it in: one shelf (and one dedicated CD player) for CDs bought at FNAC (french retailer), other shelf and CD player for CDs bought at Virgin Megastore, other shelf and player for my favorite independent music store, and so on...
This is total rubbish, and once again in every single case of "format wars" (think DVD-R/+R) I can think of, the consumers are being litterally run over.
Given the fact that only Apple's iTunes is cross platform (thus at least giving me platform choice), i'd go for iTunes. But this shitheads at Apple won't enable WMA on iTunes OR on the iPod. (By the way, don't they face a potential lawsuit situation of unhappy competitors that want to see iPod WMA support?) That's why I wouldn't buy at the Music Store even if I could (France & Egypt: out of the U.S.), no matter how cool it is: I want to see those matters publicly addressed by the online stores. I really hope that Apple (and later, the other competitors, which seem unable to do anything differently from Apple) soon realises that format protection is USELESS, and, just as protected CD's, only damages the *customers'* experience (the ones who REALLY want to put their music online for others to download will always be able to, anyways. Apparently with a digital output you can get a perfect copy of your AAC track, not DRM'ed). I hope (somehow paradoxically) the store will be so successful Apple will be "strong" enough to renegociate the deal with the majors and remove DRM for good. But it won't happen, mostly because they make money off iPods, not the Store (therefore the "iPod only" policy is key to their benefits, at least as long as the music store doesn't make money)
Now there is my question:
Would it be possible to build an open source player that would act as a "common interface" above all of the proprietary players (I'm thinking, only remove the GUI part of those players and leave the decoding / DRMing libraries in place, and use them). Probably not, but that would be a project worth a very nice bounty!
I did not RTFA, and from experience, we don't need to. [...] Please stop reading this site and consign it to the flames of web history. Page views are keeping it alive.
At this point, the "world" powers have lost the ability to take the initiative
Bravo, you just forgot ICBM nukes. France alone has more than 350 ICBMs, IIRC, all of them capable of striking the East and West coast, simultaneously of course... Some of these pack multiple H-bomb heads. Other countries have the same capacities, Russia, England, China, possibly Israel, Pakistan, etc... Even if you wipe out France, for instance, there are still 4 or 5 nuclear submarines *somewhere* in the ocean, which you WON'T be able to track and destroy in timely manner. Each of these submarines carry enough nukes around to destroy most of the urban areas of the U.S.
In the crazy hypothesis of global war (everybody against the U.S.A.), it ultimately doesn't matter how powerful the U.S.A. is: the theory of MAD(Mutually Assured Destruction, you know, the thing that prevented WW III...) still works.
BTW, there are more carriers than just the Foch: France produced the Foch, the Clemenceau (sold to Brazil I think), and now the (*grin*) Charles de Gaulle (nuclear carrier). Russia built some, and China would.
Plus, the other countries would very soon accelerate their arms production, which the U.S. can't do a thing about. I mean, no amount of power can stop the chinese + european + russian + indian +... workforce, factories and such, except if you nuke everybody, but then it sucks hard to be the leader of an unhabitable planet.
(all of the above is just pure, hypothetical, theorical, mumbling. Kids, don't try this at home!)
... an egyptian governmental newspaper. Funny thing is, I work at the French version ( they have a daily in arabic, a weekly in english, and one in French...) since almost two months now:)
Nice newspaper, but not one I expected to find on Slashdot's main page!!! That's a fun coincidence! (and no I didn't submit the article)
vaderhelmet writes "'In these media-fueled times, when war is a television spectacle and wiping out large numbers of civilians is generally frowned upon, the perfect weapon would literally stop an enemy in his tracks, yet harm neither hide nor hair.
There are simpler ways around that pesky little problem called "public opinion." The simplest one is to get rid of media coverage. This can be done in many ways, but the association of all of those ways together is the most efficient tactic:
1)Just get rid of the journalists, camera crews, and photographers. * Think Chechnya.
2) Oooh, shit. You're a democracy, you can't get rid of journalists. Find a way to have them work for your P.R. department, without even them knowing it! Think, "embedded journalists" (Iraq, 2003).
3) Damn, some of them don't want to be embedded! Threaten them, shoot at their cars, whatever. Think, Hotel Palestine, Bagdad, where the journalists lived, that "accidentally" got fired at by a US M1-A1 Abrams tank. (Or think, reporters working in the Gaza bank etc.)
4) The journalists are still there. Shit, shit, shit. Go back to your home front and get rid of objectivity. Think Fox News.
It might make the general population of "liberated" countries like Iraq, even more hostile if you blow up their computers and Internet connections! Nothing worse than a horde of angry Iraqi children denied their Quake time.
Are you trying to be funny here? Iraqis are pissed off because they had, for almost a month after their "liberation", no *FOOD* to put on their tables, no *WATER* to drink, no *MEDICINE* to use... Even now, *GAS* and *WATER* electricity supplies remain sloppy.
In France (southern France, particularly) we have so many pizzerias where there never seems to be a single customer, yet they mysteriously turn profits each year:) Same applies to a lot of chinese restaurants in Paris...
Funnily enough, I just found a chinese restaurant here in Cairo (Egypt) that seems to work the same way: luxury, "high prices" restaurant (that is, you eat for 5 bucks). I get in, order my food, and notice that I am *alone* in the restaurant (at least 30 tables). Then I start noticing the big tough guys in Armani suits, apparently guarding the doors.. These guys are no waiters!
Interestingly, the restaurant is owned and operated by Lebanese:)
Hmmm, no. What happens is that some terrorist organizations *do* have access to surface to air missiles, and *are* willing to use them against military (or civilian, for that matter) transport planes.
Sadly, it is not "alarmist crap" at all. Portable SAM systems are easy to find, and affordable too. This was true before Sep. 11th, and will be true in the future. You can get them from ex-USSR countries, Ethiopia, Erythrea, Somalia, the Balkans (duh!), among other places. A russian-designed SA 7 Strella missile shouldn't cost more than a hundred thousand dollars (launcher + one missile). These are manufactured under license in many countries: Russia, Pakistan (methinks), China, etc...
This is true regardless of your opinion on the so-called "war on terror". The fact that the US and the UK lied about Irak and overplayed the "war on terrorism" stuff, doesn't make the terrorists less "real". (Or does it?)
(interestingly I typed down "SA 7 Strella" even before I read the CNN page you are pointing at; see, this is far from being new, and I had read about these years before the beginning of the "war on terror")
Just my 2 piastres (typing this from Cairo, Egypt:)
I think he meant power (not internet) outages, and more specifically referred to the big power outage of the-very-cold-winter-can't-remember-which-year (was it 1979?); urban legend has it that 9 months after this big power outage, the birth rate in the affeted zones (NYC, methinks) raised by more less 40 % (cause people were trapped at home w/o TV, and were cold, and therefore passed some time by copulating...)
Unfortunately, this urban legend is just that, a legend (no, no need to fry your house's electrical system just to get more sex from your girlfriend)
Yeah, you sure do have a point here... Note that I did *not* imply that UN law would be respected. Only, the UN already has a law corpus about outer space.
And, yes, states (or corps) WILL break these laws if there is sufficient profit luring them.
Unless of course, the UN eventually gets sufficient funding and power to enforce its law on earth and in outer space. (eh, one can dream no?)
What next, "Space Blue Beret UN Marines"?;) (The question is, will they have the right to open fire on space rebels and mischievous aliens?)
Well... it is the rich countries (USSR / USA / Europe) who took the initiative on these treaties, not the poor ones.
Mostly because nobody wanted to bring the Cold War into space (too expensive), so they commonly "agreed" not to send weapons / armies there (yes, there is a specific chapter that forbids the outerspace deployment of missiles and atom bombs, of armies, and the building of... space fortresses:p ). They also agreed that no state could claim "control" or property in outer space, because it was then (and still is) considered as a "pristine" land for researchers and scientists (just as the Antartic is, for instance)
But of course, I don't expect these UN "laws" to be respected... ("pre emptive wars" are also supposed to be banned...)
Kinda like Europeans having to return to Europe and face trial for their misdeeds in the new world, a few hundred years back?
Err, no, not quite... The guys who left Europe for the new world *knew* they would never come back (mostly because you probably wouldn't survive the voyage to America in the first place, let alone the return trip). Those settlers found an "hospitable" land on arrival: land to farm, plenty of riches, water, etc...
Which probably won't be the case of the first "space settlers". I mean, the current record of life in space is, what, 2 years? (held by Russia IIRC). The guys who come back from up there need to undergo *rehabilitation* therapy (because of absence of gravity, space illness, radiations, etc...)
And if you got guys up there doing illegal activities, it's quite easy to knock them off: just cut their supplies (as in, "blow their rocket up")
Anyways, I seriously doubt the states (UE, USA, China etc) will let space activity develop without them having some sort of presence there (thinking police / military presence). I mean, it's easy for them to gain control of this brand new "area of influence", and it would be difficult for illegal "spacers" to hide their illegal space activities from the governments...
Except that there already are laws about private property and state property (and responsibility) in outer space. Here: http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SpaceLaw/outer spt.htm l
Your assumption (that laws only work with a police, and that therefore outer space will know a "wild west" phasis) is right is you assume that the outer space settlers, goldminers, and cowboys (call them as you like) never come back to earth, and thus will never be responsible for their actions (therefore=chaos and "wild west" situation). But they're bound to come back, and therefore face trial when they come back.
Some very interesting stuff on the UN Office for Outer space affairs' website: here
Interesting blurbs:
1 Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means
The thinking being, "it's everybody's good, so the lunar and martian surface -and all other planets for that matter- can't be anybody's property". I think they also ban the commercial appropriation (selling / buying) of land on outer space.
The UN body also states: 2 "the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind" Does that mean that if you start mining the moon, you have to redistribute your profit to all the other countries?
but also states: 3 "outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States" so you *do* have a right to mine the moon...
and (interesting stuff): 4 "States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies." Which means you're not supposed to pollute the planet you're mining (does that mean bringing back toxic waste on earth, or putting it in orbit?)
Hmm... the countries that signed these treaties are legally bound by them, so things could get messy:p
Heck, the description at the beginning of The Hot Zone is enough to keep me well clear of any Ebola vaccine trials, let alone the continent of Africa itself (not that I have any reason to go there in the first place).
So one little virus that affects ONE little region in Africa (and that has, as far, claimed just hundreds or thousands of victims, a far shot from malaria or aids) is enough to keep you away of Africa ? Whoah, talk about quaranteene!
It's like saying, "aids will keep me away from sex" or something like that, it's a bit extreme, no?
You should come to Africa, it's cool:) (typing this from Cairo, Egypt.)
Yeah... I don't really know about FM radio, but it would be a cool way for divers to reveive voice information from the ship above, or between them (if you manage to build a microphone / laryngophone that works underwater, that is..)
They've ripped off the Music store and the iPod up to the terms and conditions:
-99 cents a song, 9.99 USD for an album (same as iTunes)
-Burn a playlist to CD up to five times , DRM-free (iTunes: 10, but you can delete your playlist and do it again)
-3 authorised PC's (same as iTunes)
-30-second samples of all the music in the store
-250 000 tracks from all five majors + independents (moreless same as iTunes in the beginning), "500 000 by the end of the year" (which is what iTunes has now)
-US residents only
So, what remains in favor of iTunes?
-AAC (dell uses shitty WMA...)
-automatic network sharing through rendezvous (hmmm sweeet)
-PC and Mac
-iPod:) (though the Dell DJ doesn't look bad)
-iTunes (Jukebox is SHITTY)
But I think what will really, really separate the winner from the loser will be the number / quality of songs available at the stores...
One concern though: admitting I buy songs at both stores, I have to maintain two separate libraries, one through iTunes, the other through the Jukebox... Duh. Just like if I stored my CD's bought at Virgin Megastore in one room, and my CD's bought at my local disc retailer in another room, with no way to mix both libraries. That sucks, hard.
(well there's that blurb on dell's website: "Because Musicmatch Downloads is based on the Windows Media standard, songs can be played on all software players that support secure WMA." So maybe iTunes could read those songs.... oh but wait, apple doesn't do DRM)
Who needs radio? The whole world!
on
Who Needs Radio?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
(Typing this from Cairo, Egypt, where there IS internet of course)
In the third-world / developping world, the radio is THE main means of communication. People here listen to radio all day long; this is where I get the news reports related to the place I live in (I mean, when you're in Egypt you care more about what's happening in Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Sudan, etc, than the bushfires in Los Angeles). Radio is great in that it provides localized information, as opposed to the web.
Cheap, also. I bought a 6 dollars radio that does its job perfectly well, allows me to browse in local / arabic music (go find that on Kazaa when you don't have a clue about arabic music!!).
Easy to maintain, too... Most *very* remote places (Africa, south america, asia, etc) have ONE radio + a number of batteries when the power goes out, and with only this equipment, they manage to stay in touch with the rest of the world (how the hell do you think people in, say, Guinee-Bissau managed to learn about Sept. 11?).
Internet is WAY more difficult and expensive to dispatch, operate and mantain.
iPod: 61 x 104 x 15,8 mm @ 158 g iRiver: 60 x 105x 19 mm @ 160g
Sooo, at last someone else figured out that 2.5" drives were NOT the way to go (Archos anyone?;) And that LCD remote looks sweet too...
Though, from the picture, the navigation menu looks horrible. What is this "/root/030314/" stuff anyway? Am I supposed to type "pwd && ls" each time I want to see an album, or what? Maybe they're trying to appeal to geeks here (or they don't want to bother writing software), but hey, the Archos had a similar folder-based navigation and it *sucked cock*.
Slashdot Mirror
It's only a matter of time before the whole region is openly against us...
No, this has happened already (typing this from Cairo, Egypt, so I kinda know what I'm talking about.).
Competition is good, okay. What bothers me though, is that all of these music sellers are 1) tying your music to a certain platform (windows PC, or Mac OS X for Apple) 2) tying your music (in particular Apple) to a certain hardware (iPod).
Now how am I supposed to buy music from the three or four different sellers (Apple, Dell, HP for example, MS in the future) and keed it organized in one simple library of songs / one MP3 player?
Simple: I can't. I have to have iTunes reading the iTMS songs; WMP playing MS's files, and so on (OK, maybe WMP will be able to play Dell's and HP's songs; doubtbful, but even though, WMP is crap, I want iTunes for all of them).
Just as if I had to organize my CD collection according to the place I bought it in: one shelf (and one dedicated CD player) for CDs bought at FNAC (french retailer), other shelf and CD player for CDs bought at Virgin Megastore, other shelf and player for my favorite independent music store, and so on...
This is total rubbish, and once again in every single case of "format wars" (think DVD-R/+R) I can think of, the consumers are being litterally run over.
Given the fact that only Apple's iTunes is cross platform (thus at least giving me platform choice), i'd go for iTunes. But this shitheads at Apple won't enable WMA on iTunes OR on the iPod. (By the way, don't they face a potential lawsuit situation of unhappy competitors that want to see iPod WMA support?)
That's why I wouldn't buy at the Music Store even if I could (France & Egypt: out of the U.S.), no matter how cool it is: I want to see those matters publicly addressed by the online stores.
I really hope that Apple (and later, the other competitors, which seem unable to do anything differently from Apple) soon realises that format protection is USELESS, and, just as protected CD's, only damages the *customers'* experience (the ones who REALLY want to put their music online for others to download will always be able to, anyways. Apparently with a digital output you can get a perfect copy of your AAC track, not DRM'ed). I hope (somehow paradoxically) the store will be so successful Apple will be "strong" enough to renegociate the deal with the majors and remove DRM for good. But it won't happen, mostly because they make money off iPods, not the Store (therefore the "iPod only" policy is key to their benefits, at least as long as the music store doesn't make money)
Now there is my question:
Would it be possible to build an open source player that would act as a "common interface" above all of the proprietary players (I'm thinking, only remove the GUI part of those players and leave the decoding / DRMing libraries in place, and use them). Probably not, but that would be a project worth a very nice bounty!
I did not RTFA, and from experience, we don't need to.
[...]
Please stop reading this site and consign it to the flames of web history. Page views are keeping it alive.
(troll, but I'll bite. Feeling hungry.)
*BUZZ*
Too bad, buddy, you got it all wrong.
At this point, the "world" powers have lost the ability to take the initiative
... workforce, factories and such, except if you nuke everybody, but then it sucks hard to be the leader of an unhabitable planet.
Bravo, you just forgot ICBM nukes.
France alone has more than 350 ICBMs, IIRC, all of them capable of striking the East and West coast, simultaneously of course... Some of these pack multiple H-bomb heads. Other countries have the same capacities, Russia, England, China, possibly Israel, Pakistan, etc...
Even if you wipe out France, for instance, there are still 4 or 5 nuclear submarines *somewhere* in the ocean, which you WON'T be able to track and destroy in timely manner. Each of these submarines carry enough nukes around to destroy most of the urban areas of the U.S.
In the crazy hypothesis of global war (everybody against the U.S.A.), it ultimately doesn't matter how powerful the U.S.A. is: the theory of MAD(Mutually Assured Destruction, you know, the thing that prevented WW III...) still works.
BTW, there are more carriers than just the Foch: France produced the Foch, the Clemenceau (sold to Brazil I think), and now the (*grin*) Charles de Gaulle (nuclear carrier). Russia built some, and China would.
Plus, the other countries would very soon accelerate their arms production, which the U.S. can't do a thing about. I mean, no amount of power can stop the chinese + european + russian + indian +
(all of the above is just pure, hypothetical, theorical, mumbling. Kids, don't try this at home!)
... an egyptian governmental newspaper. Funny thing is, I work at the French version ( they have a daily in arabic, a weekly in english, and one in French...) since almost two months now :)
Nice newspaper, but not one I expected to find on Slashdot's main page!!! That's a fun coincidence!
(and no I didn't submit the article)
vaderhelmet writes "'In these media-fueled times, when war is a television spectacle and wiping out large numbers of civilians is generally frowned upon, the perfect weapon would literally stop an enemy in his tracks, yet harm neither hide nor hair.
There are simpler ways around that pesky little problem called "public opinion."
The simplest one is to get rid of media coverage. This can be done in many ways, but the association of all of those ways together is the most efficient tactic:
1)Just get rid of the journalists, camera crews, and photographers. *
Think Chechnya.
2) Oooh, shit. You're a democracy, you can't get rid of journalists. Find a way to have them work for your P.R. department, without even them knowing it!
Think, "embedded journalists" (Iraq, 2003).
3) Damn, some of them don't want to be embedded!
Threaten them, shoot at their cars, whatever.
Think, Hotel Palestine, Bagdad, where the journalists lived, that "accidentally" got fired at by a US M1-A1 Abrams tank. (Or think, reporters working in the Gaza bank etc.)
4) The journalists are still there. Shit, shit, shit. Go back to your home front and get rid of objectivity.
Think Fox News.
Like anyone actually gives a damn about the geneva convention? Hello?! Camp X Ray (aka, "Guantanamo") rings any bells?
It might make the general population of "liberated" countries like Iraq, even more hostile if you blow up their computers and Internet connections! Nothing worse than a horde of angry Iraqi children denied their Quake time.
Are you trying to be funny here?
Iraqis are pissed off because they had, for almost a month after their "liberation", no *FOOD* to put on their tables, no *WATER* to drink, no *MEDICINE* to use...
Even now, *GAS* and *WATER* electricity supplies remain sloppy.
Nobody gives a fuck about the internet.
In France (southern France, particularly) we have so many pizzerias where there never seems to be a single customer, yet they mysteriously turn profits each year :) Same applies to a lot of chinese restaurants in Paris...
Funnily enough, I just found a chinese restaurant here in Cairo (Egypt) that seems to work the same way: luxury, "high prices" restaurant (that is, you eat for 5 bucks). I get in, order my food, and notice that I am *alone* in the restaurant (at least 30 tables). Then I start noticing the big tough guys in Armani suits, apparently guarding the doors.. These guys are no waiters!
Interestingly, the restaurant is owned and operated by Lebanese :)
Hmmm, no. What happens is that some terrorist organizations *do* have access to surface to air missiles, and *are* willing to use them against military (or civilian, for that matter) transport planes.
:)
Sadly, it is not "alarmist crap" at all. Portable SAM systems are easy to find, and affordable too. This was true before Sep. 11th, and will be true in the future. You can get them from ex-USSR countries, Ethiopia, Erythrea, Somalia, the Balkans (duh!), among other places. A russian-designed SA 7 Strella missile shouldn't cost more than a hundred thousand dollars (launcher + one missile). These are manufactured under license in many countries: Russia, Pakistan (methinks), China, etc...
This is true regardless of your opinion on the so-called "war on terror". The fact that the US and the UK lied about Irak and overplayed the "war on terrorism" stuff, doesn't make the terrorists less "real". (Or does it?)
(interestingly I typed down "SA 7 Strella" even before I read the CNN page you are pointing at; see, this is far from being new, and I had read about these years before the beginning of the "war on terror")
Just my 2 piastres (typing this from Cairo, Egypt
I had thought of something similar, only with a BB gun:
"Bzzztt *SPLAT*!"
Ohhh, the joy!!
I think he meant power (not internet) outages, and more specifically referred to the big power outage of the-very-cold-winter-can't-remember-which-year (was it 1979?); urban legend has it that 9 months after this big power outage, the birth rate in the affeted zones (NYC, methinks) raised by more less 40 % (cause people were trapped at home w/o TV, and were cold, and therefore passed some time by copulating...)
Unfortunately, this urban legend is just that, a legend (no, no need to fry your house's electrical system just to get more sex from your girlfriend)
Yeah, you sure do have a point here... Note that I did *not* imply that UN law would be respected. Only, the UN already has a law corpus about outer space.
;)
And, yes, states (or corps) WILL break these laws if there is sufficient profit luring them.
Unless of course, the UN eventually gets sufficient funding and power to enforce its law on earth and in outer space. (eh, one can dream no?)
What next, "Space Blue Beret UN Marines"?
(The question is, will they have the right to open fire on space rebels and mischievous aliens?)
Well... it is the rich countries (USSR / USA / Europe) who took the initiative on these treaties, not the poor ones.
:p ). They also agreed that no state could claim "control" or property in outer space, because it was then (and still is) considered as a "pristine" land for researchers and scientists (just as the Antartic is, for instance)
Mostly because nobody wanted to bring the Cold War into space (too expensive), so they commonly "agreed" not to send weapons / armies there (yes, there is a specific chapter that forbids the outerspace deployment of missiles and atom bombs, of armies, and the building of... space fortresses
But of course, I don't expect these UN "laws" to be respected... ("pre emptive wars" are also supposed to be banned...)
Kinda like Europeans having to return to Europe and face trial for their misdeeds in the new world, a few hundred years back?
:)
Err, no, not quite... The guys who left Europe for the new world *knew* they would never come back (mostly because you probably wouldn't survive the voyage to America in the first place, let alone the return trip).
Those settlers found an "hospitable" land on arrival: land to farm, plenty of riches, water, etc...
Which probably won't be the case of the first "space settlers". I mean, the current record of life in space is, what, 2 years? (held by Russia IIRC). The guys who come back from up there need to undergo *rehabilitation* therapy (because of absence of gravity, space illness, radiations, etc...)
And if you got guys up there doing illegal activities, it's quite easy to knock them off: just cut their supplies (as in, "blow their rocket up")
Anyways, I seriously doubt the states (UE, USA, China etc) will let space activity develop without them having some sort of presence there (thinking police / military presence). I mean, it's easy for them to gain control of this brand new "area of influence", and it would be difficult for illegal "spacers" to hide their illegal space activities from the governments...
Bah, anyways, all this seems soooo far away
Except that there already are laws about private property and state property (and responsibility) in outer space. Here:r spt.htm l
http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SpaceLaw/oute
Your assumption (that laws only work with a police, and that therefore outer space will know a "wild west" phasis) is right is you assume that the outer space settlers, goldminers, and cowboys (call them as you like) never come back to earth, and thus will never be responsible for their actions (therefore=chaos and "wild west" situation). But they're bound to come back, and therefore face trial when they come back.
Some very interesting stuff on the UN Office for Outer space affairs' website:
:p
here
Interesting blurbs:
1 Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means
The thinking being, "it's everybody's good, so the lunar and martian surface -and all other planets for that matter- can't be anybody's property".
I think they also ban the commercial appropriation (selling / buying) of land on outer space.
The UN body also states:
2 "the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind"
Does that mean that if you start mining the moon, you have to redistribute your profit to all the other countries?
but also states:
3 "outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States"
so you *do* have a right to mine the moon...
and (interesting stuff):
4 "States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies."
Which means you're not supposed to pollute the planet you're mining (does that mean bringing back toxic waste on earth, or putting it in orbit?)
Hmm... the countries that signed these treaties are legally bound by them, so things could get messy
Well, you got my point I think :)
Heck, the description at the beginning of The Hot Zone is enough to keep me well clear of any Ebola vaccine trials, let alone the continent of Africa itself (not that I have any reason to go there in the first place).
:) (typing this from Cairo, Egypt.)
So one little virus that affects ONE little region in Africa (and that has, as far, claimed just hundreds or thousands of victims, a far shot from malaria or aids) is enough to keep you away of Africa ? Whoah, talk about quaranteene!
It's like saying, "aids will keep me away from sex" or something like that, it's a bit extreme, no?
You should come to Africa, it's cool
Here it is: http://www.time.com/time/2003/inventions/invshredd er.html
Yeah... I don't really know about FM radio, but it would be a cool way for divers to reveive voice information from the ship above, or between them (if you manage to build a microphone / laryngophone that works underwater, that is..)
Bullshit, the sky is clear tonight in Cairo!! For once :)
They've ripped off the Music store and the iPod up to the terms and conditions: -99 cents a song, 9.99 USD for an album (same as iTunes) -Burn a playlist to CD up to five times , DRM-free (iTunes: 10, but you can delete your playlist and do it again) -3 authorised PC's (same as iTunes) -30-second samples of all the music in the store -250 000 tracks from all five majors + independents (moreless same as iTunes in the beginning), "500 000 by the end of the year" (which is what iTunes has now) -US residents only So, what remains in favor of iTunes? -AAC (dell uses shitty WMA ...)
-automatic network sharing through rendezvous (hmmm sweeet)
-PC and Mac
-iPod :) (though the Dell DJ doesn't look bad)
-iTunes (Jukebox is SHITTY)
But I think what will really, really separate the winner from the loser will be the number / quality of songs available at the stores...
One concern though: admitting I buy songs at both stores, I have to maintain two separate libraries, one through iTunes, the other through the Jukebox... Duh. Just like if I stored my CD's bought at Virgin Megastore in one room, and my CD's bought at my local disc retailer in another room, with no way to mix both libraries. That sucks, hard.
(well there's that blurb on dell's website: "Because Musicmatch Downloads is based on the Windows Media standard, songs can be played on all software players that support secure WMA." So maybe iTunes could read those songs.... oh but wait, apple doesn't do DRM)
(Typing this from Cairo, Egypt, where there IS internet of course)
In the third-world / developping world, the radio is THE main means of communication. People here listen to radio all day long; this is where I get the news reports related to the place I live in (I mean, when you're in Egypt you care more about what's happening in Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Sudan, etc, than the bushfires in Los Angeles). Radio is great in that it provides localized information, as opposed to the web.
Cheap, also. I bought a 6 dollars radio that does its job perfectly well, allows me to browse in local / arabic music (go find that on Kazaa when you don't have a clue about arabic music!!).
Easy to maintain, too... Most *very* remote places (Africa, south america, asia, etc) have ONE radio + a number of batteries when the power goes out, and with only this equipment, they manage to stay in touch with the rest of the world (how the hell do you think people in, say, Guinee-Bissau managed to learn about Sept. 11?).
Internet is WAY more difficult and expensive to dispatch, operate and mantain.
iPod: 61 x 104 x 15,8 mm @ 158 g
;) And that LCD remote looks sweet too...
iRiver: 60 x 105x 19 mm @ 160g
Sooo, at last someone else figured out that 2.5" drives were NOT the way to go (Archos anyone?
Though, from the picture, the navigation menu looks horrible. What is this "/root/030314/" stuff anyway? Am I supposed to type "pwd && ls" each time I want to see an album, or what?
Maybe they're trying to appeal to geeks here (or they don't want to bother writing software), but hey, the Archos had a similar folder-based navigation and it *sucked cock*.