There are lots of ideas. How about a registration fee that starts at $1/year and doubles every year? That way at year 21 it costs a million bucks to renew and if it's not worth it the public domain gets it, but it doesn't impede poor inventors and artists from registering and trying to profit from their works for a reasonable time. The first eight years are only $255.
They don't even have a Vista option. They're all Vista licensed "with Windows XP Professional custom installed." Prices from <$600 to over $8k. No, I don't work for HP.
Anonymous accounts are for anonymous business. Named accounts are for real business. Somewhere in between are marginal personal accounts where you keep a persistent persona and leave a trail of cookies for the inquisitive to follow. As grandpa used to say, "in a strange town never give your right name".
I've had my real name open on one gmail account for years, and you can find it all over the web. Gmail is not Hotmail or Windows Live Mail or whatever they call it this year. To send me this "spam" you have to get through Google's email filter, and it's very good. I don't get any spam directed or not in my gmail inbox that I didn't sign up for. On my domains where I use a catchall box I get several thousand spam a day but I don't care -- the RFC says you have to have an account, not that you read the mail.
As for googling your own name, that's why you buy yourfirstlast.com if you can. That way when people are looking for you the first couple hits point to your personal site and you can direct them to your more insightful contributions to the contemporary dialog. If you're in IT the absence of a web footprint is as damning as mugshot on The Smoking Gun or linking your FaceBook to your MySpace to your HotOrNot to your drunken Fark.com ramblings.
Some people care. I suppose it's ok for them to care. They think they've been compromised in some way, but I don't care really. I think they're doing it wrong, I think Google did this wrong, but it takes both of them to fail for anything bad to happen so it's not Evil, just sad.
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times
to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" - U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8
And APL always did. There are many others. Now that the architecture of the processor is moving back to the '80s, only with multiple cores, we need a technology archaeologist to dig back through back issues of the Communications of the ACM from the 70's and 60's and show us where we went astray.
Ok, you've got $50B in the bank and you want to build the ideal desktop, server, supercomputer and portable device OS for all people. In addition to the money you have accumulated the world's largest collection of professional programmers, systems engineers and managers from around the globe. You've got a first class distribution network, peered server farms and media pressing manufacturers the world over. You've partnered with every major OEM since the beginning of time, so you have full specifications for all the hardware there is. Let's have some criteria...
Take out the trash. Interpret that as you will.
Now is a good time to consider security. Now keep it in mind throughout the rest of this post. It's hard, I know. Try. Try really hard. If you make a good start the NSA might help you. If anybody knows about IT security, they do.
Employ some black hats to keep you honest on security. Give them fiat to break your stuff. Pay them well to keep your secrets, then try to compromise them with strippers. If it doesn't work they'll still respect you and you'll have improved the strippers' economy.
Architect your solution using proven practices -- separate functions by critical elements and include only the necessary in the core system. Use peer review. You can afford a subscription to Communications of the ACM. When your system architects have mastered the patent expired (pre-1990) material, they might be ready to lead a team of programmers.
Choose a good set of toolchains that include every programming language since CP/M was kicking your butt. Because developers don't like to be told which toolchain to use.
Cross platform is not "runs in the last two versions of Windows". Make sure the thing can be ported to every hardware architecture there is -- including systems designed to prevent just that like the XBOX. Include alien processors and systems like Sparc, Power and Cell. Don't forget to include obscure crap like SNOBOL and APL - the few freaks who use that stuff really love it. Remember that every build must run in the user's choice of VM environments. When you let the users do what they will, they do the most amazing stuff.
Allow for multiple user interfaces based on user choice -- web-based, terminal based, GUI are only major categories of options, not individual choices. Some people like thin clients, so make sure they're supported fully.
Choices are not hierarchical. The subchoices of a major choice often overlap in interesting or useful ways.
Build a separate version for every conceivable field of endeavor. Archaeology? That's going to need GIS software, modelling software, a good browser and office package and a hundred other things. Make that many separate versions. Even specialists like choice. Architects? That's another suite. Don't be stingy. Every desktop needs an office suite or three, a CAD program, several browsers for the users to choose from and many other things. That way end users (or network admins) can choose. Try to get each one to install from a CD if you can, or a DVD at worst. Larger volume distribution media should be reserved for distributions that also include considerable multimedia content.
Make sure the thing scales from the feeble 386 processor available in some old embedded devices to the largest supercomputer currently in use, with additional consideration for how extreme the next 20 years might expand that horizon. Absurd Limit Theory is your friend.
Let go of stupid licensing. Your product's licensing cannot be so obscure that it takes three months with legal six months into a project to discover that licensing is not available for this use. It's also not acceptable
Oddly enough this is actually the purpose for the Internet. And you thought it was exploiting the synergism of user generated content with paid advertising in a referent free rapidly evolving framework? Same thing. The Internet is for porn.
And the libraries are where they'll be working this one out. They can't really expect the average programmer to handle this any more than they can count on him to implement a hashing algorithm.
Maybe we'll get Yet Another Fine Programming Language out of it -- though several of them were designed for this from their conception.
Properly configured it can stress all the cores on all the nodes in your cluster.
Oh you wanted to do something useful...
Intel released it as open source in 2001. Edit the source for the dynamo so that it does something useful. Compile and install. Done.
Or you could load Vista and play a light game. That ought to peg both cores.
Actually, dual core is what it's cracked up to be. While your single threaded application is grinding away you can still interact with your computer instead of staring at the hourglass like you used to do. Since you like playing with the affinity you can launch several long single threaded tasks and set their affinity for different cores. Transcode a.AVI into a DVD of the family picnic? Render an animation in POVRay? Compute a few billion prime numbers. Fold some proteins. Calculate the propagation of thermal energy through single fibers in a carbon-fiber fabric. Whatever you want.
Soon almost all non-trivial applications will be multithreaded, and then you'll be cursing the hourglass again. Until then enjoy your vacation from its tyranny.
The relevant constitutional language is "for a limited time.". This appears to be "until we extend it again to perpetuate Disney's franchise on Steamboat Willey.". A federal law is all that's required to convert this to something more reasonable like "Three years, no extensions."
For that you will need to get the Atom PC with DVI out for the media center. You'll also need a beefy gaming rig for the back end if you don't want it to be a slideshow.
Stop using your media center to store your media. That's what media servers and networks are for. Media centers are supposed to be slim low power units that need no fan but have killer presentation hardware (amps, surround sound, killer video resolution) and just enough CPU and storage to operate and present the media. Games are not "media." For those there are answers too - Google "eee Crysis youtube" for details. There's no need to have that monster kilowatt game machine (you gluttonous twits) running its shrieking fans in the space where you enjoy your content.
Early adopters pay premium prices, that's all this is. They charge the premium prices because they can get them. The more they sell, the more the price comes down. By the time a 128GB SSD is $20 you'll never believe they weren't useful, but be right here saying how nobody will need that $900 1TB model.
The Seattle PI reports: "However, there's a catch- this generous helping of everything from taekwondo to equestrian is exclusively available to Windows Vista users."
Now read my post again. Is some part of it not in agreement with the facts?
I think you're deliberately misunderstanding me in order to muddy the issue.
The NBC "Olympics On The Go" service will only be broadcast to users of Windows Vista. You can have the Olympics in "up to HD" but only if you take Vista too. I can only presume they are afraid their servers couldn't handle the load of allowing it to the broad audience of popular operating systems and handheld devices, even though users of that equipment are a much bigger market for their advertisers.
Read that again. I definitely did not say "Silverlight is Vista only.". That would be silly. Microsoft wants Silverlight to be widely adopted. That would never happen if people had to have Vista to use it.
So... What you're saying is... A telco refuses to build out broadband. The community raises the funds and builds out broadband using whatever subcontractor. That seems a reasonable course to take. Then the community should just take this essential infrastructure and just gift it to the telcos to exploit like their other monopoly victims? And pay the bonds back with what, exactly?
I'm sure the phone company involved in this hypothetical case you're talking about billed all the traffic would bear and I'm not going to cry for them that they didn't also get ownership of the finished work on a job for hire. Personally I don't care if they hire migrant illegals to bury my fiber. I just want it here by 1997.
Two more things -- Thie above is not typical, but it is common telco reasononing. They should get all of the communications monopolies because they have the communication monopoly and they're entitled to keep it even if they neglect to update their technology. Also, I've been watching the topic for 20 years. You think I don't have the facts and you're wrong. I've just rejected your "information" for the petulant nonsense it is.
The power districts I know of that are doing this don't sell retail. They'll open their network to any shmuck with a decent router. I could be an ISP. If comcast and AOL want to play on a level field, they're welcome to. They don't. The thought terrifies them. Hence the lawyers.
In Tacoma WA they have muni broadband, and they're more particular. OTOH their quality of service is stunning. You call, and get actual local people who know the area and the network and get someone out to you right away if you need it. Click Network is great stuff, even if it's only 10mbps over cable instead of 100mbps over fiber.
Many government services are provided by Internet. The internet is for many people the only access to modern markets. Internet is essential infrastructure.
These companies have no desire to compete for these markets. Their objective is the prevention of information services to these people. The people are right to be angry. They're also more used to fixing these things themselves.
These areas have no current broadband business serving them and they aren't going to because the margins are higher providing 5mbps to city folk than dragging fiber out to farmer John. That's why rural areas to get broadband at all have to do it themselves.
The thing is in places like sleepy Ephrata, WA they can sell 100mbps broadband for $50/mo through the power district and still make a profit - just not as big of a margin as the telcos are getting.
There is no business there to destroy and there never will be. Comcast and Ma Bell have no intention of serving these folks ever. They just sue to keep other people from doing it to prop up the myth that bandwidth is evpensive. Yeah sure it's expensive if the guy dragging the fiber has to take every corner, valley and river by force from a defending battalion of lawyers.
Slashdot Mirror
if?
I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with the evil content in the music and movie sharing groups. This is just about protecting the children.
There are lots of ideas. How about a registration fee that starts at $1/year and doubles every year? That way at year 21 it costs a million bucks to renew and if it's not worth it the public domain gets it, but it doesn't impede poor inventors and artists from registering and trying to profit from their works for a reasonable time. The first eight years are only $255.
Noted flackalyst Rob Enderle needs to weigh in on this ruling too. He's often quoted and always wrong.
They don't even have a Vista option. They're all Vista licensed "with Windows XP Professional custom installed." Prices from <$600 to over $8k. No, I don't work for HP.
Here's a novel idea: abolish copyright.. We should act now before this gets even more dumb.
What's a dialup? Did I miss another Pokemon movie?
Anonymous accounts are for anonymous business. Named accounts are for real business. Somewhere in between are marginal personal accounts where you keep a persistent persona and leave a trail of cookies for the inquisitive to follow. As grandpa used to say, "in a strange town never give your right name".
I've had my real name open on one gmail account for years, and you can find it all over the web. Gmail is not Hotmail or Windows Live Mail or whatever they call it this year. To send me this "spam" you have to get through Google's email filter, and it's very good. I don't get any spam directed or not in my gmail inbox that I didn't sign up for. On my domains where I use a catchall box I get several thousand spam a day but I don't care -- the RFC says you have to have an account, not that you read the mail.
As for googling your own name, that's why you buy yourfirstlast.com if you can. That way when people are looking for you the first couple hits point to your personal site and you can direct them to your more insightful contributions to the contemporary dialog. If you're in IT the absence of a web footprint is as damning as mugshot on The Smoking Gun or linking your FaceBook to your MySpace to your HotOrNot to your drunken Fark.com ramblings.
Some people care. I suppose it's ok for them to care. They think they've been compromised in some way, but I don't care really. I think they're doing it wrong, I think Google did this wrong, but it takes both of them to fail for anything bad to happen so it's not Evil, just sad.
If they no longer serve this purpose is it time to abolish copyrights and patents?
And APL always did. There are many others. Now that the architecture of the processor is moving back to the '80s, only with multiple cores, we need a technology archaeologist to dig back through back issues of the Communications of the ACM from the 70's and 60's and show us where we went astray.
Ok, you've got $50B in the bank and you want to build the ideal desktop, server, supercomputer and portable device OS for all people. In addition to the money you have accumulated the world's largest collection of professional programmers, systems engineers and managers from around the globe. You've got a first class distribution network, peered server farms and media pressing manufacturers the world over. You've partnered with every major OEM since the beginning of time, so you have full specifications for all the hardware there is. Let's have some criteria...
Oddly enough this is actually the purpose for the Internet. And you thought it was exploiting the synergism of user generated content with paid advertising in a referent free rapidly evolving framework? Same thing. The Internet is for porn.
And the libraries are where they'll be working this one out. They can't really expect the average programmer to handle this any more than they can count on him to implement a hashing algorithm.
Maybe we'll get Yet Another Fine Programming Language out of it -- though several of them were designed for this from their conception.
iometer
Properly configured it can stress all the cores on all the nodes in your cluster.
Oh you wanted to do something useful...
Intel released it as open source in 2001. Edit the source for the dynamo so that it does something useful. Compile and install. Done.
Or you could load Vista and play a light game. That ought to peg both cores.
Actually, dual core is what it's cracked up to be. While your single threaded application is grinding away you can still interact with your computer instead of staring at the hourglass like you used to do. Since you like playing with the affinity you can launch several long single threaded tasks and set their affinity for different cores. Transcode a .AVI into a DVD of the family picnic? Render an animation in POVRay? Compute a few billion prime numbers. Fold some proteins. Calculate the propagation of thermal energy through single fibers in a carbon-fiber fabric. Whatever you want.
Soon almost all non-trivial applications will be multithreaded, and then you'll be cursing the hourglass again. Until then enjoy your vacation from its tyranny.
Somebody better get on that if we're getting to 5nm feature size.
The relevant constitutional language is "for a limited time.". This appears to be "until we extend it again to perpetuate Disney's franchise on Steamboat Willey.". A federal law is all that's required to convert this to something more reasonable like "Three years, no extensions."
For that you will need to get the Atom PC with DVI out for the media center. You'll also need a beefy gaming rig for the back end if you don't want it to be a slideshow.
but you knew that...
Stop using your media center to store your media. That's what media servers and networks are for. Media centers are supposed to be slim low power units that need no fan but have killer presentation hardware (amps, surround sound, killer video resolution) and just enough CPU and storage to operate and present the media. Games are not "media." For those there are answers too - Google "eee Crysis youtube" for details. There's no need to have that monster kilowatt game machine (you gluttonous twits) running its shrieking fans in the space where you enjoy your content.
Early adopters pay premium prices, that's all this is. They charge the premium prices because they can get them. The more they sell, the more the price comes down. By the time a 128GB SSD is $20 you'll never believe they weren't useful, but be right here saying how nobody will need that $900 1TB model.
Oh, really?
The Seattle PI reports: "However, there's a catch- this generous helping of everything from taekwondo to equestrian is exclusively available to Windows Vista users."
Now read my post again. Is some part of it not in agreement with the facts?
I think you're deliberately misunderstanding me in order to muddy the issue.
The NBC "Olympics On The Go" service will only be broadcast to users of Windows Vista . You can have the Olympics in "up to HD" but only if you take Vista too. I can only presume they are afraid their servers couldn't handle the load of allowing it to the broad audience of popular operating systems and handheld devices, even though users of that equipment are a much bigger market for their advertisers.
You've never done that? I thought everybody did that.
Read that again. I definitely did not say "Silverlight is Vista only.". That would be silly. Microsoft wants Silverlight to be widely adopted. That would never happen if people had to have Vista to use it.
So... What you're saying is... A telco refuses to build out broadband. The community raises the funds and builds out broadband using whatever subcontractor. That seems a reasonable course to take. Then the community should just take this essential infrastructure and just gift it to the telcos to exploit like their other monopoly victims? And pay the bonds back with what, exactly?
I'm sure the phone company involved in this hypothetical case you're talking about billed all the traffic would bear and I'm not going to cry for them that they didn't also get ownership of the finished work on a job for hire. Personally I don't care if they hire migrant illegals to bury my fiber. I just want it here by 1997.
Two more things -- Thie above is not typical, but it is common telco reasononing. They should get all of the communications monopolies because they have the communication monopoly and they're entitled to keep it even if they neglect to update their technology. Also, I've been watching the topic for 20 years. You think I don't have the facts and you're wrong. I've just rejected your "information" for the petulant nonsense it is.
The power districts I know of that are doing this don't sell retail. They'll open their network to any shmuck with a decent router. I could be an ISP. If comcast and AOL want to play on a level field, they're welcome to. They don't. The thought terrifies them. Hence the lawyers.
In Tacoma WA they have muni broadband, and they're more particular. OTOH their quality of service is stunning. You call, and get actual local people who know the area and the network and get someone out to you right away if you need it. Click Network is great stuff, even if it's only 10mbps over cable instead of 100mbps over fiber.
Many government services are provided by Internet. The internet is for many people the only access to modern markets. Internet is essential infrastructure.
These companies have no desire to compete for these markets. Their objective is the prevention of information services to these people. The people are right to be angry. They're also more used to fixing these things themselves.
These areas have no current broadband business serving them and they aren't going to because the margins are higher providing 5mbps to city folk than dragging fiber out to farmer John. That's why rural areas to get broadband at all have to do it themselves.
The thing is in places like sleepy Ephrata, WA they can sell 100mbps broadband for $50/mo through the power district and still make a profit - just not as big of a margin as the telcos are getting.
There is no business there to destroy and there never will be. Comcast and Ma Bell have no intention of serving these folks ever. They just sue to keep other people from doing it to prop up the myth that bandwidth is evpensive. Yeah sure it's expensive if the guy dragging the fiber has to take every corner, valley and river by force from a defending battalion of lawyers.