1. Why does money have to be a factor? I'd really like to live in a world where all software was open sourse, even if "free as in beer" software disappeared completely. It's about Freedom, not money. To quote a coworker of mine, Licensing is the devil.
So you would approve of a world where you could get the source for any software package, but you couldn't redistribute that same source to others unless they had purchased a copy as well? Open source kind of implies free as in beer. Otherwise, you'd see a company start up, charge good money for their awesome GPL'd open source software, someone buys it and puts it on a website where anyone can get it for free.
If seeing a movie costs as much as proprietary software, which movie theatre would you go to? One which charges you $500 to see an "open source" movie, or the one right next door to it which legally copied that movie and is showing it for free, with just as good a quality, and with no strings attached?
2. If everyone just "bites the bullet" and uses non-OSS, proprietary software, there is no motivation for people to create good OSS alternatives. Don't hammer the guy for wanting an ideal situation - we all do. Should we all give up?
What a defeatist attitude. Should an architectural firm go back to drafting by hand and staunchly refuse to consider using AutoCAD simply because there's no sufficiently decent open source equivalent? You speak of motivation, but the motivation is already there. A development team just needs to look at the market and say "Hey, there's thousands of companies out there spending many tens of thousands of dollars each for AutoCAD support and licensing costs because there's no open source equivalent. Maybe there's a market here for an open source version!"
It's quite simple. If companies are choosing closed source software, there's a reason why. Maybe it has more features. Maybe there's better support available. Maybe it's one of hundreds of reasons. All of business comes down to a simple idea: find a gap in the market, fill it, and make a profit. This is what open source developers should be doing. If there's no profit in it, then perhaps that's a clue as to why there's only closed source versions available.
We're accustomed to think of large f numbers as "slow" because of cameras. I don't know much about cameras, but I suppose because there is a fixed area in the focal plane you are exposing; this translates to different clear diameters through which the film is "looking".
Yes, I was thinking about cameras and assumed it's similar for telescopes. In cameras, the f-stop number determines the amount of light let in, controlled (usually) by an iris aperature. The lower the f number, the larger the aperature of the iris is, hence... more light is let through and results in shorter exposure times (in addition to decreased depth of field, and other effects).
Check out this telescope. It weighs a total of 52 pounds (40 was the target) instead of the article's 70 pounder, and has an f5 aperature instead of f8 so it lets in more light. Very similar construction, but this one was made 6 years ago.
No Purchase Necessary. To receive one free game piece and a copy of Official Rules, while supplies last, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope postmarked on or before 3/31/04 to: Pepsi iTunes Game Piece, P.O. Box 9205, Young America, MN 55558-9205. Residents of the state of VT may omit return postage. Limit one free game piece per request per stamped outer envelope.
So Vermont residents, for the cost of two envelopes, you can get a game piece which has a 1/3 chance of winning. It doesn't look as if there's a limit to the number of times you can mail in for your free game piece either, as long as each request is in a separate envelope.
Now, a sculptor I could see as being poor. I never see them. Except ice sculptors, and they have plenty of business in their field, but the field is limited to those who are really, really good at it.
What a great business too! It's the ultimate in selling -- you sell a product which melts so they have to pay for your products again and again. Just don't let Microsoft know about this or they'll make an ice computer.
I used to buy cans in neighboring states that didn't have deposits (like Indiana) then turn them in at a store in MI for $.10 a can. This worked until the stores started getting machines that scanned the bar code on the can.
I assume you mean empty cans? Otherwise, unless you're buying pop for 9 cents a can, you're losing money!:)
Blaming the AV companies for the failure of the IT personnel of other organizations to evaluate and properly configure their mail gateway AV software seems like a load of crap to me.
Come on... this is Slashdot. What's next? Blaming Microsoft for the insecurity of Windows because people can't evaluate and properly configure their systems?
You read it on slashdot, four months ago. I'm sure you could find many previous references if you looked hard enough. This is nothing new. It's hardly insightful of you a whole whopping two days ago to call anti-virus messages advertising and spam -- this has been generally known ever since mass mailers clued in and started spoofing addresses, which was years ago.
For a 400 person or less company, the costs quoted are quite low. If you take the median, 200 people, and each loses a cumulative 1 day of work due to getting the virus, or just deleting the virus, plus any associated company meetings or training, etc. in dealing with the virus, that's 200 days lost or about 1 man-year. Right there, you have minimum $50,000 in productivity down the drain. This doesn't include software upgrades for anti-virus, mail scanning, etc. nor any repair time for infected computers that the IT staff has to deal with.
On the other hand, those figures should be the cost for the *first* virus epidemic in any company. After the first one, there's no excuse for not taking measures to protect the company from further viruses.
Why, by making an observation of course! After that their quantum state collapses to just one state, either a real or an armchair quantum physicist.
The problem is that you'll either be able to read what they wrote, or determine how intelligent the post is -- but by knowing one, the other is forever lost. Quite the quantum quandry!
There is no point in applying for a patent if you are going to put it in the public domain. Doing that dissolves the patent.
No, it doesn't. Patenting an invention effectively puts it into a limited public domain, as anyone is able to look at the patent description and read the full information regarding the invention. However, a patent rewards the inventor for this public disclosure by giving them the right to exclusive use of that patent for a limited period of time.
An unenforced trademark, on the other hand, can become public domain. The prime example here being Aspirin, which was once a registered trademark and everything. However, because the trademark wasn't enforced, now anyone (in certain countries) is able to create their own acetylsalicylic acid product and generically refer to it as aspirin without having to worry that the folks from Bayer will come after them. From the Aspirin FAQ:
"The new substance with its surprisingly simple chemical structure rapidly proved its superiority in clinical trials - it is highly effective and relatively well tolerated. In 1899, acetylsalicylic acid was launched on the German market under the trademark Aspirin(R). Today, Aspirin(R) is a registered trademark of Bayer AG in Germany and more than 80 other countries. In countries where Aspirin(R) is not protected by trademark status, such as the United States, the term Aspirin(R) can be used generically for all products containing the active substance acetylsalicylic acid. However, genuine Aspirin(R), renowned the world over, is only available with the Bayer Cross."
You are probably thinking along the lines of Yojimbo and Murotho staring at each other for an interminable minute.. then draw the sword and fight is over in half a second. (I wont say who won the duel.. lest someone bitch about spilers..:) )
That was a great scene.:) But more like the bokken fighting in The Last Samurai where Cruise and the other guy (sorry, don't remember the names) fight and it eventually ends in a draw. Yes, it was a relatively quick fight but that sort of fighting could easily be choreographed and drawn out longer. Similarly when Cruise gets jumped in the street later on by numerous guys. Surviving a multiple-person sword attack is improbable, but the way it was shown is certainly plausible.
From what I have seen, lightsabers are used more as bludgeoning weapons than cutting weapons. And the fights are on par with that.
Good point. Now that you mention it, it does rather seem that way.
Good swordmanship usually doesn't make good movies. If two skilled swordsman meet, usually the first stroke ends the fight.
This is also true of lightsabre duels. First stroke wins. However, Luke and Vader managed to have a fairly extended fight without resorting to insane acrobatics, and they managed to throw in a bit of great dialogue into the middle of it all. Same with Obi-Wan and Vader. Yeah, the moves weren't all that spectacular but it sure added to the story.
A good sword or lightsabre fight should be full of great, exciting moves while still being relatively believable. Make it last for a while too -- have moments where the opponents size each other up, look for weaknesses, and then go in for a barrage of blows and parries. All we know about Darth Maul (from the movie alone) is that he's got an ugly face and he's a good fighter. What a waste. They could have thrown in a bit of dialogue into the scenes and fleshed out his character a bit more. As it were, Darth Maul was the equivalent of a red shirt Star Trek security guard, only he managed to last a tad longer.
I'm not going to get into how it's ridiculous to compare the fighting styles of saber-wielding, force-using Jedi to normal men using metal swords...
Actually, I wish you would. Regardless of any supernatural powers they're supposed to possess, it still boils down to two people with weapons, each trying to win. Then again, maybe in Jedi school they teach students to spin around and turn their backs on opponents because it looks better to someone who may be watching.
... but how in the hell would the style of the fighting change the context of the duel with regards to the plot? As long as the general flow of the fight stays the same, that is all that matters for the plot.
You're right -- I worded my post poorly. The point I tried to make here wasn't whether or not the style of fighting affects the plot but that the fighting should be realistic and fight scenes, when used, shouldn't be merely for filler. It's a side point to the fight quality, but still important I feel.
In the meantime, why not have the Jedi and Sith doing some bitchin' acrobatics and saber work to please the 99.9% of us who realize that it's not real, it's a movie.
In movies, one of the goals is to have a suspension of disbelief and, to achieve that, scenes should be reasonably believable. When things go so over the top that it's difficult to take seriously, it affects the movie experience in my opinion. Imagine they took a Bruce Lee movie and changed around the fight scenes, enhancing them with computer graphics so that Bruce can defy gravity and kick 20 people in a row with a continually spinning roundhouse. Would you say that would result in a better movie for 99.9% of people? Or is the original better, where the main focus of the fighting is an awesome exhibition of incredible raw kung fu talent, with only minimal effects to enhance it?
The lightsaber fights do end up looking good, even in these green screen clips.
Then I remember Star Wars: Episode 1. The lightsaber fight with Darth Maul / Obiwan was very very good...
Sure, if your definition of "good" is having the fighters flip around maniacally in all sorts of improbable positions, doing spins and twirls which would make it easy for any capable swordsman to kill them. What I'd really like to see is for the lightsabre fights to employ traditional swordsmanship techniques. After all, what's the point of doing any kind of spin or wind-up movement... to build up more momentum which doesn't even affect an energy beam?
I know, people probably expect to see lots of crazy acrobatics so that they can get their action fix rather than having a lightsabre duel be an actual plot device, used in the context of telling a great story.
He's sorry that Microsoft has a Washington presence, likely because he believes that politics and business shouldn't have to mix. It doesn't necessarily follow that he will always stay out of politics on a personal level to some degree.
Replica of Mars Rover Opportunity made of Lego Modified to Contain a 2004 PC in a 1984 Mac Stops Responding, Debugging Dumps Indicate Possible Flaw in Linux InstantOn Boot Loader and/or Flash Controller.
The IE bug (much talked about at LinuxWorld 2004) was used to spoof the Opportunity's man page, resulting in it being frozen in carbonite. Film at 11.
There's an interesting story regarding Novell there. Anyway, that OS would take snapshots of the entire memory state every N seconds so that even if you pulled the plug out of the wall while the machine was running, you'd be back up to where you left off (minus some seconds) as it simply reloaded everything from disk again.
If all the store was interested in was the list of items that each customer purchased, it seems like they already have that information. It would therefore seem that the 'discount cards' are likely used to associate a specific customer with that list of items.
That's the point. Without the card, they only have a customer's purchase information for a single sale. Now they could try matching up credit/debit cards to locate multiple purchases for a single user, but the cards do that much more reliably. Using the cards, they have a customer's purchase information for all the sales they make. That's where they can mine the most data.
... and also from the fact that their site doesn't work in Safari. Their "contact us" link doesn't even work (it appears to attempt to open a dhtml panel). I don't think they'll be getting too many Mac orders just yet.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Why does money have to be a factor? I'd really like to live in a world where all software was open sourse, even if "free as in beer" software disappeared completely. It's about Freedom, not money. To quote a coworker of mine, Licensing is the devil.
So you would approve of a world where you could get the source for any software package, but you couldn't redistribute that same source to others unless they had purchased a copy as well? Open source kind of implies free as in beer. Otherwise, you'd see a company start up, charge good money for their awesome GPL'd open source software, someone buys it and puts it on a website where anyone can get it for free.
If seeing a movie costs as much as proprietary software, which movie theatre would you go to? One which charges you $500 to see an "open source" movie, or the one right next door to it which legally copied that movie and is showing it for free, with just as good a quality, and with no strings attached?
2. If everyone just "bites the bullet" and uses non-OSS, proprietary software, there is no motivation for people to create good OSS alternatives. Don't hammer the guy for wanting an ideal situation - we all do. Should we all give up?
What a defeatist attitude. Should an architectural firm go back to drafting by hand and staunchly refuse to consider using AutoCAD simply because there's no sufficiently decent open source equivalent? You speak of motivation, but the motivation is already there. A development team just needs to look at the market and say "Hey, there's thousands of companies out there spending many tens of thousands of dollars each for AutoCAD support and licensing costs because there's no open source equivalent. Maybe there's a market here for an open source version!"
It's quite simple. If companies are choosing closed source software, there's a reason why. Maybe it has more features. Maybe there's better support available. Maybe it's one of hundreds of reasons. All of business comes down to a simple idea: find a gap in the market, fill it, and make a profit. This is what open source developers should be doing. If there's no profit in it, then perhaps that's a clue as to why there's only closed source versions available.
We're accustomed to think of large f numbers as "slow" because of cameras. I don't know much about cameras, but I suppose because there is a fixed area in the focal plane you are exposing; this translates to different clear diameters through which the film is "looking".
Yes, I was thinking about cameras and assumed it's similar for telescopes. In cameras, the f-stop number determines the amount of light let in, controlled (usually) by an iris aperature. The lower the f number, the larger the aperature of the iris is, hence... more light is let through and results in shorter exposure times (in addition to decreased depth of field, and other effects).
Oh, and not to totally karma whore, but from his main page there's a link to his ultra-portable 10" f5. Click and drool.
Check out this telescope. It weighs a total of 52 pounds (40 was the target) instead of the article's 70 pounder, and has an f5 aperature instead of f8 so it lets in more light. Very similar construction, but this one was made 6 years ago.
From the Official Rules:
No Purchase Necessary. To receive one free game piece and a copy of Official Rules, while supplies last, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope postmarked on or before 3/31/04 to: Pepsi iTunes Game Piece, P.O. Box 9205, Young America, MN 55558-9205. Residents of the state of VT may omit return postage. Limit one free game piece per request per stamped outer envelope.
So Vermont residents, for the cost of two envelopes, you can get a game piece which has a 1/3 chance of winning. It doesn't look as if there's a limit to the number of times you can mail in for your free game piece either, as long as each request is in a separate envelope.
Now, a sculptor I could see as being poor. I never see them. Except ice sculptors, and they have plenty of business in their field, but the field is limited to those who are really, really good at it.
What a great business too! It's the ultimate in selling -- you sell a product which melts so they have to pay for your products again and again. Just don't let Microsoft know about this or they'll make an ice computer.
I used to buy cans in neighboring states that didn't have deposits (like Indiana) then turn them in at a store in MI for $.10 a can. This worked until the stores started getting machines that scanned the bar code on the can.
:)
I assume you mean empty cans? Otherwise, unless you're buying pop for 9 cents a can, you're losing money!
Blaming the AV companies for the failure of the IT personnel of other organizations to evaluate and properly configure their mail gateway AV software seems like a load of crap to me.
Come on... this is Slashdot. What's next? Blaming Microsoft for the insecurity of Windows because people can't evaluate and properly configure their systems?
You read it on slashdot, four months ago. I'm sure you could find many previous references if you looked hard enough. This is nothing new. It's hardly insightful of you a whole whopping two days ago to call anti-virus messages advertising and spam -- this has been generally known ever since mass mailers clued in and started spoofing addresses, which was years ago.
For a 400 person or less company, the costs quoted are quite low. If you take the median, 200 people, and each loses a cumulative 1 day of work due to getting the virus, or just deleting the virus, plus any associated company meetings or training, etc. in dealing with the virus, that's 200 days lost or about 1 man-year. Right there, you have minimum $50,000 in productivity down the drain. This doesn't include software upgrades for anti-virus, mail scanning, etc. nor any repair time for infected computers that the IT staff has to deal with.
On the other hand, those figures should be the cost for the *first* virus epidemic in any company. After the first one, there's no excuse for not taking measures to protect the company from further viruses.
Why, by making an observation of course! After that their quantum state collapses to just one state, either a real or an armchair quantum physicist.
The problem is that you'll either be able to read what they wrote, or determine how intelligent the post is -- but by knowing one, the other is forever lost. Quite the quantum quandry!
.ASF .ASX .WMA
What's Linux user to do???
Copy the link destination for the ASX file and replace the extension with MP3. Voila.
No, it doesn't. Patenting an invention effectively puts it into a limited public domain, as anyone is able to look at the patent description and read the full information regarding the invention. However, a patent rewards the inventor for this public disclosure by giving them the right to exclusive use of that patent for a limited period of time.
An unenforced trademark, on the other hand, can become public domain. The prime example here being Aspirin, which was once a registered trademark and everything. However, because the trademark wasn't enforced, now anyone (in certain countries) is able to create their own acetylsalicylic acid product and generically refer to it as aspirin without having to worry that the folks from Bayer will come after them. From the Aspirin FAQ:
You are probably thinking along the lines of Yojimbo and Murotho staring at each other for an interminable minute.. then draw the sword and fight is over in half a second. (I wont say who won the duel.. lest someone bitch about spilers.. :) )
:) But more like the bokken fighting in The Last Samurai where Cruise and the other guy (sorry, don't remember the names) fight and it eventually ends in a draw. Yes, it was a relatively quick fight but that sort of fighting could easily be choreographed and drawn out longer. Similarly when Cruise gets jumped in the street later on by numerous guys. Surviving a multiple-person sword attack is improbable, but the way it was shown is certainly plausible.
That was a great scene.
From what I have seen, lightsabers are used more as bludgeoning weapons than cutting weapons. And the fights are on par with that.
Good point. Now that you mention it, it does rather seem that way.
Good swordmanship usually doesn't make good movies. If two skilled swordsman meet, usually the first stroke ends the fight.
This is also true of lightsabre duels. First stroke wins. However, Luke and Vader managed to have a fairly extended fight without resorting to insane acrobatics, and they managed to throw in a bit of great dialogue into the middle of it all. Same with Obi-Wan and Vader. Yeah, the moves weren't all that spectacular but it sure added to the story.
A good sword or lightsabre fight should be full of great, exciting moves while still being relatively believable. Make it last for a while too -- have moments where the opponents size each other up, look for weaknesses, and then go in for a barrage of blows and parries. All we know about Darth Maul (from the movie alone) is that he's got an ugly face and he's a good fighter. What a waste. They could have thrown in a bit of dialogue into the scenes and fleshed out his character a bit more. As it were, Darth Maul was the equivalent of a red shirt Star Trek security guard, only he managed to last a tad longer.
I'm not going to get into how it's ridiculous to compare the fighting styles of saber-wielding, force-using Jedi to normal men using metal swords...
... but how in the hell would the style of the fighting change the context of the duel with regards to the plot? As long as the general flow of the fight stays the same, that is all that matters for the plot.
Actually, I wish you would. Regardless of any supernatural powers they're supposed to possess, it still boils down to two people with weapons, each trying to win. Then again, maybe in Jedi school they teach students to spin around and turn their backs on opponents because it looks better to someone who may be watching.
You're right -- I worded my post poorly. The point I tried to make here wasn't whether or not the style of fighting affects the plot but that the fighting should be realistic and fight scenes, when used, shouldn't be merely for filler. It's a side point to the fight quality, but still important I feel.
In the meantime, why not have the Jedi and Sith doing some bitchin' acrobatics and saber work to please the 99.9% of us who realize that it's not real, it's a movie.
In movies, one of the goals is to have a suspension of disbelief and, to achieve that, scenes should be reasonably believable. When things go so over the top that it's difficult to take seriously, it affects the movie experience in my opinion. Imagine they took a Bruce Lee movie and changed around the fight scenes, enhancing them with computer graphics so that Bruce can defy gravity and kick 20 people in a row with a continually spinning roundhouse. Would you say that would result in a better movie for 99.9% of people? Or is the original better, where the main focus of the fighting is an awesome exhibition of incredible raw kung fu talent, with only minimal effects to enhance it?
The lightsaber fights do end up looking good, even in these green screen clips.
Then I remember Star Wars: Episode 1. The lightsaber fight with Darth Maul / Obiwan was very very good...
Sure, if your definition of "good" is having the fighters flip around maniacally in all sorts of improbable positions, doing spins and twirls which would make it easy for any capable swordsman to kill them. What I'd really like to see is for the lightsabre fights to employ traditional swordsmanship techniques. After all, what's the point of doing any kind of spin or wind-up movement... to build up more momentum which doesn't even affect an energy beam?
I know, people probably expect to see lots of crazy acrobatics so that they can get their action fix rather than having a lightsabre duel be an actual plot device, used in the context of telling a great story.
He let us down with ROTK.
So that was Yoda saying "my precious..." all the time? Yeah, it's a lousy rending of Yoda there -- I can see how you'd be disappointed.
He's sorry that Microsoft has a Washington presence, likely because he believes that politics and business shouldn't have to mix. It doesn't necessarily follow that he will always stay out of politics on a personal level to some degree.
Replica of Mars Rover Opportunity made of Lego Modified to Contain a 2004 PC in a 1984 Mac Stops Responding, Debugging Dumps Indicate Possible Flaw in Linux InstantOn Boot Loader and/or Flash Controller.
The IE bug (much talked about at LinuxWorld 2004) was used to spoof the Opportunity's man page, resulting in it being frozen in carbonite. Film at 11.
Check out notes for the KeyKOS project:
s tence
http://www.eros-os.org/project/novelty.html#persi
There's an interesting story regarding Novell there. Anyway, that OS would take snapshots of the entire memory state every N seconds so that even if you pulled the plug out of the wall while the machine was running, you'd be back up to where you left off (minus some seconds) as it simply reloaded everything from disk again.
If all the store was interested in was the list of items that each customer purchased, it seems like they already have that information. It would therefore seem that the 'discount cards' are likely used to associate a specific customer with that list of items.
That's the point. Without the card, they only have a customer's purchase information for a single sale. Now they could try matching up credit/debit cards to locate multiple purchases for a single user, but the cards do that much more reliably. Using the cards, they have a customer's purchase information for all the sales they make. That's where they can mine the most data.
How does the use of a black felt marker affect CD longevity?
They shot themselves in the foot with licensing.
... and also from the fact that their site doesn't work in Safari. Their "contact us" link doesn't even work (it appears to attempt to open a dhtml panel). I don't think they'll be getting too many Mac orders just yet.
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