Yes, but you're one of those dirty Utah people. Your opinion stopped counting about 4 stories after this post when they said your state will ruin e-mail.
They'll probably be offered on Ebay. Figure $50-55 a camera, including postage to Europe could make some enterprising American a nice little profit if he could move the volume.
If you don't hack the camcorder, you're paying $2 and change a minute to buy it, record 20 minutes, and have those 20 minutes put on DVD. Considering how many obvious artifacts were in the demo scene from the DVD, I am ready to boycott CVS just on principle. Charging that much money for such crap!
Now the obvious answer is "hack the camcorder. Then it doesn't cost so much and you get more value for your money." Hmmmm... I can get a 16 ounce sh*t-flavored milkshake for $3, but with a little trick, I can turn that into a gallon. What a bargain, so long as I don't mind that it's still sh*t-flavored. If I want more sh*t-flavored goodness, then darn, I better learn the trick. If I want a milkshake that doesn't taste like sh*t, I think I'd better save my pennies.
The ONLY reason I can think of getting this is to get a camcorder for your kid. If they break it, big deal.
It also sort of reminds me of that old Mattell video camera that recorded grainy B&W on audio cassettes. Though crappy, it has its own kind of retro cool if you can find one now. Perhaps these cameras have value as collectors items.
You mean like how they extended JavaScript to include XMLHttpRequest? Yeah, that whole emergence of Ajax has been a disaster.
And many child molesters are remembered as beloved scoutmasters/coaches/pastors by the children they didn't molest. Just because Microsoft occasionally does something right, we should forget all their other wrong doings and trust them implicitly?
Whenever Microsoft "extends" a standard, they always seem to extend it in ways so use of their extensions makes your page/script/applet inoperable with competing products that support the internationally approved standard. So should the title of this article actually be "Microsoft Breaks RSS"?
Usenet isn't a company, nor does it provide bandwidth. It is a distributed architecture based on the NNTP protocol. But for you to access Usenet, someone has to provide an NNTP server/gateway from which you can download the content.
My last few ISPs have tossed their NNTP servers and subcontracted out Usenet services to companies which give you X amount of bandwidth, then you have to pay if you want more. I currently pay an extra $6 a month to double my Usenet bandwidth "allowance".
Where's the "free" in that? Given, I could do most of my Usenet browsing on Google if I didn't want access to binary groups (like alt.humor.binaries.skewed) but then I'd have to look at ads.
I meant "x86" as a generic for all the x86 compatible processors like AMD, those little low power ones they put in microATX, etc. I did not mean it wouldn't be x86 on Intel, but that they specified Intel as the brand of x86 chips they'd use.
Yes, but they specifically said "Intel"... not "x86"... "Intel".
OS/X on a top-of-the-line dual Opteron. I think many geeks cry at night at the thought of this child of imagination that may never be born. I've had to hold back a tear.
Here's a question, and my apologies if it's been asked and answered before. Will Apple stay the dual-processor course when they move to Intel? I don't mean dual core Pentiums. I mean two slabs of silicon, like a dual Xeon setup. And with Intel moving more and more to dual-core across the lines... Dual core, dual processor, OS/X... Dang.
Then again, who knows where desktop Linux will be in 16 months with the Mandrake/Connectiva/Lycoris mergers, the rise of Ubuntu... And think of that on dual core, dual processor... ohhh... Someone get me a tissue!
Regardless, next year's going to be interesting if you're in the market for a new box.:-)
Comparing Computer implemented inventions to a novel is the worst analogy ever.
A novel is not an invention and cannot make a technical contribution to the art. It may be new and contain words of a technical nature but that is all.
A software program as part of an invention has the potential to make a technical contribution. Completely different.
Novels have defined entire new styles, entire new movements in literature. Novelists have achieved technical leaps in narrative structure, in the musicality of prose, in the methods of constructing a scene... The greatest masters of the art are its greatest technicians, those with the greatest grasp of its nuts and bolts so that they can twist them in unforseen and perhaps extreme ways, yet not break the essential machine.
To claim what you have can only come from ignorance and the failing of whichever substandard educational institution gave you the worthless diploma you just used to wipe your ass.
Fine, no one argues that overly broad patents are being granted. Everyone admits much of this can be attributed to the facts that the patent office doesn't have enough staff to give the patents proper examination, and the staff level of expertise isn't keeping up with the pace of technology.
And as you said, "they'll happily point you at the numerous supreme court rulings that have decided as much." I think the operative phrase here is "numerous supreme court rulings." Do you know how expensive it is to get a case to the Supreme Court?
But Stallman had another point in using the Victor Hugo argument. Software is an art, like writing novels or composing music or making movies, or yes, cooking (ala cheeseburgers).
Would there be a Luke Skywalker if someone patented the young orphan with the magic sword. Would there be a Batman if someone had patented the concept of a superhero with a secret identity (or an Iron Man if the Batman creators had patented the rich industrialist who is secretly a superhero)? Would there be a Bugs Bunny if Disney had patented the anthropomorphic talking cartoon animal?
All bringing patent law into art would have done is deprive us of Bugs Bunny and given Disney an unfair stranglehold on animated entertainment. Instead Disney still makes billions, and protects the holy crap out of its characters using copyrights and trademarks, while Daffy and Donald battle it out for our hearts and minds.
As my old philosophy professor used to say: "your argument doesn't obtain." Extending patents into the realm of art does not aid or encourage innovation or advancement of the art. And software, for all its techy goodness, is an art.
I've never seen the patent concept put in such easy-to-understand terms before. I didn't need it explained to me (of course:-)), but after reading it, I had better ideas on how to explain it to others.
OTOH, it might be more accessible if he'd used a more accessible example. The example appeals more to the French and francophiles, and fans of great literature. I'd apply it to sandwiches. Imagine if every sandwich shop had to pay the Earl of Sandwich $1 for every sandwich they sold (and then had to pass that cost on to the consumer in the form of higher prices). Then EoS sues McDonalds, as a hamburger is actually a hamburger sandwich, and since he's getting $1 a sandwich from Akbar's Gas n' Munch on 135th Street, he's suing McDonalds for $100 billion.
But the guy who patented combining cheese and meat is suing McDonalds. And so is the guy who patented the extending sandwich flavor by adding condiments. And so is the guy who patented the idea of conveying french fries to customers in a cardboard container. And so is the guy who patented a method of conveying liquid from a distributing nozzle to the customer by means of a cyllindrical shaped device open at only one end (i.e. a freakin' CUP).
And yes, the cup, and mayonnaise, and cheeseburgers, and fries in a cardboard carton all seem like obvious inventions with lots of prior art. But we've seen such silliness get through the patent office in America.
Don't think the government is going to put the money in place to keep some overworked, underpaid patent examiner from approving a patent on cheeseburgers! And once the patent is granted, getting it revoked or dismissed is so expensive that every little burger stand will pay the guy who got the cheeseburger patent $10,000 a year because they don't have the $10,000,000 to fund the challenge.
When granted for truly original inventions within a certain limited scope, patents are a wonderful thing that encourage innovation. But that's in theory. In practice, they're something else entirely.
Don't let the patent lawyers and the politicians they lease paint rosy pictures of theory over the cesspit of practice. Don't let software patents pass in Europe.
the same fucking "tongue in check commentary" that has been posted a million times since then. You arent funny so stop trying.
But failing at humor is different than being offtopic. Don't care if it's modded down, just so long as it's modded down correctly.
And, as a matter of fact, I am funny. I make a living at it. But no one is on their game 100% of the time, and sometimes they just run into agressive humorless fucks.
While obviously that's a completely different Divx from DivX, I'm surprised that they're able to claim trademark status on DivX. Did they actually buy the rights to it, or are they on thin ice?
This is NOT offtopic. DIVX was also the name of a failed DVD format that Circuit City pushed in the '90s. It is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the unfortunate naming of this codec.
I think a little consolidation is inevitable in any large marketplace. Mandrake and Lycoris both have big cred when it comes to user friendliness on a newbie level (easy install, easy basic set-up). I think it's a good pairing in the fight to develop a desktop distro with the legs to really take on Microsoft.
For all the people complaining about diversity... how many distros does that leave remaining? Fedora, Ubuntu, Knoppix, Gentoo, Slackware, Debian, CentOS... and those are just the free ones I can name off the top of my head. Additionally there are the more commercialized ones like Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Linspire, Xandros, SuSE, and Sun Java Desktop. Just off the top of my head, that's 12 distros. And they're just the better known ones.
I was going to say Corel Linux, but then remembered that's Xandros.
According to docs at the Lycoris site, they used to be called "Redmond Linux" and News Forge has a late 2001 review of a beta of Redmond Linux. Founded as Redmond Linux in 2000, they changed their name to Lycoris in January 2002.
Couldn't find a history to see what distro it might have originally forked from.
With all the users admitting to piracy in this discussion, either now or in the past, I'm sure the BSA subpoena for Slashdot's records on y'all is already being drafted.
While we're at it, do any of you want to admit to smoking pot, snorting coke, distributing a virus, or murdering a hooker?:-)
There was a TigerDirect ad at the top of the/. page for an AMD 3400 "Ultimate Business Built To Order" system. For the same specs (but with a nicer SFF case) at Newegg.com, it runs $8 and change less (including the OEM Windows XP Pro license for $146).
Just pointing our something that struck me as odd.
The obvious/. response would be: put Linux and KDE (or Gnome if you swing that way) on them and the 'aren't even remotely as easy to use' complaint is solved or at least highly mitigated.
I now expect I'll be modded up as insightful.:-)
But in truth... Running IE and Outlook Express out of the box when pre-configured by Dell and hooked up by your local cable/DSL installer, vs. running Firefox and Thunderbird when configured and hooked up by your friend who knows their way around Linux... about the same learning curve. The trick is that if your friend who knows Linux set you up right, you won't be infected with three viruses and 18 types of spyware six months later.
Windows vs. Linux in usage... about the same. Maintenance... Linux wins.
When he does the memory comparison, he notes MSWorks as a process. It looks like perhaps he didn't uninstall Works when he installed Office and still has a Works helper app running at startup.
Also, did he make sure that both programs were set to have the same background tasks running (like repagination, automatic spellcheck, automatic hyphenation, etc.)? In one of his tests Word takes a lot longer on a long text file because it's running various automatic tasks on it. Were those tasks run by OO.o as well? I'm pretty sure that all are available, but it may be that some are turned off by default, while with Word it seems that most everything is turned on by default.
I know that when I worked at a Co. that standardized on MS Office, when I got a new PC or they upgraded my version of MS Office, the first thing I had to do was go in and turn off a lot of automatic tasks.
Now that I'm self-employed, I use OO.o. Do I believe it's better than Word? No. Each of them does things the other doesn't and does some things better or worse than the other. Which one is best depends on what your needs are. Right now, my needs are such that OO.o meets them, and it's free.
And if you want to heat the house, you have to light a fire in a firebox outside and then manually pump a bellows to force heated air into the house. The spec had an automated heating system with natural gas, a pilot light, and fans, all controlled by a thermostat, but management only assigned the developers to your project for three weeks and the only way to get the project "finished" in the allotted time was this kludge. But don't worry, it will be fixed in v2.0, which is currently calendared for 2007 by management... unless something they consider more important comes along.
Slashdot Mirror
- Greg
Now the obvious answer is "hack the camcorder. Then it doesn't cost so much and you get more value for your money." Hmmmm... I can get a 16 ounce sh*t-flavored milkshake for $3, but with a little trick, I can turn that into a gallon. What a bargain, so long as I don't mind that it's still sh*t-flavored. If I want more sh*t-flavored goodness, then darn, I better learn the trick. If I want a milkshake that doesn't taste like sh*t, I think I'd better save my pennies.
The ONLY reason I can think of getting this is to get a camcorder for your kid. If they break it, big deal.
It also sort of reminds me of that old Mattell video camera that recorded grainy B&W on audio cassettes. Though crappy, it has its own kind of retro cool if you can find one now. Perhaps these cameras have value as collectors items.
- Greg
And many child molesters are remembered as beloved scoutmasters/coaches/pastors by the children they didn't molest. Just because Microsoft occasionally does something right, we should forget all their other wrong doings and trust them implicitly?
Pull the other leg, it has bells on.
- Greg
- Greg
Usenet isn't a company, nor does it provide bandwidth. It is a distributed architecture based on the NNTP protocol. But for you to access Usenet, someone has to provide an NNTP server/gateway from which you can download the content.
My last few ISPs have tossed their NNTP servers and subcontracted out Usenet services to companies which give you X amount of bandwidth, then you have to pay if you want more. I currently pay an extra $6 a month to double my Usenet bandwidth "allowance".
Where's the "free" in that? Given, I could do most of my Usenet browsing on Google if I didn't want access to binary groups (like alt.humor.binaries.skewed) but then I'd have to look at ads.
- Greg
I meant "x86" as a generic for all the x86 compatible processors like AMD, those little low power ones they put in microATX, etc. I did not mean it wouldn't be x86 on Intel, but that they specified Intel as the brand of x86 chips they'd use.
OS/X on a top-of-the-line dual Opteron. I think many geeks cry at night at the thought of this child of imagination that may never be born. I've had to hold back a tear.
But they said "Intel".
- Greg
Then again, who knows where desktop Linux will be in 16 months with the Mandrake/Connectiva/Lycoris mergers, the rise of Ubuntu... And think of that on dual core, dual processor... ohhh... Someone get me a tissue!
Regardless, next year's going to be interesting if you're in the market for a new box. :-)
- Greg
A novel is not an invention and cannot make a technical contribution to the art. It may be new and contain words of a technical nature but that is all.
A software program as part of an invention has the potential to make a technical contribution. Completely different.
Novels have defined entire new styles, entire new movements in literature. Novelists have achieved technical leaps in narrative structure, in the musicality of prose, in the methods of constructing a scene... The greatest masters of the art are its greatest technicians, those with the greatest grasp of its nuts and bolts so that they can twist them in unforseen and perhaps extreme ways, yet not break the essential machine.
To claim what you have can only come from ignorance and the failing of whichever substandard educational institution gave you the worthless diploma you just used to wipe your ass.
- Greg
And as you said, "they'll happily point you at the numerous supreme court rulings that have decided as much." I think the operative phrase here is "numerous supreme court rulings." Do you know how expensive it is to get a case to the Supreme Court?
But Stallman had another point in using the Victor Hugo argument. Software is an art, like writing novels or composing music or making movies, or yes, cooking (ala cheeseburgers).
Would there be a Luke Skywalker if someone patented the young orphan with the magic sword. Would there be a Batman if someone had patented the concept of a superhero with a secret identity (or an Iron Man if the Batman creators had patented the rich industrialist who is secretly a superhero)? Would there be a Bugs Bunny if Disney had patented the anthropomorphic talking cartoon animal?
All bringing patent law into art would have done is deprive us of Bugs Bunny and given Disney an unfair stranglehold on animated entertainment. Instead Disney still makes billions, and protects the holy crap out of its characters using copyrights and trademarks, while Daffy and Donald battle it out for our hearts and minds.
As my old philosophy professor used to say: "your argument doesn't obtain." Extending patents into the realm of art does not aid or encourage innovation or advancement of the art. And software, for all its techy goodness, is an art.
- Greg
OTOH, it might be more accessible if he'd used a more accessible example. The example appeals more to the French and francophiles, and fans of great literature. I'd apply it to sandwiches. Imagine if every sandwich shop had to pay the Earl of Sandwich $1 for every sandwich they sold (and then had to pass that cost on to the consumer in the form of higher prices). Then EoS sues McDonalds, as a hamburger is actually a hamburger sandwich, and since he's getting $1 a sandwich from Akbar's Gas n' Munch on 135th Street, he's suing McDonalds for $100 billion.
But the guy who patented combining cheese and meat is suing McDonalds. And so is the guy who patented the extending sandwich flavor by adding condiments. And so is the guy who patented the idea of conveying french fries to customers in a cardboard container. And so is the guy who patented a method of conveying liquid from a distributing nozzle to the customer by means of a cyllindrical shaped device open at only one end (i.e. a freakin' CUP). And yes, the cup, and mayonnaise, and cheeseburgers, and fries in a cardboard carton all seem like obvious inventions with lots of prior art. But we've seen such silliness get through the patent office in America.
Don't think the government is going to put the money in place to keep some overworked, underpaid patent examiner from approving a patent on cheeseburgers! And once the patent is granted, getting it revoked or dismissed is so expensive that every little burger stand will pay the guy who got the cheeseburger patent $10,000 a year because they don't have the $10,000,000 to fund the challenge.
When granted for truly original inventions within a certain limited scope, patents are a wonderful thing that encourage innovation. But that's in theory. In practice, they're something else entirely.
Don't let the patent lawyers and the politicians they lease paint rosy pictures of theory over the cesspit of practice. Don't let software patents pass in Europe.
- Greg
- Bill Gates should be head of Homeland Security.
- 2 out of 3 Americans surveyed believe in the tooth fairy.
- "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics." - Benjamin Disraeli (attributed by Mark Twain)
If God truly does look out for fools, he's having to put in some serious overtime for the United States.Greg
But failing at humor is different than being offtopic. Don't care if it's modded down, just so long as it's modded down correctly.
And, as a matter of fact, I am funny. I make a living at it. But no one is on their game 100% of the time, and sometimes they just run into agressive humorless fucks.
Greg
Digital Video Express abandoned their trademark on DIVX after the format went dead.
For all the people complaining about diversity... how many distros does that leave remaining? Fedora, Ubuntu, Knoppix, Gentoo, Slackware, Debian, CentOS... and those are just the free ones I can name off the top of my head. Additionally there are the more commercialized ones like Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Linspire, Xandros, SuSE, and Sun Java Desktop. Just off the top of my head, that's 12 distros. And they're just the better known ones.
That's still a lot of choice.
- Greg
According to docs at the Lycoris site, they used to be called "Redmond Linux" and News Forge has a late 2001 review of a beta of Redmond Linux. Founded as Redmond Linux in 2000, they changed their name to Lycoris in January 2002.
Couldn't find a history to see what distro it might have originally forked from.
Greg
While we're at it, do any of you want to admit to smoking pot, snorting coke, distributing a virus, or murdering a hooker? :-)
Just pointing our something that struck me as odd.
Greg
I now expect I'll be modded up as insightful. :-)
But in truth... Running IE and Outlook Express out of the box when pre-configured by Dell and hooked up by your local cable/DSL installer, vs. running Firefox and Thunderbird when configured and hooked up by your friend who knows their way around Linux... about the same learning curve. The trick is that if your friend who knows Linux set you up right, you won't be infected with three viruses and 18 types of spyware six months later.
Windows vs. Linux in usage... about the same. Maintenance... Linux wins.
- Greg
Also, did he make sure that both programs were set to have the same background tasks running (like repagination, automatic spellcheck, automatic hyphenation, etc.)? In one of his tests Word takes a lot longer on a long text file because it's running various automatic tasks on it. Were those tasks run by OO.o as well? I'm pretty sure that all are available, but it may be that some are turned off by default, while with Word it seems that most everything is turned on by default.
I know that when I worked at a Co. that standardized on MS Office, when I got a new PC or they upgraded my version of MS Office, the first thing I had to do was go in and turn off a lot of automatic tasks.
Now that I'm self-employed, I use OO.o. Do I believe it's better than Word? No. Each of them does things the other doesn't and does some things better or worse than the other. Which one is best depends on what your needs are. Right now, my needs are such that OO.o meets them, and it's free.
- Greg