The really stupid part of this is that they've done it before with massive success. When DVDs first came to market they sold DVD players and discs by loading lots of special content on them, and no, just in case there's any entertainment execs reading this, trailers and scene selection do not classify as special content. This encouraged early adoption and led to the monster that is DVD entertainment today, there was a very clear answer to the question "why should I buy the DVD instead of the video?"
I'd forgotten that but you're absolutely right. Also how about those beautiful LOTR editions with bookends & stuff like that. It IS possible & I'm sure the pirate quotient for those is virtually nil.
Please don't get me started on DVD Region control though. I emigrated from England to Australia which means I have legitimately bought Region 2 & 4 DVDs Am I supposed to buy 2 DVD players? Fortunately I have an unlocked player so it's not an issue but it could become one. The pathetic thing is they're pretty much all old movies and were old movies when I bought them - you can just imagine the execs going "Oh, better stop the rest of the world playing this copy of 'Goldfinger' before it's released" FFS get a clue - the movie's 40 years old; all you're doing is forcing yourself to make several different versions & you can't ship them to different markets if one market takes off while another fails to sell as expected - duh!
Also in Australia EMI were dumb enough to put copy protection on the 30th Anniversary edition of "Diamond Dogs" - Yep, that's going to stop online piracy, great job.
Sell good value (non DRM) products and more people will buy them.
Decent books with CDs - sure you can download the tracks of the internet but you get a really nice package if you buy the legit copy.
They can stick all the DRM they want onto a CD - it doesn't force people who think it's poor value to buy it. I think DRMed "CDs" are poor value & refuse to buy them on principle; so all they are doing is shrinking their potential market antagonizing their customers while the MP3s roam free on P2P.
Put out something worth buying and I'll buy it. Video recorders that restrict use are poor value - I'll stick with my old one thank you very much...
In a comment above (that hasn't been modded up enough ATM) someone listed the things that would make the patent application fail and prior art wasn't on that list.
Time to start writing to congress
Could this mean Hollywood teaming up with the open source movement to destroy software patents
Nope, Hollywood will patent every storyline in existance & stifle competition. This actually helps Hollywood lock out competition & new entrants so they won't destroy it. They have the resources to file 3000 patent applications per studio without blinking & the actual irony of them being the main culprets of mindless recycling of plots would be irrelevant.
What this guy should have done is patented the idea of patenting plotlines - then he could charge hollywood when the feeding frenzy happens. This way he'll get nothing; one or two patents has zero leverage against the patent portfolios the big studios will own if this idiotic patent is granted.
PJ at Groklaw thought he might have been joking & trying to satirise the idiocy of software patents but no, he's serious.
Since we went to war in Iraq, retail gas prices in the United States have gone through the roof. The prices were affected by Hurricane Katrina and also by Hurricane Rita, yes, but even before those things happened, the prices had virtually doubled in just a few years. Prices hit $2.00/gallon over a year ago, which is quite high considering that prices were under $1.00/gallon 6 or 7 years ago. And the majority of the increase has been since the war in Iraq started.
And since it costs the same (or as near as makes no difference) to extract 90%+ of the oil being sold in America as it did a year ago this means extra profits for...
The Oil companies!!!!
Think it through...
Or you could couple it with the story about "first to file" patents & M$ could basically use any inside track they may gain by talking to OSDL in order to patent any & everything that FOSS comes up with...
And my understanding (which may be wrong) is that HIV is such a weak virus that it's only able to take hold in immune systems that have already been compromised for some reason e.g. intravenous drug use, abject poverty.
Which explains two things better than the received wisdom.
1) Why aren't we all HIV positive yet? The disease is still very confined. Back in the 1980s AIDS was going to break out "real soon now". 20 years on the only time AIDS deaths increase is when a new disease is reclassified as AIDS related & we start looking for HIV in conjunction with it...
2) Why is the disease profile so very different in third world countries?
We could be putting the cart before the horse. HIV does not cause AIDS but if you have AIDS your immune system is so weak that even HIV can take hold.
I remember reading a very interesting article a few years back that implied that the HIV hypothesis was published without proper peer review by the US government because they were under pressure to be seen to be doing something.
Since then researchers only get government funding if they're toeing the accepted line and not challenging the theory. Worrying.
Basically if someone dies of pneumonia the cause of death recorded is dependent on their HIV status. If they're -ve it's pneumonia, if they're +ve it's AIDS. Same with a lot of other diseases.
Also HIV is the only virus in existance that is undetectable in the host during the terminal stage. Remember it's only the presence of antibodies tha reveals that you've had it...
I live (and drive) in WA and I can tell you the speed limits over here are ridiculously low. Two lane highways with banking either side 80km/h limit. Outback roads 300km from anywhere 110km/h limit - trust me you don't want to drive that slowly in a well maintaned car when you're trying to go any distance. Also the cops are corrupt scum. That is not an opinion, it is a statement of fact. In two recent cases serving officers have been fined (not sacked) for dealing amphetamines and peddling beastiality Pr0n.
Also there is no statutory car safety check - this means I have actually SEEN 20 year old Volvos with wheels about 15 degrees of perpendicular to the road. Bald tyres, not just a little bit bald I mean F1 race slicks bald and we do get serious rain over here in the winter.
The government it totally uninterested in making cars safer, just in gaining revenue from speed cameras.
If this carries on to its' illogical conclusion we'll all be driving along at 4mph behind a bloke carrying a little red flag...
Good point - I'm not a cellphone nerd, until very recently (last month) my cellphone was an Ericsson 768 (circa 1998)
Even now my new phone's not camera equiped so it's not an option but I'll bear that in mind when we next upgrade (probably sooner than 7 years;).
What I'm waiting for is real convergence. A pocket sized PC compatible computer with a HDD, USB etc built into a mobile phone. I don't mind if it's a bit of a brick: that's what I want. The bastard offspring of an IPod & a phone PDA if they build a camera in - all the better...
Theres more to the digital boom than this - I bought a Digital Point and Shoot camera in December for my wife prior to the birth of our first child. Since then it's proved itself invaluable - we'd leave film months/years before processing. Now we get results instantly.
You can correct Red-eye (etc) on the computer & post the results back to the memory card to take to the shop for processing.
You can burn the results to CD.
You only process what you know is worth seeing.
When one of us is shopping we can take the camera, photograph various candidate items then return home & decide what's best - then you delete the shots & all it's cost is a bit of electricity and wear & tear.
I love my old SLR & it still has it's uses in low-light (but if I bought myself a digital SLR it would be toast) but the P&S market for film cameras is SO dead it's not funny.
Less than one cent per second depending on how much credit you buy up front.
Got "done" by the angle bracket thing...
Also what my contention is is that you can and should be demanding better service from your mobile providers. Australia is HELL for a mobile phone company - huge distances with a low population density. There is absolutely no justification for an American service provider not to be competitive with the deal I've outlined above.
Here in Australia (population 18M) you can get Pre-paid (no contract) mobiles at very reasonable prices. My current phone has a colour screen & internet connectivity and cost me the princely sum of AUD 99 - including AUD 30 of calls.
Oh, and the call cost is 20c connection plus
The only downside is the fact that you have to pre-pay and the credit expires after 3 months (IIRC). Phones with plans are no cheaper than this to run and are often more costly as you end up paying off the cost of your phone. If I'd been a phone geek I could have got a REALLY impressive phone for AUD 249 but I really couldn't be bothered.
I would have thought things would have been much cheaper in America given the economy of scale...
Or maybe it's the insistance on sticking with CDMA because it's a local company even though Qualcomm are reaming you in licensing charges...
Well according to the article (You did READ the article before sounding off didn't you;) it's so quiet he couldn't hear the motor in operation and had to add an LED to be sure.
The actual turntable is quite cool because it's shaped vaguely like a Fender Stratocaster body with a glass platter.
It's a UN thing. Only the founding members of the UN (US, Russia, France, China, UK) are permitted to develop nukes, ostensibly for peacekeeping purposes.
I think you meant to say permanent members of the Security Council...
They're the graphic novels rather than the individual comics. I've got the Golden Age as comics but as Alan Moore didn't write that it's off topic:)
Oh, no. I'm saving them for when my son's old enough to appreciate them
As a person who has emigrated from England to Australia - I have learned to appreciate the BBC even more.
Before I left I would have died in a ditch to protect the BBC's freedoms but having seen what continual government interference has done to the Australian equivalent (the ABC) I have really come to marvel at what a great job the BBC does with its limited resources.
Especially now they've brought back Dr Who...
I know that to our American readers the idea of a "television tax" being used to pay for adverisment free channels smells like "big government" in reality it means there is a genuine free press in England. Every commercially owned channel unfortunately is influenced by the owners (and why shouldn't it be really - Rupert Murdoch doesn't want to get reamed out by Sky News so he isn't).
The problem is that every owner has pretty much the same party affiliation in America so evry news channel is pro-Republican and certain "Anti-Republican" news is either not reported or not emphasised. If Clinto had lied to congress to start a war that caused the death of over 1000 American troops you can be darn sure it would not be ignored by the television news the way it has been over the last few years
Beer in Australia is very regional. People do drink beer from other states but old habits die hard.
When my wife got promoted and moved from Western Australia to Victoria in the 1970's she couldn't buy "Emu Export" one of WA's famous beers (ironically they don't export it). So she got her mother to send her a slab (36 bottles). The nature of the law back then meant that the beer had to travel from WA to VIC via Papua New Guinea!
When it finally arrived in Melbourne it was quickly consumed by Sandgropers and Mexicans alike because it was much better than anything on sale in Victoria.
If there isn't a test data project maybe you could start one. If people agree that it's a good idea then it'll grow... if not...
I believe the idea has merit and should be done. This would be useful for the developers of many FOSS applications. A "torture test" of nasty Excel files or Word files would help Open Office etc. HTML files would be good for the Mozilla team. Maybe they would be interested in providing the first few sets of data.
I'd also recommend tying the automated regression tests to this open source test data so every developer could download the source & the test data and make sure the new feature doesn't break anything...
Any new troublesome files could be added to the test data and new tests could be built to ensure that the software deals with them.
Slashdot Mirror
The second CD has rarities - most of which were available on the Rykodisc edition from the early '90s & the rest weren't available for a good reason ;)
You DO get a very nice book (proving my point beautifully) although it's not hardback & not as well done as the Ziggy one was.
In summary, 90% of the content is available second hand DRM free if you buy the Rykodisc edition of Bowie's back catalogue.
BUT there's a nice book that makes it attractive for Bowie obsessives (like my wife).
Most...pointless...use...of...DRM...EVER!!!
Sell good value (non DRM) products and more people will buy them.
Decent books with CDs - sure you can download the tracks of the internet but you get a really nice package if you buy the legit copy.
They can stick all the DRM they want onto a CD - it doesn't force people who think it's poor value to buy it. I think DRMed "CDs" are poor value & refuse to buy them on principle; so all they are doing is shrinking their potential market antagonizing their customers while the MP3s roam free on P2P.
Put out something worth buying and I'll buy it. Video recorders that restrict use are poor value - I'll stick with my old one thank you very much...
In a comment above (that hasn't been modded up enough ATM) someone listed the things that would make the patent application fail and prior art wasn't on that list. Time to start writing to congress
Could this mean Hollywood teaming up with the open source movement to destroy software patents
Nope, Hollywood will patent every storyline in existance & stifle competition. This actually helps Hollywood lock out competition & new entrants so they won't destroy it. They have the resources to file 3000 patent applications per studio without blinking & the actual irony of them being the main culprets of mindless recycling of plots would be irrelevant.
What this guy should have done is patented the idea of patenting plotlines - then he could charge hollywood when the feeding frenzy happens. This way he'll get nothing; one or two patents has zero leverage against the patent portfolios the big studios will own if this idiotic patent is granted.
PJ at Groklaw thought he might have been joking & trying to satirise the idiocy of software patents but no, he's serious.
I hear you, Bramleys are the best cookers, Russets are the best eaters - argument over, closed, finito.
And impressionable nuns - not all Catholic priests are perverts you know
And since it costs the same (or as near as makes no difference) to extract 90%+ of the oil being sold in America as it did a year ago this means extra profits for...
The Oil companies!!!!
Think it through...
Or you could couple it with the story about "first to file" patents & M$ could basically use any inside track they may gain by talking to OSDL in order to patent any & everything that FOSS comes up with...
And my understanding (which may be wrong) is that HIV is such a weak virus that it's only able to take hold in immune systems that have already been compromised for some reason e.g. intravenous drug use, abject poverty.
Which explains two things better than the received wisdom.
1) Why aren't we all HIV positive yet? The disease is still very confined. Back in the 1980s AIDS was going to break out "real soon now". 20 years on the only time AIDS deaths increase is when a new disease is reclassified as AIDS related & we start looking for HIV in conjunction with it...
2) Why is the disease profile so very different in third world countries?
We could be putting the cart before the horse. HIV does not cause AIDS but if you have AIDS your immune system is so weak that even HIV can take hold.
Has anyone actually proved that HIV causes AIDS?
I remember reading a very interesting article a few years back that implied that the HIV hypothesis was published without proper peer review by the US government because they were under pressure to be seen to be doing something.
Since then researchers only get government funding if they're toeing the accepted line and not challenging the theory. Worrying.
Basically if someone dies of pneumonia the cause of death recorded is dependent on their HIV status. If they're -ve it's pneumonia, if they're +ve it's AIDS. Same with a lot of other diseases.
Also HIV is the only virus in existance that is undetectable in the host during the terminal stage. Remember it's only the presence of antibodies tha reveals that you've had it...
I live (and drive) in WA and I can tell you the speed limits over here are ridiculously low. Two lane highways with banking either side 80km/h limit. Outback roads 300km from anywhere 110km/h limit - trust me you don't want to drive that slowly in a well maintaned car when you're trying to go any distance. Also the cops are corrupt scum. That is not an opinion, it is a statement of fact. In two recent cases serving officers have been fined (not sacked) for dealing amphetamines and peddling beastiality Pr0n.
Also there is no statutory car safety check - this means I have actually SEEN 20 year old Volvos with wheels about 15 degrees of perpendicular to the road. Bald tyres, not just a little bit bald I mean F1 race slicks bald and we do get serious rain over here in the winter.
The government it totally uninterested in making cars safer, just in gaining revenue from speed cameras.
If this carries on to its' illogical conclusion we'll all be driving along at 4mph behind a bloke carrying a little red flag...
Good point - I'm not a cellphone nerd, until very recently (last month) my cellphone was an Ericsson 768 (circa 1998)
;).
Even now my new phone's not camera equiped so it's not an option but I'll bear that in mind when we next upgrade (probably sooner than 7 years
What I'm waiting for is real convergence. A pocket sized PC compatible computer with a HDD, USB etc built into a mobile phone. I don't mind if it's a bit of a brick: that's what I want. The bastard offspring of an IPod & a phone PDA if they build a camera in - all the better...
Theres more to the digital boom than this - I bought a Digital Point and Shoot camera in December for my wife prior to the birth of our first child. Since then it's proved itself invaluable - we'd leave film months/years before processing. Now we get results instantly.
You can correct Red-eye (etc) on the computer & post the results back to the memory card to take to the shop for processing.
You can burn the results to CD.
You only process what you know is worth seeing.
When one of us is shopping we can take the camera, photograph various candidate items then return home & decide what's best - then you delete the shots & all it's cost is a bit of electricity and wear & tear.
I love my old SLR & it still has it's uses in low-light (but if I bought myself a digital SLR it would be toast) but the P&S market for film cameras is SO dead it's not funny.
>> Oh, and the call cost is 20c connection plus
Less than one cent per second depending on how much credit you buy up front.
Got "done" by the angle bracket thing...
Also what my contention is is that you can and should be demanding better service from your mobile providers. Australia is HELL for a mobile phone company - huge distances with a low population density. There is absolutely no justification for an American service provider not to be competitive with the deal I've outlined above.
So much for the free market economy.
Here in Australia (population 18M) you can get Pre-paid (no contract) mobiles at very reasonable prices. My current phone has a colour screen & internet connectivity and cost me the princely sum of AUD 99 - including AUD 30 of calls.
Oh, and the call cost is 20c connection plus
The only downside is the fact that you have to pre-pay and the credit expires after 3 months (IIRC). Phones with plans are no cheaper than this to run and are often more costly as you end up paying off the cost of your phone. If I'd been a phone geek I could have got a REALLY impressive phone for AUD 249 but I really couldn't be bothered.
I would have thought things would have been much cheaper in America given the economy of scale...
Or maybe it's the insistance on sticking with CDMA because it's a local company even though Qualcomm are reaming you in licensing charges...
Yeah, I know. Sorry. I tried to post a correction but slashdot blocked me for being too quick...
Well according to the article (You did READ the article before sounding off didn't you ;) it's so quiet he couldn't hear the motor in operation and had to add an LED to be sure.
The actual turntable is quite cool because it's shaped vaguely like a Fender Stratocaster body with a glass platter.
It's a UN thing. Only the founding members of the UN (US, Russia, France, China, UK) are permitted to develop nukes, ostensibly for peacekeeping purposes.
I think you meant to say permanent members of the Security Council...
They're the graphic novels rather than the individual comics. I've got the Golden Age as comics but as Alan Moore didn't write that it's off topic :)
Oh, no. I'm saving them for when my son's old enough to appreciate them
I've got all of the Miracleman Graphic Novels :)
As a person who has emigrated from England to Australia - I have learned to appreciate the BBC even more.
Before I left I would have died in a ditch to protect the BBC's freedoms but having seen what continual government interference has done to the Australian equivalent (the ABC) I have really come to marvel at what a great job the BBC does with its limited resources.
Especially now they've brought back Dr Who...
I know that to our American readers the idea of a "television tax" being used to pay for adverisment free channels smells like "big government" in reality it means there is a genuine free press in England. Every commercially owned channel unfortunately is influenced by the owners (and why shouldn't it be really - Rupert Murdoch doesn't want to get reamed out by Sky News so he isn't).
The problem is that every owner has pretty much the same party affiliation in America so evry news channel is pro-Republican and certain "Anti-Republican" news is either not reported or not emphasised. If Clinto had lied to congress to start a war that caused the death of over 1000 American troops you can be darn sure it would not be ignored by the television news the way it has been over the last few years
Beer in Australia is very regional. People do drink beer from other states but old habits die hard.
When my wife got promoted and moved from Western Australia to Victoria in the 1970's she couldn't buy "Emu Export" one of WA's famous beers (ironically they don't export it). So she got her mother to send her a slab (36 bottles). The nature of the law back then meant that the beer had to travel from WA to VIC via Papua New Guinea!
When it finally arrived in Melbourne it was quickly consumed by Sandgropers and Mexicans alike because it was much better than anything on sale in Victoria.
I say jail 'em all :)
Using Lynx is just plain wrong!!!
If there isn't a test data project maybe you could start one. If people agree that it's a good idea then it'll grow... if not...
I believe the idea has merit and should be done. This would be useful for the developers of many FOSS applications. A "torture test" of nasty Excel files or Word files would help Open Office etc. HTML files would be good for the Mozilla team. Maybe they would be interested in providing the first few sets of data.
I'd also recommend tying the automated regression tests to this open source test data so every developer could download the source & the test data and make sure the new feature doesn't break anything...
Any new troublesome files could be added to the test data and new tests could be built to ensure that the software deals with them.