The difference is: the notes have existed for eons, but the music I write is new, and nobody else wold ever have written it if I did not. I *should* benefit from my works of art.
Be careful not to confuse an idea with an implementation. The tunes in a song are like the algorithms in a program. The particular arrangement of a song is like the code to the program. One is an idea, the other is a work of (art?)
For one main reason: it is not possible to correctly determine the worth of a musical work until those who might pay for it have had a chance to react to it. That's why artists get a percentage of their music sales rather than just a lump sum after their work is completed. I may discover a musical work tomorrow that I think is really nice sounding. The artist should get paid because *I* like it, not because he finished writing it.
You should also include inventors in your category of people who get paid over a long period of time.
You signed up for your 'gravy train' when you signed your employment contract. If you want a percentage of the profits from your work, renegotiate your contract. I wouldn't, if I were you. Works of engineering tend to become obsolete quickly, but art does not.
Light Emitting Polymers--a first hand account
on
The Dream Handheld
·
· Score: 1
I have seen, touched, and played with LEP screens at the ACM1 expo last spring. The screens were about 3'x5', and the expositors said they would be shipping to OEMs in October (which is last month). There was a movie playing on the screen I looked at, and I noticed a slight shimmering effect, but I don't know if that was an artifact of the video codec or the screen. In any case, these screens looked damn good. I hope they aren't too expensive. If anyone has questions, reply to this comment.
This film borrowed elements from other films willy-nilly, and had few original parts.
The fight scene at the factory was clearly ripped off from Streeth Fighter (or at least the genre). "LAW vs. Law" was about as exciting as watching an arcade game. All we needed were health meter bars:)
The premise was flawed: if an alternate me dies, and I am made stronger even though I did not kill him, then at some point I'm going to be an old man in some universe, all my alts are going to be dead, and I'm going to be God.
The ending leaves both Laws alive. What happens when one of them dies? The other becomes God? Pshaw. I found it very hard to suspend my disbelief on this one.
It's true, the iPod has only 5 billion bytes of storage capacity. Majik was smoking crack with timothy or something. Whatever. Now for the cool shtuff.
What I have heard is that the drive in the iPod is none other than the Toshiba 5GB PC Card Hard Disk Drive, which itself is worthy of GadgetLust. Yep, that iPod's got a Type II PC Card slot in there, just waiting to be upgraded when Toshiba releases a 10-gigger (which probably won't be more than 6 months). If it's not a PC card drive, it's certainly the embedded version of the same drive, and hopefully will be eminently hackable. Here's to rumors, rumours, and the Apple stock I bought after the WTC bombings:)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. My wife thought it was stupid at first, but I walked her through a game, and now she loves it. We find the quotes and voice acting with the tech advances to be quite funny, and they keep cropping up in our conversations.
Favorite quotes from SMAC:
'Indigenous Life-Forms'
'Faction Eliminated' (after some tickle combat)
'We sit together, the mountain and I, til only the mountain remains.'
'I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier...'
'Organic Superlube? Oh, it's great stuff! Great stuff.'
What these worms, Code Red, Code Blue, and now Nimda REALLY underscore for me is the value of having a heterogeneous operating environment. It's just not good practice to run entirely one OS/web server/email client. At least different operating environments will have DIFFERENT flaws, so when one of these worms goes around, at least somebody can still get work done.
Folks, I don't remember where I read this, so TIFWIW: Apple's Apple Store customers opt for an LCD 75 percent of the time over a CRT, and this number is increasing over time. It makes perfect sense for Apple to drop the CRT business and focus all their energy on their oh-so-cool LCDs.
3d Technology Laboratories was demoing their 3D Volumetric display at ACM1. Their approach is to shine 2 different wavelength lasers through a glass or plastic cube (dopant revealed only under NDA). Where they cross, voila. A pinpoint of light. The demo display is a 2-inch glass cube. See the website for pictures.
Will this memory be susceptible to magnetic interference from ordinary magnetic sources?
(*Imagine*)
The SmartFridge(tm)... A billion dollar effort by GE brings you a Fridge that remembers what you put in and take out, generates shopping lists for your agent software, and doesn't open after midnight.
*enter a small child*
"Oooh, this magnet stick to the fridge!"
(future engineer here)
SmartFridge orders 10lbs of Guacamole because its megnetic memory is scrambled like the eggs you can't have for breakfast because of the former.
C-RAM is more likely to be the next big memory tech, as it is impervious to magnetism, radiation, and tempest-style hostile scanning. Chalcogenide memory can be programmed either electonically or optically. "Unlike FLASH and DRAM technologies, which work better when they are bigger, simulations indicate chalcogeniderequires less energy and changes phase faster as the size decreases. In addition, early attempts at fabricating simple C-RAM cells produced cycling endurance limits exceeding 10^12, or one trillion,
write/erase cycles and data retention times exceeding ten years at 130C. "
See This Air Force Space Vehicles Directorate Report by Mr. Ken Hunt for details.
CRAM also makes a tasty treat for hobbits on the run.
From what I understand, with multiple phone lines it is possible to have 2 dialup sessions going at once, if the ISP will support it. I don't know what (if any) linux solutions exist for this, and it really isn't the same as an always-on connection, but it sounds like it would be cheaper by far!
Locally, we have a wireless (microwave IIRC) internet provider called XSpeed. They have an antenna up at a (lit at night) ski resort that overlooks the valley. They say "If you can see the lights at Bogus Basin, you can get XSpeed." I don't know if that is really the case, but I've considered trying. (I live approximately 50 miles from the antenna, but I can see the lights quite well).
The thing about big planets like this is that they tend to have a lot of moons. In our system, one of the moons (Europa) has water on it, which may be liquid. Now think if Jupiter was closer to the sun. More solar radiation, more tidal forces. Perhaps there could be a livable world in orbit around this planet!!! This is definitely worth sending a probe after. I just wish we were spending more money on space. I really do. It's sad how unimportant it seems to be.
Frankly, for all his talk of freedom and liberty, Jefferson failed to free his slaves before his death. IMHO, had he done so, America would have followed his precedent and ended slavery gradually without the incredibly debilitating civil war.
Hindsight is 20/20, but let this be a lesson to those of you who are on the forefront of new ideas, new politics, new technologies. The very things that seem unimportant now may come back to bite your people after you are too dead to defend yourself.:P
While the iMac having no removable media may at first seem to be a disadvantage, after careful consideration, I have come to think of the floppy drive as more of a liability than an asset. Consider. What does a system administrator use the floppy drive for? For one thing, and one thing only: to raise the computer from the dead in the event that it gets completely trashed by a virus, clueless user, etc. Now. What does an ordinary user use the floppy for? Well, to transfer files to other computers. i.e. Sneakernet. In a properly set up network computing environment, there should be no need for the user to sneakernet to other machines within the network, since he/she should have some space on the server. So assuming we have a well-run network, sneakernet is only useful for transfering files to/from the outside world. But wait! Isn't there this great thing called the Internet that lets us transfer small files quickly and almost for free? Yep. So now, at least for ordinary users, Sneakernet is only good for transfering files to and from computers that are not only off the network, but not on the internet; for transfering larger files (file>300K) from connected computers with low bandwidth; for ripping off programs and data that they aren't supposed to have, without leaving a log of it at it goes through the firewall; and for booting off a floppy to bypass security measures. The last two can be major problems for sysadmins. For the first two, well, high-bandwidth access is becoming downright affordable and if your computer isn't on the net, it's probably because it's too old and klunky, and with a suave machine like the iMac DV going for 1299, you really ought to go buy one.
It seems that only barnes and noble has a notification service for new books. I am having a problem getting the 'notify me when new books happen matching my search criteria' option to work. Can someone enlighten me on this? Or suggest another option so that I don't forget to buy the next edition of this?
Slashdot Mirror
The difference is: the notes have existed for eons, but the music I write is new, and nobody else wold ever have written it if I did not. I *should* benefit from my works of art.
Be careful not to confuse an idea with an implementation. The tunes in a song are like the algorithms in a program. The particular arrangement of a song is like the code to the program. One is an idea, the other is a work of (art?)
For one main reason: it is not possible to correctly determine the worth of a musical work until those who might pay for it have had a chance to react to it. That's why artists get a percentage of their music sales rather than just a lump sum after their work is completed. I may discover a musical work tomorrow that I think is really nice sounding. The artist should get paid because *I* like it, not because he finished writing it.
You should also include inventors in your category of people who get paid over a long period of time.
You signed up for your 'gravy train' when you signed your employment contract. If you want a percentage of the profits from your work, renegotiate your contract. I wouldn't, if I were you. Works of engineering tend to become obsolete quickly, but art does not.
But an equal amount of power gets distributed to EVERY Law in every universe? It just doesn't make sense.
Why is expressing humor at a funny post offtopic?
I have seen, touched, and played with LEP screens at the ACM1 expo last spring. The screens were about 3'x5', and the expositors said they would be shipping to OEMs in October (which is last month). There was a movie playing on the screen I looked at, and I noticed a slight shimmering effect, but I don't know if that was an artifact of the video codec or the screen. In any case, these screens looked damn good. I hope they aren't too expensive. If anyone has questions, reply to this comment.
Warning: Possible Spoilage
:)
This film borrowed elements from other films willy-nilly, and had few original parts.
The fight scene at the factory was clearly ripped off from Streeth Fighter (or at least the genre). "LAW vs. Law" was about as exciting as watching an arcade game. All we needed were health meter bars
The premise was flawed: if an alternate me dies, and I am made stronger even though I did not kill him, then at some point I'm going to be an old man in some universe, all my alts are going to be dead, and I'm going to be God.
The ending leaves both Laws alive. What happens when one of them dies? The other becomes God? Pshaw. I found it very hard to suspend my disbelief on this one.
That's just funny.
It's obvious that they are filming pr0n :)
It's true, the iPod has only 5 billion bytes of storage capacity. Majik was smoking crack with timothy or something. Whatever. Now for the cool shtuff.
:)
What I have heard is that the drive in the iPod is none other than the Toshiba 5GB PC Card Hard Disk Drive, which itself is worthy of GadgetLust. Yep, that iPod's got a Type II PC Card slot in there, just waiting to be upgraded when Toshiba releases a 10-gigger (which probably won't be more than 6 months). If it's not a PC card drive, it's certainly the embedded version of the same drive, and hopefully will be eminently hackable. Here's to rumors, rumours, and the Apple stock I bought after the WTC bombings
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. My wife thought it was stupid at first, but I walked her through a game, and now she loves it. We find the quotes and voice acting with the tech advances to be quite funny, and they keep cropping up in our conversations.
Favorite quotes from SMAC:
'Indigenous Life-Forms'
'Faction Eliminated' (after some tickle combat)
'We sit together, the mountain and I, til only the mountain remains.'
'I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier...'
'Organic Superlube? Oh, it's great stuff! Great stuff.'
uhhh... yeah.
What these worms, Code Red, Code Blue, and now Nimda REALLY underscore for me is the value of having a heterogeneous operating environment. It's just not good practice to run entirely one OS/web server/email client. At least different operating environments will have DIFFERENT flaws, so when one of these worms goes around, at least somebody can still get work done.
:)
Not that I really get any work done
Folks, I don't remember where I read this, so TIFWIW: Apple's Apple Store customers opt for an LCD 75 percent of the time over a CRT, and this number is increasing over time. It makes perfect sense for Apple to drop the CRT business and focus all their energy on their oh-so-cool LCDs.
3d Technology Laboratories was demoing their 3D Volumetric display at ACM1. Their approach is to shine 2 different wavelength lasers through a glass or plastic cube (dopant revealed only under NDA). Where they cross, voila. A pinpoint of light. The demo display is a 2-inch glass cube. See the website for pictures.
Will this memory be susceptible to magnetic interference from ordinary magnetic sources?
(*Imagine*)
The SmartFridge(tm)... A billion dollar effort by GE brings you a Fridge that remembers what you put in and take out, generates shopping lists for your agent software, and doesn't open after midnight.
*enter a small child*
"Oooh, this magnet stick to the fridge!"
(future engineer here)
SmartFridge orders 10lbs of Guacamole because its megnetic memory is scrambled like the eggs you can't have for breakfast because of the former.
C-RAM is more likely to be the next big memory tech, as it is impervious to magnetism, radiation, and tempest-style hostile scanning. Chalcogenide memory can be programmed either electonically or optically. "Unlike FLASH and DRAM technologies, which work better when they are bigger, simulations indicate chalcogeniderequires less energy and changes phase faster as the size decreases. In addition, early attempts at fabricating simple C-RAM cells produced cycling endurance limits exceeding 10^12, or one trillion, write/erase cycles and data retention times exceeding ten years at 130C. " See This Air Force Space Vehicles Directorate Report by Mr. Ken Hunt for details. CRAM also makes a tasty treat for hobbits on the run.
From what I understand, with multiple phone lines it is possible to have 2 dialup sessions going at once, if the ISP will support it. I don't know what (if any) linux solutions exist for this, and it really isn't the same as an always-on connection, but it sounds like it would be cheaper by far!
Locally, we have a wireless (microwave IIRC) internet provider called XSpeed. They have an antenna up at a (lit at night) ski resort that overlooks the valley. They say "If you can see the lights at Bogus Basin, you can get XSpeed." I don't know if that is really the case, but I've considered trying. (I live approximately 50 miles from the antenna, but I can see the lights quite well).
Hope this helps
The thing about big planets like this is that they tend to have a lot of moons. In our system, one of the moons (Europa) has water on it, which may be liquid. Now think if Jupiter was closer to the sun. More solar radiation, more tidal forces. Perhaps there could be a livable world in orbit around this planet!!! This is definitely worth sending a probe after. I just wish we were spending more money on space. I really do. It's sad how unimportant it seems to be.
The trouble with Haiku is that it's so hard to tell good Haiku from bad Haiku.....
Frankly, for all his talk of freedom and liberty, Jefferson failed to free his slaves before his death. IMHO, had he done so, America would have followed his precedent and ended slavery gradually without the incredibly debilitating civil war.
:P
Hindsight is 20/20, but let this be a lesson to those of you who are on the forefront of new ideas, new politics, new technologies. The very things that seem unimportant now may come back to bite your people after you are too dead to defend yourself.
While the iMac having no removable media may at first seem to be a disadvantage, after careful consideration, I have come to think of the floppy drive as more of a liability than an asset.
Consider. What does a system administrator use the floppy drive for? For one thing, and one thing only: to raise the computer from the dead in the event that it gets completely trashed by a virus, clueless user, etc.
Now. What does an ordinary user use the floppy for? Well, to transfer files to other computers. i.e. Sneakernet.
In a properly set up network computing environment, there should be no need for the user to sneakernet to other machines within the network, since he/she should have some space on the server. So assuming we have a well-run network, sneakernet is only useful for transfering files to/from the outside world. But wait! Isn't there this great thing called the Internet that lets us transfer small files quickly and almost for free?
Yep. So now, at least for ordinary users, Sneakernet is only good for transfering files to and from computers that are not only off the network, but not on the internet; for transfering larger files (file>300K) from connected computers with low bandwidth; for ripping off programs and data that they aren't supposed to have, without leaving a log of it at it goes through the firewall; and for booting off a floppy to bypass security measures.
The last two can be major problems for sysadmins. For the first two, well, high-bandwidth access is becoming downright affordable and if your computer isn't on the net, it's probably because it's too old and klunky, and with a suave machine like the iMac DV going for 1299, you really ought to go buy one.
deal-mac is reporting 10,000 old iMacs still in the channel. They would be the place to check if you want one.
It seems that only barnes and noble has a notification service for new books. I am having a problem getting the 'notify me when new books happen matching my search criteria' option to work. Can someone enlighten me on this? Or suggest another option so that I don't forget to buy the next edition of this?