That won't last forever. From:
http://news.com.com/TiVo+tests+pop-up-style+ads/21 00-1041_3-5644197.html?tag=nefd.top
"The tools will be tested only on Series2 TiVo owners, but once completed could be applied to Series 1 and DirecTiVo customers. Subscribers can't opt out of the feature, but they can ignore the tags."
I have tivo, and the way it works for me is that I zoom through the commercials, but occasionally I'll see something interesting, back up, and watch it. I might even watch it twice. So advertising is still working.
But, if they put some obnoxious ad on top of the screen for something I don't want, I won't be able to see the commercials I'm skipping through. Oops!
From the MIT jargon file, version 3.2.0::Big Room, the: n. The extremely large room with the blue ceiling and intensely bright light (during the day) or black ceiling with lots of tiny night-lights (during the night) found outside all computer installations. "He can't come to the phone right now, he's somewhere out in the Big Room."
Agreed on all points. Linux and Windows should be no where near the server side of any truly critical systems. That's where mainframes, midframes, or UNIX systems with a 10+ year proven track record of reliability belong. And if Linux and Windows ARE used for some masochistic reason, the whole system better be redundant as hell.
We used to say that we don't have to worry about Windows' lack of reliability because no one would ever be stupid enough to run nuclear power plants, electric grids, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, etc., on Windows. I guess we have to revisit our assumptions.
Actually, the whole globalization trend will suffer an abrupt reversal in the next few years (at the latest by 2010).
Globalization is made possible by cheap energy, because labor costs are so much higher than the energy costs of shipping products around the globe (I'm talking about goods, not services here).
However, we are rapidly approaching global peak output in oil, as more and more countries go from oil exporters to oil importers, and everyone leans more and more on OPEC to produce the oil.
Oil production will peak very soon and then decline by 3% a year. This will cause a radical realignment of our economic systems, and local products will trump global products just due to the energy it takes for shipping.
Don't believe? Just enter in "peak oil" in google, there are dozens of websites devoted to this. Many of these websites contain articles written by retired oil scientists which warn of the peak in oil production by 2010, 2020 if we are really lucky.
Facts:
Fact: US oil discoveries peaked in 1930
Fact: US production peaking in 1970
Fact: World oil discoveries peaked in 1964
Fact: World oil production will peak (or has already peaked) any day now
Fact: We used to pump 50 barrels of oil for every 1 barrel of oil energy equivalent invested
Fact: We now pump 5 barrels of oil for every 1 barrel of oil energy equivalent invested
Fact: The last major oil field discovery was in the 1970s
Fact: Natural gas will also peak, but lag gasoline peak
Fact: There is no substitute for oil that either 1) won't take a long time to bring on line 2) won't pollute horribly
So, if suddenly sneakers made in China cost $300 because of the shipping costs, suddenly US made sneakers costing $100 look pretty good.
80% of the people who bother to read this post will say "This is total bullshit -- we will never run out of oil, there's plenty of it left" -- What are you basing your beliefs on? That it has always been there, so it will always be here? Oil companies paint a rosy picture otherwise their stocks will crash, the government does the same to prevent a panic, and the main media doesn't want to spread anything the suggests the coming doom of multinational corporations. How many McDonald's hamburgers will you be able to eat if they cost $50 a piece?
World oil reserves have been pegged at 2000 Gbarrels for many decades. Suddenly, recently, the USGS changed it to 3000 Gb. Was there some incredible new find? (We have pumped about 900 Gb since the beginning of time, we have about 1100 Gb left in the ground) No, the revised numbers reflect DEMAND in oil. In other words, the USGS changed the estimate of reserves so that they can continue to say "we have X years of oil left".
I always have the following thought when people talk about the Sun burning out. Everyone says we need to leave Earth and go somewhere else (assuming Doomsday terrorists haven't blown up the Earth and/or Sun by that point).
Why no just fix the Sun instead? Interstellar travel and fixing the Sun are both equally impossible right now, but it seems simpler to replenish the Sun's hydrogen, and perhaps siphon off the heavier elements and construct some new planets for excess population than creating "Warp Drive" technology.
I read "Fast Food Nation" and agree. The exploitation of the meatpacking workers was the most disturbing portion of the book.
To those who say the jobs are "voluntary" so if you are being mistreated it's your own fault... Well, *someone* has to the work, if every meatpacker quit we would have no meat (okay for vegans and vegetarians not so good for everyone else). And a certain sector of the population is just plain not qualified for any other work. Should people be maimed by working conditions at meatpacking plants just because they lack the education, experience, connections or English speaking ability to get a job elsewhere or is it the government's job to regulate and ensure that everyone's job is safe?
Your hamburger costs $.99 because a long chain of low paid workers are being bled dry by the "efficient" production chain. The actual costs are much higher, including the cost to society because these workers will have to depend on the government since they cannot support themselves. Factory workers in China might make a good living at $5/hour (which they do not get paid), but that's not true for workers here.
The artificial abundance in our [American] society is unsustainable and will eventually collapse.
The SunnComm lawsuit is obviously loony and will only suceed in some lawyers being paid. If it succeeds then the corporate takeover of government is complete.
However, did people notice this (from c|net article): "Future versions of the SunnComm software would include ways that the copy-protecting files would change their name on different computers, making them harder to find, Jacobs said. Moreover, the company will distribute the technology along with third-party software, so that it doesn't always come off a protected CD, he added."
So, this has some really bad implications: 1) Random software spyware style will be installed on my PC when I install legitimate software and 2) Does this software distinguish between copy protected and non-copy protected compact disks? 3) Once it becomes legal for this kind of stuff to be installed on your system, who knows what kind of stuff will start being installed behind the scenes when you install a regular piece of software? Keyboard loggers that send info to John Ashcroft? 4) What about fair use?
Perhaps the way to combat span is to create a trusted mail server system.
This requires mail clients to be modified, but it would work something like this:
Senders of e-mail register with a username/password with the mail server. The sender sends an e-mail to the server, then the server encrypts and digitally signs it. Once it gets to the receiver, the fact that it properly decodes with the public key proves (and checking the digital signature) that it came from the trusted source, and won't be spam.
It costs something like 1 penny per 1000 e-mails to use this service, so spammers would go bankrupt trying to use it. Volume users (mailing lists) would get a discount, but their accounts would be monitored for possible spamming...
This is the most disturbing aspect to this whole story. I don't want software being installed on my PC when I insert a *music* cd! And certainly not without being able to say "no". This could open up a whole can of worms where all sorts of garbage is installed (spyware, etc.) whenever you insert a CD into your PC. Not that that wasn't possible in the past, but there was some "CD etiquette" that held most companies back...
Slashdot Mirror
That won't last forever. From: http://news.com.com/TiVo+tests+pop-up-style+ads/21 00-1041_3-5644197.html?tag=nefd.top
"The tools will be tested only on Series2 TiVo owners, but once completed could be applied to Series 1 and DirecTiVo customers. Subscribers can't opt out of the feature, but they can ignore the tags."
I have tivo, and the way it works for me is that I zoom through the commercials, but occasionally I'll see something interesting, back up, and watch it. I might even watch it twice. So advertising is still working. But, if they put some obnoxious ad on top of the screen for something I don't want, I won't be able to see the commercials I'm skipping through. Oops!
From the MIT jargon file, version 3.2.0: :Big Room, the: n. The extremely large room with the blue ceiling and intensely bright light (during the day) or black ceiling with lots of tiny night-lights (during the night) found outside all computer installations. "He can't come to the phone right now, he's somewhere out in the Big Room."
We used to say that we don't have to worry about Windows' lack of reliability because no one would ever be stupid enough to run nuclear power plants, electric grids, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, etc., on Windows. I guess we have to revisit our assumptions.
Globalization is made possible by cheap energy, because labor costs are so much higher than the energy costs of shipping products around the globe (I'm talking about goods, not services here).
However, we are rapidly approaching global peak output in oil, as more and more countries go from oil exporters to oil importers, and everyone leans more and more on OPEC to produce the oil.
Oil production will peak very soon and then decline by 3% a year. This will cause a radical realignment of our economic systems, and local products will trump global products just due to the energy it takes for shipping.
Don't believe? Just enter in "peak oil" in google, there are dozens of websites devoted to this. Many of these websites contain articles written by retired oil scientists which warn of the peak in oil production by 2010, 2020 if we are really lucky.
Facts:
Fact: US oil discoveries peaked in 1930
Fact: US production peaking in 1970
Fact: World oil discoveries peaked in 1964
Fact: World oil production will peak (or has already peaked) any day now
Fact: We used to pump 50 barrels of oil for every 1 barrel of oil energy equivalent invested
Fact: We now pump 5 barrels of oil for every 1 barrel of oil energy equivalent invested
Fact: The last major oil field discovery was in the 1970s
Fact: Natural gas will also peak, but lag gasoline peak
Fact: There is no substitute for oil that either 1) won't take a long time to bring on line 2) won't pollute horribly
So, if suddenly sneakers made in China cost $300 because of the shipping costs, suddenly US made sneakers costing $100 look pretty good.
80% of the people who bother to read this post will say "This is total bullshit -- we will never run out of oil, there's plenty of it left" -- What are you basing your beliefs on? That it has always been there, so it will always be here? Oil companies paint a rosy picture otherwise their stocks will crash, the government does the same to prevent a panic, and the main media doesn't want to spread anything the suggests the coming doom of multinational corporations. How many McDonald's hamburgers will you be able to eat if they cost $50 a piece?
World oil reserves have been pegged at 2000 Gbarrels for many decades. Suddenly, recently, the USGS changed it to 3000 Gb. Was there some incredible new find? (We have pumped about 900 Gb since the beginning of time, we have about 1100 Gb left in the ground) No, the revised numbers reflect DEMAND in oil. In other words, the USGS changed the estimate of reserves so that they can continue to say "we have X years of oil left".
Why no just fix the Sun instead? Interstellar travel and fixing the Sun are both equally impossible right now, but it seems simpler to replenish the Sun's hydrogen, and perhaps siphon off the heavier elements and construct some new planets for excess population than creating "Warp Drive" technology.
To those who say the jobs are "voluntary" so if you are being mistreated it's your own fault ... Well, *someone* has to the work, if every meatpacker quit we would have no meat (okay for vegans and vegetarians not so good for everyone else). And a certain sector of the population is just plain not qualified for any other work. Should people be maimed by working conditions at meatpacking plants just because they lack the education, experience, connections or English speaking ability to get a job elsewhere or is it the government's job to regulate and ensure that everyone's job is safe?
Your hamburger costs $.99 because a long chain of low paid workers are being bled dry by the "efficient" production chain. The actual costs are much higher, including the cost to society because these workers will have to depend on the government since they cannot support themselves. Factory workers in China might make a good living at $5/hour (which they do not get paid), but that's not true for workers here.
The artificial abundance in our [American] society is unsustainable and will eventually collapse.
"There was an accident this morning on 101, and as a precaution the surrounding 2 counties were evacuated due to possible radioactive contamination"
However, did people notice this (from c|net article): "Future versions of the SunnComm software would include ways that the copy-protecting files would change their name on different computers, making them harder to find, Jacobs said. Moreover, the company will distribute the technology along with third-party software, so that it doesn't always come off a protected CD, he added."
So, this has some really bad implications: 1) Random software spyware style will be installed on my PC when I install legitimate software and 2) Does this software distinguish between copy protected and non-copy protected compact disks? 3) Once it becomes legal for this kind of stuff to be installed on your system, who knows what kind of stuff will start being installed behind the scenes when you install a regular piece of software? Keyboard loggers that send info to John Ashcroft? 4) What about fair use?
Perhaps the way to combat span is to create a trusted mail server system. This requires mail clients to be modified, but it would work something like this: Senders of e-mail register with a username/password with the mail server. The sender sends an e-mail to the server, then the server encrypts and digitally signs it. Once it gets to the receiver, the fact that it properly decodes with the public key proves (and checking the digital signature) that it came from the trusted source, and won't be spam. It costs something like 1 penny per 1000 e-mails to use this service, so spammers would go bankrupt trying to use it. Volume users (mailing lists) would get a discount, but their accounts would be monitored for possible spamming ...
I don't know about you but every CD I've ever bought says, clearly, "Unauthorized copying, etc. is illegal".
This is the most disturbing aspect to this whole story. I don't want software being installed on my PC when I insert a *music* cd! And certainly not without being able to say "no". This could open up a whole can of worms where all sorts of garbage is installed (spyware, etc.) whenever you insert a CD into your PC. Not that that wasn't possible in the past, but there was some "CD etiquette" that held most companies back...