First off, I only watched the first 15 or so minutes (it was late), so this is a point of view based on it's opening. However, what I saw will probably carry through for the entire thing, considering how basic the issues are.
First, the special effects. This is a low-budget "home-brew" movie. I'm not going to demand an ILM quality production. It was fairly decent - on a par with many B movies that recieved far better funding (and full time work).
Filming Techniques... these leave something to be desired. The camera shots don't look very well planned out, and are by no means dramatic. Not terrible (the camera's not in anyone's face), but between the lighting and the uninspiring shot angles, it's nothing to brag about. Many no-budget independant films with nothing else to show for, do better than this.
Writing... ungh. While a lot of movies get by with poor writing by having high production values and a lot of glitz to distract you from the lines, when you're on a shoestring budget you can't hide a lack of a good script.
Acting. This is my main gripe. It was bad. I've seen worse on direct-to-video, but I know non-actor friends who can do better than this. And people who say "watch the originals, are they better" are just looking for something to gripe about - there is no comparison. This is like watching someone's live-action rpg played out on a screen. The actors don't really seem to be into their roles, and are doing more posturing and pronouncing than conveying their characters.
The glory of net-distributed films is that it allows people with no budget, no particular skill, and no training to put their heart and soul into a production that concentrates on attributes that have no price - imagination, intensity, and good writing.
This didn't have any of these things.
I'm sure this was a labor of love... and the sheer fact that they finished it is an accomplishment. The sheer fact that they got this many people interested is an even greater accomplishment. The end product, however, is not.
Considering that Mr. Pandaren also happens to be a Brewmaster, when will they get that damned/beer command working? Forget chinese food, I want someone to bring me a beer!
Re:Games HAVE had a drastic effect on a generation
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I think this is why there is no anti-war movement on U.S. college campuses. That may change if there is a draft, but many of them think they were too smart to be a grunt, and feel superior to those that are killed, and blithley accept the Bush mantra that death is part of winning the war.
I don't think it's so much blithe acceptance, but a different focus. The Hippie Generation asked "At what cost of life?". The Me Generation asked "How will this affect my pocketbook?". Generation X, especially the younger members, seem more concerned about "How will this affect my life ten years from now?".
Again, I think the general outlook of an endangered future that must be built on today is the result of years upon years of playing games where mistakes can have repercussions that come back to haunt you. Life has lessons like that as well, but it always seems harder to take lessons from the real thing than from a game, which beats them into you.
Games HAVE had a drastic effect on a generation
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Got Game
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Games have had positive and negative effects. My generation, or at least a majority of it's members, has spent years being driven half-insane by puzzles and intellectual challenges both to reasoning and patience. There have always been such challenges, but nowhere near as often, as common, as widespread, or as twistedly intricate and lovingly built as what has existed since the early 80's.
On the positive side, from an early age we have been taught the value of patience, and the rewards of outright persistance. Anyone who's played many games has seen what happens when you give in to impatience and end up blowing anywhere from 5 to 60+ minutes of effort in one badly timed move. And without persistance, you couldn't beat many games in the first place - to achieve your goal, sometimes you have to bang away at it until it's done. You become very goal-oriented, having played games, and you also become competitive - not so much competitive in general, but competitive about doing your work faster, more intelligently, and more efficiently than anyone else around you.
On the negative side, we're quite a bit more reward-oriented than previous generations (when we accomplish something, we damned well want to see something come out of it). We do have a collective taint of what amounts to ADD, being able to focus tightly on short tasks like no generation before, but having trouble sticking to one course of action for the long haul. We're always looking for the shortcut, believing fully that it exists. And sometimes, even though it's often an asset in business, we can be a bit inhuman in our logic, dispassionately accepting losses, risks, and sacrifices when it furthers our goals.
Reminds me of a quote:
"If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
What's to keep them from sticking in a Verisign graphic just to look safe? Think they're going to be stopped by copyright law?
That's pretty unlikely. I mean, copyright violation is technically illegal. Plus, the government has been cracking down on it pretty heavily. No, safer to just stick to fraud.
Also, what if someone on the inside were to modify the master disk used to image the hard drives at a factory. Sure it might make the news and eventually you'd hear about it, but it still wouldn't be fun to be one of the people affected?
Not only that, but what if it turned out to BE my bank doing the phishing, rigging the banking website to modify my certificate to accept the banking site, and then storing my login and password so my bank could get all all my banking info?
Not very familiar with the threat level against XP?
I've tested this myself. Put up a fresh brand new install of XP. Before I could even start patching it, I had worms homing in. I think the record so far (not for me but for another article here) is 45 seconds from first boot.
By the time you get around to hitting your bank records, you're already hit. If it's a brand new computer, unless it's fully patched and defended against these specific threats, you would likely already be hit long before you browsed your first site, let alone a critical one.
Any phishing of that type will result in a certificate error (assuming they don't do some heavy modding of your browser as well), which I can catch.
But I'm sure most of us have parents who we've told the common "If you don't understand it say Ok" - ie not the safest thing in the world, but better than being called every 2 hours. Usually this works well, since even relative illiterates understand the idea of software being installed without them specifically wanting it, and can say no.
But a certificate error? Quite a few people will shrug and click OK anyway.
And moreover, what will this do to the economy, considering that suddenly a far greater level of financial intrusion will now be possible?
Sorry for the rant, but this is a subject that's been bugging the hell out of me...
As a moral concept, I strongly support the concept of open source and free software. As comparatively cryptic as it often tends to be, it also provides an abundance of learning and utility resources that were simply not available in previous decades.
But, at least to me, it seems that a lot of people lose touch with reality and begin assuming that the Open Source movement (loosely, a moral imperative to move the industry heavily towards open and freely available software) and open source software (task-based software released for public enhancement and development for a technical advantage) are one and the same. One is essentially a political faction (politics aren't limited to government), and the other is a development technique that can be applied wherever it's more suitable to private in-house development.
There is a deffinite need for open source software, both as a public resource (from time donated by individual developers) and as a proven method of creating tools for specific tasks (if company X needs tool Y, they can start the project then release it open source, and soon they'll have a far better tool Y at their disposal).
However, when I see comments like FSF's "The enemy is proprietary software", I'm not greatly impressed in a moral sense. The enemy is not software written for a direct profit, and business is not all about philanthropic ventures.
Personally, I'm no mercenary... if I write a neat tool for my own use, I often release it to my friends and anyone else who wants it, no license whatsoever (ie truly public domain, and bedamned). I don't demand payment for every ounce of effort I make. BUT - I want a house, I want a better car, I want a family, and in general a higher standard of living than I have... and in that respect I'd rather devote my time towards projects that will earn income, and if I create anything that gives me an advantage in a market, I'm not going to be very inclined to give it out freely (until it's been superceded or it's returns have peaked). That's not greed, that's just the basic concepts behind business. As long as it's not destructive, or TOO counterproductive to the market as a whole, it is the creation, marketing, and sole (or controlled) sales rights that usually drive the economy.
Why all the bickering over increasingly complicated licensing for what was supposed to be a fundamentally "free" concept, both in liberty as well as price? What ever happened to the old, simple, long-lived concept of "Public Domain", you know, the idea of creating something and unleashing it on the world to use and reshape as needed? There are complexities involved, especially when it's a business issue, but when did philanthropy become a war against the very business model that has built and maintained the computer industry, for all it's faults?
Why are so many more or less non-profit linux distributions expending such a great deal of effort NOT to produce the best operating system they can, on it's own merits, but actively trying to wage war against the current dominant product, which they don't even need to "compete" with? As a private citizen, I support the very concept Linux, but as an administrator and devleoper I don't give a rat's ass about anything but performance and my own design preferences (which Linux has long been my favorite for, but is losing ground with me for a number of reasons). I have to deal with sudden new security issues on my linux servers almost as often as on my windows servers, it's been a long time since I've had a serious technical problem with my windows servers, and it's nice to actually be able to install a friggin product by simply installing it, instead of dealing with dependancy chains, compiler compatability, and other plain annoyances. And with the increasing number of licensing I have to deal with (mysql, RHE - I'm starting to dislike redhat, and others), I'm starting to wonder where the "free
So now the question is... can we fool the box's timer into running at a faster sync rate? ie make a 60fps game refresh at 80 or 90? Anyone know if (modern) tv's can even handle this kind of signal without crapping themselves?
It would be nice to mod my NES to make the games a little more... challenging.
I'm still waiting on the NES Linux kernel hack...
So what, exactly, is the deal with Ms Didio? I could understand her possibly (giving her benefit of the doubt) originally siding with SCO as an analyst... but over time her constant support, constant praise, and general attempts at propaganda make it more than obvious she's got a heavy leash being held by someone over there.
Does she expect to retain any value as an "independant analyst" in the post-SCO market? It's all too common for analysts to be paid to support a product or company, but they're usually a little less blatant about it. Who would value her opinion, knowing that her opinion is for sale?
Though... I suspect (recently) that it's more Canopy holding her leash, than SCO, since she seems to choose Canopy over SCO when she has to (like in her recent comments - she still didn't say anything bad about them, but saved all her real praise for her theoretical overlords at Canopy).
What you do is give them a few hours of very basic vocabulary training, then drug them and transport them to a part of the world that predominantly speaks that langauge, and only that language (ie if it's Japanese, drop them off somewhere in backwoods Japan). Give them a few yen to get started, and leave them to their own resources.
When they show up at your door (possibly armed), a few months down the line, they will have a far greater command of the language in a short amount of time than they could ever have gotten under direct tutelage. THEN you collect your money, plus the yen you invested in them earlier.
We have the first actual picture of a planet orbiting another star... not inferential data, not radio info, but optical (not sure about wavelength, but that's irrelevant).
And it's not even on the list? The still questionable "discovery" of a wet Martian past makes the top of the list, but a deffinitive leap of scientific discovery (ie a fuzzy and blurred but very real picture of an extrasolar planet) doesn't even receive mention on the list (even if the article was kind enough to mention it)?
The problem is patent primarily relates to the duplication and sale of a patented product, or incorporation of a patented product into another product. Most of Microsoft's capital comes from the legions of home computer and workstation sales (all of which pay the MS Tax), the vast quantity of business software they produce, games, and other products. And of course corporate licensing. Under normal circumstances, none of these apply to patents.
Without major changes that alter the very concept of "patent" law, how would current patent law protect these bastions of profit? A patent keeps me from copying and selling their products, and keeps me from ripping off their products for inclusion in my own (or even borrowing ideas and concepts). However... how do patents apply to application of an extant patented item, regardless of how you obtained it, for a process that is not itself patentable (like filling out a spreadsheet or writing a document)?
Applying patents in place of copyright effectively treats software like a physical product - and patent law DOES allow duplication (but not selling) of an object for internal use (something that drove IBM nuts). When used, it does not matter how the object itself was obtained (if it was stolen, that's a criminal, not a patent, issue), only that it not be marketed while in violation of applicable patents....and if there's no copyright law, there's no theft in duplicating a patented item for your own use, be it for home or business use. At worst, trademark would prevent you from openly claiming your use of the product as any part of your marketing campaign.
Patent covers the manufacture (or mass-duplication) and marketing of a product or process... not it's use, how you obtain it, or how much money you make applying it to your business.
I'm not so sure Microsoft would favor this concept much. In the end, the core of their business is based on the sale of software, not it's servicing. A patent-based software system would making it very difficult for other publishers to borrow ideas, but would offer zero protection against consumers, who, in the absence of copyright protections, are able to obtain and run the software by any means they see fit. Even registration systems are easily circumvented.
True, MS could go the route of simply giving out the software and charging heavily for support, but that does not suit their business model at all. They rely on sales... sales and upgrades. Their patent concerns are primarily to protect their sales, as is their anti-piracy obsession.
Take away copyright in lieu of strong patents, and they stand to lose more than they have to gain. It's the sort of thing that could break them completely, while providing an advantae for the competition.
When VLSI hit the market, it became cheaper to have one ultrapowerful machine, compared to having a cluster of older IC-based hardware. You got more firepower for the money. That's not to say it wouldn't still pay to combine multiple Nth Generation machines, but a great deal of the cost advantage would be lost.
Clusters exist in their current diversity because it is simply the cheapest and most effective way to create powerful supercomputers. If you have a new technology orders of magnitude more powerful (which is how it usually goes), but also considerably more expensive, it becomes cheaper to build a singular (or small number) of powerful specimins than it does to build legions of older technology (like current processors - they aren't that powerful compared to higher end chips, but they're much much cheaper).
You could always network a whole mess of next-generation processors, but while it's a newer technology it will be obscenely expensive (not counting cost, there's nothing to stop people from creating arrays of supercomputer clusters right now).
I do think clusters are going to be a dominant architecture for the next few decades, but I also think the current ultra-heavy emphasis on clusters is as much a function of asymptotic limitations as much as the natural evolution of the technology. It's currently cheaper to build a cluster out of a whole mess of weaker processors than it is to develop a single ubercore. I doubt that situation will last more than a decade, though, going by previous history.
Computers were initially monolithic machines that effectively had a single core. By the 70's, the processing on many mainframes had branched out so that a single mainframe was often a number of seperate systems integrated into a whole (though nothing on the level we see today). By the 80's it seemed to swing back to monolithic designs (standalone pc's, ubercomputer Crays) and it wasn't until the 90's that dual and quad processing became commonplace (though the technology had existed before).
Eventually, someone will hit on a revolutionary new technology (sort of like how transistors, IC's, and microprocessors were revoloutionary) that renders current LVSI systems obsolete (optical? quantum?), and the cost/power ratio will shift dramatically, making it more economical to go back to singular (and more expensive) powerful cores rather than cheap (but weaker) distributed cores.
You, my friend, must be exceptionally bored.
Either that, or this Roland guy must have shunned your romantic advances sometime recently.
Can't you just stalk in silence like everybody else?
I don't know about a total news blackout... you want the media to have the freedom to talk about the vote. It's just a matter of them taking exit polls so far that they're claiming entire states, which discourages opposition from even bothering. But what if one election day things get a little too squirrely? We'll be needing the media most at a time like that.
And I'm all for a 24-hour voting day. Starting at midnight, ending exactly 24 hours later. No release of actual voting info until then, and limits on just what statistics the media is allowed to give. I say "statistics" because that makes it easier to differentiate between dangerous manipulation and simple discussion.
Other people expressed problems with it being during the week. Other than the complexity of changing the day it occurs on, does anyone see any issues with it being on a saturday? Or does anyone have religious issues with it being on a sunday?
Agreed. There should be accountability after the fact, but until the LAST poll has closed and no one is voting (even if mail votes are still arriving though no longer being sent), there should be absolutely zero mention of the score.
Even exit polls aren't so hot an idea. They're a result of everyone's hunger to know asap... but they do not serve us well, and as we've seen, they are not accurate. All they reall do is influence people from voting their consience.
An elitist would generally be thought of as someone who'd rather the rich and powerful had a say. I don't care about money or power, but I also don't care for lowering the standards of that critical an aspect of civic life so that people who are only marginally interested can have the same say as me without having to do much more than click a mouse button.
We're not talking about the small minority of non-voters who have compelling reasons why they can't. Most people who do not vote simply do not vote - no real reason except they'd rather spend that time doing what they usually do.
If there were good numbers of people openly complaining that they want to go vote, but couldn't afford it (it's free), couldn't get there (in an urban area?!?), or for any other reason couldn't apply their voting power even though they fully intended to do so... I'd pay that argument more respect. But you don't hear that kind of complaint much - and trust me, people who want to vote and can't complain bitterly in areas where it's an issue.
When you actually ASK people who say they haven't voted, they don't get mad about not having been able to vote. They just ask what would be the point, since so many others are voting. Or that they didn't like either candidate. Or they'll go into a tirade on the voting process. They make excuses, or more or less come out and say that they didn't really have a vote to make. If you made it effortless, they'd be inclined to vote for the most interesting candidate rather than they one they have the most real faith in. Do you really want that?
If someone can't get time off from work, that's why the poles stay open late. And if they know they can never get around to doing it by normal means, they can always mail in their ballot - no postage needed.
And the reason retired people have so much higher voter turnout is that, on the whole, they are far more concerned about their voice being heard. AARP has it's power because it's members are active participants in the democratic process and those who'd run for office know it. Underrepresented groups should take that kind of lead... if they did, we'd have a better quality of leadership.
There is nothing elitist about what I'm saying. There's nothing wrong with people wanting to vote online - it's convenient. But the majority of people who'd be willing to vote online (most of which live in urban areas) but who never make the minimal effort to even mail in their vote, would not likely make responsible voters. There's a fine line between open-for-all democracy and mob rule.
Now, what are these many reasons why someone, who has ready web access in the home and yet has been blocked from casting their ballot, would suddenly be liberated from tyrrany and made a free citizen by having a home access voting station?
Regional voting results, and the voting fallout from specific groups, is predictable because only a subset of the population truly cares about particular issues - which makes them blocks you can cater to. These groups are well-defined simply because they care enough to participate in the democratic process. Non-voters may have an interest and like to talk, but who can really say they care as much as they say they do?
Apathy, disenfranchisement, and a feeling of powerlessness are the main contributors to our voting numbers. And the low voter turnout fuels all three. It's be nice to make voting available to all - no effort, no forethought, no work - just do it.
It's the main impetus for it that bothers me. If more people voted to begin with, I'd have less of a problem with it. But when it's made so easy for people to do it the usual way, yet people still don't consider their vote worth the effort, I simply do not want those people screwing up the process even worse than it is.
I used Dean as a reference for the negative aspects of web-based voting. Aparently, most of his real supporters were all talk - he was the cool candidate, the one who people had no trouble effortlessly selecting. But he had no real support among people who took the question of leadership more seriously. Having to physically go out to the polls weeded out all the limp pseudo-voters who didn't really care that much.
If people are so damned lazy that it's too much effort to go to a polling station that's usually (in most places, though by no means all) within walking distance, I simply do not want those people messing up the voting process. They'll throw off predictions, but not in a particularly good way.
Yes, but that's the fault of the people. No political system is perfect, and democracy is no exception.
The democratic process works in cycles... people get lazy, vote poorly, fewer people vote... government gets bad, corrupt or incompetant. People eventually get fed up with it.
Anger is one of the most powerful forces in democracy. It drove people to action when they decided to back the unofficial Patriot party as a political power back in the mid 1770's... it drove people to clean house in the late 1800's (remember Tammany Hall anyone? or Grant's Cabinet).
And it seems to be starting to go to work now. Admittedly, things are nowhere near as bad in terms of government as they have been for most of our history, but people are more aware of it. Information and resources are starting to go up all over the place, letting you know as much as possible about what your leaders are doing.
The sheep are aware of the wolves... and whenever they get mad enough, they deal with them. The wolves always creep back, but that's just how things are.
Taking that analogy any further would require that I bring in images of armed sheep, metal armadilloes, and aliens... so I'll leave it at that.
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At least I'm assuming it is. How many times has this subject come up?
Maybe we should hold competitions to see who can make the best mineral oil cooled machine?
I'm tempted to make a dry-ice cooled block (dehumidified of course and allowing for temperature gradients...)
First off, I only watched the first 15 or so minutes (it was late), so this is a point of view based on it's opening. However, what I saw will probably carry through for the entire thing, considering how basic the issues are. First, the special effects. This is a low-budget "home-brew" movie. I'm not going to demand an ILM quality production. It was fairly decent - on a par with many B movies that recieved far better funding (and full time work). Filming Techniques... these leave something to be desired. The camera shots don't look very well planned out, and are by no means dramatic. Not terrible (the camera's not in anyone's face), but between the lighting and the uninspiring shot angles, it's nothing to brag about. Many no-budget independant films with nothing else to show for, do better than this. Writing... ungh. While a lot of movies get by with poor writing by having high production values and a lot of glitz to distract you from the lines, when you're on a shoestring budget you can't hide a lack of a good script. Acting. This is my main gripe. It was bad. I've seen worse on direct-to-video, but I know non-actor friends who can do better than this. And people who say "watch the originals, are they better" are just looking for something to gripe about - there is no comparison. This is like watching someone's live-action rpg played out on a screen. The actors don't really seem to be into their roles, and are doing more posturing and pronouncing than conveying their characters. The glory of net-distributed films is that it allows people with no budget, no particular skill, and no training to put their heart and soul into a production that concentrates on attributes that have no price - imagination, intensity, and good writing. This didn't have any of these things. I'm sure this was a labor of love... and the sheer fact that they finished it is an accomplishment. The sheer fact that they got this many people interested is an even greater accomplishment. The end product, however, is not.
Considering that Mr. Pandaren also happens to be a Brewmaster, when will they get that damned /beer command working? Forget chinese food, I want someone to bring me a beer!
I think this is why there is no anti-war movement on U.S. college campuses. That may change if there is a draft, but many of them think they were too smart to be a grunt, and feel superior to those that are killed, and blithley accept the Bush mantra that death is part of winning the war.
I don't think it's so much blithe acceptance, but a different focus. The Hippie Generation asked "At what cost of life?". The Me Generation asked "How will this affect my pocketbook?". Generation X, especially the younger members, seem more concerned about "How will this affect my life ten years from now?".
Again, I think the general outlook of an endangered future that must be built on today is the result of years upon years of playing games where mistakes can have repercussions that come back to haunt you. Life has lessons like that as well, but it always seems harder to take lessons from the real thing than from a game, which beats them into you.
Games have had positive and negative effects. My generation, or at least a majority of it's members, has spent years being driven half-insane by puzzles and intellectual challenges both to reasoning and patience. There have always been such challenges, but nowhere near as often, as common, as widespread, or as twistedly intricate and lovingly built as what has existed since the early 80's.
On the positive side, from an early age we have been taught the value of patience, and the rewards of outright persistance. Anyone who's played many games has seen what happens when you give in to impatience and end up blowing anywhere from 5 to 60+ minutes of effort in one badly timed move. And without persistance, you couldn't beat many games in the first place - to achieve your goal, sometimes you have to bang away at it until it's done. You become very goal-oriented, having played games, and you also become competitive - not so much competitive in general, but competitive about doing your work faster, more intelligently, and more efficiently than anyone else around you.
On the negative side, we're quite a bit more reward-oriented than previous generations (when we accomplish something, we damned well want to see something come out of it). We do have a collective taint of what amounts to ADD, being able to focus tightly on short tasks like no generation before, but having trouble sticking to one course of action for the long haul. We're always looking for the shortcut, believing fully that it exists. And sometimes, even though it's often an asset in business, we can be a bit inhuman in our logic, dispassionately accepting losses, risks, and sacrifices when it furthers our goals.
Reminds me of a quote: "If Pacman had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
What's to keep them from sticking in a Verisign graphic just to look safe? Think they're going to be stopped by copyright law?
That's pretty unlikely. I mean, copyright violation is technically illegal. Plus, the government has been cracking down on it pretty heavily. No, safer to just stick to fraud.
Also, what if someone on the inside were to modify the master disk used to image the hard drives at a factory. Sure it might make the news and eventually you'd hear about it, but it still wouldn't be fun to be one of the people affected?
Not only that, but what if it turned out to BE my bank doing the phishing, rigging the banking website to modify my certificate to accept the banking site, and then storing my login and password so my bank could get all all my banking info?
Ohhhh, phishers can be devious....
Not very familiar with the threat level against XP?
I've tested this myself. Put up a fresh brand new install of XP. Before I could even start patching it, I had worms homing in. I think the record so far (not for me but for another article here) is 45 seconds from first boot.
By the time you get around to hitting your bank records, you're already hit. If it's a brand new computer, unless it's fully patched and defended against these specific threats, you would likely already be hit long before you browsed your first site, let alone a critical one.
Think before you flame.
Any phishing of that type will result in a certificate error (assuming they don't do some heavy modding of your browser as well), which I can catch. But I'm sure most of us have parents who we've told the common "If you don't understand it say Ok" - ie not the safest thing in the world, but better than being called every 2 hours. Usually this works well, since even relative illiterates understand the idea of software being installed without them specifically wanting it, and can say no. But a certificate error? Quite a few people will shrug and click OK anyway. And moreover, what will this do to the economy, considering that suddenly a far greater level of financial intrusion will now be possible?
Sorry for the rant, but this is a subject that's been bugging the hell out of me...
As a moral concept, I strongly support the concept of open source and free software. As comparatively cryptic as it often tends to be, it also provides an abundance of learning and utility resources that were simply not available in previous decades.
But, at least to me, it seems that a lot of people lose touch with reality and begin assuming that the Open Source movement (loosely, a moral imperative to move the industry heavily towards open and freely available software) and open source software (task-based software released for public enhancement and development for a technical advantage) are one and the same. One is essentially a political faction (politics aren't limited to government), and the other is a development technique that can be applied wherever it's more suitable to private in-house development.
There is a deffinite need for open source software, both as a public resource (from time donated by individual developers) and as a proven method of creating tools for specific tasks (if company X needs tool Y, they can start the project then release it open source, and soon they'll have a far better tool Y at their disposal).
However, when I see comments like FSF's "The enemy is proprietary software", I'm not greatly impressed in a moral sense. The enemy is not software written for a direct profit, and business is not all about philanthropic ventures.
Personally, I'm no mercenary... if I write a neat tool for my own use, I often release it to my friends and anyone else who wants it, no license whatsoever (ie truly public domain, and bedamned). I don't demand payment for every ounce of effort I make. BUT - I want a house, I want a better car, I want a family, and in general a higher standard of living than I have... and in that respect I'd rather devote my time towards projects that will earn income, and if I create anything that gives me an advantage in a market, I'm not going to be very inclined to give it out freely (until it's been superceded or it's returns have peaked). That's not greed, that's just the basic concepts behind business. As long as it's not destructive, or TOO counterproductive to the market as a whole, it is the creation, marketing, and sole (or controlled) sales rights that usually drive the economy.
Why all the bickering over increasingly complicated licensing for what was supposed to be a fundamentally "free" concept, both in liberty as well as price? What ever happened to the old, simple, long-lived concept of "Public Domain", you know, the idea of creating something and unleashing it on the world to use and reshape as needed? There are complexities involved, especially when it's a business issue, but when did philanthropy become a war against the very business model that has built and maintained the computer industry, for all it's faults?
Why are so many more or less non-profit linux distributions expending such a great deal of effort NOT to produce the best operating system they can, on it's own merits, but actively trying to wage war against the current dominant product, which they don't even need to "compete" with? As a private citizen, I support the very concept Linux, but as an administrator and devleoper I don't give a rat's ass about anything but performance and my own design preferences (which Linux has long been my favorite for, but is losing ground with me for a number of reasons). I have to deal with sudden new security issues on my linux servers almost as often as on my windows servers, it's been a long time since I've had a serious technical problem with my windows servers, and it's nice to actually be able to install a friggin product by simply installing it, instead of dealing with dependancy chains, compiler compatability, and other plain annoyances. And with the increasing number of licensing I have to deal with (mysql, RHE - I'm starting to dislike redhat, and others), I'm starting to wonder where the "free
So now the question is... can we fool the box's timer into running at a faster sync rate? ie make a 60fps game refresh at 80 or 90? Anyone know if (modern) tv's can even handle this kind of signal without crapping themselves?
It would be nice to mod my NES to make the games a little more... challenging.
I'm still waiting on the NES Linux kernel hack...
So what, exactly, is the deal with Ms Didio? I could understand her possibly (giving her benefit of the doubt) originally siding with SCO as an analyst... but over time her constant support, constant praise, and general attempts at propaganda make it more than obvious she's got a heavy leash being held by someone over there.
Does she expect to retain any value as an "independant analyst" in the post-SCO market? It's all too common for analysts to be paid to support a product or company, but they're usually a little less blatant about it. Who would value her opinion, knowing that her opinion is for sale?
Though... I suspect (recently) that it's more Canopy holding her leash, than SCO, since she seems to choose Canopy over SCO when she has to (like in her recent comments - she still didn't say anything bad about them, but saved all her real praise for her theoretical overlords at Canopy).
I clicked...
...and I expect a few nightmares over it tonight.
I saw...
You need to offer Extreme Language Courses.
What you do is give them a few hours of very basic vocabulary training, then drug them and transport them to a part of the world that predominantly speaks that langauge, and only that language (ie if it's Japanese, drop them off somewhere in backwoods Japan). Give them a few yen to get started, and leave them to their own resources.
When they show up at your door (possibly armed), a few months down the line, they will have a far greater command of the language in a short amount of time than they could ever have gotten under direct tutelage. THEN you collect your money, plus the yen you invested in them earlier.
We have the first actual picture of a planet orbiting another star... not inferential data, not radio info, but optical (not sure about wavelength, but that's irrelevant).
And it's not even on the list? The still questionable "discovery" of a wet Martian past makes the top of the list, but a deffinitive leap of scientific discovery (ie a fuzzy and blurred but very real picture of an extrasolar planet) doesn't even receive mention on the list (even if the article was kind enough to mention it)?
The problem is patent primarily relates to the duplication and sale of a patented product, or incorporation of a patented product into another product. Most of Microsoft's capital comes from the legions of home computer and workstation sales (all of which pay the MS Tax), the vast quantity of business software they produce, games, and other products. And of course corporate licensing. Under normal circumstances, none of these apply to patents.
...and if there's no copyright law, there's no theft in duplicating a patented item for your own use, be it for home or business use. At worst, trademark would prevent you from openly claiming your use of the product as any part of your marketing campaign.
Without major changes that alter the very concept of "patent" law, how would current patent law protect these bastions of profit? A patent keeps me from copying and selling their products, and keeps me from ripping off their products for inclusion in my own (or even borrowing ideas and concepts). However... how do patents apply to application of an extant patented item, regardless of how you obtained it, for a process that is not itself patentable (like filling out a spreadsheet or writing a document)?
Applying patents in place of copyright effectively treats software like a physical product - and patent law DOES allow duplication (but not selling) of an object for internal use (something that drove IBM nuts). When used, it does not matter how the object itself was obtained (if it was stolen, that's a criminal, not a patent, issue), only that it not be marketed while in violation of applicable patents.
Patent covers the manufacture (or mass-duplication) and marketing of a product or process... not it's use, how you obtain it, or how much money you make applying it to your business.
I'm not so sure Microsoft would favor this concept much. In the end, the core of their business is based on the sale of software, not it's servicing. A patent-based software system would making it very difficult for other publishers to borrow ideas, but would offer zero protection against consumers, who, in the absence of copyright protections, are able to obtain and run the software by any means they see fit. Even registration systems are easily circumvented.
True, MS could go the route of simply giving out the software and charging heavily for support, but that does not suit their business model at all. They rely on sales... sales and upgrades. Their patent concerns are primarily to protect their sales, as is their anti-piracy obsession.
Take away copyright in lieu of strong patents, and they stand to lose more than they have to gain. It's the sort of thing that could break them completely, while providing an advantae for the competition.
It all depends on what form an advance takes.
When VLSI hit the market, it became cheaper to have one ultrapowerful machine, compared to having a cluster of older IC-based hardware. You got more firepower for the money. That's not to say it wouldn't still pay to combine multiple Nth Generation machines, but a great deal of the cost advantage would be lost.
Clusters exist in their current diversity because it is simply the cheapest and most effective way to create powerful supercomputers. If you have a new technology orders of magnitude more powerful (which is how it usually goes), but also considerably more expensive, it becomes cheaper to build a singular (or small number) of powerful specimins than it does to build legions of older technology (like current processors - they aren't that powerful compared to higher end chips, but they're much much cheaper).
You could always network a whole mess of next-generation processors, but while it's a newer technology it will be obscenely expensive (not counting cost, there's nothing to stop people from creating arrays of supercomputer clusters right now).
I do think clusters are going to be a dominant architecture for the next few decades, but I also think the current ultra-heavy emphasis on clusters is as much a function of asymptotic limitations as much as the natural evolution of the technology. It's currently cheaper to build a cluster out of a whole mess of weaker processors than it is to develop a single ubercore. I doubt that situation will last more than a decade, though, going by previous history.
Computers were initially monolithic machines that effectively had a single core. By the 70's, the processing on many mainframes had branched out so that a single mainframe was often a number of seperate systems integrated into a whole (though nothing on the level we see today). By the 80's it seemed to swing back to monolithic designs (standalone pc's, ubercomputer Crays) and it wasn't until the 90's that dual and quad processing became commonplace (though the technology had existed before).
Eventually, someone will hit on a revolutionary new technology (sort of like how transistors, IC's, and microprocessors were revoloutionary) that renders current LVSI systems obsolete (optical? quantum?), and the cost/power ratio will shift dramatically, making it more economical to go back to singular (and more expensive) powerful cores rather than cheap (but weaker) distributed cores.
You, my friend, must be exceptionally bored. Either that, or this Roland guy must have shunned your romantic advances sometime recently. Can't you just stalk in silence like everybody else?
I don't know about a total news blackout... you want the media to have the freedom to talk about the vote. It's just a matter of them taking exit polls so far that they're claiming entire states, which discourages opposition from even bothering. But what if one election day things get a little too squirrely? We'll be needing the media most at a time like that.
And I'm all for a 24-hour voting day. Starting at midnight, ending exactly 24 hours later. No release of actual voting info until then, and limits on just what statistics the media is allowed to give. I say "statistics" because that makes it easier to differentiate between dangerous manipulation and simple discussion.
Other people expressed problems with it being during the week. Other than the complexity of changing the day it occurs on, does anyone see any issues with it being on a saturday? Or does anyone have religious issues with it being on a sunday?
Agreed. There should be accountability after the fact, but until the LAST poll has closed and no one is voting (even if mail votes are still arriving though no longer being sent), there should be absolutely zero mention of the score.
Even exit polls aren't so hot an idea. They're a result of everyone's hunger to know asap... but they do not serve us well, and as we've seen, they are not accurate. All they reall do is influence people from voting their consience.
An elitist would generally be thought of as someone who'd rather the rich and powerful had a say. I don't care about money or power, but I also don't care for lowering the standards of that critical an aspect of civic life so that people who are only marginally interested can have the same say as me without having to do much more than click a mouse button.
We're not talking about the small minority of non-voters who have compelling reasons why they can't. Most people who do not vote simply do not vote - no real reason except they'd rather spend that time doing what they usually do.
If there were good numbers of people openly complaining that they want to go vote, but couldn't afford it (it's free), couldn't get there (in an urban area?!?), or for any other reason couldn't apply their voting power even though they fully intended to do so... I'd pay that argument more respect. But you don't hear that kind of complaint much - and trust me, people who want to vote and can't complain bitterly in areas where it's an issue.
When you actually ASK people who say they haven't voted, they don't get mad about not having been able to vote. They just ask what would be the point, since so many others are voting. Or that they didn't like either candidate. Or they'll go into a tirade on the voting process. They make excuses, or more or less come out and say that they didn't really have a vote to make. If you made it effortless, they'd be inclined to vote for the most interesting candidate rather than they one they have the most real faith in. Do you really want that?
If someone can't get time off from work, that's why the poles stay open late. And if they know they can never get around to doing it by normal means, they can always mail in their ballot - no postage needed.
And the reason retired people have so much higher voter turnout is that, on the whole, they are far more concerned about their voice being heard. AARP has it's power because it's members are active participants in the democratic process and those who'd run for office know it. Underrepresented groups should take that kind of lead... if they did, we'd have a better quality of leadership.
There is nothing elitist about what I'm saying. There's nothing wrong with people wanting to vote online - it's convenient. But the majority of people who'd be willing to vote online (most of which live in urban areas) but who never make the minimal effort to even mail in their vote, would not likely make responsible voters. There's a fine line between open-for-all democracy and mob rule.
Now, what are these many reasons why someone, who has ready web access in the home and yet has been blocked from casting their ballot, would suddenly be liberated from tyrrany and made a free citizen by having a home access voting station?
Regional voting results, and the voting fallout from specific groups, is predictable because only a subset of the population truly cares about particular issues - which makes them blocks you can cater to. These groups are well-defined simply because they care enough to participate in the democratic process. Non-voters may have an interest and like to talk, but who can really say they care as much as they say they do?
Apathy, disenfranchisement, and a feeling of powerlessness are the main contributors to our voting numbers. And the low voter turnout fuels all three. It's be nice to make voting available to all - no effort, no forethought, no work - just do it.
It's the main impetus for it that bothers me. If more people voted to begin with, I'd have less of a problem with it. But when it's made so easy for people to do it the usual way, yet people still don't consider their vote worth the effort, I simply do not want those people screwing up the process even worse than it is.
I used Dean as a reference for the negative aspects of web-based voting. Aparently, most of his real supporters were all talk - he was the cool candidate, the one who people had no trouble effortlessly selecting. But he had no real support among people who took the question of leadership more seriously. Having to physically go out to the polls weeded out all the limp pseudo-voters who didn't really care that much.
If people are so damned lazy that it's too much effort to go to a polling station that's usually (in most places, though by no means all) within walking distance, I simply do not want those people messing up the voting process. They'll throw off predictions, but not in a particularly good way.
Yes, but that's the fault of the people. No political system is perfect, and democracy is no exception.
The democratic process works in cycles... people get lazy, vote poorly, fewer people vote... government gets bad, corrupt or incompetant. People eventually get fed up with it.
Anger is one of the most powerful forces in democracy. It drove people to action when they decided to back the unofficial Patriot party as a political power back in the mid 1770's... it drove people to clean house in the late 1800's (remember Tammany Hall anyone? or Grant's Cabinet).
And it seems to be starting to go to work now. Admittedly, things are nowhere near as bad in terms of government as they have been for most of our history, but people are more aware of it. Information and resources are starting to go up all over the place, letting you know as much as possible about what your leaders are doing.
The sheep are aware of the wolves... and whenever they get mad enough, they deal with them. The wolves always creep back, but that's just how things are.
Taking that analogy any further would require that I bring in images of armed sheep, metal armadilloes, and aliens... so I'll leave it at that.