Or better yet, use the stuff to cover the die, inside the hermetically-sealed package. Thus keeping the die itself cooler.
It's cool to see my old college prof and his research get mentioned here on/. Too bad he taught us the senior physics lab class, instead of thermodynamics. Otherwise we coulda been way ahead of the competition in overclocking;-)
Yeah, that's a totally great idea. Use the superconducting shell to evenly distribute the heat of the laser, thus ensuring humans are evenly cooked. I hate it when some humans are burnt, and others cold and raw. blech.
wanna market this thing on a TV infomercial? we can do it alongside George Forman's chicken rotisserie.
What you really want to do with these is coat your spaceship with them so you can dump all the heat from the laser
your being attacked with into a block of ice in the middle of your ship.:-)
that's all well and good until you melt, then vaporize, the ice cube such that the steam pressure blows a hole through the ship hull (after cooking the ship's passengers, of course).:-)
LHC will fit into some of the pre-existing tunnels, but it also has injectors to rev the particles to great velocities before spitting them into LHC itself.
as for microgravity research, there is alot of interesting stuff going on. Offhand, I know of studies to look at liquid interfaces, which in the absence of strong gravitational fields, can fold back in on itself many times, leading to new studies of condensed matter physics. And I'm also aware of studies that were previously done on the vomit-comet, which has limitations of only 30 seconds or so weighlessness, to study electrical arcing in absence of gravity. So there's two projects right there.
Not to mention all the biophysics and astrobiology studies (don't confuse that with exobiology) in a weightless environment which are essential to provide insight about human presence in microgravity environment for extended periods of time. Ie, manned mars mission, among others.
So don't get your obvious bias in the way of research, there's more than just particle physics. And see my other post below about information about LHC competing with SSC.
Unfortunately, it came down to a choice between the SSC and the space station (both arguably over-budget, behind
schedule boondoggles) - and congress chose the boondoggle that will contribute approximately nil to actual science.
Oh come on, stop with the childish rivalry. Both projects offer advancement for various areas of science, in two opposite ends. A laboratory to onfirm theoretical particle physics ideas, in the case of the SSC, and a laboratory to perform various experiments in the microgravity environment, for the space station. One may be more theoretical whilst one may be more empirical, but your biased definition of "actual
science" is childish and unwarranted. At the other end of the spectrum, I've heard many people claim that the SSC wouldn't contribute to "useful science" but we both know that's total bogus, too.
And this is coming from someone that has also worked on the SSC (worked with electronic event discriminator detectors for the straw-tracker arrays). The ATLAS detector at CERN will also have a straw-tracker, so similar ASICS will be used there.
Yes, it's unfortunate that Congress cut the SSC project. From what I understand, the new LHC at CERN should be able to do just about everything SSC could have, and more. So if you're really interested in the "actual science" instead of a pissing contest, your efforts could be directed in a more constructive direction.
Why must everyone resort to name calling and harassing? I mean, if it's candidates before an election I can understand it (although I definitely don't advocate it). But this is software, for crying out loud. We have a choice of what to use, so why can't we use ours happily, and let others use their software of choice happily as well?
I say coke, you say pepsi. Why can't we both just lay back and relax, as we sip our cola and groove to the cosmic tunes.
It's kind of funny how this all fits within historical perspective. When MSFT was the primary agressor on the desktop, we were united on a common front. Now that they're pretty much irrevelent in the Free Software / OSS world, we've divided into warring factions.
Can't we all just get a long? Or a 16-bit int at least? sheesh.
That's pretty cool, just don't tell any of us how you've reverse-engineered the screwdriver's construction and functionality to do these other wonderful things. Otherwise Craftsman IP lawyers will come banging down your door.:-)
I just moved from Boston to Baltimore, and the swap fest at MIT is one of the things I'll greatly miss. Note that it isn't really aimed at being a computer show, although it's slowly been approaching that. The cool stuff for sale are old (and new) electronic components. All kinds of crap, kind of like what the OLD style computer shows used to be about, when they were primarily DIY.
a "commercially-funded competitor".. like maybe Micro$oft Money ???
Okay, thanks for the example. I don't use financial software, so I'm not aware of how these packages compare. Could anyone comment on the features offered by each of these? (Quicken vs. Money)
I vaguely recall MSFT Money being a more recent product than Quicken. So, how long did it take to catch up to the level of Quicken? Note, that this time should be from the time that MSFT started funding it, which may have actually been much earlier than when they first announced the product.
Don't be so quick to knock GNUcash and free software in general. I'm not sure how long GNUcash has been around, but quality software packages aren't written overnight. Remember, Quicken's been around for many many years now (my Dad still uses an ancient DOS-based one, for fears of winxx crashes and corruptions). So they can add some features between releases, to keep Quicken a decent product. GNUcash is developing everything from scratch, and so it didn't have this existing code base to work upon.
Anyway, suppose a commercially-funded competitor to Quicken formed today. Also suppose they had a team of software engineers as large as Quicken's, and they were working full time. The question is, how long would it take for them to produce a financial software package with stability, functionality, and usability mostly equivalent to Quicken's? Could they get their first version out within 6 months? A year? I'm not sure how long it would take, but I imagine that their first few product releases would be sub-par, and it would take time before they had a decent comparable product.
That said, we'll see how GNUcash and other free-software packages with direct closed-source commercial counterparts develop over time. It'll certainly be an interesting show.
Only in the world of open source.... would people look at a product described as 0.2.0 alpha test and proclaim "Not Vaporware Any More"!
You're forgetting one small detail. The difference between open and closed source is that the source code is available to view/edit/compile/etc. (Of course, duh!). But the point is that the source projects offer proof that the project is in the making, and progress is occurring. Conversely, the source can also show that progress has stagnated. Either way, the public can tell what's been occurring.
Closed source projects offer no such 'proof'. So you must take the company's word, usually in the form of product releases and marketing hype, about the status of the project. And as we've seen many times over, companies are usually apt to market their products to give the appearance that they're much closer to a release, as well as over-stating the product's usefulness and functionality.
So that's the main difference between open source and closed source vaporware. I've always thought of vaporware as a product which has been announced and hyped, but currently does not exist. Since with open soure you can grab the code and (try to) compile it, the product (semi) exists, albeit not in it's final form. Since there is some substance with the open source vaporware, perhaps a term like fogware would be better suited to describing it.
Why I want to know is how can many of you people support GPL'd software, and disapprove of people redistrubiting it at will ("sharing" in RMS's terms), but be all for violating a music artist's license?
Call me naive if you like, but Napster isn't only trading illegal MP3's of bands. The point of Napster is that it's a musical distribution network. The fact that people are using it for trading illegal MP3's is one thing. However, shutting down Napster for this reason is going way too far, IMHO. That would be like making bricks illegal, because you can throw one through a window, and steal items in a store.
Warning of redundancy warning. What Napster allows is a distribution channel independent of the record companies. In the bad old days, if you wanted people to hear your music, you had to distribute your records/tapes/CD's to stores around the country and radio stations(enter record companies). But now, in the internet age, you just put some MP3's on your harddisk, and provide pointers to them via an informational hub, like Napster. Such that people around the globe can find them. And what this does is bypass the record companies, and their sources of revenue.
Silly utopian suggestions for future music.What Napster et al provide is a sort of musical revolution. I'd ultimately like to set up a musical version of Cheap-Bytes, where the music is in some form of public domain (and copyrighted by the artist, not a record company). So, you go to a website, order some CD's for $2 apiece, and each item you buy has an option to donate $1 (or other amount) to the artist. So, what's the difference for paying $2 or $3 per CD? not much (okay, it adds up when you buy hundreds), but this allows money to go directly to the artist and to the production of the CD. This bypasses much of the middle-man (read record companies) which I think is a good thing.
Rant about the record companies. The record companies piss me off for a few reasons. Firstly, they amass significantly large fractions of the artists work, merely for distributing it. Music prices are ridiculously high to account for this, and hence the artist gets only a minute fraction of royalties. Secondly, they manipulate (or attempt to) the populace in really annoying ways, IMHO. For instance, say the new Big Bad Boys album gets recorded, and obviously these companies want to make as much money off it as possible. So they use their power to coerce the radio stations (usually Top-40 radio stations, which I hate) to play Big Bad Boys music all the time. Anyone in the radio business care to comment as to whether record companies offer money or other goodies in exchange for playing albums with so much airtime? I get so sick of hearing the same songs on the radio, which is why I mostly listen to the cool (mostly free?) college radio stations around here in Boston. Finally, the profit-making maximization keeps out good music. For example, I've seen many a friend's band get rejected from record labels, due to the fact that the music was different from the current norm. The exec's would say, "This music is real hip, but now record us something we can sell." Ie, this music is really good, but the music of today that sells is in these few genres, so that's all we'll market. And hence, that's the only music that these companies put on the radios, so that's what sells to the kids, and hence that's the type of music the record companies sign on. An ugly vicious circle. Witness the many musical revolutions, coming from the garages and small clubs, until the record industry caught up with lost revenue. (examples include punk, grunge, electronica, etc)
So, hopefully the next generation of musicians can bypass these record companies, and put their music on the web directly, and sell actual CD's, T-shirts, and other things to make their money, and remove the record companies from the picture. Music would be cheaper to buy, and the artists would get (hopefully) a larger amount of proceeds.
Regarding the illegal downloads on Napster.And sorry, I now realize I forgot to talk about the part I quoted above, dealing with GPL advocates violating a music artist's license. I can tell that you I've never downloaded an illegal MP3. What alot Napster users are clamoring for, whether they realize it or not, is some sort of musical revolution (or change, if revolution sounds too violent). Possibly it may come about as I've detailed above. And as per your quote regarding artists choosing non-redistribution as their license, I'd point out that it was the record companies that put these clauses into the artist's contracts. For artists to make it , they had to sign some such contract or other, as record companies provided the only way to get their music out to the crowds. Now, with Napster and others, the record companies are becoming obsolete.
Airplane's have windows. and doors with a gap between the fuselage. (agreed it's an airtight gap, but not RF tight). I know, because I've used my GPS unit successfully on some commercial plane flights. But I've since learned of the dangers of doing so. See this post summarizing a talk I had with my boss as to why radio receivers on planes can be bad.
I'm not sure about laptop emissions (what are the clocking frequencies of every all bus lines?) Keep in mind every strip of wire, over which is sent a changing voltage or current, is an antenna. The frequencies of the digital pulses, their harmonics (and PRBS sub-harmonics), as well as the configuration of shielding and nearby conductors, plays an effect on RF generation and propogation. See my post below about the curious problems of radio receivers and spurious IF re-transmission.
Also understand that it's not just the cell phone transmitters that pose the threat of interference with the aircraft's electronics. There are all sorts of problems with radio receivers as well.
The simplest problem, and also probably least likely to affect the plane, is passive non-linear antenna radiation. Basically, an antenna connected to a non-linear passive device can re-transmit the incoming RF at sum/difference frequencies (IM distortion anyone?). Although these re-transmissions are far below the incoming RF signal strenth (and most likely the noise floor) and not likely to interfere with the aircraft.
The bigger problem comes from a powered heterodyne radio receiver. Ie, a receiver (like a standard FM radio) that down-converts the incoming RF to an IF. The mixer on board the receiver doesn't have perfect isolation, so some of the produced IF (which is heartily amplified) will leak back through to the antenna, which can re-transmit. (FYI, a mixer multiplies the incoming RF with a synthesized LO (local oscillator) to produce output at the sum/difference of those two frequencies. Work out the trigonometry if you're bored, it's pretty cool.) Once again, the re-transmitted IF power is pretty small, but it is produced, and may interfere with the aircraft's receivers. And seeing that most IF's are in the range of 10 MHz or so, there is much opportunity for interference, almost independent of device RF frequency. This is why many radios are not allowed during flights, even if they're receive only.
That's why the aircraft-certified electronics are so expensive. (example - compare prices of a marine GPS unit versus an aircraft GPS unit). The aircraft units have had many resources spent to properly shield them not only from incoming RF (other than the GPS signals, of course), but also for outgoing IF re-transmission.
This IF effect has it's beneficial uses, too. For instance, one of my coworkers lost his RC model airplane when some wind gusts picked up while he was flying it. One of his friends grabbed his multi-element yagi antenna, tuned his receiver (non-heterodyning) to the IF frequency, and by scanning around (and using variable attenuators) they were able to track down the plane. Even though it wasn't actively transmitting any RF signals!
Has anyone seen the episode of the Simpsons where Lisa is shown a vision of her life in the future? They show a clip of the futuristic education system, where the schools are all networked together.
School teacher appears on the monitor. [teacher]"Today's lesson is sponsored by Pepsi, the Choice of a New Generation. If I have 5 Pepsi's, and I give two Pepsi's to Jane, how many Pepsi's do I have left?... You, in Cleveland..."? [little girl]"Pepsi?" [teacher]"Partial Credit"
long with the old 1000 EX I have an old DMP 130 printer (don't ya love how Tandy turns acronyms into model numbers?) The manual for the printer had nearly EVERYTHING you ever needed to know about the printer. My current HP? The manual might as well be a single sheet with the words "Magic Happens. Send it back if it's broke
Yeah, i love the old hardware mentality. I remember my first printer, the classic Epson MX-80, 9 pin (or was it 8?) dot matrix printer. Not only did it come with a very in-depth programming manual, but also came with a full set of schematics! It was great. I still remember some funny one-liners from the manual. After showing you how to do simple 1-bit depth raster graphics they said something like "Now wait a minute before you rush off to forge the Mona Lisa, there's still much more to learn". it was awesome! Nowadays you rarely see personality in a product book.
What these companies realized (and most companies today still don't) is that merely having access to schematics, or even the source code to hardware drivers, still doesn't put you in the position to make a clone. Ie, having the full schematics for the printer, if I wanted to build one, I'd still have to re-do the schematic captuer and fab/stuff the boards. Okay, so that part gets easier. But I'd still need to do all the hardware layout, build the moving print-head and the 9-pin dot-matrix pin stamper, and the moving ink ribbon, and all that other stuff. This takes time, and certainly isn't instantaneous! by the time a clone company would get a product done, the original company could have improved the original product greatly, leaving the clone company in the dust. And of course, the hardware hackers (and software hackers too) have full information. But nowadays this never happens anymore.
I was in a very similary boat. I picked up my first CoCo at a flea market back in '86 (I was 11). It was sold "as is" for $20, but me and my father figured what the hell?
Broght it home and it worked great for a few months. One day it just died. There were some wires hanging out of it where the original ownder soldered into the circuitry for some project. We think we may have shorted something out and blown a component. Oh well, it was much fun while it lasted. Helped my basic skills (and my math too, as I had to figure out how sines and cosines work to draw a circle, etc).
of course, my first computer experience was with the trs-80 several years earlier. but i was just itching for a 'color' computer.
Actually, no. I purchased it online, which means I would have to throw away my modem and my hard disk.;)
Don't forget to chuck your memory, which almost certainly retained the software for short amounts of time. Or throw out the CPU, which processed how to re-arrange the data from the NIC to the hard drive.;-)
Yup, sorry, breakup was the wrong word. I was talking about the Consent Decree, as you call it. Whereas publically promoting FUD and vaporware were prohibited, I think the opening of the specs of the PC (ie, allowing IBM-clones) was the biggest factor in encouraging computer competition (and hence contributing to MSFT's dominance).
Looking at the plethora of PC companies today, as well as the increase of computing power and decreasing cost, I'd say it's certainly been a success for the consumer market.
An even better testimony is that IBM is still in business. And they've really taken on a good-guy status. In addition to standard business practices, they're doing useful research as well as helping open-source projects. Maybe if they're stripped of their mighty power for awhile, MSFT can do the same in time.
Please do not belittle the importance of the American Revolution by equating it to the Microsoft case. Microsoft, more than likely, would have been brought down by market forces and the eventual dominance of open-source.
I'm sorry. In my original post with respect to the American Revolution, I explained (albeit briefly) that I wasn't trying to compare or equate the American Revolution with MSFT vs DOJ in any way. I was merely offering an example of a situation where some short-term confusion/uncertainty/general badness may be necessary for the overall longer-term good of the people.
Productivity is down, morale is down, the only thing that isn't hurt is the fact that (in our opinions) we are still making the best software and are well-positioned to advance the state of computing in the next few years.
I'm sorry, konstant, but what goes around comes around. The emotions of MSFT employees, which you've described, and I've quoted above, are not unique. I'd believe that the tens or hundreds of thousands of employees in the hundreds of companies that have been bought out or assimilated over the years by MSFT, or been unfairly driven to the ground through monopolostic techniques, for daring to compete with MSFT, probably felt the exact same way. And, I'm sure many of these employees also have fairly low salaries, and thus also lost barrels of money by watching their stock options come tumbling down.
And the sad fact is, that's the just life as usual in the tech industry.
What I'm curious about is how did MSFT feel about the IBM breakup back in the 80's? My friend told me that Bill Gates was actually complaining to the government about IBM's monopoly, but I can't substantiate this rumor. Anyone have info? Anyway, I would guess that MSFT was jumping for joy at IBM's antitrust ruling, because many IBM clones could now be built cheaply, all of which would still use the default operating system - MS-DOS. IBM probably felt the same way you describe above too. But MSFT jumped at this opportunity.
You may have enjoyed it when you were on the top, where you were shielded from the pain caused by the ruin of these other companies. But now the hand of karma has come back to Redmond, to complete some unfinished business.
Ack, I'm a fool, and forgot a </b>, so here's a more readable version of the above.
Instability . Couldn't the government point to much more stable operating systems, a la Linux, BSD, Solaris, AIX, and other which I don't know much about? These OS's I've listed are very stable, and nearly everyone who's ever used windows knows that it certainly isn't. Can this be evidence enough? One could point out that MSFT uses all (or nearly all) of it's resources to make their products user friendly, at the expense of stability. Could it be claimed that by making this their goal, and not offering consumers stability that most other OS's offer, that they've been harmed?
Lack of Security . How about the many recent Outlook exploits? That's an example of how trying to tie the application (Outlook) to the OS, (ie, leveraging their monopoly), viruses are easily spread. Hence, harm has come to consumers, due to files being erased, etc.
Upgrading. What about the upgrade cycle? Pay for the OS, then pay for each bug-fixing service pack and upgrade? Then pay for the next upgrade to fix the bugs caused by the previous upgrade. Ad nauseum. That's harming consumers in terms of their money spending.
MSFT Tax. And then there's the harm to non-consumers. Ie, the MSFT tax. Buying a computer from almost any dealer necessitates the installation (and hence purchase) of windows.
So, in these ways, amongst others, I think consumers have been harmed. Does anyone agree/disagree?
in order to be illegal, a monopoly must be harmful to its consumers, and the DoJ failed to dig up enough evidence to that (such as the "Windows Certified" scam), choosing instead to focus on the damage done to other companies (particularly Netscape)
Are they serious? No harm to consumers? Here are a few examples, IMHO, that point out harm MSFT has caused it's consumers.
Instability . Couldn't the government point to much more stable operating systems, a la Linux, BSD, Solaris, AIX, and other which I don't know much about? These OS's I've listed are very stable, and nearly everyone who's ever used windows knows that it certainly isn't. Can this be evidence enough? One could point out that MSFT uses all (or nearly all) of it's resources to make their products user friendly, at the expense of stability. Could it be claimed that by making this their goal, and not offering consumers stability that most other OS's offer, that they've been harmed?
Lack of Security . How about the many recent Outlook exploits? That's an example of how trying to tie the application (Outlook) to the OS, (ie, leveraging their monopoly), viruses are easily spread. Hence, harm has come to consumers, due to files being erased, etc.
Upgrading. What about the upgrade cycle? Pay for the OS, then pay for each bug-fixing service pack and upgrade? Then pay for the next upgrade to fix the bugs caused by the previous upgrade. Ad nauseum. That's harming consumers in terms of their money spending.
MSFT Tax. And then there's the harm to non-consumers. Ie, the MSFT tax. Buying a computer from almost any dealer necessitates the installation (and hence purchase) of windows.
So, in these ways, amongst others, I think consumers have been harmed. Does anyone agree/disagree?
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It's cool to see my old college prof and his research get mentioned here on /. Too bad he taught us the senior physics lab class, instead of thermodynamics. Otherwise we coulda been way ahead of the competition in overclocking ;-)
wanna market this thing on a TV infomercial? we can do it alongside George Forman's chicken rotisserie.
that's all well and good until you melt, then vaporize, the ice cube such that the steam pressure blows a hole through the ship hull (after cooking the ship's passengers, of course). :-)
as for microgravity research, there is alot of interesting stuff going on. Offhand, I know of studies to look at liquid interfaces, which in the absence of strong gravitational fields, can fold back in on itself many times, leading to new studies of condensed matter physics. And I'm also aware of studies that were previously done on the vomit-comet, which has limitations of only 30 seconds or so weighlessness, to study electrical arcing in absence of gravity. So there's two projects right there.
Not to mention all the biophysics and astrobiology studies (don't confuse that with exobiology) in a weightless environment which are essential to provide insight about human presence in microgravity environment for extended periods of time. Ie, manned mars mission, among others.
So don't get your obvious bias in the way of research, there's more than just particle physics. And see my other post below about information about LHC competing with SSC.
Oh come on, stop with the childish rivalry. Both projects offer advancement for various areas of science, in two opposite ends. A laboratory to onfirm theoretical particle physics ideas, in the case of the SSC, and a laboratory to perform various experiments in the microgravity environment, for the space station. One may be more theoretical whilst one may be more empirical, but your biased definition of "actual science" is childish and unwarranted. At the other end of the spectrum, I've heard many people claim that the SSC wouldn't contribute to "useful science" but we both know that's total bogus, too.
And this is coming from someone that has also worked on the SSC (worked with electronic event discriminator detectors for the straw-tracker arrays). The ATLAS detector at CERN will also have a straw-tracker, so similar ASICS will be used there.
Yes, it's unfortunate that Congress cut the SSC project. From what I understand, the new LHC at CERN should be able to do just about everything SSC could have, and more. So if you're really interested in the "actual science" instead of a pissing contest, your efforts could be directed in a more constructive direction.
I say coke, you say pepsi. Why can't we both just lay back and relax, as we sip our cola and groove to the cosmic tunes.
It's kind of funny how this all fits within historical perspective. When MSFT was the primary agressor on the desktop, we were united on a common front. Now that they're pretty much irrevelent in the Free Software / OSS world, we've divided into warring factions.
Can't we all just get a long? Or a 16-bit int at least? sheesh.
That's pretty cool, just don't tell any of us how you've reverse-engineered the screwdriver's construction and functionality to do these other wonderful things. Otherwise Craftsman IP lawyers will come banging down your door. :-)
I just moved from Boston to Baltimore, and the swap fest at MIT is one of the things I'll greatly miss. Note that it isn't really aimed at being a computer show, although it's slowly been approaching that. The cool stuff for sale are old (and new) electronic components. All kinds of crap, kind of like what the OLD style computer shows used to be about, when they were primarily DIY.
Whatever happened to that cool langauge they were supposed to have written, which would be as good or better as java?
Okay, thanks for the example. I don't use financial software, so I'm not aware of how these packages compare. Could anyone comment on the features offered by each of these? (Quicken vs. Money)
I vaguely recall MSFT Money being a more recent product than Quicken. So, how long did it take to catch up to the level of Quicken? Note, that this time should be from the time that MSFT started funding it, which may have actually been much earlier than when they first announced the product.
Anyway, suppose a commercially-funded competitor to Quicken formed today. Also suppose they had a team of software engineers as large as Quicken's, and they were working full time. The question is, how long would it take for them to produce a financial software package with stability, functionality, and usability mostly equivalent to Quicken's? Could they get their first version out within 6 months? A year? I'm not sure how long it would take, but I imagine that their first few product releases would be sub-par, and it would take time before they had a decent comparable product.
That said, we'll see how GNUcash and other free-software packages with direct closed-source commercial counterparts develop over time. It'll certainly be an interesting show.
You're forgetting one small detail. The difference between open and closed source is that the source code is available to view/edit/compile/etc. (Of course, duh!). But the point is that the source projects offer proof that the project is in the making, and progress is occurring. Conversely, the source can also show that progress has stagnated. Either way, the public can tell what's been occurring.
Closed source projects offer no such 'proof'. So you must take the company's word, usually in the form of product releases and marketing hype, about the status of the project. And as we've seen many times over, companies are usually apt to market their products to give the appearance that they're much closer to a release, as well as over-stating the product's usefulness and functionality.
So that's the main difference between open source and closed source vaporware. I've always thought of vaporware as a product which has been announced and hyped, but currently does not exist. Since with open soure you can grab the code and (try to) compile it, the product (semi) exists, albeit not in it's final form. Since there is some substance with the open source vaporware, perhaps a term like fogware would be better suited to describing it.
Call me naive if you like, but Napster isn't only trading illegal MP3's of bands. The point of Napster is that it's a musical distribution network. The fact that people are using it for trading illegal MP3's is one thing. However, shutting down Napster for this reason is going way too far, IMHO. That would be like making bricks illegal, because you can throw one through a window, and steal items in a store.
Warning of redundancy warning. What Napster allows is a distribution channel independent of the record companies. In the bad old days, if you wanted people to hear your music, you had to distribute your records/tapes/CD's to stores around the country and radio stations(enter record companies). But now, in the internet age, you just put some MP3's on your harddisk, and provide pointers to them via an informational hub, like Napster. Such that people around the globe can find them. And what this does is bypass the record companies, and their sources of revenue.
Silly utopian suggestions for future music.What Napster et al provide is a sort of musical revolution. I'd ultimately like to set up a musical version of Cheap-Bytes, where the music is in some form of public domain (and copyrighted by the artist, not a record company). So, you go to a website, order some CD's for $2 apiece, and each item you buy has an option to donate $1 (or other amount) to the artist. So, what's the difference for paying $2 or $3 per CD? not much (okay, it adds up when you buy hundreds), but this allows money to go directly to the artist and to the production of the CD. This bypasses much of the middle-man (read record companies) which I think is a good thing.
Rant about the record companies. The record companies piss me off for a few reasons. Firstly, they amass significantly large fractions of the artists work, merely for distributing it. Music prices are ridiculously high to account for this, and hence the artist gets only a minute fraction of royalties. Secondly, they manipulate (or attempt to) the populace in really annoying ways, IMHO. For instance, say the new Big Bad Boys album gets recorded, and obviously these companies want to make as much money off it as possible. So they use their power to coerce the radio stations (usually Top-40 radio stations, which I hate) to play Big Bad Boys music all the time. Anyone in the radio business care to comment as to whether record companies offer money or other goodies in exchange for playing albums with so much airtime? I get so sick of hearing the same songs on the radio, which is why I mostly listen to the cool (mostly free?) college radio stations around here in Boston. Finally, the profit-making maximization keeps out good music. For example, I've seen many a friend's band get rejected from record labels, due to the fact that the music was different from the current norm. The exec's would say, "This music is real hip, but now record us something we can sell." Ie, this music is really good, but the music of today that sells is in these few genres, so that's all we'll market. And hence, that's the only music that these companies put on the radios, so that's what sells to the kids, and hence that's the type of music the record companies sign on. An ugly vicious circle. Witness the many musical revolutions, coming from the garages and small clubs, until the record industry caught up with lost revenue. (examples include punk, grunge, electronica, etc)
So, hopefully the next generation of musicians can bypass these record companies, and put their music on the web directly, and sell actual CD's, T-shirts, and other things to make their money, and remove the record companies from the picture. Music would be cheaper to buy, and the artists would get (hopefully) a larger amount of proceeds.
Regarding the illegal downloads on Napster.And sorry, I now realize I forgot to talk about the part I quoted above, dealing with GPL advocates violating a music artist's license. I can tell that you I've never downloaded an illegal MP3. What alot Napster users are clamoring for, whether they realize it or not, is some sort of musical revolution (or change, if revolution sounds too violent). Possibly it may come about as I've detailed above. And as per your quote regarding artists choosing non-redistribution as their license, I'd point out that it was the record companies that put these clauses into the artist's contracts. For artists to make it , they had to sign some such contract or other, as record companies provided the only way to get their music out to the crowds. Now, with Napster and others, the record companies are becoming obsolete.
Okay, sorry for the long-winded arguments
Airplane's have windows. and doors with a gap between the fuselage. (agreed it's an airtight gap, but not RF tight). I know, because I've used my GPS unit successfully on some commercial plane flights. But I've since learned of the dangers of doing so. See this post summarizing a talk I had with my boss as to why radio receivers on planes can be bad.
I'm not sure about laptop emissions (what are the clocking frequencies of every all bus lines?) Keep in mind every strip of wire, over which is sent a changing voltage or current, is an antenna. The frequencies of the digital pulses, their harmonics (and PRBS sub-harmonics), as well as the configuration of shielding and nearby conductors, plays an effect on RF generation and propogation. See my post below about the curious problems of radio receivers and spurious IF re-transmission.
The simplest problem, and also probably least likely to affect the plane, is passive non-linear antenna radiation. Basically, an antenna connected to a non-linear passive device can re-transmit the incoming RF at sum/difference frequencies (IM distortion anyone?). Although these re-transmissions are far below the incoming RF signal strenth (and most likely the noise floor) and not likely to interfere with the aircraft.
The bigger problem comes from a powered heterodyne radio receiver. Ie, a receiver (like a standard FM radio) that down-converts the incoming RF to an IF. The mixer on board the receiver doesn't have perfect isolation, so some of the produced IF (which is heartily amplified) will leak back through to the antenna, which can re-transmit. (FYI, a mixer multiplies the incoming RF with a synthesized LO (local oscillator) to produce output at the sum/difference of those two frequencies. Work out the trigonometry if you're bored, it's pretty cool.) Once again, the re-transmitted IF power is pretty small, but it is produced, and may interfere with the aircraft's receivers. And seeing that most IF's are in the range of 10 MHz or so, there is much opportunity for interference, almost independent of device RF frequency. This is why many radios are not allowed during flights, even if they're receive only.
That's why the aircraft-certified electronics are so expensive. (example - compare prices of a marine GPS unit versus an aircraft GPS unit). The aircraft units have had many resources spent to properly shield them not only from incoming RF (other than the GPS signals, of course), but also for outgoing IF re-transmission.
This IF effect has it's beneficial uses, too. For instance, one of my coworkers lost his RC model airplane when some wind gusts picked up while he was flying it. One of his friends grabbed his multi-element yagi antenna, tuned his receiver (non-heterodyning) to the IF frequency, and by scanning around (and using variable attenuators) they were able to track down the plane. Even though it wasn't actively transmitting any RF signals!
School teacher appears on the monitor. ... You, in Cleveland..."?
[teacher]"Today's lesson is sponsored by Pepsi, the Choice of a New Generation. If I have 5 Pepsi's, and I give two Pepsi's to Jane, how many Pepsi's do I have left?
[little girl]"Pepsi?"
[teacher]"Partial Credit"
Funny, but also sad at the same time :-)
Yeah, i love the old hardware mentality. I remember my first printer, the classic Epson MX-80, 9 pin (or was it 8?) dot matrix printer. Not only did it come with a very in-depth programming manual, but also came with a full set of schematics! It was great. I still remember some funny one-liners from the manual. After showing you how to do simple 1-bit depth raster graphics they said something like "Now wait a minute before you rush off to forge the Mona Lisa, there's still much more to learn". it was awesome! Nowadays you rarely see personality in a product book.
What these companies realized (and most companies today still don't) is that merely having access to schematics, or even the source code to hardware drivers, still doesn't put you in the position to make a clone. Ie, having the full schematics for the printer, if I wanted to build one, I'd still have to re-do the schematic captuer and fab/stuff the boards. Okay, so that part gets easier. But I'd still need to do all the hardware layout, build the moving print-head and the 9-pin dot-matrix pin stamper, and the moving ink ribbon, and all that other stuff. This takes time, and certainly isn't instantaneous! by the time a clone company would get a product done, the original company could have improved the original product greatly, leaving the clone company in the dust. And of course, the hardware hackers (and software hackers too) have full information. But nowadays this never happens anymore.
Broght it home and it worked great for a few months. One day it just died. There were some wires hanging out of it where the original ownder soldered into the circuitry for some project. We think we may have shorted something out and blown a component. Oh well, it was much fun while it lasted. Helped my basic skills (and my math too, as I had to figure out how sines and cosines work to draw a circle, etc).
of course, my first computer experience was with the trs-80 several years earlier. but i was just itching for a 'color' computer.
Don't forget to chuck your memory, which almost certainly retained the software for short amounts of time. Or throw out the CPU, which processed how to re-arrange the data from the NIC to the hard drive. ;-)
Yup, sorry, breakup was the wrong word. I was talking about the Consent Decree, as you call it. Whereas publically promoting FUD and vaporware were prohibited, I think the opening of the specs of the PC (ie, allowing IBM-clones) was the biggest factor in encouraging computer competition (and hence contributing to MSFT's dominance).
Looking at the plethora of PC companies today, as well as the increase of computing power and decreasing cost, I'd say it's certainly been a success for the consumer market.
An even better testimony is that IBM is still in business. And they've really taken on a good-guy status. In addition to standard business practices, they're doing useful research as well as helping open-source projects. Maybe if they're stripped of their mighty power for awhile, MSFT can do the same in time.
I'm sorry. In my original post with respect to the American Revolution, I explained (albeit briefly) that I wasn't trying to compare or equate the American Revolution with MSFT vs DOJ in any way. I was merely offering an example of a situation where some short-term confusion/uncertainty/general badness may be necessary for the overall longer-term good of the people.
I'm sorry, konstant, but what goes around comes around. The emotions of MSFT employees, which you've described, and I've quoted above, are not unique. I'd believe that the tens or hundreds of thousands of employees in the hundreds of companies that have been bought out or assimilated over the years by MSFT, or been unfairly driven to the ground through monopolostic techniques, for daring to compete with MSFT, probably felt the exact same way. And, I'm sure many of these employees also have fairly low salaries, and thus also lost barrels of money by watching their stock options come tumbling down.
And the sad fact is, that's the just life as usual in the tech industry.
What I'm curious about is how did MSFT feel about the IBM breakup back in the 80's? My friend told me that Bill Gates was actually complaining to the government about IBM's monopoly, but I can't substantiate this rumor. Anyone have info? Anyway, I would guess that MSFT was jumping for joy at IBM's antitrust ruling, because many IBM clones could now be built cheaply, all of which would still use the default operating system - MS-DOS. IBM probably felt the same way you describe above too. But MSFT jumped at this opportunity.
You may have enjoyed it when you were on the top, where you were shielded from the pain caused by the ruin of these other companies. But now the hand of karma has come back to Redmond, to complete some unfinished business.
Instability . Couldn't the government point to much more stable operating systems, a la Linux, BSD, Solaris, AIX, and other which I don't know much about? These OS's I've listed are very stable, and nearly everyone who's ever used windows knows that it certainly isn't. Can this be evidence enough?
One could point out that MSFT uses all (or nearly all) of it's resources to make their products user friendly, at the expense of stability. Could it be claimed that by making this their goal, and not offering consumers stability that most other OS's offer, that they've been harmed?
Lack of Security . How about the many recent Outlook exploits? That's an example of how trying to tie the application (Outlook) to the OS, (ie, leveraging their monopoly), viruses are easily spread. Hence, harm has come to consumers, due to files being erased, etc.
Upgrading. What about the upgrade cycle? Pay for the OS, then pay for each bug-fixing service pack and upgrade? Then pay for the next upgrade to fix the bugs caused by the previous upgrade. Ad nauseum. That's harming consumers in terms of their money spending.
MSFT Tax. And then there's the harm to non-consumers. Ie, the MSFT tax. Buying a computer from almost any dealer necessitates the installation (and hence purchase) of windows.
So, in these ways, amongst others, I think consumers have been harmed. Does anyone agree/disagree?
Are they serious? No harm to consumers? Here are a few examples, IMHO, that point out harm MSFT has caused it's consumers.
Instability . Couldn't the government point to much more stable operating systems, a la Linux, BSD, Solaris, AIX, and other which I don't know much about? These OS's I've listed are very stable, and nearly everyone who's ever used windows knows that it certainly isn't. Can this be evidence enough?
One could point out that MSFT uses all (or nearly all) of it's resources to make their products user friendly, at the expense of stability. Could it be claimed that by making this their goal, and not offering consumers stability that most other OS's offer, that they've been harmed?
Lack of Security . How about the many recent Outlook exploits? That's an example of how trying to tie the application (Outlook) to the OS, (ie, leveraging their monopoly), viruses are easily spread. Hence, harm has come to consumers, due to files being erased, etc.
Upgrading. What about the upgrade cycle? Pay for the OS, then pay for each bug-fixing service pack and upgrade? Then pay for the next upgrade to fix the bugs caused by the previous upgrade. Ad nauseum. That's harming consumers in terms of their money spending.
MSFT Tax. And then there's the harm to non-consumers. Ie, the MSFT tax. Buying a computer from almost any dealer necessitates the installation (and hence purchase) of windows.
So, in these ways, amongst others, I think consumers have been harmed. Does anyone agree/disagree?