Here's my problem, though: at my school, if you live in a dorm, your one option for Internet access is the school's residential network. No DSL, no cable, and for some reason, it's notoriously hard to get a modem connection.
Now, I'm paying a pretty fair sum every semester to Housing and Food Services, and part of that is for my network connection. If you have to limit it in some respect, fine, I believe solutions exist. But it's not fair to block access completely when a more equitable solution would be to block each student to, say, 5 k/s of bandwidth during Napster transfers during peak hours, or whatever.
Napster and its ilk have legitimate uses. No, really, they do. If your solution to their overutilization of bandwidth is shutting them down completely, I can't blame anyone who tries to get around it. Hell, I've tried to get around it. A middle ground exists here, and I'm waiting for someone to stumble onto it.
A fair enough sentiment, but the complaints in question aren't entirely without merit.
I've played my share of Mario Party, and one of the mini-games requires the player to rapidly rotate the joystick. This is best accomplished with the palm of the hand. During the course of a game (20-50 turns, as I seem to recall) quite a few mini-games will be played -- probably upwards of 100. Even playing just one game, if a joystick-rotating mini-game comes up, you're getting close to blister territory right there. It's not an instance of millions of Americans spending 18 hours a day in front of this game.
If I were Nintendo, I'd be more concerned with complaints about wear-and-tear on the controller itself. Mario Party basically requires you to abuse the hell out of your controller, either rotating the joystick, or furiously pressing buttons, or whatever. A few months of Mario Party, and you've got a noticibly degraded controller.
Whew. I just wrote more on that than I ever promised myself I would on that particular subject, but these complaints aren't groundless. Ya know, I could probably use one of those gloves myself. I might take 'em up on their offer.
I think you've actually invalidated your own point here. You've shown that 40% of your collection is illegal. I presume you're implying that you could easily give up that 40% and stick with the stuff you own legally. But you haven't. You've done quite a fine job, actually, of demonstrating that Napster is indeed a popular "tool of piracy."
Oh well. So much for disclosure. My main point was to demonstrate that a percentage higher than 1% of Napster usage is legitimate. It certainly is for me, and is for the majority of people I know. In any case, I stand by my assertion that Napster has uses (that are actually used) besides pure-and-simple piracy.
If it is truly fine, then why are you publishing information on how to use anonynmizers on your web page? Maybe it's not so fine after all and you are indeed misrepreseting yourself, against your own wishes.
In an earlier draft of my message, I had that phrased as, "If a college wants to shut it down, that's fine. If I absolutely have to, I'll find a way around it." However, blocking access to Napster will effectively stop 90% of users (total guesstimate, no stats to back that up) and in all likelihood, alleviates whatever bandwidth concerns the network admin was having. I also stand by my publishing information on how to get around blocks imposed. I have perhaps 20 regular visitors (all friends of mine) to my site. Now, I'm an admitted music pirate, so place as little stock in this as you like, but I have no ethical issues with posting information on a lightly trafficked site that will mainly benefit friends of mine. And despite that damn mp3 habit, I'm not such a bad guy. Really:)
I enjoyed reading your response, you made some very insightful points.
But the fact of the matter is that it is not. I will challenge anyone to show me that even 1% of the MP3's available on Napster are not copyrighted.
I'm sure you're entirely correct in saying 99% of the songs on Napster are copyrighted, but (the way I understand it) just because I download an mp3 of a copyrighted song doesn't mean it's illegal.
Since I've gone to college, I've used mp3's for listening to music probably 98% of the time. A lot of those mp3's were obtained from Napster (that is, until it was shut down here). OK, now I will freely admit that I do not own an original copy of many of the songs that I've downloaded. In that respect, yes, I have broken the law and infringed upon the artists' copyrights. I do not wish to misrepresent myself on this matter. However, I have also used Napster legitimately so that I might be able to listen to a cd that I own, but I didn't bring with me.
Since I brought to college maybe three of my 200 or so cd's, I would estimate that... hmm, probably 60% of my mp3's are of songs that I own. Whether I rip them myself, get them from my.mp3.com, or download them from Napster, it is within my rights and the bounds of the law. If a college wants to shut it down on grounds of bandwidth concerns, that's fine. Do whatever you need to do. However, for a college to justify a blocking Napster because it's a tool of piracy, or the devil's work, or whatever... That's a misrepresentation.
Personally, I wasn't sure if it would be considered relevant or not, so I thought I'd submit it and let the powers that be make that decision. I apologize if you didn't want to see it.
The boundaries, length and nature of this discussion are up you. You can take these starting points or reject them, add your own, change course, flame away, or ignore the conversation completely, in which case it will automatically vanish.
No!! Please don't. One three-part epic was enough.
Yeah, calling Drexler the world's foremost authority on nanotech is, in my eyes, completely accurate. Remember the ceiling fresco in The Diamond Age? With portraits of Feynman, Merkle and Drexler? As of today, those really are the big three.
Drexler's written a couple major nanotech books, Engines of Creation which is basically the what of nanotech, and the big one, Nanosystems, which is the how.
Nanosystems is a highly technical (and through no fault of its own, hard for me to understand) book, but if you'll spend a little time with it, it'll prove to be absolutely fascinating. It's somewhat expensive (around textbook prices) but certainly well worth it, especially if you have groundings in chemistry and physics. It's *the* nanotech book of today, and likely will be for quite some time to come.
This is a really minor question, but why is it that I'm only asked for my free OS of choice on the petition? I'm a satisfied Windows NT user who would support (albeit not commercially -- no need for it, after all) a port of Quicktime to Linux. I do realize that I'm free to leave that part of the petition blank, but I also think that that particular question should not be restricted in such a manner.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure I even have a "free" operating system of choice. And would free-as-in-beer BeOS and Solaris count?
Damn, this sounds like flamebait. It really isn't. It's just something I was wondering about.
For the last couple weeks, I've been taking part in etoy's "game" over at toywar.com, and while surely its effect isn't solely responsible for the settlement, I'm wonder what sort of part it played.
It was quite well-done, well-implemented and occasionally even subtle satire, and it probably attracted the sort of people that might be able to make their sensible voices heard by Etoys.
Hell, even if it didn't, it was a remarkably interesting and innovative way to battle the 800 pound corporate gorillas, and it was an honor to serve:)
If you're an etoy.agent, feel free to say 'hi' sometime or if you haven't taken a look at it yet, you might want to try to sign up as soon as possible. My alias is John.Prime and I guess I'll see y'all on the battlefield. Fight the power...
Point well taken. To clarify a bit what I was saying earlier, I guess I should say that my "basic amount of conenctivity" is more or less proportional to how much I'm paying for it. If (and in all fairness, I don't pay this much) I'm going to be paying open-market dsl values for my internet, I'm going to expect a comparable level of service as well as connectivity. But yeah. I pretty much agree with you and hey, who hasn't gone mp3 crazy once or twice?
Quick disclaimer, I'm not charged a whole lot for my dorm ethernet hookup, and I'm permitted to run a small server off it, so I personally have nothing to complain about:)
Well, I'm not sure if I entirely agree with this. I pay a certain amount per month for access to the net from my dorm. In exchange for that subsidy, I feel as though I have a right to at least a basic amount of connectivity in accordance with the acceptable use policy of my university.
But, as you say, it's their network. That it is. They own the cabling and the routers and the bandwidth; therefore, some say they can do whatever they want with it, up to and including shutting me down. Why? If the entire dorm network were subsidized by the school, I suppose I would be happy with whatever I got, but I'm sure as hell paying for something right now. I don't want that taken away because I'm engaging in a perfectly reasonable pursuit such as, say, playing Half-Life.
So what if Half-Life isn't academic in nature? Nowhere in my school's AUP does it specify that that academics is to be the sole or even primary use of the residential network. Actually, reading over it, it's not even mentioned. It only asks that I use the same level of courtesy as when interacting in the halls of my dorm, as well as laying out a few prohibitions (spam, harassing e-mail, servers that over-utilize bandwidth.) And if I want to walk down that hall (analogous to browsing the web, or playing Half-Life), then that seems to be my perogative. If I'm moving in, and I have to bring a couch down that hall (downloading a linux iso) then that seems to fall under fair use. Of course, if I'm lying in the middle of the hall (server) or constantly ferrying crack baggies in and out of my room (mp3's), then, hey, that could be cause for concern.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
I really don't disagree with you at all, but my point was that some posts (i.e., the typical AC troll) are so far below the intellectual level of any functioning human that they really don't contribute to any sexist gestalt.
I remember the dating article. I could see how a case could me made as to its sexist nature. However, is there really anything intrinsically degrading about some 12 year old kid making a reference to Natalie Portman? I suppose if the situation were reversed, and we started seeing "bR4d p177 [or your boy du jour] petrified, etc." posts, I wouldn't feel terribly threatened. Oh well. Maybe it's just me.
Perhaps I'm reading out of context, but I certainly wouldn't call the Natalie Portman trolls indicative of a bias against women in tech fields in general. Certainly such a bias seems to exists, but I doubt that it is perpetuated at the hands of script kiddies and first posters.
Of course, he has been Microsoft CEO for nearly 25 years, and he has a huge image problem.
From what I understand, Bill Gates's purported image problem does not extend to the general public. I recall seeing a recent (post-Findings of Fact) poll that said that something like 66% of Americans see him as the embodiment of the American Dream. Of course polls are fallible, but just beacause he isn't terribly popular among the slashdot crowd doesn't mean that nobody likes him.
Ahh, come on, so this post wasn't terribly insightful, but did it really need to be marked redundant? I mean, the guy looks like a pretty new slashdotter and I think he was just trying to add an honest sentiment to an article. No need to disrupt his karma dreams so early...
Lessee... Planet is 50 lightyears away from earth, assuming a nice round estimate of Radio waves being 100 times slower (Which is wrong and giving radio waves a much higher speed than they deserve) it would take 5000 years for anything to be audible here.
One-hundred times slower than the speed of light? Ummm, no, sorry, light's nothing but electromagnetic radiation at a lower frequency than that which we commonly associate with the use of "radio." It's all the same thing, ergo, moving at the same speed.
If they were broadcasting Radio waves 5000 years ago then they've either blown themselves up or moved past radio waves long ago.
I'm by no means a physicist, but as far as I know, the electromagnetic spectrum is all there is. There's no faster, more efficient way to communicate than that. So they may well have moved on to higher frequencies (x-, micro-, gamma rays, etc.) than what we normally use but they would still be detecable by our instruments.
OK, this is horrendously off-topic, and please moderate this down to the level you see fit, but I've got to ask. On the Microsoft story icon, what is that thing coming out of Bill Gates's head? I've been trying to figure this one out for the last three months, and I'm at a loss. Can anyone help me out?
Stephen Hawking himself gives Grand Unification a 50/50 chance in the next twenty years; 2050 sounds almost pessimistic in that context.
I'm taking a course in theoretical physics next semester. I can't wait to get a more thorough understanding of the issues involved so that I can better appreciate what a monumental achievement Unification is when we finally get there.
Maybe it's just me being all starry-eyed optimistic, but the prospect of cracking universal mysteries like these really gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling about the potential of humanity. Hmm, yeah, that's just my techno-idealism coming out:)
Disney World may well be more precient that Walt could have ever dreamed. Obviously, we're in the middle of a paradigm shift away from personal privacy, and the Disney Experience is just a sign of things to come.
An example. Where I grew up, in Fort Worth, Texas, there's a downtown district that's now called Sundance Square. As recently as a decade ago, it was a run-down, nondescript urban area. Thanks to the investment a very rich family who, to be sure, has done many wonderful things for Fort Worth, the area has since been revitalized into a lively entertainment district. However, it is also damn near a police state. It's been said, probably without hyperbole, that in what amounts to about a fifteen city block area, there's not a single place you can stand and not be under the surveillance of the private police force of this wealthy family. Fort Worth got a nice little cash cow and the nearest thing they've got to a tourist attraction, but at what cost?
Nor do I see how things can get significantly better. Remote observation will only become easier with the progression of technology, and Diamond Age-esque serveillance robots may be uncomfortably close.
Welcome to the future. Thanks for the preview, Walt.
Oh sure. It looks like Microsoft has a patch up on their site, but... well, I'm just not sure how the hell to apply it.
I download the fix, and it's something like three megs. Right off the bat, the size seems a little excessive. (That's completely irrelevant, but it irked me nonetheless.) I fire it up, and I'm presented with three options.
Repair Office - Restore your Office 2000 installation to its original state. No, I definitely do not want my Office installation in its original (i.e., unpatched) state. Scratch that one.
Add or Remove Features - Hmm, how about adding the feature to prevent e-mail from jacking up my machine? Nope, not an option. Damn.
Remove Office - Probably the best option of the three, but as I'm heavily dependent on Outlook and Word at this particular point in time, it's just not something that's going to happen.
Am I stupid or is there not a goddamn option to apply the patch? I mean, sure, I use Windows NT but I'm not that dumb. Really.
I'm a first year student studying Computer Engineering. Every time I see a story like this, I start to wonder about my choice of major. I love the work I've done so far and the prospect of hardware design, but what use is there in continuing to study this if I'll be graduating at a time when silicon has about a decade left to go?
I've always entertained the hope of pursuing grad studies in either bio- or nanotech, and now, both of those are looking more promising than ever. What can I do now to better prepare mysyelf to specialize in one of those fields in graduate school? Do I need to look seriously at a new major or should I just concentrate on taking some specific courses?
Damn. If I end up getting that Computer Engineering/English double major I'm shooting for, that English degree could conceivably be more useful. Shudder.
I thought that I was clever when coming up with a name for my computer. While building it, my friends had taken to calling it 'The Machine' due to its decidedly industrial appearance. When the finished product was ready and it was time to pick a name, I thought about what sort of name would fit its preliminary moniker, and I decided to call my machine 'turing.' Turing... machine. Turing machine! haha, right?
(Try drinking heavily before reading this. It can't help but to make more sense that way.)
Unfortunately, it's something that has to be done. IDG has to exercise due diligence in protecting their trademark, or risk losing it. The fault lies not so much with them as it does with the Trademark Office, but even the Trademark Office I can't blame too much. I mean, once the encroachment begins upon a trademark, where do you draw the line? Sure, it seems like publicly archived e-mail is fine, but what if you name an instructional page "X for Dummies"? Or a web site? Extrapolate ad infinitum.
To sum up, sure, it seems like a bitch thing to do, but it has to be done, and rightly so.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's my problem, though: at my school, if you live in a dorm, your one option for Internet access is the school's residential network. No DSL, no cable, and for some reason, it's notoriously hard to get a modem connection.
Now, I'm paying a pretty fair sum every semester to Housing and Food Services, and part of that is for my network connection. If you have to limit it in some respect, fine, I believe solutions exist. But it's not fair to block access completely when a more equitable solution would be to block each student to, say, 5 k/s of bandwidth during Napster transfers during peak hours, or whatever.
Napster and its ilk have legitimate uses. No, really, they do. If your solution to their overutilization of bandwidth is shutting them down completely, I can't blame anyone who tries to get around it. Hell, I've tried to get around it. A middle ground exists here, and I'm waiting for someone to stumble onto it.
-jay
A fair enough sentiment, but the complaints in question aren't entirely without merit.
I've played my share of Mario Party, and one of the mini-games requires the player to rapidly rotate the joystick. This is best accomplished with the palm of the hand. During the course of a game (20-50 turns, as I seem to recall) quite a few mini-games will be played -- probably upwards of 100. Even playing just one game, if a joystick-rotating mini-game comes up, you're getting close to blister territory right there. It's not an instance of millions of Americans spending 18 hours a day in front of this game.
If I were Nintendo, I'd be more concerned with complaints about wear-and-tear on the controller itself. Mario Party basically requires you to abuse the hell out of your controller, either rotating the joystick, or furiously pressing buttons, or whatever. A few months of Mario Party, and you've got a noticibly degraded controller.
Whew. I just wrote more on that than I ever promised myself I would on that particular subject, but these complaints aren't groundless. Ya know, I could probably use one of those gloves myself. I might take 'em up on their offer.
-jay
I think you've actually invalidated your own point here. You've shown that 40% of your collection is illegal. I presume you're implying that you could easily give up that 40% and stick with the stuff you own legally. But you haven't. You've done quite a fine job, actually, of demonstrating that Napster is indeed a popular "tool of piracy."
:)
Oh well. So much for disclosure. My main point was to demonstrate that a percentage higher than 1% of Napster usage is legitimate. It certainly is for me, and is for the majority of people I know. In any case, I stand by my assertion that Napster has uses (that are actually used) besides pure-and-simple piracy.
If it is truly fine, then why are you publishing information on how to use anonynmizers on your web page? Maybe it's not so fine after all and you are indeed misrepreseting yourself, against your own wishes.
In an earlier draft of my message, I had that phrased as, "If a college wants to shut it down, that's fine. If I absolutely have to, I'll find a way around it." However, blocking access to Napster will effectively stop 90% of users (total guesstimate, no stats to back that up) and in all likelihood, alleviates whatever bandwidth concerns the network admin was having. I also stand by my publishing information on how to get around blocks imposed. I have perhaps 20 regular visitors (all friends of mine) to my site. Now, I'm an admitted music pirate, so place as little stock in this as you like, but I have no ethical issues with posting information on a lightly trafficked site that will mainly benefit friends of mine. And despite that damn mp3 habit, I'm not such a bad guy. Really
I enjoyed reading your response, you made some very insightful points.
-jay
But the fact of the matter is that it is not. I will challenge anyone to show me that even 1% of the MP3's available on Napster are not copyrighted.
I'm sure you're entirely correct in saying 99% of the songs on Napster are copyrighted, but (the way I understand it) just because I download an mp3 of a copyrighted song doesn't mean it's illegal.
Since I've gone to college, I've used mp3's for listening to music probably 98% of the time. A lot of those mp3's were obtained from Napster (that is, until it was shut down here). OK, now I will freely admit that I do not own an original copy of many of the songs that I've downloaded. In that respect, yes, I have broken the law and infringed upon the artists' copyrights. I do not wish to misrepresent myself on this matter. However, I have also used Napster legitimately so that I might be able to listen to a cd that I own, but I didn't bring with me.
Since I brought to college maybe three of my 200 or so cd's, I would estimate that... hmm, probably 60% of my mp3's are of songs that I own. Whether I rip them myself, get them from my.mp3.com, or download them from Napster, it is within my rights and the bounds of the law. If a college wants to shut it down on grounds of bandwidth concerns, that's fine. Do whatever you need to do. However, for a college to justify a blocking Napster because it's a tool of piracy, or the devil's work, or whatever... That's a misrepresentation.
Personally, I wasn't sure if it would be considered relevant or not, so I thought I'd submit it and let the powers that be make that decision. I apologize if you didn't want to see it.
The boundaries, length and nature of this discussion are up you. You can take these starting points or reject them, add your own, change course, flame away, or ignore the conversation completely, in which case it will automatically vanish.
No!! Please don't. One three-part epic was enough.
-jay
Yeah, calling Drexler the world's foremost authority on nanotech is, in my eyes, completely accurate. Remember the ceiling fresco in The Diamond Age? With portraits of Feynman, Merkle and Drexler? As of today, those really are the big three.
Drexler's written a couple major nanotech books, Engines of Creation which is basically the what of nanotech, and the big one, Nanosystems, which is the how.
Nanosystems is a highly technical (and through no fault of its own, hard for me to understand) book, but if you'll spend a little time with it, it'll prove to be absolutely fascinating. It's somewhat expensive (around textbook prices) but certainly well worth it, especially if you have groundings in chemistry and physics. It's *the* nanotech book of today, and likely will be for quite some time to come.
-jay
This is a really minor question, but why is it that I'm only asked for my free OS of choice on the petition? I'm a satisfied Windows NT user who would support (albeit not commercially -- no need for it, after all) a port of Quicktime to Linux. I do realize that I'm free to leave that part of the petition blank, but I also think that that particular question should not be restricted in such a manner.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure I even have a "free" operating system of choice. And would free-as-in-beer BeOS and Solaris count?
Damn, this sounds like flamebait. It really isn't. It's just something I was wondering about.
-jay
For the last couple weeks, I've been taking part in etoy's "game" over at toywar.com, and while surely its effect isn't solely responsible for the settlement, I'm wonder what sort of part it played.
:)
It was quite well-done, well-implemented and occasionally even subtle satire, and it probably attracted the sort of people that might be able to make their sensible voices heard by Etoys.
Hell, even if it didn't, it was a remarkably interesting and innovative way to battle the 800 pound corporate gorillas, and it was an honor to serve
If you're an etoy.agent, feel free to say 'hi' sometime or if you haven't taken a look at it yet, you might want to try to sign up as soon as possible. My alias is John.Prime and I guess I'll see y'all on the battlefield. Fight the power...
-jay
Point well taken. To clarify a bit what I was saying earlier, I guess I should say that my "basic amount of conenctivity" is more or less proportional to how much I'm paying for it. If (and in all fairness, I don't pay this much) I'm going to be paying open-market dsl values for my internet, I'm going to expect a comparable level of service as well as connectivity. But yeah. I pretty much agree with you and hey, who hasn't gone mp3 crazy once or twice?
:)
Quick disclaimer, I'm not charged a whole lot for my dorm ethernet hookup, and I'm permitted to run a small server off it, so I personally have nothing to complain about
Well, I'm not sure if I entirely agree with this. I pay a certain amount per month for access to the net from my dorm. In exchange for that subsidy, I feel as though I have a right to at least a basic amount of connectivity in accordance with the acceptable use policy of my university.
But, as you say, it's their network. That it is. They own the cabling and the routers and the bandwidth; therefore, some say they can do whatever they want with it, up to and including shutting me down. Why? If the entire dorm network were subsidized by the school, I suppose I would be happy with whatever I got, but I'm sure as hell paying for something right now. I don't want that taken away because I'm engaging in a perfectly reasonable pursuit such as, say, playing Half-Life.
So what if Half-Life isn't academic in nature? Nowhere in my school's AUP does it specify that that academics is to be the sole or even primary use of the residential network. Actually, reading over it, it's not even mentioned. It only asks that I use the same level of courtesy as when interacting in the halls of my dorm, as well as laying out a few prohibitions (spam, harassing e-mail, servers that over-utilize bandwidth.) And if I want to walk down that hall (analogous to browsing the web, or playing Half-Life), then that seems to be my perogative. If I'm moving in, and I have to bring a couch down that hall (downloading a linux iso) then that seems to fall under fair use. Of course, if I'm lying in the middle of the hall (server) or constantly ferrying crack baggies in and out of my room (mp3's), then, hey, that could be cause for concern.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
I really don't disagree with you at all, but my point was that some posts (i.e., the typical AC troll) are so far below the intellectual level of any functioning human that they really don't contribute to any sexist gestalt.
I remember the dating article. I could see how a case could me made as to its sexist nature. However, is there really anything intrinsically degrading about some 12 year old kid making a reference to Natalie Portman? I suppose if the situation were reversed, and we started seeing "bR4d p177 [or your boy du jour] petrified, etc." posts, I wouldn't feel terribly threatened. Oh well. Maybe it's just me.
Perhaps I'm reading out of context, but I certainly wouldn't call the Natalie Portman trolls indicative of a bias against women in tech fields in general. Certainly such a bias seems to exists, but I doubt that it is perpetuated at the hands of script kiddies and first posters.
Of course, he has been Microsoft CEO for nearly 25 years, and he has a huge image problem.
From what I understand, Bill Gates's purported image problem does not extend to the general public. I recall seeing a recent (post-Findings of Fact) poll that said that something like 66% of Americans see him as the embodiment of the American Dream. Of course polls are fallible, but just beacause he isn't terribly popular among the slashdot crowd doesn't mean that nobody likes him.
Ahh, come on, so this post wasn't terribly insightful, but did it really need to be marked redundant? I mean, the guy looks like a pretty new slashdotter and I think he was just trying to add an honest sentiment to an article. No need to disrupt his karma dreams so early...
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Lessee... Planet is 50 lightyears away from earth, assuming a nice round estimate of Radio waves being 100 times slower (Which is wrong and giving radio waves a much higher speed than they deserve) it would take 5000 years for anything to be audible here.
One-hundred times slower than the speed of light? Ummm, no, sorry, light's nothing but electromagnetic radiation at a lower frequency than that which we commonly associate with the use of "radio." It's all the same thing, ergo, moving at the same speed.
If they were broadcasting Radio waves 5000 years ago then they've either blown themselves up or moved past radio waves long ago.
I'm by no means a physicist, but as far as I know, the electromagnetic spectrum is all there is. There's no faster, more efficient way to communicate than that. So they may well have moved on to higher frequencies (x-, micro-, gamma rays, etc.) than what we normally use but they would still be detecable by our instruments.
-jay
You've got to wonder, though, what the astronomers have discovered when they refuse to talk to the BBC.
Jesus. Let's hope it's not something like this:
http://www.theonion.com/on ion3541/frightening_study.html
Admittedly off-topic, but hey, it's amusing. And the world needs laughter, especially when there are studies like that out there.
-jay
OK, this is horrendously off-topic, and please moderate this down to the level you see fit, but I've got to ask. On the Microsoft story icon, what is that thing coming out of Bill Gates's head? I've been trying to figure this one out for the last three months, and I'm at a loss. Can anyone help me out?
-jay
Stephen Hawking himself gives Grand Unification a 50/50 chance in the next twenty years; 2050 sounds almost pessimistic in that context.
:)
I'm taking a course in theoretical physics next semester. I can't wait to get a more thorough understanding of the issues involved so that I can better appreciate what a monumental achievement Unification is when we finally get there.
Maybe it's just me being all starry-eyed optimistic, but the prospect of cracking universal mysteries like these really gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling about the potential of humanity. Hmm, yeah, that's just my techno-idealism coming out
-jay
I can just see it now. Microsoft strikes a deal with India to become their official operating system.
...isn't."
"Windows is the OS of choice for the world's largest democracy.
Linux
God help us if Pakistan signs a deal with Macintosh.
-jay
Disney World may well be more precient that Walt could have ever dreamed. Obviously, we're in the middle of a paradigm shift away from personal privacy, and the Disney Experience is just a sign of things to come.
An example. Where I grew up, in Fort Worth, Texas, there's a downtown district that's now called Sundance Square. As recently as a decade ago, it was a run-down, nondescript urban area. Thanks to the investment a very rich family who, to be sure, has done many wonderful things for Fort Worth, the area has since been revitalized into a lively entertainment district. However, it is also damn near a police state. It's been said, probably without hyperbole, that in what amounts to about a fifteen city block area, there's not a single place you can stand and not be under the surveillance of the private police force of this wealthy family. Fort Worth got a nice little cash cow and the nearest thing they've got to a tourist attraction, but at what cost?
Nor do I see how things can get significantly better. Remote observation will only become easier with the progression of technology, and Diamond Age-esque serveillance robots may be uncomfortably close.
Welcome to the future. Thanks for the preview, Walt.
-jay
I download the fix, and it's something like three megs. Right off the bat, the size seems a little excessive. (That's completely irrelevant, but it irked me nonetheless.) I fire it up, and I'm presented with three options.
Am I stupid or is there not a goddamn option to apply the patch? I mean, sure, I use Windows NT but I'm not that dumb. Really.
Maybe someone can clarify? Thanks.
-jay
I'm a first year student studying Computer Engineering. Every time I see a story like this, I start to wonder about my choice of major. I love the work I've done so far and the prospect of hardware design, but what use is there in continuing to study this if I'll be graduating at a time when silicon has about a decade left to go?
I've always entertained the hope of pursuing grad studies in either bio- or nanotech, and now, both of those are looking more promising than ever. What can I do now to better prepare mysyelf to specialize in one of those fields in graduate school? Do I need to look seriously at a new major or should I just concentrate on taking some specific courses?
Damn. If I end up getting that Computer Engineering/English double major I'm shooting for, that English degree could conceivably be more useful. Shudder.
-jay
I thought that I was clever when coming up with a name for my computer. While building it, my friends had taken to calling it 'The Machine' due to its decidedly industrial appearance. When the finished product was ready and it was time to pick a name, I thought about what sort of name would fit its preliminary moniker, and I decided to call my machine 'turing.' Turing... machine. Turing machine! haha, right?
(Try drinking heavily before reading this. It can't help but to make more sense that way.)
And so I wasn't that clever. Sue me.
-jay
Unfortunately, it's something that has to be done. IDG has to exercise due diligence in protecting their trademark, or risk losing it. The fault lies not so much with them as it does with the Trademark Office, but even the Trademark Office I can't blame too much. I mean, once the encroachment begins upon a trademark, where do you draw the line? Sure, it seems like publicly archived e-mail is fine, but what if you name an instructional page "X for Dummies"? Or a web site? Extrapolate ad infinitum.
To sum up, sure, it seems like a bitch thing to do, but it has to be done, and rightly so.
-jay