"Dammit! We're not making enough money off these saps! What can we do about it?"
"Well, sir, the profit margins on downloaded music are very slightly lower than CD or vinyl media. Perhaps we could make the downloads more expensive."
"No, that wouldn't work. We're locked into a contract with Apple, and those filthy pirates would just stop downloading anyway. Hmmm. Is there a way we can get people to pay more for downloaded music without charging them more?"
"Hey, I know! We'll tell all the DJs that in order to use downloaded music in their spinning, they have to pay us extra money! That'll bring the profit margin up for sure!"
"Brilliant! Get on that. Now, let's talk about this pricing scheme you've come up with where we charge by the ear..."
Why is it that everyone assumes that it isn't a backdoor because there are many other, presumably better, ways that Microsoft could access someone's computer (IE and Windows Update come to mind...)?
It seems to me that this vulnerability has been around since at least Windows 95, if not earlier, and back in the day the Internet was not yet the powerhouse attack vector it is today. Most viruses traveled by floppy MBR, even. It's not hard to imagine someone sending a floppy disk full of compromised WMF files labeled "Hot chicks" to someone else, with the intention that they can later sit down at that computer and gain access since the backdoor was opened by viewing the files. Granted, this is pre-internet thinking, but so is the vulnerability.
What's the possibility that someone at Microsoft created this backdoor, and then the intentions were subsequently lost amid the bureaucracy and it remained as an originally intentional, but now obsolete, backdoor? Is a backdoor just a bug if no one remembers creating it with the intention of using it as a backdoor?
I was against the concept of a camera in a cell phone for a longtime. After I got a phone that had one, I started to think what it would be good for. I figured it was a comfort to have it in the case of an [auto] accident.
You're right. They are nice to have in a pinch. I have a cameraphone, and I have used it in similar situations.
But I agree with the grandparent post, in that I don't want feature creep and bloat in my cell phone if its *primary function*, that is, to send and receive calls, is still broken.
The problem is that hardware companies use these bells and whistles to try and compensate for the fact that their product does not work reliably. And that's what I object to.
Once I get crystal clear voice transmission and a month-long battery, then by all means, bring on the new features. Until then, let your engineers concentrate on making what you have actually work.
Incidentally, the power of Apple's design comes in their integration of powerful hardware with well-designed software. (We can have a discussion about their marketing department another time.) If anyone can make a phone that Just Works(tm), Apple can. They wouldn't even have to worry about the cell network; all they have to do is make sure the phone works on the GSM network (and a few others), and let the cell phone companies take care of actually placing the call. After all, Motorola doesn't have to own cell towers to have people use their phones with Cingular and Sprint--neither would Apple.
But unless I can tri-boot the big-3 (or more to the point, VM them), we're all gonna have to keep the Windows XP boxen around for Development (read: games). This is not acceptable, PC's are just too loud and power hungry.
Absolutely.
It makes me wonder if there would be a market for a "development" machine, to be purchased by small software and web design firms. Someone could purchase Mac hardware, preload the machine to triboot with Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, and sell it to dev firms.
Wow. There are so many contradictions and logical fallacies in your post here that I am simply going to ignore most of it. It's not even worth discussing when the person you are discussing with contradicts themselves.
I am, however, going to respond to a single statement you made, which just about sums this whole discussion up for me, and then I am going to go my merry way and never look at this discussion again.
"In fact, the "God-of-the-gaps" theory is quite unscientific and illogical, and, contrary to what you seem believe, is widely unpopular among I.D.ers (and creationists), for exactly those reasons."
News flash: then these people don't believe in intelligent design, or creationism, for that matter.
Scientist who believes in God != intelligent design proponent
If someone truly admits that they don't know why an evolutionary process happens, makes no presuppositions, and does not invoke the name of some divine being who exists outside the universe, then that person does not believe in intelligent design. Period.
As I have said before, those who believe that intelligent design is science apparently know nothing about intelligent design. They are simply trying to reconcile their own religious beliefs with the factual world around them and are mistakenly latching onto a deliberate propoganda campaign by the Discovery Institute, who are a bunch of fundamentalist quacks with nice suits and a well-paid PR department. Don't buy into it. You will only be labeled as a pseudo-science jerk and lumped in with every other wacko that investigates alien abductions, magnetic healing bracelets, and the theory of Atlantis.
You are obviously very confused about what intelligent design really is and what its goals are. I encourage you to read this very fine article from the November 2004 issue of National Geographic, because it has a very clear explanation of what evolution is, why most people don't truly understand it, and consequently why people seem to buy into this intelligent design garbage. I would also encourage you to read this article from the September 2001 issue of Skeptical Inquiry on the logical fallicies inherent in all intelligent design arguments, and how evidence of such a thing is currently non-existent.
Then, just for kicks, read up on the Discovery Institute to learn about the nutjobs that started most of this nonsense.
Jim Manwell, director of the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Renewable Energy Resource Laboratory, is quoted as saying, "There's a fundamental law of physics. The energy has to come from somewhere."
Of course it does, Jim. The energy comes from the oxidation of the two metals. Leave that puppy plugged into the tree long enough, and your aluminum nail and copper pipe will oxidize away to nothing while the electricity--all whopping 2 volts of it--happily flows through the electrolyte (tree and dirt).
Apparently Jim has never made a potato clock in middle school science class. C'mon, man, even the Professor on Gilligan's Island managed to make a radio out of a couple of coconuts! And he couldn't even repair a hole in a boat!
I'd like to know who these investors are, though. I'd let to let them know about a novel new way to generate electricity with a fur coat and a balloon that I've developed.
This is what Microsoft has never really understood, and because it's never put that much effort into getting *nix software to easily port over (they did have good intentions with NT 3.5), there are a huge range of applications, particularly at the high end, which will likely never be found on a Windows machine.
Yes, let's all cry for poor, struggling Microsoft, who are trying desperately to build a marketshare large enough to be noticed by the bigger players...
First of all, stop using dirty tactics such as implying that I.D.ers aren't scientists like that.
Have you been reading what I've been writing? That's exactly what I am stating (not implying): I.D.ers are not scientists.
Either write "evolutionists vs. I.D.ers" or "evolution scientists vs. I.D. scientists".
I refuse to write that. I.D.ers are not scientists.
One difference is that evolutionists more often than not simply presuppose that it is not designed, and that's not scientific.
You're right. That's not scientific. It's also not what good scientists do. Good scientists approach all problems without any presupposition. They simply test their hypothesis. If the test confirms the hypothesis, they construct another test. If it disproves the hypothesis, they construct another hypothesis. But they always test again. Please read up on the Scientific Method.
The reason why evolutionists don't try to argue that things are designed is that there is no testable hypothesis for that claim. If scientists can't test for it, then it can't fit into their theories. That's how science works.
Of course, if science uncovered definite proof of the existence of God, then God would cease to be a belief, and would become a scientific fact. So far this has not happened. After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I.D.ers on the other hand, DO presuppose the existence of God. They have to, since their entire position of the origins of life is that it comes from God. They assume that from the start and then try to find gaps in the experimental data that would fit that conclusion. Without direct, testable, repeatable, measureable evidence, fitting God into a scientific explanation is nothing more than a leap of faith. And that's not science.
With a multiuser system that actually enforces permissions, it's your fault if you click on that attachment. And the only thing that happens is you lose your home dir.
Agreed. And to mitigate that, the system could have a script running (as a different user) that backs up your home directory to another partition every so often, where the original user does not have any write permissions.
And if you have files that you wish no one else to see, then chmoding them 600 is not sufficient. They should be encrypted properly, but readable by the backup user so they can be copied during backup.
This certainly wouldn't stop a rights-escalation attack or a rootkit, but it would cut down on the number of script-kiddie "Click this to win a prize" attacks and act as a safety net for the less paranoid users.
"Developed by Cinea, a subsidiary of Dolby, the players permit their owners to view encrypted DVD "screeners", but prevent the creation of pirate copies."
So are we talking about an existing DVD encryption or anti-piracy technology, or is this something completely new? Anyone know how the encryption on these DVDs differs from the standard CSS encryption on retail DVDs?
Irreducible complexity is not a complex matter at all. It boils down to: "the possibility for it to have happened is so close to zero that it's not realistic to think it has". The "irreducible" part denotes that there's more than one non-beneficial change involved, and therefore natural selection can't "pick" the changes one-by-one. There's nothing "unscientific" about the issue.
You're right. There's nothing unscientific about that particular train of thought. However, the big difference comes in when both scientists and I.D.ers figure out what to do next.
Scientist: "It seems clear that evolution alone could not have created this change. I will construct further tests to try and pin down the reason why the evidence is the way it is."
I.D.er: "Oh, evolution couldn't have done that. God must have, then."
Scientists see gaps in the experimental evidence and start asking more questions. I.D.ers see gaps in the experimental evidence and fill them with God, without doing any more tests. That is precisely where the science ends and the beliefs begin.
I have no problem with you believing in intelligent design, and will not think any less of you as a person because of it, but I want you to recognize that it is not science: it is a system of beliefs masquerading as science. You are welcome to believe whatever you would like to believe, but please keep those beliefs out of my schools and serious scientific discussions.
I think it would be extremely beneficial for OpenOffice to start showing up in all the various places people buy software, too, like Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, and the ilk.
Here's what I propose: OOo puts together a CD containing a Windows build, a couple of popular Linux builds (including Darwin, if they have it), the source code, and a million and one references to visit the website. Then they slap a pretty label on the CD, package it in a bright colorful box extolling the virtues of the program and how it can do everything Microsoft Office can do including open Microsoft documents, include a quickstart manual with links to the website for more information, toss it onto the software shelf next to all the other Office Productivity software, and charge $5 for it. That would pay for the CD printing and packaging costs. Perhaps Best Buy marks it up to $10 or $15. But how many newbie people, when buying a computer at Best Buy, will see OpenOffice on the shelf and say, "$15?! That's way better than the $200 Microsoft is charging! And look! It can do things that cost extra with Microsoft!"
Sure it's not beer free to the end user, but sometimes costs are incurred. I see this as a gain all around. Best Buy sells lots of these things, the customer gets warm fuzzies because they saved $185, the whole world starts to step out of the Microsoft cave and blink in the light, and OpenOffice gets to keep their souls.
Horse-pucky. You're making the same false argument that various religious advocates make when they say "since some Scientists are Atheists, supporting Science is supporting Atheism."
There are some I.D. advocates who don't know the first thing about science. And there are some who, on every other topic except evolution, are indisinguishable from other speakers or scientists.
That's crap. Anyone who thinks that scientists can be I.D. advocates evidently know nothing about the I.D. movement (including the scientists themselves).
Full disclosure: I am an evolutionist who was brought up Christian.
I see no problem with religion and science co-existing in the scientist. But I.D. is so totally contrary to science (and to religion, actually) that anyone who respects the basic tenets of both science and religion recognizes that I.D. and science cannot coexist.
There are two basic premises to I.D.: 1. That it is a science 2. That there is a concept of "irreducible complexity."
No scientist ever subscribes to point 2. If they do, then they are a very poor scientist. It basically boils down to, "if we don't know how it happened, then God must have done it." Science is based on the idea that all things are explainable, and explainable with--this is important--testable hypotheses. If a hypothesis is not testable, then it isn't science. And by testable, it usually means, "disprovable." When testing such a hypothesis, there must be a condition that shows the hypothesis to be false. Saying "God did it" is not disprovable, therefore it is not science. It's just an excuse for not wanting to do science. Let me say that again for all the skimmers out there: I.D. is not science, and anyone who tells you otherwise does not understand I.D.
Please note that science does not exclude God, it just does not necessitate Him.
Many of the very good scientists I know have deep faiths, and these faiths coexist with science rather nicely. The difference is, their faith does not stay static in the face of contradictory evidence, and their science does not presume the presence of their faith. Faith is belief in the absence of evidence, not in spite of it.
There is a very good quote that I use often, but I can't seem to attribute it after a quick Google search:
"Science, by definition, has to be agnostic. The scientist does not."
Washington, D.C.-- A secret group of contractors, hired by the White House, have started tracking the movements of citizens in an information kiosk set up outside the Capitol building.
"This is a blatant violation of privacy," said Murtaugh King, privacy advocate and internet blogger. "What they are doing fundamentally violates the constitution."
According to a White House spokesman, the information kiosk was set up outside the capitol building as a way to give visitors important information about various branches of government. "We set this thing up completely free of charge, as a service to our citizens. People are able to find lots of useful information about Washington in there."
When asked about the secret tracking of citizens, the spokesman replied, "Well, yeah. We have a Welcome Clerk named Cookie sitting at the front desk. She assigns each visitor a number, logs the number and the time of the visit in a book, and gives the visitor a name tag with the number printed on it. This is used to help each visitor gather information. If they find a bit of information they would like to keep, the Welcome Clerk marks it next to their number, so they don't have to carry a lot of heavy books and papers around. When the visitor leaves, the Welcome Clerk helps them gather all the information they marked in the book."
"The book itself is very secure. We have a Secret Service detail, codenamed H.T.T.P., watching it, and it is guarded from the air by Apache helicopters."
Some privacy advocates are very worried about the implications of such a numbering scheme.
"This is totally insecure," said Professor Richard Weede, an Assistant Associate Professor of Advanced Snooping at Georgetown University. "When these unwitting visitors enter another kiosk, the Welcome Clerk there can read all the nametags already on the visitor's shirt. They could very easily track the other kiosks this person was visiting and use that information against them."
When asked how this tracking would be accomplished since none of the kiosk sites publish the name of their kiosk on the nametags, Professor Weede replied, "Well, I suppose they could steal the big book at the other kiosk or something."
The Professor was also asked about the security implications of removing the nametags before entering another kiosk, at which point he mumbled something about "spy satellites" and said he was late for a meeting.
Senators Orrin Hatch (R, UT) and Ted Stevens (R, AK) called for an emergency session of Congress to battle this new breach of privacy.
by AeroIllini. Additional reporting by anonymous internet heresay.
I like how Apple reinvents pheed and calls it "Photocasting" as well as "incredibly new".
Oh, didn't you hear?
Technology does not exist until is has been thoroughly repackaged, branded, and marketed properly...and for those unfortunate technologies that are not controlled by one company, they do not exist until a new name is thought up for them which is both trendy and annoying at the same time.
There was no such thing as ordering a product from a remote company until e-commerce. There was no such thing as browsing a website until surfing. There was no such thing as false-identity scams until phishing. There was no such thing as malicious computer code until viruses. There was no such thing as an online journal until blogging. There was no such thing as downloading mp3s until iTunes. There was no such thing as downloading mp3s of people talking until podcasting. And there was no such thing as sharing photos with people until Photocasting.
Seriously, what's the big flippin' deal? It's just a product name.
MacBook Pro... A Mac OS X notebook computer, with a set of Professional specs.
It's become apparent that the marketing droids have you by the balls. Get over yourself. It's just a computer. A quality computer, but a computer nonetheless.
Re:video DRM is more tolerable than music DRM
on
A Look at Google DRM
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Once you download the AAC files, you can burn the content to a CD, and then re-import the tracks as MP3s back into iTunes, including ID3 tags. The extra step is a small hassle, but at the end you have a CD (which is a good archive and you might still use it in certain places), and you have a regular MP3 file with no DRM.
I'm not sure why people keep parroting this as a good solution to the DRM problem. Are we so used to using poorly designed systems and being crapped on by the companies we patronize that we are willing to put up with such nonsense?
Burning your tracks to a CD and then reripping them is not a solution, it's a workaround. It's a pain in the ass and shouldn't even be necessary. Additionally, it only addresses the issue of iTunes; there are many other DRM solutions that don't even allow this.
I get really irritated when companies punish their paying customers in the interest of stopping those that "steal" from them. Hey, jerks, I paid for this track. Don't punish me because someone else isn't buying your music. As has been said many times before, DRM doesn't stop the determined; it only hurts the honest people. How is pissing off your customers good business, again?
That being said, I think Apple's FairPlay DRM is the best they could offer under the circumstances. If they insisted on selling unencumbered AAC audio, the RIAA would have cried foul and left the negotiating table. I applaud Apple for fighting for consumers' rights in the face of draconian business practices in a near-monopoly situation. However, we, as consumers, can't stop there. We have to fight back, and help Apple wrest control of the music business away from the oligopoly that currently runs it. We can't be satisfied with "good enough" DRM, because it's a slippery slope. Today you're allowed to burn CDs. Tomorrow you need RIAA-approved headphones and can only listen to your music between 3:52am and 4:06am PST unless you upgrade to a "Plus" license for another $5.00. Refuse to buy CDs with DRM. Complain very loudly when DRM stops you from exercising your right to non-infringing copying. Write to your senator. And for the love of God, stop pirating music; it doesn't send the RIAA the message you think it does. Just do without, or buy from companies that respect your rights.
The message we need to send is, "Look, we're honest. We want to compensate the people who produce this music. We just don't want to give up our rights in the process."
And 12+ years later, he's still getting free stuff.
No joke. Once companies start sending people free stuff as samples and promotions, it's very difficult to get them to stop.
A friend of mine in college spent a single semester in dental school before dropping out to pursue an engineering degree. Shortly after starting his dental schooling, he received a box in the mail containing 250 sample tubes of Colgate toothpaste. Presumably, Colgate thought that once he became a dentist, he would hand these samples out to his patients. As a college student with no patients, however, he just used it himself, and gave it away to his friends.
He received one of these boxes containing 250 tubes of Colgate every month. Even after he left dental school and moved to a different college (in a different state, even!) they still managed to track him down and mail him 250 tubes of Colgate every month. He moved to a new dorm room/apartment every year, and still the toothpaste showed up, every month. He couldn't give this stuff away fast enough. He actually called Colgate several times, and asked them to remove him from their mailing list, but the toothpaste kept coming. I never bought a tube of toothpaste in 5 years of college.
He is still getting toothpaste in the mail, 8 years later.
Yeah, I really don't put much stock in the types of comparisons the general newsmedia uses when they talk about scientific subjects. The one that sticks out in my mind was when the shuttle Columbia exploded, and CNN was scrambling to get information in the bottom screen-scroller. They were in such a rush that all kinds of incorrect things were shown, like "shuttle was traveling at mock 25" and "shuttle was traveling 25 times the speed of light". It would have been funny if the situation wasn't so tragic.
He would regularly take out words such as "not" or edit the phrase "Program X gets $A dollars of funding, and Program Y gets $B dollars of funding" to "Program X gets $AB Dollars of funding". We dont need that silly "dollars of funding, and Program Y gets $".
That's just an example of a poorly implimented veto law.
The word "Veto" does not imply that the president can change the wording of the law. It is a yes or no question. Veto really works like this: "Mr. President, Congress just voted to pass this law. Do you agree?" "Yes." (Law is passed.) "No." (Law is vetoed.) There is no room in there for an answer like, "Yes, but only if blah blah blah is changed to blah blah."
So, in the same vein, line item vetoing would be a yes or no question, but for each line. Line 285: Program X gets $A of funding Line 286: Program Y gets $B of funding Line 287: The Supreme Court will heretofore be known as the "Poopyhead Patrol"
And the President then gets to say either yes or no to each of the lines. He would NOT get to reword any of the text, as that would require a new bill in Congress.
Anything else upsets the checks and balances between the President and Congress with regards to lawmaking.
Speed of light: air=299702547m/s; vacuum=299792458m/s Speed of sound: air=345 m/s; vacuum=???
I'm not sure I understand your signature.
If you are genuinely asking what the speed of sound in a vacuum is, you need a quick physics lesson. By definition, there can be no sound in a vacuum; sound needs a medium to travel in, since it is nothing more that propagating pressure waves. Light on the other hand can travel through a vacuum because of the particle-wave duality.
If you are merely pointing out that there is no sound in a vacuum, perhaps in a veiled criticism of various sci-fi movies and television shows, then it's really not very clear.
If you are just pointing out how clever you are to know the speeds of light in a vacuum and air, then the joke is lost on this highly geeky crowd.
Care to comment?
Oh, and so I'm not modded into oblivion: you're right. Cameras are way better than hand scanners. In fact, almost all of the high end digital photocopiers used in high-volume work scan pages using a digital camera type system. None of this business with the lightbar crawling from one side of the page to the other; these copiers just have a flashbulb and a CCD. This means they can copy pages far faster than other copiers. The only speed bottlenecks are a). the speed the papers can be fed through the document tray and b). the speed the captured digital image can be written to disk/memory.
Under Linux with Reiser, when you reboot, the system politely tells you it's going to check the journal, and it fixes itself. This alone is a good reason to prefer Linux.
I'd like to see a distribution of Linux where all the error messages and system notifications are very rude. Who says computers can't have personalities?
In fact, that's the true beauty of Linux: the configurability, the choice. I can't begin to tell you how frustrated I get with software I can't customize myself, and there is no alternative, like my cell phone. What if I want to tell my cell phone to always use the Bluetooth headset if it detects it instead of asking me every damn time and muting my phone call while it asks? Too friggin' bad! Motorola didn't think of that, and didn't allow me a way to customize my phone in ways they didn't think of. I just have to use the configuration options they give me and be happy about it. Not configurable, not extensible, not scriptable.
Linux is better than that. It's about putting control of the computer back in the hands of the person using it. Let's see Microsoft beat THAT.
As far as I have heard though, there have been also cases where SCSI have failed also.
Well, of course. There is no such thing as an infinite lifespan for hardware. Everything fails. It could be due to manufacturing defects, poor design, out-of-range operating conditions, or the device simply exceeds its designed lifespan and wears out. You cannot prevent all hard drive failures with better hardware. What you *can* do is eliminate the possibility of single-point failures. By using a RAID setup, or even simply a nightly off-site backup, you can ensure that more than one system would have to fail to cause data loss. Sure, it's possible, but statistically it's never gonna happen. It really would not be difficult for PC manufacturers to put two hard drives in a computer instead of one, and RAID0 them. Then the software would tell you when one of the drives failed. Thus the whole system is *about* to fail, and you haven't lost your data yet. But the customer base hasn't expressed a need for that, so computer manufacturers don't worry about it.
In any case though, we lack of a good way of predicting hard drives that are about to "die".
Yes, we do, because that adds unnecessary overhead to a system that is already a bottleneck in most systems (data i/o). How much notice would you like? 10 minutes? A week? A year? I can give you notice right now: your hard drive will fail sometime in the next 100,000 years. Sometimes it's just really hard to tell when a hardware failure is going to occur, and resource-intensive prediction software doesn't solve the problem.
In car services for example, nowadays, the plug the laptop on your car and they execute a full check on your car's condition. Picture this in hard drives. Then I would seriously consider buying a hard drive like that, even if the price was slightly above normal.
News flash: almost all hard drives manufactured since 2000 do this already. It's not a foolproof system, but neither is the computer system in your car, which failed to notify you that you are about to get rear-ended by that guy on the cell phone, thus causing a catastrophic car failure. Not all failures are predictable.
On the other hand I would appreciate the fact if some people would bother creating reliable hard drives that do not die unexpectedly.
They do. They're called enterprise-level SCSI RAID systems.
Would you expect a Honda Civic to not get stuck unexpectedly on its way up a mountainside or fording a river?
Right tool, right job. If data integrity is a concern, then you sure as hell better not be relying on some $80 OEM IDE drive you found on Pricewatch....On the other hand, my motto is usually, "If it's not broken, you're not using it hard enough."
Slashdot Mirror
"Dammit! We're not making enough money off these saps! What can we do about it?"
"Well, sir, the profit margins on downloaded music are very slightly lower than CD or vinyl media. Perhaps we could make the downloads more expensive."
"No, that wouldn't work. We're locked into a contract with Apple, and those filthy pirates would just stop downloading anyway. Hmmm. Is there a way we can get people to pay more for downloaded music without charging them more?"
"Hey, I know! We'll tell all the DJs that in order to use downloaded music in their spinning, they have to pay us extra money! That'll bring the profit margin up for sure!"
"Brilliant! Get on that. Now, let's talk about this pricing scheme you've come up with where we charge by the ear..."
Why is it that everyone assumes that it isn't a backdoor because there are many other, presumably better, ways that Microsoft could access someone's computer (IE and Windows Update come to mind...)?
It seems to me that this vulnerability has been around since at least Windows 95, if not earlier, and back in the day the Internet was not yet the powerhouse attack vector it is today. Most viruses traveled by floppy MBR, even. It's not hard to imagine someone sending a floppy disk full of compromised WMF files labeled "Hot chicks" to someone else, with the intention that they can later sit down at that computer and gain access since the backdoor was opened by viewing the files. Granted, this is pre-internet thinking, but so is the vulnerability.
What's the possibility that someone at Microsoft created this backdoor, and then the intentions were subsequently lost amid the bureaucracy and it remained as an originally intentional, but now obsolete, backdoor? Is a backdoor just a bug if no one remembers creating it with the intention of using it as a backdoor?
I was against the concept of a camera in a cell phone for a longtime.
After I got a phone that had one, I started to think what it would be good for. I figured it was a comfort to have it in the case of an [auto] accident.
You're right. They are nice to have in a pinch. I have a cameraphone, and I have used it in similar situations.
But I agree with the grandparent post, in that I don't want feature creep and bloat in my cell phone if its *primary function*, that is, to send and receive calls, is still broken.
The problem is that hardware companies use these bells and whistles to try and compensate for the fact that their product does not work reliably. And that's what I object to.
Once I get crystal clear voice transmission and a month-long battery, then by all means, bring on the new features. Until then, let your engineers concentrate on making what you have actually work.
Incidentally, the power of Apple's design comes in their integration of powerful hardware with well-designed software. (We can have a discussion about their marketing department another time.) If anyone can make a phone that Just Works(tm), Apple can. They wouldn't even have to worry about the cell network; all they have to do is make sure the phone works on the GSM network (and a few others), and let the cell phone companies take care of actually placing the call. After all, Motorola doesn't have to own cell towers to have people use their phones with Cingular and Sprint--neither would Apple.
But unless I can tri-boot the big-3 (or more to the point, VM them), we're all gonna have to keep the Windows XP boxen around for Development (read: games). This is not acceptable, PC's are just too loud and power hungry.
Absolutely.
It makes me wonder if there would be a market for a "development" machine, to be purchased by small software and web design firms. Someone could purchase Mac hardware, preload the machine to triboot with Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, and sell it to dev firms.
Thoughts?
Is this one of these scientific tests that involve lots of alcohol and plenty of sleeping?
Sign me up!
Wow. There are so many contradictions and logical fallacies in your post here that I am simply going to ignore most of it. It's not even worth discussing when the person you are discussing with contradicts themselves.
I am, however, going to respond to a single statement you made, which just about sums this whole discussion up for me, and then I am going to go my merry way and never look at this discussion again.
"In fact, the "God-of-the-gaps" theory is quite unscientific and illogical, and, contrary to what you seem believe, is widely unpopular among I.D.ers (and creationists), for exactly those reasons."
News flash: then these people don't believe in intelligent design, or creationism, for that matter.
Scientist who believes in God != intelligent design proponent
If someone truly admits that they don't know why an evolutionary process happens, makes no presuppositions, and does not invoke the name of some divine being who exists outside the universe, then that person does not believe in intelligent design. Period.
As I have said before, those who believe that intelligent design is science apparently know nothing about intelligent design. They are simply trying to reconcile their own religious beliefs with the factual world around them and are mistakenly latching onto a deliberate propoganda campaign by the Discovery Institute, who are a bunch of fundamentalist quacks with nice suits and a well-paid PR department. Don't buy into it. You will only be labeled as a pseudo-science jerk and lumped in with every other wacko that investigates alien abductions, magnetic healing bracelets, and the theory of Atlantis.
You are obviously very confused about what intelligent design really is and what its goals are. I encourage you to read this very fine article from the November 2004 issue of National Geographic, because it has a very clear explanation of what evolution is, why most people don't truly understand it, and consequently why people seem to buy into this intelligent design garbage. I would also encourage you to read this article from the September 2001 issue of Skeptical Inquiry on the logical fallicies inherent in all intelligent design arguments, and how evidence of such a thing is currently non-existent.
Then, just for kicks, read up on the Discovery Institute to learn about the nutjobs that started most of this nonsense.
Jim Manwell, director of the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Renewable Energy Resource Laboratory, is quoted as saying, "There's a fundamental law of physics. The energy has to come from somewhere."
Of course it does, Jim. The energy comes from the oxidation of the two metals. Leave that puppy plugged into the tree long enough, and your aluminum nail and copper pipe will oxidize away to nothing while the electricity--all whopping 2 volts of it--happily flows through the electrolyte (tree and dirt).
Apparently Jim has never made a potato clock in middle school science class. C'mon, man, even the Professor on Gilligan's Island managed to make a radio out of a couple of coconuts! And he couldn't even repair a hole in a boat!
I'd like to know who these investors are, though. I'd let to let them know about a novel new way to generate electricity with a fur coat and a balloon that I've developed.
This is what Microsoft has never really understood, and because it's never put that much effort into getting *nix software to easily port over (they did have good intentions with NT 3.5), there are a huge range of applications, particularly at the high end, which will likely never be found on a Windows machine.
Yes, let's all cry for poor, struggling Microsoft, who are trying desperately to build a marketshare large enough to be noticed by the bigger players...
First of all, stop using dirty tactics such as implying that I.D.ers aren't scientists like that.
Have you been reading what I've been writing? That's exactly what I am stating (not implying): I.D.ers are not scientists.
Either write "evolutionists vs. I.D.ers" or "evolution scientists vs. I.D. scientists".
I refuse to write that. I.D.ers are not scientists.
One difference is that evolutionists more often than not simply presuppose that it is not designed, and that's not scientific.
You're right. That's not scientific. It's also not what good scientists do. Good scientists approach all problems without any presupposition. They simply test their hypothesis. If the test confirms the hypothesis, they construct another test. If it disproves the hypothesis, they construct another hypothesis. But they always test again. Please read up on the Scientific Method.
The reason why evolutionists don't try to argue that things are designed is that there is no testable hypothesis for that claim. If scientists can't test for it, then it can't fit into their theories. That's how science works.
Of course, if science uncovered definite proof of the existence of God, then God would cease to be a belief, and would become a scientific fact. So far this has not happened. After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I.D.ers on the other hand, DO presuppose the existence of God. They have to, since their entire position of the origins of life is that it comes from God. They assume that from the start and then try to find gaps in the experimental data that would fit that conclusion. Without direct, testable, repeatable, measureable evidence, fitting God into a scientific explanation is nothing more than a leap of faith. And that's not science.
With a multiuser system that actually enforces permissions, it's your fault if you click on that attachment. And the only thing that happens is you lose your home dir.
Agreed. And to mitigate that, the system could have a script running (as a different user) that backs up your home directory to another partition every so often, where the original user does not have any write permissions.
And if you have files that you wish no one else to see, then chmoding them 600 is not sufficient. They should be encrypted properly, but readable by the backup user so they can be copied during backup.
This certainly wouldn't stop a rights-escalation attack or a rootkit, but it would cut down on the number of script-kiddie "Click this to win a prize" attacks and act as a safety net for the less paranoid users.
"Developed by Cinea, a subsidiary of Dolby, the players permit their owners to view encrypted DVD "screeners", but prevent the creation of pirate copies."
So are we talking about an existing DVD encryption or anti-piracy technology, or is this something completely new? Anyone know how the encryption on these DVDs differs from the standard CSS encryption on retail DVDs?
Inquiring and very geeky minds want to know.
Irreducible complexity is not a complex matter at all. It boils down to: "the possibility for it to have happened is so close to zero that it's not realistic to think it has". The "irreducible" part denotes that there's more than one non-beneficial change involved, and therefore natural selection can't "pick" the changes one-by-one. There's nothing "unscientific" about the issue.
You're right. There's nothing unscientific about that particular train of thought. However, the big difference comes in when both scientists and I.D.ers figure out what to do next.
Scientist: "It seems clear that evolution alone could not have created this change. I will construct further tests to try and pin down the reason why the evidence is the way it is."
I.D.er: "Oh, evolution couldn't have done that. God must have, then."
Scientists see gaps in the experimental evidence and start asking more questions. I.D.ers see gaps in the experimental evidence and fill them with God, without doing any more tests. That is precisely where the science ends and the beliefs begin.
I have no problem with you believing in intelligent design, and will not think any less of you as a person because of it, but I want you to recognize that it is not science: it is a system of beliefs masquerading as science. You are welcome to believe whatever you would like to believe, but please keep those beliefs out of my schools and serious scientific discussions.
I think it would be extremely beneficial for OpenOffice to start showing up in all the various places people buy software, too, like Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, and the ilk.
Here's what I propose:
OOo puts together a CD containing a Windows build, a couple of popular Linux builds (including Darwin, if they have it), the source code, and a million and one references to visit the website. Then they slap a pretty label on the CD, package it in a bright colorful box extolling the virtues of the program and how it can do everything Microsoft Office can do including open Microsoft documents, include a quickstart manual with links to the website for more information, toss it onto the software shelf next to all the other Office Productivity software, and charge $5 for it. That would pay for the CD printing and packaging costs. Perhaps Best Buy marks it up to $10 or $15. But how many newbie people, when buying a computer at Best Buy, will see OpenOffice on the shelf and say, "$15?! That's way better than the $200 Microsoft is charging! And look! It can do things that cost extra with Microsoft!"
Sure it's not beer free to the end user, but sometimes costs are incurred. I see this as a gain all around. Best Buy sells lots of these things, the customer gets warm fuzzies because they saved $185, the whole world starts to step out of the Microsoft cave and blink in the light, and OpenOffice gets to keep their souls.
Horse-pucky. You're making the same false argument that various religious advocates make when they say "since some Scientists are Atheists, supporting Science is supporting Atheism."
There are some I.D. advocates who don't know the first thing about science. And there are some who, on every other topic except evolution, are indisinguishable from other speakers or scientists.
That's crap. Anyone who thinks that scientists can be I.D. advocates evidently know nothing about the I.D. movement (including the scientists themselves).
Full disclosure: I am an evolutionist who was brought up Christian.
I see no problem with religion and science co-existing in the scientist. But I.D. is so totally contrary to science (and to religion, actually) that anyone who respects the basic tenets of both science and religion recognizes that I.D. and science cannot coexist.
There are two basic premises to I.D.:
1. That it is a science
2. That there is a concept of "irreducible complexity."
No scientist ever subscribes to point 2. If they do, then they are a very poor scientist. It basically boils down to, "if we don't know how it happened, then God must have done it." Science is based on the idea that all things are explainable, and explainable with--this is important--testable hypotheses. If a hypothesis is not testable, then it isn't science. And by testable, it usually means, "disprovable." When testing such a hypothesis, there must be a condition that shows the hypothesis to be false. Saying "God did it" is not disprovable, therefore it is not science. It's just an excuse for not wanting to do science. Let me say that again for all the skimmers out there: I.D. is not science, and anyone who tells you otherwise does not understand I.D.
Please note that science does not exclude God, it just does not necessitate Him.
Many of the very good scientists I know have deep faiths, and these faiths coexist with science rather nicely. The difference is, their faith does not stay static in the face of contradictory evidence, and their science does not presume the presence of their faith. Faith is belief in the absence of evidence, not in spite of it.
There is a very good quote that I use often, but I can't seem to attribute it after a quick Google search:
"Science, by definition, has to be agnostic. The scientist does not."
This just in...
GOVERNMENT SECRETLY TRACKS CITIZENS
Washington, D.C.-- A secret group of contractors, hired by the White House, have started tracking the movements of citizens in an information kiosk set up outside the Capitol building.
"This is a blatant violation of privacy," said Murtaugh King, privacy advocate and internet blogger. "What they are doing fundamentally violates the constitution."
According to a White House spokesman, the information kiosk was set up outside the capitol building as a way to give visitors important information about various branches of government. "We set this thing up completely free of charge, as a service to our citizens. People are able to find lots of useful information about Washington in there."
When asked about the secret tracking of citizens, the spokesman replied, "Well, yeah. We have a Welcome Clerk named Cookie sitting at the front desk. She assigns each visitor a number, logs the number and the time of the visit in a book, and gives the visitor a name tag with the number printed on it. This is used to help each visitor gather information. If they find a bit of information they would like to keep, the Welcome Clerk marks it next to their number, so they don't have to carry a lot of heavy books and papers around. When the visitor leaves, the Welcome Clerk helps them gather all the information they marked in the book."
"The book itself is very secure. We have a Secret Service detail, codenamed H.T.T.P., watching it, and it is guarded from the air by Apache helicopters."
Some privacy advocates are very worried about the implications of such a numbering scheme.
"This is totally insecure," said Professor Richard Weede, an Assistant Associate Professor of Advanced Snooping at Georgetown University. "When these unwitting visitors enter another kiosk, the Welcome Clerk there can read all the nametags already on the visitor's shirt. They could very easily track the other kiosks this person was visiting and use that information against them."
When asked how this tracking would be accomplished since none of the kiosk sites publish the name of their kiosk on the nametags, Professor Weede replied, "Well, I suppose they could steal the big book at the other kiosk or something."
The Professor was also asked about the security implications of removing the nametags before entering another kiosk, at which point he mumbled something about "spy satellites" and said he was late for a meeting.
Senators Orrin Hatch (R, UT) and Ted Stevens (R, AK) called for an emergency session of Congress to battle this new breach of privacy.
by AeroIllini. Additional reporting by anonymous internet heresay.
I like how Apple reinvents pheed and calls it "Photocasting" as well as "incredibly new".
Oh, didn't you hear?
Technology does not exist until is has been thoroughly repackaged, branded, and marketed properly...and for those unfortunate technologies that are not controlled by one company, they do not exist until a new name is thought up for them which is both trendy and annoying at the same time.
There was no such thing as ordering a product from a remote company until e-commerce.
There was no such thing as browsing a website until surfing.
There was no such thing as false-identity scams until phishing.
There was no such thing as malicious computer code until viruses.
There was no such thing as an online journal until blogging.
There was no such thing as downloading mp3s until iTunes.
There was no such thing as downloading mp3s of people talking until podcasting.
And there was no such thing as sharing photos with people until Photocasting.
You must have missed the memo.
The MacBook Pro
... A Mac OS X notebook computer, with a set of Professional specs.
Hate the name, hate it hate it hate it.
Seriously, what's the big flippin' deal? It's just a product name.
MacBook Pro
It's become apparent that the marketing droids have you by the balls. Get over yourself. It's just a computer. A quality computer, but a computer nonetheless.
Once you download the AAC files, you can burn the content to a CD, and then re-import the tracks as MP3s back into iTunes, including ID3 tags. The extra step is a small hassle, but at the end you have a CD (which is a good archive and you might still use it in certain places), and you have a regular MP3 file with no DRM.
I'm not sure why people keep parroting this as a good solution to the DRM problem. Are we so used to using poorly designed systems and being crapped on by the companies we patronize that we are willing to put up with such nonsense?
Burning your tracks to a CD and then reripping them is not a solution, it's a workaround. It's a pain in the ass and shouldn't even be necessary. Additionally, it only addresses the issue of iTunes; there are many other DRM solutions that don't even allow this.
I get really irritated when companies punish their paying customers in the interest of stopping those that "steal" from them. Hey, jerks, I paid for this track. Don't punish me because someone else isn't buying your music. As has been said many times before, DRM doesn't stop the determined; it only hurts the honest people. How is pissing off your customers good business, again?
That being said, I think Apple's FairPlay DRM is the best they could offer under the circumstances. If they insisted on selling unencumbered AAC audio, the RIAA would have cried foul and left the negotiating table. I applaud Apple for fighting for consumers' rights in the face of draconian business practices in a near-monopoly situation. However, we, as consumers, can't stop there. We have to fight back, and help Apple wrest control of the music business away from the oligopoly that currently runs it. We can't be satisfied with "good enough" DRM, because it's a slippery slope. Today you're allowed to burn CDs. Tomorrow you need RIAA-approved headphones and can only listen to your music between 3:52am and 4:06am PST unless you upgrade to a "Plus" license for another $5.00. Refuse to buy CDs with DRM. Complain very loudly when DRM stops you from exercising your right to non-infringing copying. Write to your senator. And for the love of God, stop pirating music; it doesn't send the RIAA the message you think it does. Just do without, or buy from companies that respect your rights.
The message we need to send is, "Look, we're honest. We want to compensate the people who produce this music. We just don't want to give up our rights in the process."
Is that so hard?
And 12+ years later, he's still getting free stuff.
No joke. Once companies start sending people free stuff as samples and promotions, it's very difficult to get them to stop.
A friend of mine in college spent a single semester in dental school before dropping out to pursue an engineering degree. Shortly after starting his dental schooling, he received a box in the mail containing 250 sample tubes of Colgate toothpaste. Presumably, Colgate thought that once he became a dentist, he would hand these samples out to his patients. As a college student with no patients, however, he just used it himself, and gave it away to his friends.
He received one of these boxes containing 250 tubes of Colgate every month. Even after he left dental school and moved to a different college (in a different state, even!) they still managed to track him down and mail him 250 tubes of Colgate every month. He moved to a new dorm room/apartment every year, and still the toothpaste showed up, every month. He couldn't give this stuff away fast enough. He actually called Colgate several times, and asked them to remove him from their mailing list, but the toothpaste kept coming. I never bought a tube of toothpaste in 5 years of college.
He is still getting toothpaste in the mail, 8 years later.
OK, cool. Thanks for clarifying that.
Yeah, I really don't put much stock in the types of comparisons the general newsmedia uses when they talk about scientific subjects. The one that sticks out in my mind was when the shuttle Columbia exploded, and CNN was scrambling to get information in the bottom screen-scroller. They were in such a rush that all kinds of incorrect things were shown, like "shuttle was traveling at mock 25" and "shuttle was traveling 25 times the speed of light". It would have been funny if the situation wasn't so tragic.
He would regularly take out words such as "not" or edit the phrase "Program X gets $A dollars of funding, and Program Y gets $B dollars of funding" to "Program X gets $AB Dollars of funding". We dont need that silly "dollars of funding, and Program Y gets $".
That's just an example of a poorly implimented veto law.
The word "Veto" does not imply that the president can change the wording of the law. It is a yes or no question. Veto really works like this:
"Mr. President, Congress just voted to pass this law. Do you agree?"
"Yes." (Law is passed.)
"No." (Law is vetoed.)
There is no room in there for an answer like, "Yes, but only if blah blah blah is changed to blah blah."
So, in the same vein, line item vetoing would be a yes or no question, but for each line.
Line 285: Program X gets $A of funding
Line 286: Program Y gets $B of funding
Line 287: The Supreme Court will heretofore be known as the "Poopyhead Patrol"
And the President then gets to say either yes or no to each of the lines. He would NOT get to reword any of the text, as that would require a new bill in Congress.
Anything else upsets the checks and balances between the President and Congress with regards to lawmaking.
Speed of light: air=299702547m/s; vacuum=299792458m/s
Speed of sound: air=345 m/s; vacuum=???
I'm not sure I understand your signature.
If you are genuinely asking what the speed of sound in a vacuum is, you need a quick physics lesson. By definition, there can be no sound in a vacuum; sound needs a medium to travel in, since it is nothing more that propagating pressure waves. Light on the other hand can travel through a vacuum because of the particle-wave duality.
If you are merely pointing out that there is no sound in a vacuum, perhaps in a veiled criticism of various sci-fi movies and television shows, then it's really not very clear.
If you are just pointing out how clever you are to know the speeds of light in a vacuum and air, then the joke is lost on this highly geeky crowd.
Care to comment?
Oh, and so I'm not modded into oblivion: you're right. Cameras are way better than hand scanners. In fact, almost all of the high end digital photocopiers used in high-volume work scan pages using a digital camera type system. None of this business with the lightbar crawling from one side of the page to the other; these copiers just have a flashbulb and a CCD. This means they can copy pages far faster than other copiers. The only speed bottlenecks are a). the speed the papers can be fed through the document tray and b). the speed the captured digital image can be written to disk/memory.
Under Linux with Reiser, when you reboot, the system politely tells you it's going to check the journal, and it fixes itself. This alone is a good reason to prefer Linux.
I'd like to see a distribution of Linux where all the error messages and system notifications are very rude. Who says computers can't have personalities?
In fact, that's the true beauty of Linux: the configurability, the choice. I can't begin to tell you how frustrated I get with software I can't customize myself, and there is no alternative, like my cell phone. What if I want to tell my cell phone to always use the Bluetooth headset if it detects it instead of asking me every damn time and muting my phone call while it asks? Too friggin' bad! Motorola didn't think of that, and didn't allow me a way to customize my phone in ways they didn't think of. I just have to use the configuration options they give me and be happy about it. Not configurable, not extensible, not scriptable.
Linux is better than that. It's about putting control of the computer back in the hands of the person using it. Let's see Microsoft beat THAT.
As far as I have heard though, there have been also cases where SCSI have failed also.
Well, of course. There is no such thing as an infinite lifespan for hardware. Everything fails. It could be due to manufacturing defects, poor design, out-of-range operating conditions, or the device simply exceeds its designed lifespan and wears out. You cannot prevent all hard drive failures with better hardware. What you *can* do is eliminate the possibility of single-point failures. By using a RAID setup, or even simply a nightly off-site backup, you can ensure that more than one system would have to fail to cause data loss. Sure, it's possible, but statistically it's never gonna happen. It really would not be difficult for PC manufacturers to put two hard drives in a computer instead of one, and RAID0 them. Then the software would tell you when one of the drives failed. Thus the whole system is *about* to fail, and you haven't lost your data yet. But the customer base hasn't expressed a need for that, so computer manufacturers don't worry about it.
In any case though, we lack of a good way of predicting hard drives that are about to "die".
Yes, we do, because that adds unnecessary overhead to a system that is already a bottleneck in most systems (data i/o). How much notice would you like? 10 minutes? A week? A year? I can give you notice right now: your hard drive will fail sometime in the next 100,000 years. Sometimes it's just really hard to tell when a hardware failure is going to occur, and resource-intensive prediction software doesn't solve the problem.
In car services for example, nowadays, the plug the laptop on your car and they execute a full check on your car's condition. Picture this in hard drives. Then I would seriously consider buying a hard drive like that, even if the price was slightly above normal.
News flash: almost all hard drives manufactured since 2000 do this already. It's not a foolproof system, but neither is the computer system in your car, which failed to notify you that you are about to get rear-ended by that guy on the cell phone, thus causing a catastrophic car failure. Not all failures are predictable.
On the other hand I would appreciate the fact if some people would bother creating reliable hard drives that do not die unexpectedly.
...On the other hand, my motto is usually, "If it's not broken, you're not using it hard enough."
They do. They're called enterprise-level SCSI RAID systems.
Would you expect a Honda Civic to not get stuck unexpectedly on its way up a mountainside or fording a river?
Right tool, right job. If data integrity is a concern, then you sure as hell better not be relying on some $80
OEM IDE drive you found on Pricewatch.