I wish I could be as optimistic as you. As I see it, the death of the music industry directly depends on how many lawmakers and law enforcement officials are in their pockets. There are two outcomes to this scenario: increased fascism, or increased freedom. Given how many lawmakers are already beholden to corporate interests, I worry more and more that the outcome will be the former.
Yeah, no kidding. Other options: DirecWAY or whatever the hell they call themselves now, which has ludicrous lag times and costs way too much; dial-up, which is of course ludicrously slow; or a dedicated T1, which would cost more than my mortgage. This is why I've always been interested in wireless peer-to-peer neighborhood-area-networks, built and administered by the people. But even assuming I could afford to get started with that, I doubt there are any other techies in range of my house who would also be interested in participating.
The only thing we have going for us is that we know a high-level techie at Comcast who can often give us discounts on the service.
Anybody who thinks that the current broadband geopolies represent a level free-market playing field needs to get their head examined. Most people have, at the most, two choices; I have exactly one.
This is actually a bit disturbing. I'm not lawyer, but as far as I can tell ICANN rules generally state that if somebody owns your name as a domain name, and uses it to post defamatory information about you, you can have the domain name turned over to you -- similar to the way trademark holders get domain names handed over to them. The problem? It costs $1500 to file a claim with the WIPO, a pittance for a business, but crippling for an individual. And forget about suing for libel or defamation, unless you're damned sure you can include court costs and attorneys' fees in the ruling.
This appears to make it trivially easy for anybody out there to buy a person's name as a domain, put an Internet smear-job out there, and just wait for Google to index it. Then again, maybe if everybody starts doing this all the time, the Web will be full of it and nobody will take any of it seriously.
Sounds right to me. Pay for the work, not the product. The product can be copied indefinitely, which increases supply to infinity (and thus reduces its intrinsic value to zero). So what can be done? Shift the supply side of supply-and-demand to something that isn't available in infinite quantities. The artist can only work a finite amount, which results in a limited supply.
I'm an embedded software developer, and I've heard friends say, "Well, how would you like it if somebody took a program you wrote and copied it a bunch for free?" And I respond, "I'd love it, because that's the mark of a very successful project!" Our clients pay us for the effort and expertise put into the product design and development, not the final product.
I won't pretend to know the details of how one would create a sustainable business model based solely off of paying for the artist's time instead of for arbitrary copies of a product. After all, each of our projects has a single client paying a lot of money, rather than a lot of customers each paying a little money -- the logistics are different. I just know that the former business model simply doesn't work unless propped up by arbitrary legal fictions.
I'm amazed the Domino only has eight bits available as a "key" to identify the object. 256 possible object types? That seems ludicrously limiting to me. Why wouldn't they develop a sixteen, or even thirty-two, bit key to promote expandability? Heck, make it thirty-two bits, with the first eight bits signifying "category", the next sixteen signifying "description", and the last eight signifying "subclass". Then you could have a set of chess pieces in the category "Game Pieces", the description "Chess Pieces", and the subclasses "Black Pawn", "White Rook", et cetera. Have these IDs standardized across the industry, and now you have an interface capable of identifying a ton of different objects "at a glance".
First of all, you need to remember that they're balancing technology with cost. A 30-inch diagonal TFT LCD coupled with a new multi-touch sensitive system is almost certainly going to be more expensive than back-projection and infrared cameras.
Second, as far as I've seen from Han's page, other multi-touch systems like FTIR don't seem to be able to distinguish between different kinds of objects -- for example, he notes that it can't distinguish between a thumb and forefinger right now. This is something the infrared cameras can do with some simple image processing.
Yeah MS added some fluff by making it interact with devices placed on top the the basic idea is not some new "Top Secret" project
True, but the "fluff" is exactly the point. There are always two parts to a successful project: implementation and presentation. Geeks are going to flip out over the implementation, but if it is going to be presented to the general public, it has to be in a slick package, and it has to have the bells and whistles -- the "fluff" -- that make people go "oooooohhhh". Consider the iPod, which was absolutely nothing new (as witnessed by CmdrTaco's infamous offhand comment). But Apple took an existing technology and wrapped it in a shiny case and interface, and sales exploded.
It is those little stupid things, like the soft glowing ring around a drink set on the table, or the little ripple effect when a finger hits it, or the way the pictures "explode" out of the camera when it is set down, that will make Joe Six-Pack sit up and pull out his wallet.
And honestly, you think having the Surface interact with devices set on it is "fluff"? As I said above, the little graphical flourishes that happen are definitely fluff, but the concept of merely having to set a device down on the table for them to communicate is utterly simple and intuitive. I'd say that's a huge point in Surface's favor.
I don't think a linear search through the namespace is a good idea, since you're talking about literally trillions of possible domain names. Rather, it seems to me the plugin should examine the site once it is loaded for likely signs of it being a squatter site, and then inform the user. I've never written a Firefox plugin, but couldn't it do a WHOIS lookup and compare the info to known squatters?
"Upstream?" Surely you jest! In this Brave New Internet the corporations and government are creating, you can't expect the users -- erm, I mean viewers -- will be allowed to post anything! You need just enough upstream bandwidth to put up text, photos, and the occasional very-low-resolution video. Can't have you competing with real content providers, now.
So, are they going to point out all of the scam/spam/malware pages in their "Sponsored Links"? Hell, even searching for "Google Earth" turns up five pages purporting to be the download location, pages which no doubt either make their money from ads, or encase the download in absolute spyware hell.
The music industry went digital without an effective DRM system in place
Your flaw of logic here is assuming there is such a thing as an "effective DRM system". Perhaps there is through fascist intimidation and threats against the general public. But from a technical standpoint, DRM can and will always be broken, and somebody will develop a method that makes it simple and convenient for the end user.
Happy birthday, Unknown device! Our newborn is almost six weeks old, and I'm starting to ponder toddler-proofing our own place, which will be a monumental task given all the electronic stuff (and power strips everywhere) my wife and I have around the house. The entertainment center will have to be completely replaced, as it has no doors and an open back (meaning, of course, complete disaster waiting to happen). I can't even think about the computers yet; that'll be a fun one.
Even more reason to clean up the MythTV code to make it more user-friendly, idiot-proof, bug-free, and aesthetically pleasing. I would absolutely love to build a fully operational MythTV box, but every time I've tried I've run into some esoteric problem setting up the program guide, or the remote, or just a random, unexplained crash during installation. I'm no tech newbie, and each time I've been able to poke around and fix the issue, but the point is that I shouldn't have to.
Unless some major work is done to improve user friendliness and ease of installation, MythTV will forever be a tech-geek bit of software relegated to nerds with too much time on their hands while other folks choose SageTV, BeyondTV, MediaPortal, or (god help us) Windows Media Center. I love esoteric tweaking and prodding as much as the next computer geek, but it has to Just Work to ever take off in the eyes of the public.
And mark my words, they will. Unless you own the DVR yourself, and have full control over what it does, the cable- and satellite-provided units will eventually disable fast-forwarding through ads, will choose what you are allowed to record, and limit how long you keep it.
I'd be awfully interested to see AT&T start up their own militia, and then claim that it is their right under the Second Amendment. In fact, I'd love to see someone try something like that, so we could get this ridiculous concept of corporations collectively having the same rights as individuals blown to the hell it came from.
But eventually your batteries won't take a charge any more, and then you'll be limited to playing games that you can save every time a cloud passes by...
Slashdot Mirror
I wish I could be as optimistic as you. As I see it, the death of the music industry directly depends on how many lawmakers and law enforcement officials are in their pockets. There are two outcomes to this scenario: increased fascism, or increased freedom. Given how many lawmakers are already beholden to corporate interests, I worry more and more that the outcome will be the former.
Yeah, no kidding. Other options: DirecWAY or whatever the hell they call themselves now, which has ludicrous lag times and costs way too much; dial-up, which is of course ludicrously slow; or a dedicated T1, which would cost more than my mortgage. This is why I've always been interested in wireless peer-to-peer neighborhood-area-networks, built and administered by the people. But even assuming I could afford to get started with that, I doubt there are any other techies in range of my house who would also be interested in participating.
The only thing we have going for us is that we know a high-level techie at Comcast who can often give us discounts on the service.
Anybody who thinks that the current broadband geopolies represent a level free-market playing field needs to get their head examined. Most people have, at the most, two choices; I have exactly one.
I bought the .net domain of the person's name
This is actually a bit disturbing. I'm not lawyer, but as far as I can tell ICANN rules generally state that if somebody owns your name as a domain name, and uses it to post defamatory information about you, you can have the domain name turned over to you -- similar to the way trademark holders get domain names handed over to them. The problem? It costs $1500 to file a claim with the WIPO, a pittance for a business, but crippling for an individual. And forget about suing for libel or defamation, unless you're damned sure you can include court costs and attorneys' fees in the ruling.
This appears to make it trivially easy for anybody out there to buy a person's name as a domain, put an Internet smear-job out there, and just wait for Google to index it. Then again, maybe if everybody starts doing this all the time, the Web will be full of it and nobody will take any of it seriously.
I had been considering switching from Comcast to AT&T as soon as DSL became available at my house... so much for that idea.
Encryption forever!
Your comment was hilarious. However, NetHack.
Sounds right to me. Pay for the work, not the product. The product can be copied indefinitely, which increases supply to infinity (and thus reduces its intrinsic value to zero). So what can be done? Shift the supply side of supply-and-demand to something that isn't available in infinite quantities. The artist can only work a finite amount, which results in a limited supply.
I'm an embedded software developer, and I've heard friends say, "Well, how would you like it if somebody took a program you wrote and copied it a bunch for free?" And I respond, "I'd love it, because that's the mark of a very successful project!" Our clients pay us for the effort and expertise put into the product design and development, not the final product.
I won't pretend to know the details of how one would create a sustainable business model based solely off of paying for the artist's time instead of for arbitrary copies of a product. After all, each of our projects has a single client paying a lot of money, rather than a lot of customers each paying a little money -- the logistics are different. I just know that the former business model simply doesn't work unless propped up by arbitrary legal fictions.
I'm amazed the Domino only has eight bits available as a "key" to identify the object. 256 possible object types? That seems ludicrously limiting to me. Why wouldn't they develop a sixteen, or even thirty-two, bit key to promote expandability? Heck, make it thirty-two bits, with the first eight bits signifying "category", the next sixteen signifying "description", and the last eight signifying "subclass". Then you could have a set of chess pieces in the category "Game Pieces", the description "Chess Pieces", and the subclasses "Black Pawn", "White Rook", et cetera. Have these IDs standardized across the industry, and now you have an interface capable of identifying a ton of different objects "at a glance".
Considering that, given our prison system, he'll probably be paroled in four or five years, I'd say no.
First of all, you need to remember that they're balancing technology with cost. A 30-inch diagonal TFT LCD coupled with a new multi-touch sensitive system is almost certainly going to be more expensive than back-projection and infrared cameras.
Second, as far as I've seen from Han's page, other multi-touch systems like FTIR don't seem to be able to distinguish between different kinds of objects -- for example, he notes that it can't distinguish between a thumb and forefinger right now. This is something the infrared cameras can do with some simple image processing.
Those are my guesses, anyway.
True, but the "fluff" is exactly the point. There are always two parts to a successful project: implementation and presentation. Geeks are going to flip out over the implementation, but if it is going to be presented to the general public, it has to be in a slick package, and it has to have the bells and whistles -- the "fluff" -- that make people go "oooooohhhh". Consider the iPod, which was absolutely nothing new (as witnessed by CmdrTaco's infamous offhand comment). But Apple took an existing technology and wrapped it in a shiny case and interface, and sales exploded.
It is those little stupid things, like the soft glowing ring around a drink set on the table, or the little ripple effect when a finger hits it, or the way the pictures "explode" out of the camera when it is set down, that will make Joe Six-Pack sit up and pull out his wallet.
And honestly, you think having the Surface interact with devices set on it is "fluff"? As I said above, the little graphical flourishes that happen are definitely fluff, but the concept of merely having to set a device down on the table for them to communicate is utterly simple and intuitive. I'd say that's a huge point in Surface's favor.
Yeah, it's almost as bad as if millions of government spy cameras were watching every single thing we do in public. Man, I can't imagine a country doing that!
I don't think a linear search through the namespace is a good idea, since you're talking about literally trillions of possible domain names. Rather, it seems to me the plugin should examine the site once it is loaded for likely signs of it being a squatter site, and then inform the user. I've never written a Firefox plugin, but couldn't it do a WHOIS lookup and compare the info to known squatters?
"Upstream?" Surely you jest! In this Brave New Internet the corporations and government are creating, you can't expect the users -- erm, I mean viewers -- will be allowed to post anything! You need just enough upstream bandwidth to put up text, photos, and the occasional very-low-resolution video. Can't have you competing with real content providers, now.
No, don't you see? They're clarifying that the President is above the law.
See? Quite simple.
Hail Caesar.
digital rights management technology
Ooooh, so close to not being crap!
So, are they going to point out all of the scam/spam/malware pages in their "Sponsored Links"? Hell, even searching for "Google Earth" turns up five pages purporting to be the download location, pages which no doubt either make their money from ads, or encase the download in absolute spyware hell.
The music industry went digital without an effective DRM system in place
Your flaw of logic here is assuming there is such a thing as an "effective DRM system". Perhaps there is through fascist intimidation and threats against the general public. But from a technical standpoint, DRM can and will always be broken, and somebody will develop a method that makes it simple and convenient for the end user.
...and that should've been "bestiality". Oops. Slashdot, get off your butts and add comment editing abilities, please.
...I would think they would be tracking down all the furries and arresting them for "virtual beastiality".
But then Linden Labs would lose 90 percent of their revenue...
Happy birthday, Unknown device! Our newborn is almost six weeks old, and I'm starting to ponder toddler-proofing our own place, which will be a monumental task given all the electronic stuff (and power strips everywhere) my wife and I have around the house. The entertainment center will have to be completely replaced, as it has no doors and an open back (meaning, of course, complete disaster waiting to happen). I can't even think about the computers yet; that'll be a fun one.
Even more reason to clean up the MythTV code to make it more user-friendly, idiot-proof, bug-free, and aesthetically pleasing. I would absolutely love to build a fully operational MythTV box, but every time I've tried I've run into some esoteric problem setting up the program guide, or the remote, or just a random, unexplained crash during installation. I'm no tech newbie, and each time I've been able to poke around and fix the issue, but the point is that I shouldn't have to.
Unless some major work is done to improve user friendliness and ease of installation, MythTV will forever be a tech-geek bit of software relegated to nerds with too much time on their hands while other folks choose SageTV, BeyondTV, MediaPortal, or (god help us) Windows Media Center. I love esoteric tweaking and prodding as much as the next computer geek, but it has to Just Work to ever take off in the eyes of the public.
Until they disable fast-forwarding on the DVR.
And mark my words, they will. Unless you own the DVR yourself, and have full control over what it does, the cable- and satellite-provided units will eventually disable fast-forwarding through ads, will choose what you are allowed to record, and limit how long you keep it.
Actually, yes.
I'd be awfully interested to see AT&T start up their own militia, and then claim that it is their right under the Second Amendment. In fact, I'd love to see someone try something like that, so we could get this ridiculous concept of corporations collectively having the same rights as individuals blown to the hell it came from.
Touché.
But eventually your batteries won't take a charge any more, and then you'll be limited to playing games that you can save every time a cloud passes by...
Given that you will find no AC outlets or battery chargers on a desert island, eventually you'll be playing "bang on coconuts with sticks."