That's not quite right. Heat dissipation varies exponentially with current. That means it's more efficient to transfer at high voltage and low current, which is why the biggest power lines have huge voltages. It's stepped down before it gets into your home, and the Europeans just don't step it down as far. So their extension cords are better, though we are safer.
Absolutely. BitTorrent is primarily intended for legal stuff. Yes, you can find illegal stuff, but it's actually even worse than HTTP for that, because not only do you know who's hosting it, you know who else is downloading it. Microsoft's lawyers, for example, know this. When the Windows code leaked a while ago, someone set up a torrent with linux-2.6.2 as a joke ("Kernel source here!"). A few days later, he and people who downloaded from him were C&D'ed. I remember reading a thread about this here, but the best link I could find now is this.
That's what pisses me off about governments today - if the issue isn't important enough that everybody and their dog has a strong belief, it's completely ignored. Sometimes it's worse than ignored - any polititian would be happy to sacrifice 50 Slashdoters' votes for enough money, because if he uses it to buy a TV ad about his stance on a more popular issue, he more than makes them back.
Here's a radical idea. Currently, we elect leaders by area - each district gets so many leaders, who make the rules for everything, or perhaps join committees of their choice. That sucks. We need to elect leaders by category - civil rights, law-enforcement, foreign policy, computer laws, copyright laws, space exploration, etc. Everybody would be able to vote for each category if they cared to, and the top n people would be chosen. This way, it wouldn't matter if the person you think has a good angle on copyright law has bad ideas about foreign policy - you'd still vote for him, confident he wouldn't be making any bad foreign-policy decisions.
Unfortunately, I don't see this happening in our lifetimes. Most governments are too big and established for such a large change. It could happen slowly, though, for example a government making such an elected committee and defering to them on that issue.
As I understand it, they aren't suing leeches because of the technical and legal difficulties of finding them. (It's easy to find BitTorrent downloaders, but for all other networks, the uploader is the only one who has the downloaders IP address.) Instead, they're suing people who share files. They just download them and note the IPs they got them from. Technically, that's simple (except for anonymous networks like Freenet), and legally, they own the rights and they aren't likely to sue themselves.
As expected, there are no Linux drivers, and it will probably be a while before they can be made. In the meantime, pcHDTV makes a similar card with open source Linux drivers. Unfortunately, that card has no Windows drivers and can only receive broadcast signals.
You just reminded me of this message, stenciled on the block that mounts the space shuttles to their 747 transports: "PLACE ORBITER HERE... BLACK SIDE DOWN"
If, God forbid, he dies, I don't really think the government would shut down the whole X-prize business, even just in America. Basically, it's not their jurisdiction as long as it's not a threat to public safety. Scaled Composites would be set back, sure, and it would give everybody pause, but they would likely continue. NASA stopping the Space Shuttles was different - they had a definite problem they had to fix, all their eggs were in one basket design-wise, and on top of that, they had an organization-wide safety audit and Congresspeople breathing down their necks. The X-prize teams, in contrast, have more diversity, less bureaucracy, and more brass.
I wonder how much it would cost for someone to make a modem-to-ethernet dongle - something that does what my DSL router does, only using modem technology in addition to DSL. Since it's the same jack, all it needs is an extra DAC and minor software additions, right?
One motivation not to spend money on a real modem is that you're getting DSL "real soon now." But with this, you'd already have a DSL router, and even then, it would cost about the same as a good Hayes modem. And of course you could share a connection with it.
You're advocating a legal solution to a technical problem. CDs and the Internet can't magically install software, they need something to install them. The blame is shared with Microsoft's insecure Autorun, IE and OE, Microsoft's customers for not caring, and you for not disabling Autorun, for being Administrator, and for not using a different browser or OS.
One could almost make the case that when you pop in a CD, you accept that software may run. It said so on the CD case. You know that when you put in a CD and don't hold Shift, software from that CD runs. So why did you put in a CD made by someone who you know wants to cripple your computer? (Guess you won't make that mistake again.) This doesn't hold for browser bugs, however, when the browser is not acting as you intended.
I'm not saying this stuff should be legal, and it's probably not already (not that anyone could sue them and win, but that's a function of money.) On the other hand, if the record companies go this far and stop, I'd be happy. But they won't stop, of course, so I'm hoping for a consumer backlash, though outside Slashdot it's been pretty wimpy.
One thing to consider before getting an internal PCI tuner is the form factor. I had a bad experience, though I'm not sure if it was the card or my case at fault. The RF jack was too near the top of the card, so it was impossible to put it in before assaulting my case with a pair of tinsnips. So there's something to be said for an external tuner - though the drivers may not be as mature.
To stop digital copying crimes, we must outlaw digital copying.
Digital copying machines, computers, the Internet, and flexible software are one and the same, completely inseperable. If computers couldn't make digital copies, they would be expensive paperweights. If the Internet couldn't make digital copies, would be completely useless. If people couldn't change software, the entire multi-billion-dollar international computer industry would collapse overnight. Food for thought.
We all just seem to assume that if you offered your property for $1/track, that piracy would vanish. Well, they took us up on that challenge, and piracy hasn't vanished.
Actually, I assume that if they offered their music for $1/track with abso-fucking-lutely no DRM then piracy would be drastically reduced. They haven't done that yet.
On the other hand, it's important to distinguish between a language and an API. Everybody and their dog implements C, for example, but that, in and of itself, doesn't help Microsoft's competitors be any more compatible with it.
I don't think MS will attack Mono, but I base that on their not having attacked Mono, WINE, or anything similar in that way yet. It gets harder to kill Mono with each passing day, so if Microsoft wanted them gone they'd be gone by now. Mono's safety doesn't lie in mostly-open standards, it lies in numbers.
But then you don't get the cross-platform goodness of having only one binary to distribute. (Although most Java apps I've seen don't have that much anyway.)
Well, I must say I thought it would be easier. The quick, but un-user-friendly way is to go to about:config and set network.http.sendRefererHeader to 0. There's also the refspoof extension which should work. And if you use the TabBrowser extension, there's a menu (the context menu, or Tab...Tab Features) to block referer.
What I would give out freely is my GPS coordinate, to single degree precision, which is sufficient to place me within a mild climate of the Pacific Northwest: bring on the ads for lattes, gortex jackets, and hiking boots.
But you probably already do - your IP address gives a good estimate. For example, this got me to within 1 degree. And I've seen banner ads inviting me to... associate... with women from, coincidentally enough, my city. Granted, this isn't free for the advertiser, but it's certainly less intrusive, and requiring a login isn't free either.
It's amazing how finicky mother-in-laws (or in my case, dads) can be. When you install Firefox, it imports your IE bookmarks, but it alphabetizes them. And this is enough for my dad not to like it. Some people just search for excuses to avoid change. (Yes, I know I should be filing a bug instead of complaining here.)
The redshift of light is the further light travels, the longer the wavelength gets, so light "shifts" to the red part of the spectrum
No, red shift is only indirectly related to distance from source. What matters is the velocity of the source when the light left relative to our velocity now. Red shift occurs when the source was moving away from us. It's similar to the zeeeouuuu sound cars make when they drive past you - when they are going away, they sound lower pitched.
Given this, and the observation that more distant objects tend to be more red-shifted (to which you refer), we conclude that "the universe is expanding."
Pioneer 10's final signal (after two previous failures) was received on January 22, 2003. As of February 25, 2003, NASA came to the conclusion that the craft's radioisotope power source was no longer functioning well enough for further contact with Earth.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not quite right. Heat dissipation varies exponentially with current. That means it's more efficient to transfer at high voltage and low current, which is why the biggest power lines have huge voltages. It's stepped down before it gets into your home, and the Europeans just don't step it down as far. So their extension cords are better, though we are safer.
Actually, our favorite search engine can do it for us.
Absolutely. BitTorrent is primarily intended for legal stuff. Yes, you can find illegal stuff, but it's actually even worse than HTTP for that, because not only do you know who's hosting it, you know who else is downloading it. Microsoft's lawyers, for example, know this. When the Windows code leaked a while ago, someone set up a torrent with linux-2.6.2 as a joke ("Kernel source here!"). A few days later, he and people who downloaded from him were C&D'ed. I remember reading a thread about this here, but the best link I could find now is this.
Here's a radical idea. Currently, we elect leaders by area - each district gets so many leaders, who make the rules for everything, or perhaps join committees of their choice. That sucks. We need to elect leaders by category - civil rights, law-enforcement, foreign policy, computer laws, copyright laws, space exploration, etc. Everybody would be able to vote for each category if they cared to, and the top n people would be chosen. This way, it wouldn't matter if the person you think has a good angle on copyright law has bad ideas about foreign policy - you'd still vote for him, confident he wouldn't be making any bad foreign-policy decisions.
Unfortunately, I don't see this happening in our lifetimes. Most governments are too big and established for such a large change. It could happen slowly, though, for example a government making such an elected committee and defering to them on that issue.
As I understand it, they aren't suing leeches because of the technical and legal difficulties of finding them. (It's easy to find BitTorrent downloaders, but for all other networks, the uploader is the only one who has the downloaders IP address.) Instead, they're suing people who share files. They just download them and note the IPs they got them from. Technically, that's simple (except for anonymous networks like Freenet), and legally, they own the rights and they aren't likely to sue themselves.
As expected, there are no Linux drivers, and it will probably be a while before they can be made. In the meantime, pcHDTV makes a similar card with open source Linux drivers. Unfortunately, that card has no Windows drivers and can only receive broadcast signals.
You just reminded me of this message, stenciled on the block that mounts the space shuttles to their 747 transports: "PLACE ORBITER HERE... BLACK SIDE DOWN"
If, God forbid, he dies, I don't really think the government would shut down the whole X-prize business, even just in America. Basically, it's not their jurisdiction as long as it's not a threat to public safety. Scaled Composites would be set back, sure, and it would give everybody pause, but they would likely continue. NASA stopping the Space Shuttles was different - they had a definite problem they had to fix, all their eggs were in one basket design-wise, and on top of that, they had an organization-wide safety audit and Congresspeople breathing down their necks. The X-prize teams, in contrast, have more diversity, less bureaucracy, and more brass.
One motivation not to spend money on a real modem is that you're getting DSL "real soon now." But with this, you'd already have a DSL router, and even then, it would cost about the same as a good Hayes modem. And of course you could share a connection with it.
One could almost make the case that when you pop in a CD, you accept that software may run. It said so on the CD case. You know that when you put in a CD and don't hold Shift, software from that CD runs. So why did you put in a CD made by someone who you know wants to cripple your computer? (Guess you won't make that mistake again.) This doesn't hold for browser bugs, however, when the browser is not acting as you intended.
I'm not saying this stuff should be legal, and it's probably not already (not that anyone could sue them and win, but that's a function of money.) On the other hand, if the record companies go this far and stop, I'd be happy. But they won't stop, of course, so I'm hoping for a consumer backlash, though outside Slashdot it's been pretty wimpy.
One thing to consider before getting an internal PCI tuner is the form factor. I had a bad experience, though I'm not sure if it was the card or my case at fault. The RF jack was too near the top of the card, so it was impossible to put it in before assaulting my case with a pair of tinsnips. So there's something to be said for an external tuner - though the drivers may not be as mature.
Digital copying machines, computers, the Internet, and flexible software are one and the same, completely inseperable. If computers couldn't make digital copies, they would be expensive paperweights. If the Internet couldn't make digital copies, would be completely useless. If people couldn't change software, the entire multi-billion-dollar international computer industry would collapse overnight. Food for thought.
Actually, I assume that if they offered their music for $1/track with abso-fucking-lutely no DRM then piracy would be drastically reduced. They haven't done that yet.
Actually, dialog boxes oughtn't be fixed size either.
I don't think MS will attack Mono, but I base that on their not having attacked Mono, WINE, or anything similar in that way yet. It gets harder to kill Mono with each passing day, so if Microsoft wanted them gone they'd be gone by now. Mono's safety doesn't lie in mostly-open standards, it lies in numbers.
But then you don't get the cross-platform goodness of having only one binary to distribute. (Although most Java apps I've seen don't have that much anyway.)
Well, I must say I thought it would be easier. The quick, but un-user-friendly way is to go to about:config and set network.http.sendRefererHeader to 0. There's also the refspoof extension which should work. And if you use the TabBrowser extension, there's a menu (the context menu, or Tab...Tab Features) to block referer.
Mozilla, Firefox, Konqueror, Safari, Opera... pretty much anything but IE.
But you probably already do - your IP address gives a good estimate. For example, this got me to within 1 degree. And I've seen banner ads inviting me to... associate... with women from, coincidentally enough, my city. Granted, this isn't free for the advertiser, but it's certainly less intrusive, and requiring a login isn't free either.
It's amazing how finicky mother-in-laws (or in my case, dads) can be. When you install Firefox, it imports your IE bookmarks, but it alphabetizes them. And this is enough for my dad not to like it. Some people just search for excuses to avoid change. (Yes, I know I should be filing a bug instead of complaining here.)
No, red shift is only indirectly related to distance from source. What matters is the velocity of the source when the light left relative to our velocity now. Red shift occurs when the source was moving away from us. It's similar to the zeeeouuuu sound cars make when they drive past you - when they are going away, they sound lower pitched.
Given this, and the observation that more distant objects tend to be more red-shifted (to which you refer), we conclude that "the universe is expanding."
Not to mention, the database code has some easter eggs. Just try to write an unpopular song with three commas in the name, and you'll see what I mean.
How much do you think performance will improve on less register-starved architectures like AMD64, with and without JIT optimizations?
Mount your home directory from a file server somewhere. It's that simple.