No it isn't! On/., home of the nerds, we should know that a terabyte is 1024 GB or 2 to the power 40 bytes.
Except of course we're talking about HDD's and not real space. Like it or not the term KB, MB and GB when used in conjunction with HDD specs refers to 10^3, 10^6 and 10^9 respectively. A terrabyte hard drive would mean 10^12 unfortunately, or a thousand of what they call a 'Gigabyte' even if it is just 931 real Gigabytes.
. . . is showing there is a fate worse than M$
If only BBC News would follow the MLB's lead and drop Real too now, or at least offer a choice, it is so annoying having to install such a dirty player because it is the only option.
Good start, but it doesn't go far enough. Part of the law for Can-Spam they're being prosecuted under is the absence of addresses to get off a mailing list - but who is seriously going to click on a link if they are there? How do we trust them?
This won't stop until spammers start getting locked up for years and people stop buying off them.
"Dictatorial Republic"
Actually this would make sense. A republic is simply a state without a monarch for head of state. A military dictatorship could for instance be called a dictatorial republic.
There shouldn't be a problem with mobiles
on
Cell-Phone Wars
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
For most people on mobile phones (cell phones) they're used properly, no shouting and no louder than if you're talking with someone who's next to you. I use my mobile regularly and always try to make sure I'm not being disruptive, not in the wrong places (eg libraries) and no shouting. Just because a few people abuse them, does not mean most people do.
Someone carrying a jammer is being deliberately and obnoxiously selfish. They're worse than the ignorant fools who talk to loudly.
Even if I do write a song "from scratch" as they say, how can I make sure that I'm not subconsciously sampling somebody else's work? Under current precedent, even subconscious copying is actionable infringement.
This is a much more serious issue and I'd agree with you on this.
If the sunset provisions of the Copyright Act of 1790, which provided a maximum 28-year term, were still in effect, there would be no case because copyright the samples in question would have expired. What do you consider a fair copyright term?
28 years is too short. It should for 'the arts' be at least the life of the artists(including spouses), possibly longer. The longer of 70 years or the life of the artists is fair I think. Longer for books and shorter for science, 20-30 years I'd put for that (I think its 20 years for medicines atm).
Do you feel EMI deserves the right to deny all derivative use of its artists' samples at any price short of a hostile takeover?
Personally? Yes I do. If you want to create your own music then do so, you don't need to use EMI's. The author (or their agents) of any art should have absolute rights (with a sunset) IMO. You can do the same genre, the same style, there's no need to sample their actual work though. Legally? No, that might not be legally allowed. However since EMI don't do that, its not an issue.
I could argue that 'the progression of art' doesn't need to include samples at all. If one artist creates a new genre, they don't own that genre, progressed works are new works within that genre. I can't think of much art in 1776 which worked by simply mixing samples of others works. Progressing art was art based on anothers art, not art which is anothers.
EMI should have a right to decide on sampling rights as it is their artists work which is being sampled. As I said already, other artists regularly pay for the rights to sample existing works in new works. The new works include some of the old works and as such the rights of the existing IP-owners should be maintained.
Jay-Z may have made the decision to let others use his works - that's his decision to make. But by including other artists, they should be able to make their own decisions. If DJDM wanted to make his own work based on Jay-Z's then he should, but the fact is that he included another persons work in his own, and they should get the credit for it.
Would it be right for someone to take Linux source code, add to it and call it their own? To not obey the GPL? No it would not! Each IP-owner, whether from EMI to Torvalds should have the right to have a say on what happens to derivative works of theirs.
If you want pure art instead of products, then sample other peoples arts. Other peoples products are theirs. Not even GPL lets you do whatever you want, even GPL has restrictions to it and rightly so.
Why should EMI have to speak to DJDM? Why didn't he speak to them? He started this off by creating this and publishing it, he didn't speak to them before he published it, he simply published it. Its upto him to seek out sampling permission, plenty of people do it every year (inc. as I said this weeks #1 in the UK charts). Its not impossible to get sampling permission, he could have arranged it if he wanted to, before publishing. Instead he went behind them and did it anyway. He broke the rules, and he should have known that. Its not upto EMI to then grovel to arrange licencing AFTER its already published!
This is not stifling creativity. If DJ Danger Mouse wants to create his own music he's perfectly entitled too. However if he does not have the permission of EMI to use the Beatles music in this manner then that's not allowed to, and reasonably so.
Musicians get a lot of money when even a small amount of their music gets sampled, this weeks number one in the UK samples U2, and the U2 artists are getting royalties for it. People pay to sample other artists and sell it on in their remixes, if this has not been done completely in this case then its unfair use and EMI are perfectly entitled to step in.
PS no doubt this'll be modded flamebait by someone who mods on opinions not content.
One of the good things with this sort of trade is that it builds up internal knowledge within India, helping it develop towards the living standards we have in the 'west'. My question is, are nearly all new IT jobs which are being created within India 'offshoring' jobs where their product is being sent to the west, or is India yet experiencing an internal boom? Are self-reliant jobs being created yet within the domestic Indian economy?
New meaning for 'crashes'?
on
Hack Your Car
·
· Score: 1
Much as I may despise Microsoft for their buggy codes, the worst that can happen on my PC is loving information. If the computer 'crashes' I can typically just reset it, for serious break-downs I just need to reinstall the software. "Format C:" solves nearly all M$ errors.
If you mess around with cars it is infinitely more seriously. A car crash is no laughing matter, neither are serious breakdowns. Kill someone and rebooting is not an option.
I might go even further and suggest it should not be legal to do this. At least in the UK, all cars must undergo an annual 'MOT' to determine if they're roadworthy every year, it is illegal to drive a car on public roads that mechanics have not OK'ed. When you drive you put other people's lives at risk, so this is a valid requirement. If people are able to mess around with the code on their machines, then not only can they screw it up, but there is no way for mechanics to tell that things are working fine.
When these development teams are moved to India and their sizes are increased, delays in release will be the exception, not the status quo.
Why was this marked as Flamebait? Its a very good argument, if games companies are going to be increasing their levels of staff due to the availability of cheap staff overseas, instead of relying on the least investment possible, then quite probably there will be more punctuality. While its expensive to hire the staff to get a good project done on time now, when outsourced that becomes a lot less of a problem and the costs discussed in this article can make it much more advantageous to hire the necessary staff which is not occuring now.
While I definitely wouldn't call them cheap, I don't recall seeing that many Japanese developers which are so seriously afflicted by these persistent failures to deliver good quality software on time.
If games are released on time, but buggy, then they get flamed and attacked. If they delay to perfect the bugs, then they get flamed and attacked. Either way there is a problem, and I know which way I'd prefer they go. I have no problem waiting for a good release over getting a buggy one and waiting for the patches to dribble out.
Having said that though, there are very few games I've waited for which have come out on time lately. So the companies should definitely learn. I for one have stopped paying attention to the calendar, if its not believable then its not worth having.
Abolish the release dates until closer to when you have a more finalised estimate available. Or be more conservative with the estimate, rather than hopeful. As a rule of thumb I add a quarter to the calendar when dates are announced, it would be a good idea if they insist on announcing dates early if they did this themselves. Failing to meet an over-optimistic release date, even if for good reasons which it typically is, makes the company look foolish and less reliable.
That's why I said a "genuine cost-benefit analysis". You're right it may not still be worthwhile, however typically (I believe) it will be. Do a thorough analysis (including training costs I said and emphasised!) and you will find out the truth. The key point however is to be completely honest, it is not worthwhile unless you do include the costs of training etc
No businessman ever trusts something that is argued to be "free". The saying "you get what you pay for" rings true with most management teams, and anything "free" is directly indicative of being poor quality. Cheap is a euphemism for bad quality normally. And switching to Open Source is not free, indeed it is often not even cheap. The costs are real, but so too are the advantages.
I don't know about your IT department, but for many more than half the price of a PC is Windows and Office licences. Stopping those is a dramatic cost-saving.
Your company will almost certainly want continuing support for its systems, this will have to be budgetted for. Don't forget training costs, your workers will need to be retrained to learn how to use the new systems and this costs money. There are more costs but you get the point.
Do a genuine cost-benefit analysis, work out all this, especially support and training costs, and it will still be dramatically profitable to switch to Open Source. However a fully polished, professional and complete cost-benefit analysis will provide very useful and significant information to management, in a form they can understand and trust.
MS applied for the patent in 2000, its now 2004. Two years ago is after they applied for the patent, therefore that can not be prior art.
Prior art can only be something before the patent was applied for, not before it was granted.
Re:"prepare-for-disappointment department"?
on
The Simpsons Movie
·
· Score: 1
Good point. However that is just one problem and not what I believe is the main problem, especially with cartoon -> movie conversions in which the time constraints are dramatically changed. What works for a half-hour episode may not for 90+ minutes.
'Value for money' while a valid concern is secondary to time changes. If you don't want to see the film at the cinema you don't have to, no doubt it will be shown on TV one day, however people do not just watch The Simpsons because it was free. Simpsons merchandise has been on sale almost all along and sales of videos/DVD's of episodes are very popular. People are willing to pay for episodes and these same people (and more) may be willing to pay for the film. Whether or not the film is any good in the different time is the much more difficult (and I think more important) question to answer. South Park, M*A*S*H and as others have mentioned B&B demonstrate that it is indeed possible for the jump to be made.
Re:"prepare-for-disappointment department"?
on
The Simpsons Movie
·
· Score: 5, Informative
On MASH - are you refering to the final episodes as a movie, or to the in-theaters movie? If the latter, it was released before the TV series, and was the inspiration, not the other way around.
The final episode of M*A*S*H was movie-length. It wasn't shown in the cinema's, but it was done as a movie. Incredibly emotional and tops any episode.
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_A_S_H_(television)
The final episode was titled "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" and was first broadcasted on February 28, 1983. The episode was 2.5 hours long and was viewed by over 125 million Americans (77% of viewship that night) which made "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" the most watched television episode in history up to that time.
"prepare-for-disappointment department"?
on
The Simpsons Movie
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
D'oh!
Seriously though: Its easy to expect disappointment, it is notoriously difficult to switch from half-hour episodes to a full 90-minute movie. If the movie is just an extended cartoon then it would be a disappointment, it wouldn't work. This is why most movie attempts fail.
However there are some examples of very good quality movies from TV series' and if done well then these can be "excellent". I think few would dispute that South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut did the series justice, it took many jokes already in the series and resulted in a very good movie. Another classic example is M*A*S*H - This is I believe the only prime-time comedy which ran longer than The Simpsons has, however the movie-length finale was very memorable. A good series which closed with an even better film.
If they just try to do a long episode then the movie will fail. If they try to get a proper movie, set in Springfield, then they have every chance to pull off a masterpiece.
Flourescent and LED lights do generate heat, just not to the same order of magnitude as incadescent lights. Its significantly less, which I specifically mentioned in the post! However there is still some heat generated.
If you place a lot of LED lights together though then they can generate enough heat as to become significant.
Not exactly, no. Ever put your hand on a lamp after a few hours? Lights are not exactly cool. Optics uses very small lights so isn't going to generate much heat, but it will still develop some, and there will as always come a point where that will be a serious concern.
Done well, optical technology may be cooler than existing technologies, however we will still need to worry about overheating the equipment. Like most technologies, this could help push back the limits, not abolish them.
The Pornography Industry vs. Digital Pirates
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: February 8, 2004
HOUSANDS of Web sites are putting Playboy magazine's pictures on the Internet - free. And Randy Nicolau, the president of Playboy.com, is loving it. "It's direct marketing at its finest," he said.
Let the music industry sue those who share files, and let Hollywood push for tough laws and regulations to curb movie copying. Playboy, like many companies that provide access to virtual flesh and naughtiness, is turning online freeloaders into subscribers by giving away pictures to other sites that, in turn, drive visitors right back to Playboy.com.
When Mr. Nicolau is asked whether he thinks that the entertainment industry is making a mistake by taking a different approach, he replies: "I haven't spent much time thinking about it. It's like asking Henry Ford, 'What were the buggy-whip guys doing wrong?' ''
The copyright rumble is playing out a little differently in the red-light districts of cyberspace. That neighborhood is increasingly difficult to confine, what with a fetishwear-clad Janet Jackson flashing a Super Bowl audience of millions, and Paris Hilton making her own version of a "Girls Gone Wild" video. Professional peddlers say they are hard pressed to compete.
Still, the business of being bad is very good, especially for the biggest players. Though the industry has felt a financial squeeze during the economic slowdown, it nonetheless has sales of as much as $2 billion each year, said Tom Hymes, the editor of AVNOnline, a business magazine for the industry.
And the pornography industry, which has always been among the first to exploit new technologies, including the VCR, the World Wide Web and online payment systems, is finding novel ways to deal with the threat of online piracy as well. The mainstream entertainment industry, some experts say, would do well to pay attention.
Music executives say their campaign of lawsuits has been successful. They say they have spread the word that downloading free music infringes on copyrights and that there could be consequences for large-scale file sharers.
But the pornography industry has been dealing with Internet copyright issues since the 1980's. By comparison, the movie and music businesses are relative newcomers. Mr. Hymes said companies in his industry had come to realize that suing consumers and promoting "draconian laws" were not the answer. "No law written can stem the tide," he said. And so, he said, companies are seeking ways to live with the technologies that threaten them and are trying to turn them to their advantage.
That is not to say that the companies have not been harmed by free copying and distribution of copyrighted material online. Mr. Hymes's magazine warned recently that such companies were "losing incalculable amounts of cash" to peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Kazaa, LimeWire, Grokster and Bit Torrent.
"As the networks continue to grow and even more sophisticated programs are created, the P2P networks might prove a bigger threat to the revenue stream of the porn world than all the censorious right-wingers in the country put together," the article stated.
Maybe. But many companies that distribute X-rated material say they do not worry too much about consumers sharing among themselves; they often unleash their lawyers only when someone is trying to profit by copying their goods and trying to sell them.
When people in the industry talk of copyright, there is none of the grand speechifying about revering artists and rewarding creativity, and the near-tearful paeans to the yeoman key grips and stunt men, as is favored by movie and record executives. Instead, there is just this: We spent a lot of money to get this stuff out to the market. Somebody else is making money off of it. We want the money.
"We haven't gone after Joe Citizen who's sharing something he printed off something from the Hustler Web site with another guy," said Paul Cambria, a lawyer wh
Actually since the shuttles are being grounded for good, that ought not be that much of a concern. The current plans are for shuttle to supposedly be replaced by 2012 (if it ever gets started), and to pretty much not use shuttle until then.
If shuttle is not going to be used again, then losing it is not too much of a risk, unless they want to save them all for museums. Losing the astronaughts is the real risk and they should make that decision.
The astronaughts on board Columbia and all the other NASA astronaughts who're being kept grounded now understand that going into space is risky. They're interested in what they do, they've chosen to take the risks and they're interested in the science.
If the adminstration were to let the astronaughts decide whether to go up to fix Hubble when required, I doubt they would have a shortage of them volunteering to do that. The last thing the late astronaughts aboard Columbia would have wanted was to see their deaths result in the grounding of the space program and the premature death of Hubble.
Slashdot Mirror
No it isn't! On /., home of the nerds, we should know that a terabyte is 1024 GB or 2 to the power 40 bytes.
Except of course we're talking about HDD's and not real space. Like it or not the term KB, MB and GB when used in conjunction with HDD specs refers to 10^3, 10^6 and 10^9 respectively. A terrabyte hard drive would mean 10^12 unfortunately, or a thousand of what they call a 'Gigabyte' even if it is just 931 real Gigabytes.
. . . is showing there is a fate worse than M$ If only BBC News would follow the MLB's lead and drop Real too now, or at least offer a choice, it is so annoying having to install such a dirty player because it is the only option.
Good start, but it doesn't go far enough. Part of the law for Can-Spam they're being prosecuted under is the absence of addresses to get off a mailing list - but who is seriously going to click on a link if they are there? How do we trust them?
This won't stop until spammers start getting locked up for years and people stop buying off them.
"Dictatorial Republic" Actually this would make sense. A republic is simply a state without a monarch for head of state. A military dictatorship could for instance be called a dictatorial republic.
For most people on mobile phones (cell phones) they're used properly, no shouting and no louder than if you're talking with someone who's next to you. I use my mobile regularly and always try to make sure I'm not being disruptive, not in the wrong places (eg libraries) and no shouting. Just because a few people abuse them, does not mean most people do.
Someone carrying a jammer is being deliberately and obnoxiously selfish. They're worse than the ignorant fools who talk to loudly.
Even if I do write a song "from scratch" as they say, how can I make sure that I'm not subconsciously sampling somebody else's work? Under current precedent, even subconscious copying is actionable infringement.
This is a much more serious issue and I'd agree with you on this.
If the sunset provisions of the Copyright Act of 1790, which provided a maximum 28-year term, were still in effect, there would be no case because copyright the samples in question would have expired. What do you consider a fair copyright term?
28 years is too short. It should for 'the arts' be at least the life of the artists(including spouses), possibly longer. The longer of 70 years or the life of the artists is fair I think. Longer for books and shorter for science, 20-30 years I'd put for that (I think its 20 years for medicines atm).
Do you feel EMI deserves the right to deny all derivative use of its artists' samples at any price short of a hostile takeover?
Personally? Yes I do. If you want to create your own music then do so, you don't need to use EMI's. The author (or their agents) of any art should have absolute rights (with a sunset) IMO. You can do the same genre, the same style, there's no need to sample their actual work though.
Legally? No, that might not be legally allowed. However since EMI don't do that, its not an issue.
I could argue that 'the progression of art' doesn't need to include samples at all. If one artist creates a new genre, they don't own that genre, progressed works are new works within that genre. I can't think of much art in 1776 which worked by simply mixing samples of others works. Progressing art was art based on anothers art, not art which is anothers.
EMI should have a right to decide on sampling rights as it is their artists work which is being sampled. As I said already, other artists regularly pay for the rights to sample existing works in new works. The new works include some of the old works and as such the rights of the existing IP-owners should be maintained.
Jay-Z may have made the decision to let others use his works - that's his decision to make. But by including other artists, they should be able to make their own decisions. If DJDM wanted to make his own work based on Jay-Z's then he should, but the fact is that he included another persons work in his own, and they should get the credit for it.
Would it be right for someone to take Linux source code, add to it and call it their own? To not obey the GPL? No it would not! Each IP-owner, whether from EMI to Torvalds should have the right to have a say on what happens to derivative works of theirs.
If you want pure art instead of products, then sample other peoples arts. Other peoples products are theirs. Not even GPL lets you do whatever you want, even GPL has restrictions to it and rightly so.
Why should EMI have to speak to DJDM? Why didn't he speak to them? He started this off by creating this and publishing it, he didn't speak to them before he published it, he simply published it. Its upto him to seek out sampling permission, plenty of people do it every year (inc. as I said this weeks #1 in the UK charts). Its not impossible to get sampling permission, he could have arranged it if he wanted to, before publishing. Instead he went behind them and did it anyway. He broke the rules, and he should have known that. Its not upto EMI to then grovel to arrange licencing AFTER its already published!
This is not stifling creativity. If DJ Danger Mouse wants to create his own music he's perfectly entitled too. However if he does not have the permission of EMI to use the Beatles music in this manner then that's not allowed to, and reasonably so.
Musicians get a lot of money when even a small amount of their music gets sampled, this weeks number one in the UK samples U2, and the U2 artists are getting royalties for it. People pay to sample other artists and sell it on in their remixes, if this has not been done completely in this case then its unfair use and EMI are perfectly entitled to step in.
PS no doubt this'll be modded flamebait by someone who mods on opinions not content.
One of the good things with this sort of trade is that it builds up internal knowledge within India, helping it develop towards the living standards we have in the 'west'. My question is, are nearly all new IT jobs which are being created within India 'offshoring' jobs where their product is being sent to the west, or is India yet experiencing an internal boom? Are self-reliant jobs being created yet within the domestic Indian economy?
Much as I may despise Microsoft for their buggy codes, the worst that can happen on my PC is loving information. If the computer 'crashes' I can typically just reset it, for serious break-downs I just need to reinstall the software. "Format C:" solves nearly all M$ errors.
If you mess around with cars it is infinitely more seriously. A car crash is no laughing matter, neither are serious breakdowns. Kill someone and rebooting is not an option.
I might go even further and suggest it should not be legal to do this. At least in the UK, all cars must undergo an annual 'MOT' to determine if they're roadworthy every year, it is illegal to drive a car on public roads that mechanics have not OK'ed. When you drive you put other people's lives at risk, so this is a valid requirement. If people are able to mess around with the code on their machines, then not only can they screw it up, but there is no way for mechanics to tell that things are working fine.
When these development teams are moved to India and their sizes are increased, delays in release will be the exception, not the status quo.
Why was this marked as Flamebait? Its a very good argument, if games companies are going to be increasing their levels of staff due to the availability of cheap staff overseas, instead of relying on the least investment possible, then quite probably there will be more punctuality. While its expensive to hire the staff to get a good project done on time now, when outsourced that becomes a lot less of a problem and the costs discussed in this article can make it much more advantageous to hire the necessary staff which is not occuring now.
While I definitely wouldn't call them cheap, I don't recall seeing that many Japanese developers which are so seriously afflicted by these persistent failures to deliver good quality software on time.
If games are released on time, but buggy, then they get flamed and attacked. If they delay to perfect the bugs, then they get flamed and attacked. Either way there is a problem, and I know which way I'd prefer they go. I have no problem waiting for a good release over getting a buggy one and waiting for the patches to dribble out.
Having said that though, there are very few games I've waited for which have come out on time lately. So the companies should definitely learn. I for one have stopped paying attention to the calendar, if its not believable then its not worth having.
Abolish the release dates until closer to when you have a more finalised estimate available. Or be more conservative with the estimate, rather than hopeful. As a rule of thumb I add a quarter to the calendar when dates are announced, it would be a good idea if they insist on announcing dates early if they did this themselves. Failing to meet an over-optimistic release date, even if for good reasons which it typically is, makes the company look foolish and less reliable.
That's why I said a "genuine cost-benefit analysis". You're right it may not still be worthwhile, however typically (I believe) it will be. Do a thorough analysis (including training costs I said and emphasised!) and you will find out the truth. The key point however is to be completely honest, it is not worthwhile unless you do include the costs of training etc
No businessman ever trusts something that is argued to be "free". The saying "you get what you pay for" rings true with most management teams, and anything "free" is directly indicative of being poor quality. Cheap is a euphemism for bad quality normally. And switching to Open Source is not free, indeed it is often not even cheap. The costs are real, but so too are the advantages.
I don't know about your IT department, but for many more than half the price of a PC is Windows and Office licences. Stopping those is a dramatic cost-saving.
Your company will almost certainly want continuing support for its systems, this will have to be budgetted for. Don't forget training costs, your workers will need to be retrained to learn how to use the new systems and this costs money. There are more costs but you get the point.
Do a genuine cost-benefit analysis, work out all this, especially support and training costs, and it will still be dramatically profitable to switch to Open Source. However a fully polished, professional and complete cost-benefit analysis will provide very useful and significant information to management, in a form they can understand and trust.
ant has been doing this for over 2 years ...
MS applied for the patent in 2000, its now 2004. Two years ago is after they applied for the patent, therefore that can not be prior art.
Prior art can only be something before the patent was applied for, not before it was granted.
Good point. However that is just one problem and not what I believe is the main problem, especially with cartoon -> movie conversions in which the time constraints are dramatically changed. What works for a half-hour episode may not for 90+ minutes.
'Value for money' while a valid concern is secondary to time changes. If you don't want to see the film at the cinema you don't have to, no doubt it will be shown on TV one day, however people do not just watch The Simpsons because it was free. Simpsons merchandise has been on sale almost all along and sales of videos/DVD's of episodes are very popular. People are willing to pay for episodes and these same people (and more) may be willing to pay for the film. Whether or not the film is any good in the different time is the much more difficult (and I think more important) question to answer. South Park, M*A*S*H and as others have mentioned B&B demonstrate that it is indeed possible for the jump to be made.
On MASH - are you refering to the final episodes as a movie, or to the in-theaters movie? If the latter, it was released before the TV series, and was the inspiration, not the other way around.
The final episode of M*A*S*H was movie-length. It wasn't shown in the cinema's, but it was done as a movie. Incredibly emotional and tops any episode.
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_A_S_H_(television)
The final episode was titled "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" and was first broadcasted on February 28, 1983. The episode was 2.5 hours long and was viewed by over 125 million Americans (77% of viewship that night) which made "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen" the most watched television episode in history up to that time.
D'oh!
Seriously though: Its easy to expect disappointment, it is notoriously difficult to switch from half-hour episodes to a full 90-minute movie. If the movie is just an extended cartoon then it would be a disappointment, it wouldn't work. This is why most movie attempts fail.
However there are some examples of very good quality movies from TV series' and if done well then these can be "excellent". I think few would dispute that South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut did the series justice, it took many jokes already in the series and resulted in a very good movie. Another classic example is M*A*S*H - This is I believe the only prime-time comedy which ran longer than The Simpsons has, however the movie-length finale was very memorable. A good series which closed with an even better film.
If they just try to do a long episode then the movie will fail. If they try to get a proper movie, set in Springfield, then they have every chance to pull off a masterpiece.
Flourescent and LED lights do generate heat, just not to the same order of magnitude as incadescent lights. Its significantly less, which I specifically mentioned in the post! However there is still some heat generated. If you place a lot of LED lights together though then they can generate enough heat as to become significant.
Not exactly, no. Ever put your hand on a lamp after a few hours? Lights are not exactly cool. Optics uses very small lights so isn't going to generate much heat, but it will still develop some, and there will as always come a point where that will be a serious concern. Done well, optical technology may be cooler than existing technologies, however we will still need to worry about overheating the equipment. Like most technologies, this could help push back the limits, not abolish them.
The Pornography Industry vs. Digital Pirates By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: February 8, 2004
HOUSANDS of Web sites are putting Playboy magazine's pictures on the Internet - free. And Randy Nicolau, the president of Playboy.com, is loving it. "It's direct marketing at its finest," he said.
Let the music industry sue those who share files, and let Hollywood push for tough laws and regulations to curb movie copying. Playboy, like many companies that provide access to virtual flesh and naughtiness, is turning online freeloaders into subscribers by giving away pictures to other sites that, in turn, drive visitors right back to Playboy.com.
When Mr. Nicolau is asked whether he thinks that the entertainment industry is making a mistake by taking a different approach, he replies: "I haven't spent much time thinking about it. It's like asking Henry Ford, 'What were the buggy-whip guys doing wrong?' ''
The copyright rumble is playing out a little differently in the red-light districts of cyberspace. That neighborhood is increasingly difficult to confine, what with a fetishwear-clad Janet Jackson flashing a Super Bowl audience of millions, and Paris Hilton making her own version of a "Girls Gone Wild" video. Professional peddlers say they are hard pressed to compete.
Still, the business of being bad is very good, especially for the biggest players. Though the industry has felt a financial squeeze during the economic slowdown, it nonetheless has sales of as much as $2 billion each year, said Tom Hymes, the editor of AVNOnline, a business magazine for the industry.
And the pornography industry, which has always been among the first to exploit new technologies, including the VCR, the World Wide Web and online payment systems, is finding novel ways to deal with the threat of online piracy as well. The mainstream entertainment industry, some experts say, would do well to pay attention.
Music executives say their campaign of lawsuits has been successful. They say they have spread the word that downloading free music infringes on copyrights and that there could be consequences for large-scale file sharers.
But the pornography industry has been dealing with Internet copyright issues since the 1980's. By comparison, the movie and music businesses are relative newcomers. Mr. Hymes said companies in his industry had come to realize that suing consumers and promoting "draconian laws" were not the answer. "No law written can stem the tide," he said. And so, he said, companies are seeking ways to live with the technologies that threaten them and are trying to turn them to their advantage.
That is not to say that the companies have not been harmed by free copying and distribution of copyrighted material online. Mr. Hymes's magazine warned recently that such companies were "losing incalculable amounts of cash" to peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Kazaa, LimeWire, Grokster and Bit Torrent.
"As the networks continue to grow and even more sophisticated programs are created, the P2P networks might prove a bigger threat to the revenue stream of the porn world than all the censorious right-wingers in the country put together," the article stated.
Maybe. But many companies that distribute X-rated material say they do not worry too much about consumers sharing among themselves; they often unleash their lawyers only when someone is trying to profit by copying their goods and trying to sell them.
When people in the industry talk of copyright, there is none of the grand speechifying about revering artists and rewarding creativity, and the near-tearful paeans to the yeoman key grips and stunt men, as is favored by movie and record executives. Instead, there is just this: We spent a lot of money to get this stuff out to the market. Somebody else is making money off of it. We want the money.
"We haven't gone after Joe Citizen who's sharing something he printed off something from the Hustler Web site with another guy," said Paul Cambria, a lawyer wh
Actually since the shuttles are being grounded for good, that ought not be that much of a concern. The current plans are for shuttle to supposedly be replaced by 2012 (if it ever gets started), and to pretty much not use shuttle until then.
If shuttle is not going to be used again, then losing it is not too much of a risk, unless they want to save them all for museums. Losing the astronaughts is the real risk and they should make that decision.
The astronaughts on board Columbia and all the other NASA astronaughts who're being kept grounded now understand that going into space is risky. They're interested in what they do, they've chosen to take the risks and they're interested in the science.
If the adminstration were to let the astronaughts decide whether to go up to fix Hubble when required, I doubt they would have a shortage of them volunteering to do that. The last thing the late astronaughts aboard Columbia would have wanted was to see their deaths result in the grounding of the space program and the premature death of Hubble.