If I were to buy 10 Cognac glasses and 2 broke, look at the options I have:
1) I can take one of the remaining glasses to a friend who is a hobbyist glass blower and see if he can make one for me free of charge (assuming the glass design is trademarked)
2) I can get my own Cognac glass blowing setup and make an myself a new matching glass once I've aquired the skills and materials.
3) After making one or two for myself, I can crank out a whole bunch for my friends free of charge as Christmas presents, anniversary gifts, or wedding presents.
4) I can take detailed measurements of the glasses, bring them to a glass factory, and have them turn out duplicates for me (legal or not, this happens ALL OF THE TIME in industry) so that I can avoid the high costs of buying from the original manufacturer.
5) I can throw a Cognac party for as many people I want, and allow those folks to view and use my legally purchased Cognac glasses without fear of reprocussion.
Now, which of these options are available to me to do legally with CDs or DVDs?
After spending several months searching eBay for a replacement CD after one of those crap Pioneer 6-disc cartridge changers scratched the heck out of one of my favorite discs. I'm in the process of converting all of my CD's to MP3's so that I can make a single CD to listen to in the car for a trip rather than having to carry 15 of them with me. I also make backup copies if I am going to carry a CD wallet just so there is no risk to the originals.
The new SGI Altix machines are running A LOT more per CPU than these things. I was given a budgetary quote of more than 5X this per CPU. Sure the Xeons have more grunt than the Transmeta CPU's, but is it worth 5X? Also, for applications where space is an issue, this may fit the bill very nicely.
Hard to believe that this comes on the same day that Microsoft is asking "What would it take to make you want to collaborate with MS on Open Source projects?"
Now I'm no fan of the UN at all, but stuff like this is why folks don't want to collaborate with MS. Note to Microsoft if you're even listening - the Open Source community wants open standards. By continuing to try to close your file formats and program standards, you are continuing to motivate those who would like to see you out of business.
I guess the whole "team up with MS" was a pile of BS, anyway. Now they can say "OSS hates us, we tried to play nice, therefore we have no qualms about going them after with patents".
1) Microsoft quit funding "independent" bogus TCO research to discredit OS operating systems. Oh yeah, and call off SCO.
2) Microsoft quit attempting to make all of their file formats dependent upon the OS/software that they write. The data is MINE, and I should be able to use other software to read the data. Commit to open file formats and I'd look a lot more favorably on MS.
3) Microsoft quit using draconian EULAs that make me fear that any contribution I made to a MS effort would be locked away for good once MS got a hold of it.
4) Money. Truckloads of it.
Well, maybe not so much 4, but the first 3 would be a good start.
My problem is that I've got such a bad image of Microsoft after working with their stuff for the past 12 years or so that at the end of the day I'd rather contribute effort to a "real" open source effort than anything funded by Microsoft. I just don't trust them to "do the right thing" with anything that came out of an OSS initiative.
I sat through an Altix demo a couple of months (SGI's technology demonstrator truck is cool...). I believe they were saying that the current Altix cluster can run up to 128 CPU's as a single Linux image - pretty much the world's largest SMP-kernel.
Current development looked to be 512 CPU's before too terribly long. I like the system, but it's EXPENSIVE when you think about the fact that you're still buying x86 architecture - $6 - $8K per CPU.
Much of America's science was driven by our huge manufacturing infrastructure. Students went into science and engineering because there were actual jobs for them when they got out. Companies were building new factories on a continual basis, and were therefore hungry for advances in technology.
Now the manufacturing jobs are flying overseas as American consumers line up for ever-cheaper disposable gadgets at Wal-Mart. There's no real drive to be a technological powerhouse because the technology wouldn't be used here anyway. We've been told for years that we're going to become a service-sector company, and apparently I'm in the minority of folks that are scared crapless by that particular notion.
I'm one of a dying breed - an American manufacturing engineer. Within my lifetime I expect to see that particular job class go the way of the dodo. There will still be thousands of manufacturing engineers - it's just that they'll all be in Taiwan, China, and India.
Until that trend stops, there will be no reason for America to focus on technological advancement.
Re:The really scary part of Doom 3
on
Life After Doom
·
· Score: 1
No kidding. IMHO, KotOR is the movie that Lucas SHOULD have made instead of Ep 1 & 2. I don't think I've been that riveted to a game before.
I didn't bring up the powerplant example, but since you did, there is a perfect example of where a virus writer could cause serious injury or property damage. Just because the system "should" be better protected doesn't make it any less serious when a virus writer unleashes his latest masterpiece on the world.
Do I wish for a world where there was no robbery or no murder? No. I understand that a significant fraction of humanity is morally corrupt, and I'm unwilling to trade my personal liberty for the type of police state necessary to keep everybody safe all of the time. I'm willing to accept some of the responsibility for keeping my family safe from those who lack a moral compass. But that does not mean that I don't want to see murderers pay for what they've done. I don't think we need to stop punishing thieves (especially high level corporate thieves, but that's another thread) for the evil that they do.
Similarly, I don't think we should stop punishing virus writers. Severely. I do agree that systems should be more secure, and that holes should be patched. I'll submit to you though that it's much more difficult to patch holes in a million lines of code than it is to exploit them. I don't think it's possible to rationalize anything that virus writers do as a valuable service - it's harmful all around. If the software gets better because if it, that's a side benefit kinda like less CO2 emissions from breathing when someone dies. That's not why virus writers write viruses, and it's not why murderers kill people.
This kid clearly went wrong somewhere. Maybe there was a chance that a guidance counselor, computer class teacher, or heck even a parent had an inkling of what the kid was messing with. How much better would it have been if this kid's efforts were channelled into a Sourceforge project. He wanted to stick it to the recording industry? Write an interface for the iPod to Linux. Work on an alternative to ProTools that would actually run on OS software. Or if it was security he was concerned with, get involved with fixing bugs in other OS projects. I have to believe there was a way to turn his "talents" to some positive use. Unfortunately now the kid isn't going to be wanted by anyone who codes, just for fear of a backdoor or a trojan.
So burglary is OK, because it tests the locks and makes lock companies build better ones?
Drunk driving is OK, because it tests car safety and makes car manufacturers build better ones?
Murder is OK, because it tests the human race and makes us build better ones?
Virus writing does NOT have to be part of the PC world. Making it sound like virus writers have this noble purpose of improving PC security is 100% pure BS. Virus writers are attempting to cause the most damage possible, either for some type of adrenaline rush or for profit. I can't imagine anyone possibly thinking that they're making the world a better place by wasting thousands of man-hours by people trying to clean infected systems.
I don't own an iPod, and I don't plan on it. What Apple has done is come up with a convenient package that made a lot of similar technologies work on a large scale. Buy one, plug it in, connect to the iTunes server and you're there. For people who may not have been ripping all their CD's to.mp3 (or perhaps weren't downloading music beforehand), this was an easy way into an electronic storage format with a higher capacity than CD.
Do I like Apple? Not particularly. Do I like The Steve? Hell no. But I grudgingly admit that Apple seems to do a better job with interface and packaging useability than just about anyone else. And apparently, people are willing to pay for it.
I tried Ultima a long time ago and ended up getting a refund after the 30-day trial. UO at that time was a haven for griefers, and there were no dividing lines that would really keep newbies safe from an immediate "Corp Por" death as soon as they ventured out of the city for the first time.
In that respect, EQ was a much more inviting game (and one that kept me involved for several years). UO had promise, but at least in the early phases they really let the griefers/macroers run away with the game.
This is interesting, though. I've been waiting for a decent MMORPG based on eastern mythology and culture for a while now. I don't hold out much hope that UO would do it right (just do I don't appear too biased, Sony would absolutely murder it for EQ if they ever tried it), but it's a start.
But it sets legal precedent and erodes your right to privacy. Maybe this particular administration, in this particular case, is not going to do anything unethical with the power. But who's to say it won't be abused in the future? The problem with legislation like this is that it is a slippery slope to accepting the government's ability to monitor your activities any time, any where, for any reason.
Oh certainly. But like it or not, MS Windows is the de-facto standard of operating systems. I'd expect that if anything, Microsoft would try to get its hooks into it. If they get some version of Windoze to be the standard for this, forget any attempts by other OSii to get in the door.
However the whole business model of the software industry would have to change. How would you manage licences for users across such a huge terminal system? I'd expect you'd have to pay for a monthly fee for access to your applications, something that a lot of folks would probably not look kindly upon.
This would also make it very difficult for any non-standard OS (Linux, MacOS, BSD) to get a foothold once it gets going - I'd guess you would be pretty limited in just what you could have loaded in order to use this system.
I dunno. It's an interesting concept, but I have my doubts. I actually like managing my own systems. I'd rather have the control than hand it over to a company who's going to do upgrades without my knowledge.
Will commercializing spaceflight be a step forward for space research? Why is it that when companies step into public domain scientific fields the results are inevitably viagra when there is still no cure for cancer, aids... etc. Public grants and public institutions (Nations and Universities) are still the bedrock for pure scientifc research. I only see economic and superficial consumerism inspired by the x-prize.
Cancer and aids research is ongoing. It hasn't stopped. But it's a tough nut to crack, obviously. Also, realize that if a cure for cancer is ever found, governments and private citizens around the world are going to scream that the drug should be given away for free. Some may threaten to allow their country's companies to reverse-engineer the drug and sell it cheaper if the inventor's don't play along. If the successful inventor stands their ground (as they'll be ordered to do by shareholders - remember this is likely a public FOR PROFIT company), there will be expose's on 20/20 about the evil corporate drug giants who hold life in their hands and won't dole it out...
It's a no-win situation. Dump millions into cancer research only to be called evil for attempting a return on investment. Or don't spend millions on cancer research and be called evil for not doing it.
Believe it or not, drugs like Viagra provide a valuable benefit to men who've survived prostate cancer. Figure it out if you like, but the fact is that Viagra is a life-enhancing drug for a lot of people. Is making life for large numbers a bit better that much less meaningful than curing cancer for a relatively smaller number of people?
I personally believe that the commercialization of space flight is a good thing. Part of why NASA's long range probes have been so successful (and cost effective) in recent years has been the use of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) parts. Much easier to do than developing everything in-house. Imagine if you were able to buy the pieces to build a viable space vehicle - NASA's costs should come down, and the amount of space exploration should increase.
Plus, there are likely scientific advancements that will come about simply because of cheapening space travel. I know that the semiconductor industry will probably get a boost if it gets cheap enough to do large-scale MBE (Molecular Beam Epitaxy) in space - right now it's really inefficient on earth due to the vacuum equipment needed to pull it off.
Never heard of a carjacking? Park that LERV (Lunar Exploration Recreational Vehicle) near the wrong crater and when you get back the thing's up on blocks - if you're lucky!
Makes for some interesting postulations, though. Who'll have the first spinners in outer space? If you're building a Lunar Conversion Van, do you go with the teardrop or diamond back side windows? Shag carpeting or faux-wood paneling on the walls? Hide-a-bed to be stealthy or just put in the queen-sized waterbed and be obvious about it?
Why do some gas stations in the middle of nowhere charge $0.25 per gallon more than gas stations near cities or in a large cluster of stations near an overpass? Simple - because they can. Now I'm no fan of Comcast, but if they're the only major high-speed player in a market, they can set the price. If TimeWarner moves in, they have to cut prices. Supply and demand, no different than any other commodity product.
If broadband useage is jumping like crazy, why would Comcast even consider lowering prices for access?
"Well Mr. Jones, I know that people are signing up in droves, and many of our markets are over-capacity which is requiring us to upgrade our local services. But I thought it would be nice if we cut the price 75% to compete with AOL's dial-up."
Slashdot Mirror
1) I can take one of the remaining glasses to a friend who is a hobbyist glass blower and see if he can make one for me free of charge (assuming the glass design is trademarked)
2) I can get my own Cognac glass blowing setup and make an myself a new matching glass once I've aquired the skills and materials.
3) After making one or two for myself, I can crank out a whole bunch for my friends free of charge as Christmas presents, anniversary gifts, or wedding presents.
4) I can take detailed measurements of the glasses, bring them to a glass factory, and have them turn out duplicates for me (legal or not, this happens ALL OF THE TIME in industry) so that I can avoid the high costs of buying from the original manufacturer.
5) I can throw a Cognac party for as many people I want, and allow those folks to view and use my legally purchased Cognac glasses without fear of reprocussion.
Now, which of these options are available to me to do legally with CDs or DVDs?
After spending several months searching eBay for a replacement CD after one of those crap Pioneer 6-disc cartridge changers scratched the heck out of one of my favorite discs. I'm in the process of converting all of my CD's to MP3's so that I can make a single CD to listen to in the car for a trip rather than having to carry 15 of them with me. I also make backup copies if I am going to carry a CD wallet just so there is no risk to the originals.
Even if it was cheaper, I'd still rather have the Altix. :)
The new SGI Altix machines are running A LOT more per CPU than these things. I was given a budgetary quote of more than 5X this per CPU. Sure the Xeons have more grunt than the Transmeta CPU's, but is it worth 5X? Also, for applications where space is an issue, this may fit the bill very nicely.
Now I'm no fan of the UN at all, but stuff like this is why folks don't want to collaborate with MS. Note to Microsoft if you're even listening - the Open Source community wants open standards. By continuing to try to close your file formats and program standards, you are continuing to motivate those who would like to see you out of business.
I guess the whole "team up with MS" was a pile of BS, anyway. Now they can say "OSS hates us, we tried to play nice, therefore we have no qualms about going them after with patents".
1) Microsoft quit funding "independent" bogus TCO research to discredit OS operating systems. Oh yeah, and call off SCO.
2) Microsoft quit attempting to make all of their file formats dependent upon the OS/software that they write. The data is MINE, and I should be able to use other software to read the data. Commit to open file formats and I'd look a lot more favorably on MS.
3) Microsoft quit using draconian EULAs that make me fear that any contribution I made to a MS effort would be locked away for good once MS got a hold of it.
4) Money. Truckloads of it.
Well, maybe not so much 4, but the first 3 would be a good start.
My problem is that I've got such a bad image of Microsoft after working with their stuff for the past 12 years or so that at the end of the day I'd rather contribute effort to a "real" open source effort than anything funded by Microsoft. I just don't trust them to "do the right thing" with anything that came out of an OSS initiative.
Current development looked to be 512 CPU's before too terribly long. I like the system, but it's EXPENSIVE when you think about the fact that you're still buying x86 architecture - $6 - $8K per CPU.
Now the manufacturing jobs are flying overseas as American consumers line up for ever-cheaper disposable gadgets at Wal-Mart. There's no real drive to be a technological powerhouse because the technology wouldn't be used here anyway. We've been told for years that we're going to become a service-sector company, and apparently I'm in the minority of folks that are scared crapless by that particular notion.
I'm one of a dying breed - an American manufacturing engineer. Within my lifetime I expect to see that particular job class go the way of the dodo. There will still be thousands of manufacturing engineers - it's just that they'll all be in Taiwan, China, and India.
Until that trend stops, there will be no reason for America to focus on technological advancement.
No kidding. IMHO, KotOR is the movie that Lucas SHOULD have made instead of Ep 1 & 2. I don't think I've been that riveted to a game before.
I didn't bring up the powerplant example, but since you did, there is a perfect example of where a virus writer could cause serious injury or property damage. Just because the system "should" be better protected doesn't make it any less serious when a virus writer unleashes his latest masterpiece on the world.
Do I wish for a world where there was no robbery or no murder? No. I understand that a significant fraction of humanity is morally corrupt, and I'm unwilling to trade my personal liberty for the type of police state necessary to keep everybody safe all of the time. I'm willing to accept some of the responsibility for keeping my family safe from those who lack a moral compass. But that does not mean that I don't want to see murderers pay for what they've done. I don't think we need to stop punishing thieves (especially high level corporate thieves, but that's another thread) for the evil that they do.
Similarly, I don't think we should stop punishing virus writers. Severely. I do agree that systems should be more secure, and that holes should be patched. I'll submit to you though that it's much more difficult to patch holes in a million lines of code than it is to exploit them. I don't think it's possible to rationalize anything that virus writers do as a valuable service - it's harmful all around. If the software gets better because if it, that's a side benefit kinda like less CO2 emissions from breathing when someone dies. That's not why virus writers write viruses, and it's not why murderers kill people.
This kid clearly went wrong somewhere. Maybe there was a chance that a guidance counselor, computer class teacher, or heck even a parent had an inkling of what the kid was messing with. How much better would it have been if this kid's efforts were channelled into a Sourceforge project. He wanted to stick it to the recording industry? Write an interface for the iPod to Linux. Work on an alternative to ProTools that would actually run on OS software. Or if it was security he was concerned with, get involved with fixing bugs in other OS projects. I have to believe there was a way to turn his "talents" to some positive use. Unfortunately now the kid isn't going to be wanted by anyone who codes, just for fear of a backdoor or a trojan.
So burglary is OK, because it tests the locks and makes lock companies build better ones?
Drunk driving is OK, because it tests car safety and makes car manufacturers build better ones?
Murder is OK, because it tests the human race and makes us build better ones?
Virus writing does NOT have to be part of the PC world. Making it sound like virus writers have this noble purpose of improving PC security is 100% pure BS. Virus writers are attempting to cause the most damage possible, either for some type of adrenaline rush or for profit. I can't imagine anyone possibly thinking that they're making the world a better place by wasting thousands of man-hours by people trying to clean infected systems.
Sorry, I don't buy it.
Am I the only one who finds the above post hilarious only because of the Ghandi sig at the end?
I don't own an iPod, and I don't plan on it. What Apple has done is come up with a convenient package that made a lot of similar technologies work on a large scale. Buy one, plug it in, connect to the iTunes server and you're there. For people who may not have been ripping all their CD's to .mp3 (or perhaps weren't downloading music beforehand), this was an easy way into an electronic storage format with a higher capacity than CD.
Do I like Apple? Not particularly. Do I like The Steve? Hell no. But I grudgingly admit that Apple seems to do a better job with interface and packaging useability than just about anyone else. And apparently, people are willing to pay for it.
In that respect, EQ was a much more inviting game (and one that kept me involved for several years). UO had promise, but at least in the early phases they really let the griefers/macroers run away with the game.
This is interesting, though. I've been waiting for a decent MMORPG based on eastern mythology and culture for a while now. I don't hold out much hope that UO would do it right (just do I don't appear too biased, Sony would absolutely murder it for EQ if they ever tried it), but it's a start.
But it sets legal precedent and erodes your right to privacy. Maybe this particular administration, in this particular case, is not going to do anything unethical with the power. But who's to say it won't be abused in the future? The problem with legislation like this is that it is a slippery slope to accepting the government's ability to monitor your activities any time, any where, for any reason.
Oh certainly. But like it or not, MS Windows is the de-facto standard of operating systems. I'd expect that if anything, Microsoft would try to get its hooks into it. If they get some version of Windoze to be the standard for this, forget any attempts by other OSii to get in the door.
This would also make it very difficult for any non-standard OS (Linux, MacOS, BSD) to get a foothold once it gets going - I'd guess you would be pretty limited in just what you could have loaded in order to use this system.
I dunno. It's an interesting concept, but I have my doubts. I actually like managing my own systems. I'd rather have the control than hand it over to a company who's going to do upgrades without my knowledge.
Cancer and aids research is ongoing. It hasn't stopped. But it's a tough nut to crack, obviously. Also, realize that if a cure for cancer is ever found, governments and private citizens around the world are going to scream that the drug should be given away for free. Some may threaten to allow their country's companies to reverse-engineer the drug and sell it cheaper if the inventor's don't play along. If the successful inventor stands their ground (as they'll be ordered to do by shareholders - remember this is likely a public FOR PROFIT company), there will be expose's on 20/20 about the evil corporate drug giants who hold life in their hands and won't dole it out...
It's a no-win situation. Dump millions into cancer research only to be called evil for attempting a return on investment. Or don't spend millions on cancer research and be called evil for not doing it.
Believe it or not, drugs like Viagra provide a valuable benefit to men who've survived prostate cancer. Figure it out if you like, but the fact is that Viagra is a life-enhancing drug for a lot of people. Is making life for large numbers a bit better that much less meaningful than curing cancer for a relatively smaller number of people?
I personally believe that the commercialization of space flight is a good thing. Part of why NASA's long range probes have been so successful (and cost effective) in recent years has been the use of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) parts. Much easier to do than developing everything in-house. Imagine if you were able to buy the pieces to build a viable space vehicle - NASA's costs should come down, and the amount of space exploration should increase.
Plus, there are likely scientific advancements that will come about simply because of cheapening space travel. I know that the semiconductor industry will probably get a boost if it gets cheap enough to do large-scale MBE (Molecular Beam Epitaxy) in space - right now it's really inefficient on earth due to the vacuum equipment needed to pull it off.
Makes for some interesting postulations, though. Who'll have the first spinners in outer space? If you're building a Lunar Conversion Van, do you go with the teardrop or diamond back side windows? Shag carpeting or faux-wood paneling on the walls? Hide-a-bed to be stealthy or just put in the queen-sized waterbed and be obvious about it?
Umm, how many wireless adapters out there have moving parts? Joke, perhaps?
... there are a bunch of pricewatch entries for the WRT54G at under $70.
Why do some gas stations in the middle of nowhere charge $0.25 per gallon more than gas stations near cities or in a large cluster of stations near an overpass? Simple - because they can. Now I'm no fan of Comcast, but if they're the only major high-speed player in a market, they can set the price. If TimeWarner moves in, they have to cut prices. Supply and demand, no different than any other commodity product.
"Well Mr. Jones, I know that people are signing up in droves, and many of our markets are over-capacity which is requiring us to upgrade our local services. But I thought it would be nice if we cut the price 75% to compete with AOL's dial-up."
Not in this lifetime, I'm thinking.
Is it just me or does it seem like every time there is something odd going on with IP, Disney seems to be at the heart of it?